Earth ChangesS

Bizarro Earth

India: 10,000 pigeons die of mysterious disease in Sikkim

Over 10,000 pigeons have died due to a suspected bacterial infection in the last one month in Singtam in East Sikkim, according to animal husbandry officials. The number of dead birds could be more since the figure was an estimate given to the officials by local residents, the officials said.

The officials who visited the spot earlier this month have ruled out bird flu but suspect that a bacterial infection caused the deaths. Samples taken from the dead birds were being tested. The residents of the town are worried that the infection could spread to poultry birds if not controlled quickly.

Many claimed that insects had come out when the carcasses were dipped in disinfectant.

Cloud Lightning

Two months of rain in half a day in Britain

It's a sight more commonly seen on the subcontinent, but a swirling tornado can be seen forming in the skies above Britain.

The dramatic image was captured by amateur photographer John Prescott near Bude, Cornwall, yesterday as the tip of the tornado comes close to making contact with the ground.

It comes as torrential downpours and thunderstorms battered Britain over the weekend, with parts of the country seeing two months of rain in half a day.

Umbrella

Flashback Nearly a month's rainfall will soak Britain on Friday

Parts of Britain will be deluged by almost a month's rainfall on Friday, as the abysmal summer weather shows no sign of letting up.

Met Office forecasters have warned that a storm rolling in from the Atlantic will soak South West England, Wales, the West Midlands, London and parts of the South East with more than 1.9in (50mm) of rain.

A spokesman said: "There will be no respite from the miserable summer weather just yet."

Heavy rain and gusting winds are expected, with forecasters predicting that some areas will suffer localised flooding.

South-west England and Wales will bear the brunt of the Friday storms with 50mph winds expected.

Cloud Lightning

Flashback Extreme conditions: What's happening to our weather?

Britain is just a few showers away from recording a record wet summer, at the climax of the most remarkable period of broken weather records in the country's history. All of the smashed records are to do with temperature and rainfall - the two aspects of the climate most likely to be intensified by the advent of global warming.

While no specific event can be ascribed directly to climate change, the sequence of events is strongly suggestive of a climate that is now unmistakably altering before our eyes.

Cloud Lightning

Flashback A summer of rain threatens to bring the great autumn floods in UK

The saturated ground means any more downpours could cause huge volumes of water underground to burst out

Britain is facing a flooding timebomb this autumn and winter, with huge amounts of underground water stored up by incessant summer rain ready to burst out as floods the next time heavy rains return.

The Environment Agency is giving warning of "an enhanced flood risk" for England and Wales, although where and when any flooding strikes will depend on the weather patterns. Forecasters are predicting a wet autumn across much of Britain.

Clock

Flashback Rainfall In Britain Worst In 200 Years

Torrential downpours which hit last week and left swathes of England and Wales under water were officially the worst in more than 200 years of record keeping, according to figures released by the Met Office Thursday.

Rainfall was more than double the seasonal average, with the early summer months of May to July witnessing 382.4 millimeters (15.06 inches) of rainwater, topping the previous record of 349.1 millimeters in 1789, said officials.

Deluges in 32 counties, covering the thousands of square miles stretching from Devon to Yorkshire, broke records dating back to 1914 by more than 25 millimeters, the meteorologists added.

Bug

Battling Termites? Just Add Sugar

Image
© Victor R. Caivano/AP Formosan termites swarm over a glass counter in a University of Florida entomology lab in March 1998.
If you've ever had to battle the tenacious termite, sweet revenge may be near.

A substance derived from glucose has been shown to weaken the insects' immune systems, making them vulnerable to infections from lethal microbes, a new study says.

The findings could give rise to a whole new class of safer pest-control treatments, the authors say.

"We wanted something environmentally friendly, biodegradable, and [that] does not play a toxic role," said study co-author Ram Sasisekharan, a biological engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Bizarro Earth

Galeras Volcano Erupts for 2nd Time in 24 hours

Volcano
© Unknown
The Galeras volcano, located near the south Colombian city of Pasto erupted for the second time in 24 hours. The situation remains at red alert.

The Pasto Observatory of Vulcanology and Seismology recorded the latest eruption at 6:38am Monday morning. The previous eruption was at 7:18am Sunday morning.

The Conservatory announced that today's eruption was "explosive in nature".

The situation remains on red alert because authorities believe another eruption is "imminent" according to Terra.

Authorities called a red alert Sunday and ordered some 8,000 people living in the vicinity of the volcano to evacuate.

Phoenix

Volcano erupts in southern Colombia

Galeras volcano
© unknownThe Galeras volcano in southern Colombia
The Galeras volcano located in southern Colombia in the vicinity of Ecuador border has erupted with 'an explosive character'.

No report on possible toll or injuries has been reported so far, but the state-run Geological Mining Institute announced a high-level alert on Sunday due to the explosive feature of the volcano activities, AFP reported.

Blackbox

Large Mammal Migrations Are Disappearing - and no, it's not from "Global Warming"

Image
© P. Elkan, Wildlife Conservation Society/National GeographicTiang herd in the Southern sector of Boma National Park.
Africa is home to spectacular migration events. Large mammals ranging from Grant's gazelles to blue wildebeests pound their hooves across vast tracts of land as the seasons change. New research suggests, however, that migrations across the continent might be going extinct.

For the first time, scientists have compiled and analyzed data on all of the world's largest and definitive migrating land mammals. The researchers looked at the migration history for a group of ungulates, all of them hoofed mammals, weighing more than 44 pounds (20 kg). The data suggest that one-quarter of these mammals no longer migrate, and human development is responsible for the decline, said Grant Harris, co-author of the study.