Earth ChangesS

Bizarro Earth

"A Culture of Death and Destruction"

Some people have likened the Earth to a relatively small lifeboat wheeling in an incredibly vast sea of outer space. If they also think that the sinking of the Titanic was a sad disaster, they will be heartbroken over the tragic devastation when this sort of occurrence happens on a planetary scale...

Recently, I read an article about the death of birds, bats, bees and butterflies across the world [1]. It didn't surprise me. Indeed, we can add to the list ever so many other species, also, heading towards extinction, including Asian elephants, frogs, toads, assorted big cats, polar bears, penguins, tunas, coral, vultures, chimpanzees, apes and dolphins. Indeed, the list goes on and on. Shockingly, there is, seemingly, no end to it.

Comment: Emily Spence is right that our planet is in great peril, but she misses the one main reason why this is so: the promotion of psychopathic thinking and behavior in our societies by psychopathic individuals in positions of influence, who for power, control and gain have been destroying the planet. And our only hope? To learn as much as we can about this disease, so we can eliminate its manifestation in ourselves, but also to be able to distinguish the psychopathic individuals and prevent them from advancing their destructive for all, plans.


Frog

Snakes Vault Past Toxic Newts In Evolutionary Arms Race

Snakes don't eat fugu, the seafood delicacy prepared from blowfish meat and famed for its poisonous potential. However, should a common garter snake wander into a sushi restaurant, it could fearlessly order a fugu dinner.

garter snakes
©Edmund Brodie III
Some garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis ) have evolved the ability to eat super-toxic newts (Taricha granulosa) in the Pacific Northwest.

Life Preserver

Dolphin Appears to Guide Whales to Sea

Wellington, New Zealand - Most days, Moko the bottlenosed dolphin swims playfully with humans at a New Zealand beach. But this week, it seems, Moko found his mojo. Witnesses described Wednesday how they saw the dolphin swim up to two stranded whales and guide them to safety.

Star

Is climate sensitive to solar variability?

The causes of global warming - the increase of approximately 0.8ยฑ0.1 ยฐC in the average global temperature near Earth's surface since 1900 - are not as apparent as some recent scientific publications and the popular media indicate. We contend that the changes in Earth's average surface temperature are directly linked to two distinctly different aspects of the Sun's dynamics: the short-term statistical fluctuations in the Sun's irradiance and the longer-term solar cycles. This argument for directly linking the Sun's dynamics to the response of Earth's climate is based on our research and augments the interpretation of the causes of global warming presented in the United Nations 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report1.

Global Temperature
©Physics Today
Global surface temperature (GST) anomaly. The green curve is the difference between the measured GST and the time average of GST between 1890 and 1910; it emphasizes the observed warming since 1900. The GST anomaly data are low-pass filtered to remove any volcanic signal and smoothed to stress the 11-year modulation (black curve). Two alternative PSS constructions5 are shown that use a TSI proxy reconstruction until 1978 and two alternative TSI satellite composites after 1978. (Data for the red curve are from http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk and http://www.acrim.com and for the blue curve are from http://www.pmodwrc.ch.)

Bug

Psychopants: Ant colonies rife with royal corruption

Ant colonies are rife with royal corruption and nepotism, scientists have discovered. New research has shattered the myth that ants work equally for the benefit of the whole colony, and that every larvae is born with an equal chance of becoming a queen, rather than a worker.

Star

Amazing picture of thousands of dead starfish washed up on Kent beach

For five miles they stretched along the beaches, a gruesome line of dead starfish.

Fishermen and bird-watchers at Pegwell Bay near Sandwich, Kent, discovered a "carpet" of thousands of the creatures lying on the sand just above the water line.

And on the beach at nearby Sandwich Bay, thousands more were photographed by Tony Flashman.

Cloud Lightning

Heavy winds, high waves batter Spanish resort

Strong winds and record high waves have caused damage and chaos in Spain's northern resort city of San Sebastian, flooding buildings and sinking boats, the El Pais newspaper said on Tuesday.

"High waves of up to 10 meters (33 feet) destroyed the sea-front and sank at least 50 boats," the newspaper said.

Cloud Lightning

Massive floods hit parts of Malaysia



Limbang flood
©Unknown
Water logged: A longhouse in Limbang parliamentary
constituency in Sarawak hit by floods after heavy rain.

Political campaigning in three huge and remote parliamentary constituencies in northern Sarawak - Baram, Limbang and Lawas - have been brought to a premature halt by massive floods - which could also force the announcement of election results in these areas to be postponed to Sunday.

Floods as high as 1.2m have hit longhouses, timber roads, semi-urban villages and several parts of the Pan Borneo Highway after heavy rain over these interior regions from Wednesday afternoon.

Cloud Lightning

Eight killed as cyclone Jokwe lashes Mozambique

Tropical cyclone Jokwe battered parts of Mozambique for a third day on Monday, killing at least eight people and destroying thousands of homes in the northern Nampula province, Radio Mozambique reported.

The state-controlled broadcaster said four districts were being lashed by heavy downpours and winds of up to 200 kph (125 miles per hour).

Star

Adelaide bakes in 75-year heatwave

It has been 75 years since Adelaide has seen such an extraordinary heat wave in autumn, and the weather bureau says there is no relief in sight.

Adelaide is bracing itself for another week of searing heat in the mid to high thirties Celsius.