Earth ChangesS


Bug

Why Some Insects Can Survive Freezing: Huge X-Ray Microscope Provides Clues


ScienceDaily
Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:00 UTC
Image
© University of Western OntarioSynchrotron x-ray visualisation of ice formation in insects during lethal and non-lethal freezing.
Using a microscope the size of a football field, researchers from The University of Western Ontario are studying why some insects can survive freezing, while others cannot.

Why is this important? Because the common fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) is one of the bugs that cannot survive freezing and the little creature just so happens to share much of the same genetic makeup as humans, therefore finding a way to freeze them for research purposes is a top priority for geneticists the world over (about 75 per cent of known human disease genes have a recognizable match in the genetic code of fruit flies).

And why the large microscope?

"It's the only one in the world that's set up for this kind of imaging on insects," says lead researcher Brent Sinclair of his team's use of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), located near Chicago, Illinois. The APS generates high-energy x-rays that allow Sinclair and his collaborators to film the formation and spread of ice in real time as the maggots freeze.
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Bizarro Earth

US: 3.5 Earthquake Jolts Southeast Nebraska


Kansas City
Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:07 UTC
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© USGS
A minor earthquake has rattled southeast Nebraska but apparently caused little damage and no injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the 3.5 magnitude quake struck at 8:53 Wednesday night, centered two miles north-northwest of Auburn.

Nemaha County authorities reported no injuries.

The quake was felt by people in several nearby Nebraska towns, including Peru, Nebraska City, and Dunbar. It also was felt across the Missouri River in Hamburg, Iowa; and Rock Port, Mo.

Though not known for its earthquakes, Nebraska has experienced several notable shakes since its founding as a state in 1867.

Comment: This article might be of interest as well: Fireball: Curious Events In Nebraska: Dec. 16, 2009

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Chalkboard

Climategate Goes SERIAL: Now the Russians Confirm that UK Climate Scientists Manipulated Data to Exaggerate Global Warming

James Delingpole
The Telegraph
Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:00 UTC
Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world's leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages.

Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North)
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Bizarro Earth

Britain: Race Against Snow to Avert Transport Chaos

Lucy Bannerman
Times Online
Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:00 UTC
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© TimesSnowfall today hit Coverdale, in the Pennines
Heavy snowfall blanketed parts of Britain last night as forecasters warned that treacherous conditions could lead to disruption on main road and rail networks.

Several inches of snow fell in East Anglia and Cambridgeshire with a peppering of showers in other parts of the country, including the Midlands and Essex. The Met Office also issued severe weather warnings for very heavy snowfall in London, the North East, Yorkshire and Humber and the East Midlands

Local authorities and transport agencies were on high alert last night, with fleets of gritters and de-icing lorries ready to be dispatched to keep key commuting routes clear today.

As commuters anticipated disruption this morning, a spokesman for Transport for London insisted that lessons had been learnt after snowfall brought the entire bus network to a standstill in February and paralysed other public transport links.
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Better Earth

'Fried Egg' may be impact crater

Jonathan Amos
BBC News
Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:32 UTC
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© EMEPCThe Egg and its companion obtained by multibeam echosounder bathymetry


Portuguese scientists have found a depression on the Atlantic Ocean floor they think may be an impact crater.

The roughly circular, 6km-wide hollow has a broad central dome and has been dubbed the "Fried Egg" because of its distinctive shape.

It was detected to the south of the Azores Islands during a survey to map the continental shelf. If the Fried Egg was made by a space impactor, the collision probably took place within the past 17 million years.

This is the likely maximum age of the basaltic sea-floor rock which harbours the feature. "To be sure, we need to take samples and make a profile of the sediment layers to determine if there really is a central uplift from an impact," explained Dr Frederico Dias from EMEPC (Task Group for the Extension of the Portuguese Continental Shelf).
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Snowman

Copenhagen: Blizzard Dumps Snow On Global Warming Lie

Christian Wienberg
Bloomberg
Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:55 UTC
World leaders flying into Copenhagen today to discuss a solution to global warming will first face freezing weather as a blizzard dumped 10 centimeters (4 inches) of snow on the Danish capital overnight.

"Temperatures will stay low at least the next three days," Henning Gisseloe, an official at Denmark's Meteorological Institute, said today by telephone, forecasting more snow in coming days. "There's a good chance of a white Christmas."

Delegates from 193 countries have been in Copenhagen since Dec. 7 to discuss how to fund global greenhouse gas emission cuts. U.S. President Barack Obama will arrive before the summit is scheduled to end tomorrow.

Denmark has a maritime climate and milder winters than its Scandinavian neighbors. It hasn't had a white Christmas for 14 years, under the DMI's definition, and only had seven last century. Temperatures today fell as low as minus 4 Celsius (25 Fahrenheit).

DMI defines a white Christmas as 90 percent of the country being covered by at least 2 centimeters of snow on the afternoon of Dec. 24.
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Bizarro Earth

Farmers Return to Erupting Philippine Volcano


Agence France-Presse
Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:00 UTC
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© Agence France-PresseMany people from the evacuated villages have been creeping back to look after their crops and animals.
Farmers have begun returning to the foothills of the Philippines' most active volcano despite an increasing flow of lava from the mountain, officials said Friday.

The picturesque Mayon volcano continued to spout spectacular fountains of ash into the sky amid a series of minor eruptions, heightening concerns that a major explosion could occur at any time.

Earthquakes inside Mayon also increased due to the enormous pressure of the ever-increasing amount of lava on its slopes, according to the government's volcanology institute.

"The important thing is that people should not be in those danger zones when a hazardous explosion happens," said chief government volcanologist Renato Solidum.

The so-called danger zone is a radius of six to eight kilometres (3.5 to five miles) from Mayon, and nearly 50,000 people have been evacuated from those areas since the volcano began spewing lava on Monday.
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Bulb

The Copenhagen charade

Ian Plimer
ABC News
Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:22 UTC
Two Copenhagen climate conferences took place last week. The UN Copenhagen conference was attended by politicians, 16,500 bureaucrats, thousands of journalists, activists and NGOs. Hundreds of limos, over 100 private jets and huge amounts of energy were expended by more than 30,000 attendees. Many of the attendees were ascientific agitators with a political agenda.

Australia's prime minister had a Copenhagen photo opportunity whistle stop in his dedicated jet and expended more fuel on this trip than the Arkaroola Wilderness Resort does in a year. Your taxes payed for 114 Australian bureaucrats to attend this junket yet some 71 UK delegates attended.

The UK Taxpayers' Alliance calculated the conference cost as much as the GDP of Malawi. If such funds were used to provide electricity and drinking water to Malawian families, then land clearing, wood and dung burning and disease would decrease. Now, that would have been true environmentalism!
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Hourglass

Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up

Hannah Devlin, Ben Webster, Philippe Naughton
Timesonline
Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:45 UTC
Gore Copenhagen Speech
© TimesonlineAl Gore's office admitted that the percentage he quoted in his speech was from an old, ballpark figure
There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.

The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change "spin" row.

Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: "These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years."

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
"It's unclear to me how this figure was arrived at," Dr Maslowski said. "I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this."
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Fish

Pacific Swimmer to be Message in a Bottle

Nick Galvin
Sydney Morning Herald
Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:41 UTC
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© Nick MoirRichard Pain, 45, a Sydney film-maker and environmentalist, is planning to swim 9000 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean.
As if swimming 9000 kilometers from Japan to the US is not enough of a challenge, Richard Pain is also planning to plough through the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a floating mass of plastic junk almost the size of the Northern Territory.

"I realize it's completely mad," said the filmmaker, 45, who is selling his Randwick home to raise some of the money needed for the project.

"But I'm aware there is a lot of green fatigue in the broader population. This is a way to try and raise awareness by doing something more compelling. It's like trying to do an environmental version of Super Size Me."
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