© USGS
Location map - Italy
Location map - Italy
Magnitude: 5.3
Date-Time:
* Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 15:24:23 UTC
* Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 04:24:23 PM at epicenter
Earth Changes
Magnitude: 5.3
Date-Time:
* Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 15:24:23 UTC
* Tuesday, December 23, 2008 at 04:24:23 PM at epicenter
The first day of winter brought wind-chill warnings, snow and a bevy of storms to cities across Canada on Sunday, potentially laying the groundwork for the first cross-country white Christmas in nearly four decades.
Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips told CTV Newsnet that "it looks like a very good chance" it will be a white Christmas for all parts of Canada for the first time since 1971.
Environment Canada senior climatologist David Phillips told CTV Newsnet that "it looks like a very good chance" it will be a white Christmas for all parts of Canada for the first time since 1971.
Conservationists have found a host of new species after discovering uncharted new territory on the internet map Google Earth.
The mountainous area of northern Mozambique in southern Africa had been overlooked by science due to inhospitable terrain and decades of civil war in the country.
However, while scrolling around on Google Earth, an internet map that allows the viewer to look at satellite images of anywhere on the globe, scientists discovered an unexpected patch of green.
A British-led expedition was sent to see what was on the ground and found 7,000 hectares of forest, rich in biodiversity, known as Mount Mabu.
© Tom Timberlake/RBG Kew
A British-led expedition found 7,000 hectares of forest, rich in biodiversity, known as Mount Mabu
A British-led expedition found 7,000 hectares of forest, rich in biodiversity, known as Mount Mabu
However, while scrolling around on Google Earth, an internet map that allows the viewer to look at satellite images of anywhere on the globe, scientists discovered an unexpected patch of green.
A British-led expedition was sent to see what was on the ground and found 7,000 hectares of forest, rich in biodiversity, known as Mount Mabu.
Canada has been blanketed in snow from coast to coast after severe winter storms hit transport and left tens of thousands of homes without electricity.
Strong winds and snowfall have hampered relief efforts, with meteorologists forecasting more bad weather to come.
"It's a widespread and severe winter storm and it's not over yet, with these high winds expected to continue for some time," a Nova Scotia Power spokeswoman told the Canadian Press news agency.
© BBC News
Canada may see its first coast to coast white Christmas for 37 years
Canada may see its first coast to coast white Christmas for 37 years
Strong winds and snowfall have hampered relief efforts, with meteorologists forecasting more bad weather to come.
"It's a widespread and severe winter storm and it's not over yet, with these high winds expected to continue for some time," a Nova Scotia Power spokeswoman told the Canadian Press news agency.
Seattle - Winter storms walloped much of the northern stretches of the United States on Sunday, leaving holiday travelers stranded and causing power outages as blizzards and freezing rain struck parts of the East and West.
The second winter storm in three days blew across the U.S. Northeast on Sunday, the official start of winter. It delayed flights and snarled traffic on the final weekend day before the Christmas holiday.
In the West, the Seattle area and other parts of Washington state were hit on Saturday night, with the heaviest blast in a week of snow storms.
As 5 to 9 inches of snow fell, scattered power cuts were reported and whiteout conditions from heavy snows and high winds forced the closure of Snoqualmie Pass, a key route over the mountains east of Seattle on highway I-90.
Conditions there were "just a complete whiteout blizzard" on the pass, Washington State Patrol trooper Dan McDonald told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper via cell phone from his patrol car. "I've never seen anything like this. The side winds are probably easy 70 mph. They're taking us off the road."
The second winter storm in three days blew across the U.S. Northeast on Sunday, the official start of winter. It delayed flights and snarled traffic on the final weekend day before the Christmas holiday.
In the West, the Seattle area and other parts of Washington state were hit on Saturday night, with the heaviest blast in a week of snow storms.
As 5 to 9 inches of snow fell, scattered power cuts were reported and whiteout conditions from heavy snows and high winds forced the closure of Snoqualmie Pass, a key route over the mountains east of Seattle on highway I-90.
Conditions there were "just a complete whiteout blizzard" on the pass, Washington State Patrol trooper Dan McDonald told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper via cell phone from his patrol car. "I've never seen anything like this. The side winds are probably easy 70 mph. They're taking us off the road."
© Stephen Giardina / Alamy
Avoid the green ones.
Avoid the green ones.
Georg Steinhauser and his colleagues at Vienna University of Technology analysed fallen snow before and after a display in the village of Saalbach. Fireworks often contain metal salts to give them colour, such as barium for green flashes and strontium for red. The researchers wanted to find out whether any traces remained, clinging to snowflakes. If they did, it would mean the particles were present in the smoke from the fireworks and could be breathed in by spectators.
"We found huge amounts of barium in the snow," says Steinhauser (Atmospheric Environment, DOI: link). Concentrations were typically 500 times higher than in snow samples taken from the same sites before the display. Barium poisoning is known to constrict the airways, so inhaling it could aggravate asthma symptoms, says Steinhauser.
© Jörg Szarzynski
Night-time image of carrion flower with flash photography (left) and (right) with thermal image.
Night-time image of carrion flower with flash photography (left) and (right) with thermal image.
But for the carrion flower, which has the world's largest flowering head, getting noticed by flesh-eating insect pollinators in its jungle home requires yet another amazing adaptation - and one that only came to light thanks to a serendipitous TV recording.
"The film crew was using very strong backlighting and suddenly we saw smoke rising up along the flower's central column. We thought the plant was on fire," says Wilhelm Barthlott from the University of Bonn in Germany.
The 'smoke' turned out to be steam that is puffed out in regular pulses, coinciding with waves of carrion scent. "We had wondered before why one moment the flower would stink like a dead donkey, and a little while later there would be hardly any smell. It never occurred to us that there was cyclic odour production."
© University of Massachusetts Amherst
A bulldozer with payload bound for Lake El'gygytgyn on a previous research foray. For this logistically difficult study, scientists spent 10 years taking test core drill samples, measuring lake ice movement and other key factors in order to maximize the chance for scientific success and personnel safety.
A bulldozer with payload bound for Lake El'gygytgyn on a previous research foray. For this logistically difficult study, scientists spent 10 years taking test core drill samples, measuring lake ice movement and other key factors in order to maximize the chance for scientific success and personnel safety.
Once in place next month, the drilling will allow an international team of geoscientists led by Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Martin Melles of the University of Cologne, Germany, to burrow back in time, retrieving core samples more than 3 million years old and answering questions about Earth's ancient past.
Almost impossibly remote, Lake El'gygytgyn (pronounced el'geegitgin), 11 miles in diameter, was formed 3.6 million years ago when a monster meteor, more than a half-mile across, slammed into the Earth between the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea. Because this part of the Arctic was never covered by ice sheets or glaciers, it has received a steady drift of sediment - as much as a quarter mile (1,312 feet or 400 meters) deep - since impact. Thus, it offers a continuous depositional record unlike any other in the world, say Brigham-Grette and colleagues, beneath the crater lake that's just over 560 feet deep, equal to the height of the Washington Monument.
A tectonic earthquake measured on 5.7 Ritcher Scale on Sunday night hit Nangroe Aceh Darussalam province but did not trigger any tsunamis, the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) has said.
BMG's official in Aceh Besar Tri Deni said on Monday that the earthquake's epicenter was 88 kilometer south west of Banda Aceh and was 30 kilo meter above sea level.
BMG's official in Aceh Besar Tri Deni said on Monday that the earthquake's epicenter was 88 kilometer south west of Banda Aceh and was 30 kilo meter above sea level.
The mail brings an invitation to register for the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change, which convenes on March 8 in New York City. Sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think tank, the conference will host an international lineup of climate scientists and researchers who will focus on four broad areas: climatology, paleoclimatology, the impact of climate change, and climate-change politics and economics.
But if last year's gathering is any indication, the conference is likely to cover the climate-change waterfront. There were dozens of presentations in 2008, including: "Strengths and Weaknesses of Climate Models," "Ecological and Demographic Perspectives on the Status of Polar Bears," and "The Overstated Role of Carbon Dioxide on Climate Change."
But if last year's gathering is any indication, the conference is likely to cover the climate-change waterfront. There were dozens of presentations in 2008, including: "Strengths and Weaknesses of Climate Models," "Ecological and Demographic Perspectives on the Status of Polar Bears," and "The Overstated Role of Carbon Dioxide on Climate Change."
