Earth ChangesS


Hourglass

French may bid adieu to oysters

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The herpes virus is devastating oyster populations

French oyster farmers are sounding the alarm that their business is on the verge of collapse. The much-loved mollusc is at risk of disappearing from plates due to a virus that is wiping out populations.

Over the past three years, the "huitres creuses" or cupped oysters Laurence Maheo produces have been struck by the herpes virus, which has been killing vast numbers of baby oysters throughout France and the rest of Europe.

"It's very possible that in three or four years there won't be anymore oyster farmers in France," she said last week at the Salone del Gusto, a five-day event organized by Slow Food, an international movement for the protection of biodiversity and traditional food production.

Cloud Lightning

Hurricane Tomas Hits Eastern Caribbean

Hurricane Tomas damage
© Chris Brandis/Associated PressA woman walks by damaged power lines and infrastructure after the storm hit St. James parish, Barbados, on Saturday.

Hurricane Tomas caused extensive damage to the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent on Saturday night, before weakening to a Category1 storm.

The Category 2 storm was packing winds of 155 km/h when it made landfall. It tore the roofs from homes and knocked out electricity all over the island. But as the storm moved northwest over the Caribbean early Sunday, the winds were clocked at 150 km/h.

St. Lucia, Barbados and Martinique were tallying the damage done by Tomas earlier Saturday. Torrential rain made a number of roads impassible in Barbados and high winds destroyed roofs in several communities.

Authorities in St. Vincent said they had unconfirmed reports that three people died during the storm, including two men who might have been blown off a roof.

Bizarro Earth

New Britian Region: Earthquake Magnitude 6.1 - Papua New Guinea

PNG Quake_311010
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 16:38:49 UTC

Monday, November 01, 2010 at 02:38:49 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
6.604°S, 150.241°E

Depth:
5.6 km (3.5 miles)

Region:
NEW BRITAIN REGION, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Distances:
90 km (55 miles) ESE of Kandrian, New Britain, PNG

115 km (75 miles) S of Kimbe, New Britain, PNG

460 km (285 miles) NE of PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea

2325 km (1450 miles) N of BRISBANE, Queensland, Australia

Bizarro Earth

Pacific: Earthquake Magnitude 6.4 - Antarctic Ridge

Pacific Quake_301010
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time:
Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 15:18:38 UTC

Saturday, October 30, 2010 at 05:18:38 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
56.767°S, 142.613°W

Depth:
20 km (12.4 miles) set by location program

Region:
PACIFIC-ANTARCTIC RIDGE

Distances:
3480 km (2160 miles) SE of WELLINGTON, New Zealand

Bizarro Earth

Russia hit by another natural disaster

Volcano eruption
© Press TV
The eruption of two volcanoes in the region of Kamchatka in eastern Russia has blanketed the town of Ust-Kamchatsk in ash.

Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Eurasia's highest active volcano which stands 4,750 meters (15,584 feet) high, started to spew ash on Ust-Kamchatsk on October 22.

Also Sopka Shiveluch began erupting on Thursday spewing ash approximately 6 miles into the air and the streaming down of lava.

More than 5,000 townspeople were forced to stay at home with their windows shut, while all public institutions, schools and businesses remained closed.

Fish

Newly Disclosed Government Documents Conclude GE Salmon Pose A Critical Threat To Marine Environments

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Expert fisheries agencies prohibit growing engineering salmon in open-water net pens under the Endangered Species Act. FDA declined to disclose evidence during September hearings on Aquabounty Salmon.

Adding a new twist to the controversy over genetically engineered (GE) salmon, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) revealed today that, in recent hearings on transgenic fish, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) knowingly withheld a Federal Biological Opinion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) prohibiting the use of transgenic salmon in open-water net pens pursuant to the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA).

"This adds further evidence that in fact GE salmon pose a serious threat to marine environments and is another compelling reason for the FDA not to approve the fish for commercial use," said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. "While the FDA applauded the company's choice of land-based containment as responsible, it never revealed that it is illegal in the U.S. to grow genetically engineered salmon in open-water net pens."

The Biological Opinion and supplemental information, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, challenge claims by AquaBounty Technologies, the developer of the GE salmon, that the transgenic fish pose no threat to marine environments. The GE Atlantic salmon under consideration was engineered with growth hormone genes from an unrelated Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and DNA from the anti-freeze genes of an eelpout (Zoarces americanus).

Phoenix

Indonesia's Mount Merapi Volcano Erupts Again

Mount Merapi volcano
© Getty ImagesMount Merapi volcano as seen from Balerante village in Klaten, Indonesia, 29 October Mount Merapi is the most active of Indonesia's volcanoes
Mount Merapi volcano has erupted for a third time, with local people reportedly saying this was louder and stronger than the previous eruption on Tuesday.

The latest eruption happened at around 0100 on Saturday (1800GMT Friday).

Agence France Presse reported that it caused panic, with hundreds of people, including police and soldiers, trying to flee in cars or on motorbikes.

Ash was raining down in Yogyakarta, about 30km (19 miles) away.

Matt Burgess, a photography student from Australia, is in Yogyakarta. He told the BBC: "I was in a nightclub when a friend called to say there was a load of ash. I went outside and saw ash falling like snow."

But authorities say Yogyakarta is safe. The head of the monitoring body has said the risk remains lmited to the 10km zone around the mountain.

Nearer that zone, though, people felt more in danger.

Bizarro Earth

Russia's Kamchatka Volcanoes Calm After Eruptions

Shiveluch Volcano in the Kamchatka Peninsula
© AP Photo/RTR, via APTNSmoke rises from the Shiveluch volcano in the Kamchatka Peninsula eastern Russia is this image taken from TV Thursday Oct. 28, 2010. Volcanic eruptions on Russia's far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula have tossed massive ash clouds into the air, forcing flights to divert and blanketing a town with ashes.
Two volcanoes that erupted on the far-eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, blanketing a town with dust and spreading ash clouds across the Pacific, have mostly stopped spewing ash and flights are no longer diverted, Russian officials said Friday.

Eurasia's highest active volcano, the Klyuchevskaya Sopka, was pumping out insignificant amounts of dust and the Shiveluch volcano, 45 miles (70 kilometers) northeast, had ceased all activity, the Emergencies Ministry reported on its website.

Ash clouds from the remote volcanoes had billowed up to 33,000 feet (10 kilometers) after they erupted Thursday and had spread east across the Pacific Ocean.

Schools in the vicinity of the volcanoes remained closed Friday due to ash buildup. The powder had coated the nearby town of Ust-Kamchatsk, reducing visibility to only a few feet (meters) and turning buildings ghostly white.

Binoculars

Starving Bears Resort to Digging Up Coffins and Eating Human Bodies in Russia

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© AP PhotoScavengers: Desperate brown bears in Russia have resorted to digging up human bodies in cemeteries and eating them
Starving bears in northern Russia have resorted to digging up graves in cemeteries and eating bodies.

A scorching summer has destroyed the bears' natural food sources of forest berries and mushrooms, forcing them to look elsewhere.

Russian officials in the republic of Komi, which straddles the Arctic Circle, said that brown bears on several occasions had dug up coffins in rural cemeteries in a desperate search for food.

Two women in Vezhnya Tchova reported spotting the a figure they thought was wearing a fur coat leaning over a grave.

But when they approached, they realized it was a bear eating a human body and discovered the victims' clothes thrown across other graves.

Question

Mystery injury on seals caused by boats not sharks

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© UnknownSeals were found washed up with the horrific lacerations around the UK coast.
Seals washed up on the coast of Britain with mysterious 'corkscrew' injuries were not attacked by sharks, whales or fishermen, they were caught up in boats, according to scientists.

The bodies of seals have been washing up around the coast of Britain throughout the summer looking as if they have "been through a giant pencil sharpener".

The horrific injuries were such a concern that the police, scientists, the RSPCA and National Trust launched an investigation to find the culprit.