Earth ChangesS


Arrow Up

Dolphins guide scientists to rescue suicidal girl

Bottlenose dolphin
© Photograph by Maddalena Bearzi, Ocean Conservation Society, under NOAA permitBottlenose dolphin school foraging along the Los Angeles coastline.
One day, my research team and I were following a school of bottlenose dolphins near shore as we do on a regular basis in the waters off Los Angeles, California. We just wrapped up our photo-identification work and were moving on to take video of dolphin social interactions and enter data on behavior.

The dolphins were still feeding in circle near shore, when suddenly, one individual changed direction heading out toward deeper water. A minute later, the rest of the school turned to follow. We were so accustomed to tracking these coastal metropolitan dolphins back and forth within a few hundred meters of the beach, that seeing them abruptly leave a foraging ground and change direction came as a surprise to the research team. I decided to follow them.

The dolphins increased their speed, still heading offshore as I pushed the throttle ahead to keep pace while one of my researchers recorded this hasty change in behavior on the sighting form.

Somewhere near three miles offshore the dolphin group stopped, forming a sort of ring around a dark object in the water.

"Someone's in the water!" yelled my assistant, standing up and pointing at the seemingly lifeless body of a girl. For a moment, we were silent. Then, slowly, I maneuvered the boat closer. The girl was pallid and blonde and appeared to be fully clothed. As the boat neared, she feebly turned her head toward us, half-raising her hand as a weak sign for help.

Bizarro Earth

Species disappearing far faster than before; Earth on brink of sixth great extinction

Whitetip Shark
© Terry Goss Photography USA/Marine Photobank 2010The oceanic whitetip shark, once one of Earth’s most plentiful predators now is rarely seen. Species of plants and animals are going extinct 1,000 faster than they did before humans.
Washington - Species of plants and animals are becoming extinct at least 1,000 times faster than they did before humans arrived on the scene, and the world is on the brink of a sixth great extinction, a new study says.

The study looks at past a nd present rates of extinction and finds a lower rate in the past than scientists had thought. Species are now disappearing from Earth about 10 times faster than biologists had believed, said study lead author noted biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University.

"We are on the verge of the sixth extinction," Pimm said from research at the Dry Tortugas. "Whether we avoid it or not will depend on our actions."

The work, published Thursday by the journal Science, was hailed as a landmark study by outside experts.

Pimm's study focused on the rate, not the number, of species disappearing from Earth. It calculated a "death rate" of how many species become extinct each year out of 1 million species.

In 1995, Pimm found that the pre-human rate of extinctions on Earth was about 1. But taking into account new research, Pimm and his colleagues refined that background rate to about 0.1.

Now, that death rate is about 100 to 1,000, Pimm said.Numerous factors are combining to make species disappear much faster than before, said Pimm and co-author Clinton Jenkins of the Institute of Ecological Research in Brazil. But the No. 1 issue is habitat loss. Species are finding no place to live as more places are built up and altered by humans.

Health

Woman says she played dead in Alaska bear attack

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© APIn this video frame grab provided by the U.S. Army, Jessica Gamboa is interviewed at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage on Tuesday, May 27, 2014.
Bear knocked woman down, threw her down and pummeled her with its paws.

jessica Gamboa grew up hearing you should play dead during a bear attack, and she put that knowledge to the ultimate test when she ran into a brown bear on the grounds of a military base.

The bear knocked Gamboa down, then picked her up and threw her to the ground. The bear went on to pummel Gamboa several times more with her powerful paws.

Throughout the May 18 attack, Gamboa lay in a fetal position and remained silent.

That action likely saved her life.

"I actually can't even believe this actually really happened," the 25-year-old woman said in a videotaped interview released by the Army on Thursday. "It seems still surreal, just for the fact that I'm still alive - seems unreal. "


Cloud Lightning

Tropical storm Amanda claims three lives in Mexico

hurricane Amanda 4
Torrential rains from tropical storm Amanda claimed the lives of three people in Mexico, authorities said Wednesday.

Waters rushing down mountainsides caused flash floods that swept away two people in the town of Zitacuaro in the western state of Michoacan, said the state's director of civil protection, Nicolas Alfaro.

The fatalities were a 50-year-old man and a girl of eight.

Roads and cars were damaged, and authorities warned homes might need to be evacuated if the rains continued.

Cloud Lightning

Amanda becomes the strongest-ever Eastern Pacific hurricane in May

hurricane amanda
On Saturday, Amanda became the first hurricane-strength tropical storm of 2014, crossed the 120 km/h wind speed threshold as it made its way through the Pacific.

But by Sunday morning, the storm had strengthened to category 4 status, with winds up to 250 km/h, just shy of the 252 km/h threshold that would make it a category 5.

The National Hurricane Centre says this is the strongest hurricane ever recorded during the month of May.

Arrow Down

Sinkhole develops in parking lot in Winter Haven, Florida

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The sink hole is about 5 feet deep and 30 feet wide, however police say the parking lot continues to buckle in areas out from the hole.
A possible sinkhole has developed in a Publix supermarket parking lot across from the entrance to Legoland and continues to spread.

The hole is approximately 30 feet wide and 5 feet deep, said Jamie Brown, spokeswoman with the Winter Haven Police Department.

Cracks and ripples in the pavement show it continues to spread farther away from the hole and toward Cypress Gardens Boulevard, Brown said.

Police and fire personnel are at the Publix, 6031 Cypress Gardens Blvd., ensuring public safety if the hole continues to open, Brown said.

Geologists are on their way to the scene to determine if it is a sinkhole and how big it is.

The parking lot is private property for the shopping center that houses Publix, K-Mart and several other outlets. Police have not evacuated anyone from the area and stores continue to remain open. No injuries have been reported.

Ice Cube

Despite hot weather water pipes remain frozen in Winnipeg

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The high in Winnipeg Tuesday was 26 C, but some are still suffering from what can only be described as a winter hangover.

"It's been an experience. It's been quite an experience and we're just waiting for this experience to end," said Aynsley O'Donovan, a Winnipeg resident who's had frozen pipes for 11 weeks. "It's about time we get our water back."

O'Donovan is among the nearly 500 property owners around the city in a similar situation. Although lucky enough to be hooked up to her neighbour's water, she still has no idea when she'll be using her own water again.

The problem: the frost is still more than a metre deep in places and now the city says all pipes won't be thawed until at least the end of June.

O'Dononvan knows you can't control mother nature but a lack of communication from the city is something that can be fixed.


Snowflake

Summer in Europe? Snow and mist in the Alps during the Giro d'Italia

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© Fabio Ferrari/AP PhotoMovistar team cyclists lead the pack as they climb through fog and snow during the 16th stage of the Giro d'Italia cycling race from Ponte di Legno to Val Martello, Italy, May 27, 2014.
A dramatic mountain finish in today's stage of the Giro d'Italia, coupled with brutal weather conditions in the Italian Alps, is prompting some cycling enthusiasts to dub this one of the most epic stages in recent cycling history.

Colombian cyclist Nairo Quintana's win through mist and snow-banked roads in Stage 16 of the 21-day tour propelled him into the overall lead.

Quintana, 24, known for his prodigious climbing skills, finished 8 seconds ahead of Canadian Ryder Hesjedal on the 86-mile route, which included the legendary Gavia and Stelvio climbs.

"It was raining a lot," said Quintana, of team Movistar. "We all knew it was very dangerous."

"I went at my rhythm. I gave everything today. I was climbing well in the end," Quintana said.

Arrow Down

Second sinkhole opens up in Newcastle, Australia

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© NBN NewsThe first sinkhole, in Swansea Heads, near Lake Macquarie.
New, smaller hole opens two doors away from 20m by 10m crater above old coalmine in NSW's Hunter region

A second sinkhole has appeared in an upmarket neighbourhood south of Newcastle, prompting fears more land could collapse into an old mine shaft that appears to have caused the erosion.

The first sinkhole, measuring up to 20m wide and 10m deep, developed on Tuesday night next to a three-storey home on Lambton Parade in plush Swansea Heads, near Lake Macquarie.

A husband and wife returned to their seaside property about two hours after the hole developed next to their front deck, swallowing tonnes of dirt and debris.

A second, smaller sinkhole developed on Wednesday morning in the front garden of a property two doors down. It measured about two metres across.

The area beneath the street was once part of the Swansea pit, a coalmine abandoned in the 1950s. The Mine Subsistence Board is now leading an investigation into the sinkholes, including checks to ensure the stability and structural integrity of surrounding homes.

Question

Mass of spider crab shells wash up on Tasmania's east coast

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© ABCSpider crabs shells
Scientists are not concerned about a large number of spider crab shells washed up on Tasmania's east coast.

Local residents have reported the orange crabs, around the size of a human hand, have washed up on Raspins Beach at Orford in recent days.

Recreational Fishing Tasmania's Don Paton says he would like to get to the bottom of the event.

"Whether there's some viral infection that might have caught in the ocean or whether it's a natural phenomenon they actually do at certain times of the year," he said.

"It's amazing to me to think that over the last 30 or 40 years, or longer, that I've been around looking at the beaches up here most of my life, I've never seen a phenomenon like it."

Comment: Just two weeks ago, from the same region of the world, came this report: Tens of thousands of fish wash up on the east coast of Tasmania