Earth ChangesS


Better Earth

Great Indian Ocean earthquake of 2004 set off tremors in San Andreas fault

In the last few years there has been a growing number of documented cases in which large earthquakes set off unfelt tremors in earthquake faults hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of miles away.

Eye 2

Starving horses forced to live among carcasses at 'horror' farm

Scores of horses ponies and donkeys were left to starve among rotting
horse eye
© n/a
carcasses at a family-run farm in the worst case of animal cruelty vets had ever seen, a court heard.


Hooves and body parts of horses were discovered scattered around Spindle Farm at Hyde Heath in Amersham, Buckinghamshire as well as a mound made up of bones and skulls, it was claimed.

A total of 140 animals needed rescuing from the horse trading business run by the Gray family which was described as a 'horror scene' by RSPCA.

Many animals were allegedly left with little food or dry bedding and were crammed into pens that were ankle deep in their own faeces.

Evil Rays

John Stossel vs Robert Kennedy on global warming

Kennedy calls John Stossel a liar. "The science of global warming is settled," says Kennedy. "On every mountain range on earth, the glaciers are shrinking."

Oh really.
  • What about the 31,000 scientists who have signed a petition questioning the IPCC's global warming scenario?
  • What about the fact that all five glaciers on California's Mt. Shasta are growing?
  • What about the fact that glaciers on Mt. Logan, Canada's tallest mountain, are growing?
  • What about the fact that the Nisqually glacier on Washington's Mt. Rainier is growing?
  • What about the fact that Crater Glacier on Washington's Mount St. Helen's is growing?
  • What about the fact that Mont Blanc Glacier the highest mountain in France and western Europe almost doubled in size in just four years?
  • What about the fact that Alaskan glaciers are growing for the first time in 250 years?
  • What about the fact that glaciers are growing in Norway?
  • What about the fact that glaciers in the western Himalayas are growing?
  • What about the fact that all 50 glaciers in New Zealand are growing?
  • What about the fact that that the Antarctic Ice Sheets are growing?

Igloo

Best of the Web: The killer frost for global warming

Global freezing
Turn up the heat, somebody. The globe is freezing. Even Al Gore is looking for an extra blanket. Winter has barely come to the northern latitudes and already we've got bigger goosebumps than usual. So far the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports 63 record snowfalls in the United States, 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month. Only 44 Octobers over the past 114 years have been cooler than this last one.

The polar ice is accumulating faster than usual, and some of the experts now concede that the globe hasn't warmed since 1995. You may have noticed, in fact, that Al and his pals, having given up on the sun, no longer even warn of global warming. Now it's "climate change." The marketing men enlisted by Al and the doom criers to come up with a flexible "brand" took a cue from the country philosopher who observed, correctly, that "if you've got one foot in the fire and the other in a bucket of ice, on average you're warm." On average, "climate change" covers every possibility.

Fish

Deadly pistol shrimp stuns prey with sound as loud as Concorde

pistol shrimp
Super shrimp: The pistol shrimp is only 2cm long but can make a noise louder than Concorde's sonic boom.
A prawn which can make a sound louder than a jet engine has been found in British waters. Pistol shrimps - which stun their prey by snapping their claws together to create a deafening 'crack' - normally live in the sub-tropics.

Despite being less than an inch long, the creatures can emit an astonishing 218 decibels - louder than a gunshot.

Info

Nanoparticles from melting glaciers could trap carbon

nanoscale iron particles
© Riaswell et al./BioMed CentralTwo forms of nanoscale iron particles (rods and granules) can be seen in high-resolution pictures of ice.
The increasing number of icebergs breaking off Antarctica may have an unexpected benefit. According to one team of scientists, the bergs could feed carbon-loving plankton. If they are right, melting icebergs could - theoretically - slow global warming. Just how great an effect this would have remains to be seen.

Rob Raiswell of the University of Leeds, UK and colleagues trained high-resolution microscopes on ice sampled from icebergs in the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic glaciers from which they are born.

They found nano-sized particles of iron, between five and 10 millionths of a millimetre across. The team believe that because of the size and structure of the particles, the iron could be assimilated by phytoplankton.

"Most of the ground-up rock carried by icebergs is thought to be inert," says Raiswell. "However, the high resolution microscopy shows there are small amounts of iron nanoparticles. They simply could not be seen except by these techniques."

Bizarro Earth

Darfur crisis is stripping the environment

The Darfur conflict in Sudan has devastated the environment in the region, stripping forests and destroying farmland, according to a report by the UN's Environment Program (UNEP).

People caught up in the five-year crisis have cut down large areas of woodland, partly to feed a booming war-fuelled construction industry.

Tree cover has become so sparse in some areas that Darfuris often have to travel more than 75 kilometres from their camps to find enough wood to sell or use for fuel, the report added.

"We're now seeing extreme stress on the environment around many of the camps and the major towns in Darfur," said UNEP's Sudan country director Clive Bates in a statement. "We need to plant millions of trees and introduce new technologies for construction and energy as quickly as humanly possible."

Fish

Dolphin males leave sponging to the females

Bytfluke dolphin
© Janet Mann, Georgetown UniversityBytfluke was one of the first dolphins seen sponging, in the 1980s.
Sexual stereotypes are not the preserve of humans. Male dolphins, it seems, are not interested in learning how to use a sponge, but their sisters are.

Dolphins were first seen carrying sponges cupped over their beaks in Shark Bay, Australia, in the 1980s.

Janet Mann of Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and colleagues have now reviewed data collected during 20 years spent monitoring this group of dolphins and found that, while mothers show both their male and female calves how to use sponges, female calves are almost exclusively the only ones to apply this knowledge.
dolphins use basket sponges
© Brooke SargeantThe dolphins use basket sponges to stir up fish in sandy channels - the technique is almost exclusively used by females.

"The daughters seem really keen to do it," says Mann. "They try and try, whereas the sons don't seem to think it's a big deal and hang out at the surface waiting for their mothers to come back up."

Bizarro Earth

Papua New Guinea: Huge waves destroy hospital, homes

Huge waves caused by king tides have smashed into dozens of villages and towns in northern Papua New Guinea, destroying homes and flooding businesses and a hospital.

Authorities said there were no reports of casualties, but they were still trying to contact several outlying islands after the waves hit across an 800km stretch of ocean yesterday. Hundreds of people were left homeless

The waves struck PNG's north coast near the town of Wewak and islands to the northeast, such as New Ireland.

Snowman

Rare 50 year Arctic Blast Sets Sights On Southern California

With a week away, and a sure sign of things to come, OWSweather.com is making preparations on the server to handle the traffic from this next event. UJEAS is in line with the majority if not all the other models in keeping a near historical arctic air mass into the Southern California region.

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