Earth Changes
Two almost simultaneous aftershocks were centered beneath Grand Prairie and Irving just before 7 a.m. Saturday. The U.S. Geological Survey says the Grand Prairie quake measured 2.5 magnitude and the Irving quake came in at 2.7.
The temblor struck at 11:13 a.m. local time at the depth of 10 kilometers in the Bismarck Sea, the USGS said on its Web site. No tsunami warning was issued. A similar magnitude quake was also reported on Oct. 28, it said.
Just two days after the end of British Summertime, the first snowfall of the year saw a lorry driver killed when his vehicle collided with another lorry on the M40 in Buckinghamshire.
Tonnes of lard being carried in one of the lorries was left strewn over all six lanes of the motorway causing long delays.
An article of clothing Cape Coral may have forgotten existed over the scorching hot summer - the jacket - is making an early comeback this week as record-cold weather comes to town.
Forecasters predicted temperatures would hit a low of about 45 degrees Tuesday night. It has been colder before in Southwest Florida, but not in October.
The record low for Oct. 29 in the Fort Myers area is 47 degrees, according to Charlie Paxton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service - that was in 1910.
"That would be the coldest since (weather) records began in 1902," Paxton said.
Central Ha Tinh province -- where muddy waters inundated buildings and hundreds of hectares of rice and other crops -- reported seven deaths, said the National Flood and Storm Prevention Committee.
"A 48-year-old man was swept away after feeding his buffalo and a 19-year-old man was killed on the way to husk rice," said the committee's online report, adding that three of the victims were children.
Nghe An province reported eight deaths, four of them children aged between eight and 12 years old. The children were swept away in strong currents on their way home from school, the provincial disaster office said in a report.
Numbers of the Pemba flying fox, a type of fruit bat, have risen to 22,000 since it was rated critically endangered two decades ago when "only a scant few individual fruit bats could be observed," British-based Fauna and Flora International said.
Mysterious Bat Disease Decimates Colonies: Newly Identified Fungus Implicated In White-nose Syndrome
The probable cause of these bat deaths has puzzled researchers and resource managers urgently trying to understand why the bats were dying in such unprecedented numbers. Since the winter of 2006-07, bat declines at many surveyed hibernation caves exceeded 75 percent.
The fungus - a white, powdery-looking organism - is commonly found on the muzzles, ears and wings of afflicted dead and dying bats, though researchers have not yet determined that it is the only factor causing bats to die. Most of the bats are also emaciated, and some of them leave their hibernacula - winter caves where they hibernate - to seek food that they will not find in winter.
USGS microbiologist and lead author David Blehert isolated the fungus in April 2008, and identified it as a member of the group Geomyces. The research was conducted by U.S. Geological Survey scientists in collaboration with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the New York State Department of Health, and others.
This year researchers report more than 100 animals coming to the center with leptospirosis - a bacterial disease that affects the kidneys and can be deadly if animals are left untreated.
"And we are still in the midst of our year," says Dr. Jeffrey Boehm, executive director at the Marine Mammal Center. "When we tally the numbers up, we're going to see another year like one of those surge years."