Content of phenols 1.4 times exceeding the safe levels is detected in the Amur river near Khabarovsk, and near Komsomolsk-on-Amur, it is 1.2 higher than the safe levels.
Monitoring also showed high concentration of nitrate nitrogen and oxygen biochemical levels exceeding the safe levels by 1.4-1.5 times, a Khabarovsk territorial government source told Itar-Tass on Friday, referring to the results of the river ecological monitoring over the period from June 15 to 21.
Krasnoyarsk police and hunters have been searching for a bear in Krasnoyarsk Akademgorodok for the second day. The bear was last seen by citizens of Oktyabrsky district of Krasnoyarsk near the main academic building of the Siberian Federal University and has not been found so far, the district interior department reported.
Hunters of the federal agricultural regulatory agency Rosselkhoznadzor joined police officers in the search of the dangerous forest predator. If the bear is found he will be killed immediately, Rosselkhoznadzor reported.
The search groups are combing through the area focusing on the places where the bear was seen by citizens: in the wood near the main high school building.
Unless the predator is found, the search will be continued Friday.
Southeastern Europe baked in searing temperatures Friday, with nearly 30 deaths blamed on the heat in recent days across the region.
Electricity supplies, particularly in Greece and Albania, were straining to keep up with demand as air conditioning use spiked during the year's first major heat wave.
Temperatures reached 40 (104F) degrees Celsius in Athens on Friday, with a top recorded temperature of 45 C (113F) on the island of Rhodes, according to state NET television.
A swath of the Midwest will get some relief from summer heat in the next three months, while the eastern and western thirds of the country can expect a hotter-than-normal season, forecasters said.
An international team of scientists is embarking on a search for life on the floor of the ocean at the roof of the world.
Led by researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution -- and equipped with unique robotic vehicles designed to explore mountain ranges miles beneath the polar ice cap -- 30 geophysicists, biologists, engineers, chemists, and other deep-sea specialists will depart July 1 from a remote Norwegian archipelago, Svalbard, aboard a powerful icebreaker that will smash a path to exploration sites near the geographic North Pole.
The Arctic, its mysteries concealed beneath thick ice, is the smallest but least known of the world's oceans.
"This is about exploring a portion of the earth that has been largely inaccessible to science," said Robert Reves-Sohn, a geophysicist from the institution who will be chief scientist on the 40-day voyage.
"We're looking for underseas habitats and creatures never seen before," he said during a news conference yesterday.
Icebergs have long gripped the popular imagination, whether as relatively run-of-the-mill floating hazards that cause "unsinkable' ships to founder or, more recently, as enormous breakaway pieces of ice the size of states or small countries.
But, according to a paper published in this week's Science magazine, scientists have discovered that these floating ice islands--some as large as a dozen miles across--have a major impact on the ecology of the ocean around them, serving as "hotspots" for ocean life, with thriving communities of seabirds above and a web of phytoplankton, krill and fish below.
The icebergs hold trapped terrestrial material, which they release far out at sea as they melt. Scientists have discovered that this process produces a "halo effect" with significantly increased nutrients, chlorophyll and krill out to a radius of more than 3 kilometers (2 miles).
Based on their new understanding of the role of icebergs in the ecosystem and the sheer number of icebergs in the Southern Ocean--the researchers counted more than 11,000 in satellite images of some 4,300 square miles of ocean--the scientists estimate that, overall, the icebergs are raising the biological productivity of nearly 40 percent of Antarctica's Weddell Sea.
The world's first manta ray ever born in captivity has died at an aquarium in southern Japan after being attacked by its father, officials said yeserday.
The baby manta, a female about 1.9m wide, was born last Saturday at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, drawing worldwide attention.
But it was found dead early yesterday, according to Minoru Toda, a spokesman for the aquarium on the subtropical island of Okinawa.
"I have never seen such a thing but the father manta ray kept chasing the newborn baby from behind. The baby looked stunned and bumped into walls at times," Toda said.
A massive cloud band has caused an unprecedented event, with record rain and cool days across much of Australia's Northern Territories.
Many parts of Queensland experienced their coldest day on record yesterday, and the cold snap is continuing today, according to
WeatherzoneThe most significant records were broken across inland Queensland, where Boulia had a top of just nine degrees, its coldest day in 119 years of records. Richmond, in northwestern Queensland, reached just 13 degrees, its coldest June day in 115 years of records.
A quake shook Venezuela and Colombia on Wednesday but there were no reports of damage, including to any of Venezuela's vital oil operations, officials said.
The quake, which hit northeastern Colombia and southwestern Venezuela, should not produce any significant damage because of its size and depth, Herbert Rendon, a Venezuelan seismological official said in a telephone interview.
