Earth Changes
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| ©REUTERS/WildlifeDirect/Handout
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| Naja Ashei, a newly discovered giant spitting cobra measuring nearly nine feet and carrying enough venom to kill at least 15 people, is seen in this picture released by WildlifeDirect December 7, 2007.
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A giant spitting cobra, measuring nearly nine feet and carrying enough venom to kill at least 15 people, has been discovered in Kenya, a conservation group said on Friday.
BBCSat, 08 Dec 2007 16:14 UTC
Flood watches are in place across England and forecasters are warning of severe gales and more snow.
Winds are predicted to be strong enough to damage properties and even bring down trees in some areas.
Devon and Cornwall are expected to be the worst hit with winds up to 80mph (129 kmh) building up overnight.
MANAUS, Brazil - In the 1980s, scientists sounded the alarm: The Amazon was burning and would be gone by the end of the century.
LOS ANGELES - Rain began pelting parts of Southern California early Friday as a fierce winter storm from the Pacific Northwest moved in ahead of schedule, triggering fears that recent wildfires may gave left the region susceptible to flash flooding.
A South Korean supertanker has spilled about 66,000 barrels of crude oil into the Yellow Sea off the country's west coast after a collision with a barge, local media said Friday.
The accident occurred on Friday morning when a crane on a barge crashed into the Hebei Spirit tanker, which was carrying 1.8 million barrels of crude oil, near the Taean port, south of Seoul.
Results from Ireland's network of offshore weather buoys confirm the computer-generated wave forecasts by the Marine Institute and Met Eireann last week for waves of up to 14 metres (45 feet) along the west coast of Ireland.
BBCFri, 30 Nov 2007 16:20 UTC
Waves of up to 45 foot are expected off Ireland's west coast this weekend, weather experts have warned.
Met Eireann and the Marine Institute said all ships and anyone close to the shoreline "should take great care, especially on Saturday".
If the waves come as predicted, they would be the highest around Ireland's coastline for several years.
However, surfer Mark Patterson advised water-watchers to "dust down the camera, not the surfboard".
Waves 40 foot high were recorded in the seas to the west of Galway Bay in January 2005.
Greg Roberts and Brendan O'Keefe
The AustralianFri, 07 Dec 2007 07:44 UTC
THE drought-breaking La Nina weather pattern has finally kicked in, bringing flooding rains along the eastern coast and filling the tributaries that feed into the dying Murray-Darling river system.
Forecasters are predicting a wet summer and autumn but remain unwilling - at least officially - to call the end of the worst drought in living memory. And they warn it would still take rains of "biblical proportions" to fill the dams of cities and towns.
Cyclone Daman is due to hit northern Vanua Levu island tonight and on over Taveuni and the islands of the Lau Group.
In the last two hours Cyclone Daman has changed course away from the tourist heavy areas of western Viti Levu.
Neighbouring Tonga has been put on alert.
Microbes entirely unknown to science may exist in liquid water in Lake Vostok, thousands of meters beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. That possibility is one of several intriguing mysteries that justify undertaking the logistical challenges of exploring the lake, according to a new report from a workshop funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The report, "Lake Vostok: A Curiosity or a Focus for Interdisciplinary Study," concludes that the lake "may represent a unique region for detailed scientific investigation" for several reasons. Among them is the possibility that conditions under the ice may approximate those on Europa, a frozen moon of Jupiter, and so may indicate whether life may be able to exist in harsh conditions elsewhere in the solar system.
The report represents the conclusions reached by scientists from a variety of fields who met in Washington D.C. last November. The Lamont- Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and the University of Hawaii jointly organized the meeting.
