Earth ChangesS


Butterfly

Genetically Modified Crops Implicated in Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder

As the disappearance of honeybees continues, researchers are trying desperately to discover the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). General concensus at this point is that there is more than once cause and the latest culprit may be genetically modified crops. This is one area of research being neglected as mainstream scientists insist GM crops are safe.

For the last 100 years, beekeepers have experienced colony losses from bacteria, (foulbrood), mites (varroa and tracheal) and other pathogens. These problems are dealt with by using antibiotics, miticides and and other methods of pest management. Losses are slow and expected and beekeepers know how to limit the destruction. This new mass die-off is different in that it is virtually instantaneous with no warning of the impending collapse.

John McDonald, a bee keeper in Pennsyvania with a background in biology, speculated that genetically modified crops could play a role in CCD. Although the government constantly reassures us that these genetic manipulations are safe for both humans and the environment, his hope is that looking more closely at these issues might raise questions about those assumptions.

Fish

Sharks, Not Humans, Most at Risk in Ocean

Three shark attacks in Australia in two days this week sparked a global media frenzy of "Jaws" proportions, but sharks are more at risk in the ocean than humans with man killing millions of sharks each year.

Sharks are the top of the marine food chain, a powerful predator which has no match in its watery realm, until man enters the ocean.

Commercial fishing and a desire for Asian shark fin soup sees up to 100 million sharks, even protected endangered species of sharks, slaughtered around the world each year, says the Shark Research Institute (Australia).

Yet in contrast, sharks, apparently, do not like the taste of humans. Very few shark attacks involve the shark actually eating the human, unlike a land-based predator like a lion or tiger.

Cow Skull

Texas Drought Worsens, Cattle Dying

Drought conditions in Texas are so bad cattle are keeling over in parched pastures and dying.

Drought conditions worsened significantly in the past week, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map released Thursday. Seventy-one percent of the state is now in some stage of drought, up from 58.3 percent last week.

A week ago the two worst drought designations - extreme and exceptional - covered 9.1 percent of the state. This week the two categories cover 15.1 percent of the state, with a circle near San Antonio and Austin widening in all directions. Only the eastern and southeastern parts of Texas are without any drought status.

Question

Mystery of the British penguins that are marching towards oblivion

An endangered species of penguin is mysteriously disappearing from a remote British island in the South Atlantic at a rate of 100 birds every day. About two million northern rockhopper penguins have vanished from Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island, part of the British overseas territory of St Helena, in half a century.

The once huge penguin populations on the islands have dwindled so dramatically that they are now threatened with extinction, and the British Government was accused yesterday of contributing to the decline.

Cloud Lightning

A Rare Deep Freeze Warms the Dutch Soul

NYT dutch skaters
© Michael Kooren/ReutersCanals in the Netherlands no longer freeze every winter, so the chance to ice-skate outdoors created a frenzy in Kinderdijk and elsewhere in the south. “Everybody took days off,” said one mayor.

Nieuwerkerk Aan Den Ijssel, the Netherlands - For the first time in 12 years, the Netherlands' canals froze this month, bringing the Dutch, who like their tulips in neat rows, a heady mix of pandemonium and euphoria.

Hundreds of thousands of skaters, their cheeks as red as apples in the subzero temperatures, took to the ice, and hospital wards were filled with dozens of people with fractured arms, sprained ankles and broken legs.

Train engineers were ordered to go slowly to avoid hitting skaters who clambered over railway tracks to get from one frozen canal to another. Even the minister of defense, an avid skater, fell and broke his wrist. His ministry announced that the national defense remained in safe hands, even if one of them was in a cast.

Bizarro Earth

5.1 magnitude earthquake in south west China

An earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale on Thursday hit China's Wenchuan County, which was the epicentre of the May 12 earthquake last year that left more than 87,000 people dead or missing, an official said.

According to the National Earthquake Network Center, the earthquake took place in Wenchuan County in southwest China's Sichuan Province at 2.23 am on Thursday. No casualties or geological disasters have been reported, said Liao Min, head of Wenchuan County.

The epicentre was located at 31.3 degrees north latitude and 103.3 degrees east longitude. The quake took place about 22 km underground.

Bizarro Earth

5.0-magnitude earthquake hits West Papua, Indonesia

An earthquake measuring 5.0 degree on the Richter scale jolted Sorong in Indonesia's West Papua Province in the wee hour of Thursday, the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) was quoted by the national Antara News Agency as saying.

The quake's epicenter was at 0.34 degrees southern latitude and 132.28 degrees eastern longitude, some 123 km northwest of Sorong, at a depth of 46 km below sea level.

Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 7.4 Earthquake - East of the Kuril Islands

Image
© USGS

Date-Time Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 17:49:39 UTC

Friday, January 16, 2009 at 03:49:39 AM at epicenter

Location 46.859°N, 155.173°E

Depth 36 km (22.4 miles) set by location program

Distances 430 km (270 miles) S of Severo-Kuril'sk, Kuril Islands, Russia

595 km (370 miles) ENE of Kuril'sk, Kuril Islands

1785 km (1110 miles) NE of TOKYO, Japan

7245 km (4500 miles) NE of MOSCOW, Russia

Better Earth

Fish Guts Explain Marine Carbon Cycle Mystery

Research published today reveals the major influence of fish on maintaining the delicate pH balance of our oceans, vital for the health of coral reefs and other marine life.

The discovery, made by a team of scientists from the UK, US and Canada, could help solve a mystery that has puzzled marine chemists for decades. Published today (16 January 2009) in Science, the study provides new insights into the marine carbon cycle, which is undergoing rapid change as a result of global CO2 emissions.

Until now, scientists have believed that the oceans' calcium carbonate, which dissolves to make seawater alkaline, came from the external 'skeletons' of microscopic marine plankton. This study estimates that three to 15 per cent of marine calcium carbonate is in fact produced by fish in their intestines and then excreted. This is a conservative estimate and the team believes it has the potential to be three times higher.

Bizarro Earth

Magnitude 6.8 Earthquake - Southeast of the Loyalty Islands

Image
© USGS

Date-Time

* Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 07:27:21 UTC
* Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 06:27:21 PM at epicenter

Location 22.379°S, 170.624°E

Depth 40.4 km (25.1 miles)

Region SOUTHEAST OF THE LOYALTY ISLANDS

Distances 145 km (90 miles) W of Ile Hunter, Loyalty Isl., New Caledonia

300 km (185 miles) ESE of Tadine, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia

430 km (265 miles) E of NOUMEA, New Caledonia

1650 km (1030 miles) NNW of Auckland, New Zealand