It has been debated for nearly four decades but no one has yet been able to prove it is chemically possible. Now good evidence suggests that birds can actually "see" the lines of the Earth's magnetic field.
Klaus Schulten of the University of Illinois, proposed forty years ago that some animals - including migratory birds - must have molecules in their eyes or brains which respond to magnetism. The problem has been that no one has been able to find a chemical sensitive enough to be influenced by Earth's weak geomagnetic field.
Now Peter Hore and colleagues at the University of Oxford have found one.
Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered a new climate pattern called the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation. This new pattern explains, for the first time, changes in the water that are important in helping commercial fishermen understand fluctuations in the fish stock. They're also finding that as the temperature of the Earth is warming, large fluctuations in these factors could help climatologists predict how the oceans will respond in a warmer world. The research appears in the April 30 edition of the journal
Geophysical Research Letters.
"We've been able to explain, for the first time, the changes in salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll that we see in the Northeast Pacific," said Emanuele Di Lorenzo, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
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| The North Pacific Gyre Oscillation explains changes in salinity, nutrients and chlorophyll seen in the Northeast Pacific.
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The Fruit Bat is under threat of extinction on the island, the Forestry Department said yesterday. Forestry Officer Harris Nicolaou told the
Mail that numbers have been rapidly declining, with only an estimated 3,500 remaining.
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| Fruit Bat
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"We can say that numbers were far greater in the past and it is now an endangered species," he said.
An alarming number of dead sea mammals, apparently killed on purpose by humans rather than dying of natural causes, have washed up on Greek shores in the last few weeks, marine experts said yesterday.
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| The white-toothed shrew has now moved to Ireland!
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Dublin - Ireland, which has seen an immigration surge in recent years, has a new foreigner on its shores, scientists said Monday: the greater white-toothed shrew.
The mammal, Crocidura Russula, has been discovered in parts of the midlands and south-west of the republic. Its natural range is in parts of Africa, France and Germany.
At least 52 earthquakes were recorded in Northern Nevada between midnight Monday and 8 p.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey Web site.
The strongest was magnitude 4.2 recorded at 4:33 a.m. Most of the earthquakes registered below a 2.0. A 2.5 was recorded at 5:12 a.m. and a 2.0 was recorded at 2:34 p.m.
Earthquake Details
Magnitude 5.2
Date-Time
* Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 03:03:06 UTC
* Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 08:03:06 PM at epicenter
* Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 40.837°N, 123.499°W
Depth 28.5 km (17.7 miles)
Region NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Distances
* 18 km (11 miles) ESE (114°) from Willow Creek, CA
* 41 km (26 miles) E (97°) from Blue Lake, CA
* 42 km (26 miles) NW (315°) from Hayfork, CA
* 56 km (35 miles) E (84°) from Eureka, CA
* 307 km (191 miles) NW (326°) from Sacramento, CA
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 0.4 km (0.2 miles); depth +/- 1.4 km (0.9 miles)
Parameters NST=140, Nph=140, Dmin=20 km, Rmss=0.15 sec, Gp= 54°,
M-type=regional moment magnitude (Mw), Version=6
Tim Newton would have been working construction Monday if rain hadn't given him a day off.
"I was just sitting there watching TV and next thing I knew lightning stuck the house and the whole house shook," Newton said.
Newton had been sitting in the living room around 2:45 p.m. when lightning hit. He looked in the hallway and saw the smoke detector smoldering and called for help. His 1 ½-year-old son Nathan's bedroom is right by the spot where the smoke detector caught fire.
Austin, Texas - here is over a half a million dollars in damages after a weekend fire at Steiner Ranch on Country Trails Lane.
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Lake Travis fire and rescue crews said two adults and a baby were in the two-story house when it was hit by lightning.
Emergency crews reached the house just before 7 a.m. Monday.
Beckley - A lightning strike during a thunderstorm late Sunday afternoon knocked out several computers and the computer network at Southern Communications, the parent company of WCIR, Groovy 94.1, WTNJ and several other radio stations.
Jay Quesenberry, general manager for Southern Communications, which is located in the old Appalachian Electric Power building on South Kanawha Street, said all of the stations went off air briefly until a backup system took over.
