Earth ChangesS


Snowman

US: Midwest Cleans Up After Record Snowfall

Columbus, Ohio - Highway and utility crews worked overtime Sunday to recover from the huge storm that buried Ohio and other parts of the Midwest in snow and tore down power lines elsewhere.

Binoculars

Australia is worst nation on Earth at preserving wildlife



Karak
©Unknown

Ten unique creatures face extinction as country finally tries to turn its appalling conservation record around.

Australians love their wildlife - after all, who could fail to warm to a koala, or a wombat, or a kangaroo? But few Australians know that they have the worst record on the planet for conserving their beautiful and unusual animals.

Arrow Down

UK: Honey bees 'wiped out in 10 years': beekeepers demand £8m for research, government denies

Beekeepers have warned that most of the country's honey bees could be wiped out by disease in 10 years unless an urgent research programme is launched to find new treatments and drugs. They are to launch a nationwide campaign, including protests, to force the government to fund the £8m research project which they say is needed to save the nation's bees.

honey bee
©John Severns

Comment: The disappearance of bees will ultimately bring the disappearance of human kind. Albert Einstein observed that:
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."
So why aren't the governments alert and rushing to fund research to save the bees AND human kind? SOTT focus editorial To Bee or not to Be, answers this question.


Target

Australia: Earthquake shakes homes in southern NSW

A minor earthquake in southern NSW today shook homes but caused no injuries or damage, seismologists say.

The tremor, measuring 2.8 on the Richter scale, occurred at 3.41pm (AEDT) near the town of Yass, Geoscience Australia said.

Target

Moderate Quake Rattles Iran

Tehran, Iran - A moderate earthquake and several aftershocks rattled a remote area in eastern Iran on Sunday morning, cracking walls and forcing some to seek shelter in tents, state media reported. No injuries were immediately reported.

Target

Nevada, US: 3.0 earthquake shakes Mogul area

A string of recent earthquakes has hit the Mogul area and the biggest so far arrived early Saturday, reaching magnitude 3.0.

The earthquake at 2:07 a.m. followed a swarm of magnitude 1.2 to 2.2 quakes between Feb. 28 and Monday.

Better Earth

Study helps predict big Mediterranean quake

London - Scientists have found evidence that an overlooked fault in the eastern Mediterranean is likely to produce an earthquake and tsunami every 800 years as powerful as the one that destroyed Alexandria in AD 365.

Hourglass

Greece: African dust cloud warning

A thick cloud of dust from Africa is expected to engulf parts of central and southern Greece today, causing traffic problems by reducing visibility and aggravating allergies.

Sherlock

UK: Holy Grail castle in bats mystery

A Scottish keep that appeared in the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail has become caught up in a mystery about where bats hibernate.

Experts have been intrigued about where pipistrelle, which roost in large numbers in Doune, Central Scotland, in summer, spend the winter.

Just over 30 have been counted in Doune Castle, which was used in the film.

Meanwhile, bat watchers in the far north are monitoring for a species which may spread with global warming.

Image
©PA
Pipistrelle come in two varieties - soprano and common

Bulb

Mathematics Explains Mysterious Midge Behavior

Here's a place that's unlikely ever to be a vacation spot for Yankee pitcher Joba Chamberlain: Lake Myvatn, in Iceland.

Myvatn, translating from Icelandic to English, means Midge Lake.

Midges, baseball fans recall, are the gnat-like insects that rose from Lake Erie last October and descended upon Chamberlain in the bottom of the eighth inning of a playoff game against the Cleveland Indians, distracting him into throwing two wild pitches. Cleveland scored the tying run without a hit. The Yankees eventually lost the game and eventually the series.

Image
©Arni Einarsson
A Lake Myvatn midge.