Earth Changes
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Severe storms that rolled across Arkansas early Friday killed at least seven people, including a teenager crushed by a tree while she slept in her bed. The deaths came after earlier storms seriously damaged homes and businesses in the Kansas City, Mo., area. Tornadoes were also reported in Oklahoma and Texas, although there were no immediate reports of severe damage.
Salmon fishing was banned along the West Coast for the first time in 160 years Thursday, a decision that is expected to have a devastating economic impact on fishermen, dozens of businesses, tourism and boating.
A magnitude 6.4 undersea temblor occurred today between Vanuatu and New Caledonia, the U.S. Geological Survey, based in Denver (Colorado) said.
XinhuaSun, 27 Apr 2008 10:49 UTC
Mexico City -- A moderate earthquake of a preliminary magnitude of 5.8 on the Richter scale rocked southern Mexico Sunday, but no major injuries or damages have been reported.
Alberta's environment minister said the provincial government's efforts to allay environmental concerns about its booming oil sands industry will be hurt by the deaths of hundreds of ducks that landed on a pond filled with toxic waste.
Environment Minister Rob Renner concedes the deaths have put a dent in Alberta's efforts to counter the message being spread by environmental groups that Canada's oil sands projects are taking a toll on the environment.
PALM SPRINGS - A moderate earthquake has shaken an area near Palm Springs.
The U.S. Geological Survey says the 4.2-magnitude quake struck at 8:55 p.m. 14 miles east-southeast of Anza and 27 miles south of Palm Springs.
USGS geophysicist Randy Baldwin says the quake was felt from the Palm Springs area south to the El Centro area along the Mexican border.
ANCHORAGE - The U.S. Geological Survey on Thursday reported a 6.5 magnitude earthquake in a sparsely inhabited area near the tip of the Aleutian island chain, 45 miles WNW of Adak, Alaska.
The temblor, recorded at 6:33 p.m. Pacific time (9:33 p.m. EDT), was at a depth of 29.6 miles, the USGS said.
There were no immediate reports of damage or injury in the Aleutians, a chain of more than 300 small volcanic islands that are home to small communities of some 8,000 natives.
Scientists confirm computer model predictions that oxygen-depleted zones in tropical oceans are expanding, possibly because of climate change. An international team of physical oceanographers including a researcher from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has discovered that oxygen-poor regions of tropical oceans are expanding as the oceans warm, limiting the areas in which predatory fishes and other marine organisms can live or enter in search of food.
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| Mean dissolved oxygen concentrations in the world's oceans at a depth of 400 meters (1,312 feet) with blue contours representing the lowest concentrations. Boxed areas represent ocean regions analyzed in the study.
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A moderate earthquake shook a mountainous area near Bakersfield, Calif., early Thursday, just hours after a quake some 230 miles to the southeast.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 4.4-magnitude quake struck at 1:11 a.m. and was centered 12 miles south-southeast of the resort town of Lake Isabella and 35 miles east-northeast of Bakersfield.
Young songbirds babble before they can mimic an adult's song, much like their human counterparts. Now, in work that offers insights into how birds - and perhaps people - learn new behaviors, MIT scientists have found that immature and adult birdsongs are driven by two separate brain pathways, rather than one pathway that slowly matures.
The work is reported in the May 2 issue of Science.
"The babbling during song learning exemplifies the ubiquitous exploratory behavior that we often call play but that is essential for trial-and-error learning," comments Michale Fee, the senior author of the study and a neuroscientist in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and an associate professor in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
