Earth ChangesS


Life Preserver

North Korea seeks help after floods ravage country


Reuters
Tue, 14 Aug 2007 07:55 UTC
North Korea is seeking international help after it reported massive flooding had left hundreds of people dead or missing and washed away many buildings, a U.N. aid agency spokesman said on Tuesday.

North Korea, which has struggled with chronic food shortages for years, also said in a report early on Tuesday that floodwaters caused "tens of thousands of hectares of farmland (to be) inundated, buried under silt and washed away."

©AP
Pyongyang has been badly hit by flooding.

Paul Risley, Asia spokesman with the U.N. World Food Programme, said: "If the figures are borne out by our own assessment, then we are very concerned that this is a significant emergency crisis."
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Cloud Lightning

Atlantic depression forms, another eyed in Gulf: NHC


Reuters
Tue, 14 Aug 2007 03:02 UTC
Tropical Depression 4 formed in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean and another depression could form in the Gulf of Mexico over the next day or so, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Monday.

In an advisory issued at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), the NHC said the center of Tropical Depression 4 was located about 620 miles west-southwest of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands and about 1,900 miles east of the Lesser Antilles.
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Evil Rays

Quake, 7.2 magnitude, reported near Vanuatu - USGS


Reuters
Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:55 UTC
A 7.2 magnitude earthquake was recorded 46 km east of Santo in the South Pacific island archipelago of Vanuatu, the U.S. Geological Survey reported on Monday.
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People

Flashback Thomas Gold: The science maverick who challenged establishment thinking - and quite often turned out to be right

Anthony Tucker
The Guardian
Thu, 24 Jun 2004 10:02 UTC
Professor Thomas "Tommy" Gold, who has died aged 84, was the initiator, the pragmatist and the persuader among the trio of young Cambridge scientists who turned cosmology upside down in the 1950s by proposing their controversial and comforting "steady state" hypothesis of the universe. This held centre stage for several years, with Fred Hoyle as its underpinning cosmological philosopher, Hermann Bondi in mathematical support, and Tommy Gold as its extrovert propagandist.
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Bizarro Earth

Heretical Thoughts about Science and Society

Freeman Dyson
The Edge
Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:04 UTC
1. The Need for Heretics

In the modern world, science and society often interact in a perverse way. We live in a technological society, and technology causes political problems. The politicians and the public expect science to provide answers to the problems. Scientific experts are paid and encouraged to provide answers. The public does not have much use for a scientist who says, "Sorry, but we don't know". The public prefers to listen to scientists who give confident answers to questions and make confident predictions of what will happen as a result of human activities. So it happens that the experts who talk publicly about politically contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think. They make confident predictions about the future, and end up believing their own predictions. Their predictions become dogmas which they do not question. The public is led to believe that the fashionable scientific dogmas are true, and it may sometimes happen that they are wrong. That is why heretics who question the dogmas are needed.
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Bizarro Earth

500 evacuated as Indonesian volcano spews lava


AFP
Sun, 12 Aug 2007 00:12 UTC
More than 500 people have been evacuated from the slopes of Mount Karangetang, which has been spewing lava and hotclouds on the northern Indonesian island of Siau.

The conditions have forced authorities to raise the area's alert status, with a total of 151 families or 564 people being evacuated from three villages on the slopes of the 1,784-metre volcano.
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Bomb

Are the Bees Dying off Because They're Too Busy?

Susan Kuchinskas
AlterNet - East Bay News
Sat, 11 Aug 2007 18:49 UTC
Are bees dying because factory farms are "overworking" them? California bee farmers who let their hives take it easy find their colonies are thriving.

©Jamie Soja
Leah Fortin's rooftop hive.

Comment: More articles on bees:

· Suddenly, the bees are simply vanishing

· Birds, Bees, Frogs: Our vanishing helpers

· Bees Cause Buzz In Northwest

· Taiwan stung by millions of missing bees

· Destructive Mite Threatens Hawaii Bees

· Bees Vanish, and Scientists Race for Reasons

· Are GM Crops Killing Bees?

You can also share your insights on the Forum.

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Cloud Lightning

North Korea admits severe flood damage


AFP
Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:29 UTC
North Korea has reported widespread damage to homes, railways and roads following heavy rains that battered the nation last week, in a rare admission of problems within the reclusive country.

"Officials and working people in various parts of the country have turned out as one in the relief and rehabilitation activities," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

"A large acreage of land under cultivation" has been washed away or buried, with roads, railways, houses and public buildings destroyed, it added.
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Stop

Floods, landslides kill 19 in northwest China


Xinhua
Sat, 11 Aug 2007 14:01 UTC
Nineteen people were killed and 37 missing after violent rainstorms triggered floods in northwest China, state media reported Saturday.

The rainstorms, which started to hit the southeastern part of Shaanxi province Monday, destroyed homes and ruined crops, causing 280 million yuan (37 million dollars) in damages, a provincial flood control headquarters official told Xinhua news agency.
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Bizarro Earth

4.8 Quake shakes western Greece


IHT
Sun, 12 Aug 2007 13:48 UTC
A magnitude 4.8 earthquake shook parts of western Greece on Sunday but no damage or injuries were reported, authorities said.

The Athens Geodynamic Institute said the undersea quake occurred at 14:20 p.m. (1120 GMT) northeast of Paxos island in the Ionian Sea, some 330 kilometers (200 miles) northwest of Athens.
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