Earth Changes

US: Rain Pounds North Carolina as Storm Moves Up the East Coast

Tom Breen
The Associated Press
Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:19 UTC

Driving rain from a storm system moving up the East Coast brought flooding to parts of North Carolina on Thursday, caused soggy morning commutes in the Northeast and prompted worries of additional flooding as far north as Maine.

Tornado watches were issued from North Carolina to New Jersey.

In North Carolina, the nearly 21 inches collected in Wilmington since rain started falling Sunday topped Hurricane Floyd's five-day mark of 19 inches set in 1999, the National Weather Service said.

In the eastern part of the state, officials evacuated about 70 people overnight from a mobile home community in Kinston because of high water, Roger Dail, director of emergency services in Lenoir County, said.

"The water's still up," Dail said. "I would suspect it's going to be later today, maybe tomorrow, before the water goes out of there."

GM Corn 'Has Polluted Rivers Across the United States'

Steve Connor
The Independent
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:46 UTC

An insecticide used in genetically modified (GM) crops grown extensively in the United States and other parts of the world has leached into the water of the surrounding environment.

The insecticide is the product of a bacterial gene inserted into GM maize and other cereal crops to protect them against insects such as the European corn borer beetle. Scientists have detected the insecticide in a significant number of streams draining the great corn belt of the American mid-West.

The researchers detected the bacterial protein in the plant detritus that was washed off the corn fields into streams up to 500 metres away. They are not yet able to determine how significant this is in terms of the risk to either human health or the wider environment.

Drilling into a Volcano Aims to Help Predict Possible Catastrophe

Brett Israel
Our Amazing Planet
Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:03 UTC

Drilling into an active volcanic doesn't sound like the safest idea, but a plan to do so along a volcano near Naples, Italy, could help protect the city from a potentially catastrophic eruption.

Geologists will drill into the volcanic formation, called Campi Flegrei, early next month. The volcano, part of a larger volcanic arc that includes Mount Vesuvius, last erupted in 1538. The ground around the volcano, however, has been swelling for the past 40 years, stoking fears of an eruption that would threaten the roughly 1 million residents of Naples.

"The role of deep drilling at this area is then crucial," according to the drilling project description by the International Continental Scientific Drill Program (ICDP), which is planning the drilling study.

The drilling will let scientists pull out rocks that will allow them to trace the volcano's evolution, and predict its future.

Indonesia: Earthquake Magnitude 7.2 - Near South Coast of Papua

USGS
Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:34 UTC

Date-Time:
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 17:11:24 UTC

Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 02:11:24 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
4.920°S, 133.783°E

Depth:
12.3 km (7.6 miles)

Region:
NEAR THE SOUTH COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA

Distances:
105 km (65 miles) NNW of Dobo, Kepulauan Aru, Indonesia

310 km (190 miles) WSW of Enarotali, Papua, Indonesia

900 km (560 miles) NNE of DARWIN, Northern Territory, Australia

2985 km (1850 miles) E of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia

Indonesia: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Near South Coast of Papua

USGS
Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:28 UTC

Date-Time:
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 17:10:52 UTC

Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 02:10:52 AM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location:
5.314°S, 133.933°E

Depth:
21.2 km (13.2 miles) (poorly constrained)

Region:
NEAR THE SOUTH COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA

Distances:
105 km (65 miles) NNW of Dobo, Kepulauan Aru, Indonesia

310 km (195 miles) WSW of Enarotali, Papua, Indonesia

885 km (550 miles) NNE of DARWIN, Northern Territory, Australia

2985 km (1850 miles) E of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia

Nuclear Weapons: 20 Facts They Don't Want You to Think About

Jim McCluskey
Dissident Voice
Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:42 UTC

Politicians and Their Armageddon Machines

Nuclear arsenals: who wants them? - A coterie of politicians.

Why do they want them? - For the illusion of power and to feed their egos.

How do they keep them? - By fostering a culture of fear.

How do they do that? - By positing a Threatening and Unknown Future.

There are 5 primary nuclear weapons states (and four others from proliferation). The politicians of these 5 nuclear states put the future of the citizens of all the other 187 states of the UN at risk as well as their own citizens because of their insistence in keeping their nuclear arsenals.

In no case have the citizens been asked if they want these arsenals.

The reason these politicians want these Armageddon weapons is because they believe it gives them stature and power; makes them players; gets their feet under the top table. For this perceived personal benefit they are prepared to put the survival of the human race at risk.

Nuclear arsenals are the ruthless tools of power-fixated individuals.

In order to keep their arsenals, these individuals must keep the citizens in ignorance. We have a vague dread of these things and what they can do. Humanity has a residual group memory of the unspeakable suffering of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But this is very scary. We don't want to think about it. And that suits the power junkies just fine. Ignorance is power - for the junkies - but not the citizens.

Genetically Altered Salmon? It Doesn't Stop There

Seth Borenstein & Malcom Ritter
Yahoo News
Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:28 UTC

We've always played with our food - even before we knew about genes or how to change them.

For thousands of years, humans have practiced selective breeding - pairing the beefiest bull with the healthiest heifers to start a new herd. That concept was refined to develop plant hybridization and artificial insemination. Today we've got tastier corn on sturdier stalks, bigger turkeys and meatier cattle.

Now comes an Atlantic salmon that is genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as a regular salmon. If U.S. regulators approve it, the fish would be the first such scientifically altered animal to reach the dinner plate.

Scientists have already determined that it's safe to eat. They are weighing other factors, including environmental risks, after two days of intense hearings.

Are Tornadoes Increasing?

Robert Lamb
Discovery News
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:47 UTC

Few sights on Earth are as awe-inspiring (or terrifying) as that of a tornado spindling down from a storm-choked sky. So we feed our obsession. We flood the Internet with twister footage and headlines about peculiar vortices and rampaging storms.

It all leads to an inevitable question: Is tornadic activity increasing?

"There's no evidence that it is," says Joshua Wurman, president of the Center for Severe Weather Research. "If you look at the frequency of tornado reports in the U.S., they're going up every decade, but there's pretty good evidence that it's due to improved reporting efficiency."

Scientists call this a reporting effect, meaning that reports of a phenomenon increase but actual occurrences do not. Yes, it might seem like more trees are falling in the forest, but it's only because more people are there to hear them.

Northern Lights Becoming Rarer, Researchers Warn

The Telegraph, UK
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:25 UTC

The Northern Lights have petered out during the second half of the decade, becoming rarer than at any other time in more than a century, according to meteorologists.

The Aurora Borealis generally follows an 11-year "solar cycle" in which the frequency of the phenomena rises to a maximum and then tapers off into a minimum and then repeats the cycle.

According to researched at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, however, the solar minimum was officially in 2008, but has been "going on and on and on".

Noora Partamies, a researcher, said: "Only in the past half a year have we seen more activity, but we don't really know whether we're coming out of this minimum."

The Northern Lights, a blaze of colored patterns in the northern skies, are triggered by solar winds crashing into the earth and being drawn to the magnetic poles, wreaking havoc on electrons in the parts of the atmosphere known as the ionosphere and magnetosphere.

Drenched Mexico Hillside Collapses; At Least 7 Die

Ixtli Martinez
The Associated Press
Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:06 UTC

Oaxaca, Mexico - A hillside collapsed on hundreds of sleeping residents Tuesday in a rural Mexican community drenched for days by two major storms, killing at least seven and leaving at least 100 missing, disaster officials said.

The death toll could rise much higher in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, a town about 130 miles (220 kilometers) southeast of Mexico City. Oaxaca state Civil Protection operations coordinator Luis Marin said 100 people were confirmed missing, but Oaxaca Gov. Ulises Ruiz told the Televisa television network 500 to 1,000 people could be buried.

At least 100 homes were buried, and residents who made it out have had no success in digging out their neighbors, said Donato Vargas, an official in Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec reached by a satellite telephone.

"We have been using a backhoe but there is a lot of mud. We can't even see the homes, we can't hear shouts, we can't hear anything," he said.

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Earth Changes

US: Rain Pounds North Carolina as Storm Moves Up the East Coast

GM Corn 'Has Polluted Rivers Across the United States'

Drilling into a Volcano Aims to Help Predict Possible Catastrophe

Indonesia: Earthquake Magnitude 7.2 - Near South Coast of Papua

Indonesia: Earthquake Magnitude 6.2 - Near South Coast of Papua

Nuclear Weapons: 20 Facts They Don't Want You to Think About

Genetically Altered Salmon? It Doesn't Stop There

Are Tornadoes Increasing?

Northern Lights Becoming Rarer, Researchers Warn

Drenched Mexico Hillside Collapses; At Least 7 Die

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