Researchers from the Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research in Spain, the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany, and the University of Concepcion in Chile have identified the presence of high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on mountain ranges all over North and South America. Banned worldwide since 2001, PCBs are being found at the highest levels in many of the tallest mountain ranges.
Published in the journal Environmental Chemistry Letters, the discovery coincides with a similar study conducted by Swiss scientists that found other pollutants in Alpine glacial lakes that affect drinking water supplies. The PCBs found on mountaintops may eventually make their way down the mountains and pollute fields, crops, and water supplies. Some scientists fear that such contamination is already taking place in certain areas.
Up until the 1980s, PCBs were widely used as coolants and insulating fluids for transformers and capacitors. They were also heavily used in paints, cements, coatings, and pesticides. Once it was discovered that these compounds cause liver damage, male infertility, hair loss, acne, and other serious problems, they were banned globally under the Stockholm Convention.
Earth Changes
© BBC
An octopus and its coconut-carrying antics have surprised scientists.
An octopus and its coconut-carrying antics have surprised scientists.
Writing in the journal Current Biology, the team says it is the first example of tool use in octopuses.
One of the researchers, Dr Julian Finn from Australia's Museum Victoria, told BBC News: "I almost drowned laughing when I saw this the first time."
He added: "I could tell it was going to do something, but I didn't expect this - I didn't expect it would pick up the shell and run away with it."
The mercury dipped to a frigid - 46C at the Edmonton airport, making it the coldest place in Canada, he said. With the wind chill, it felt more like - 59C. Spiker said it crushed the same day coldest temperature record of about - 33C set in 1968.
Edmonton - There's one way to deal with some of the coldest winter temperatures yet on the Prairies - outright denial.
At least that's how some folks were taking it as they strode into the Edmonton airport over the weekend after arriving from their vacations in Mexico, still dressed in their shorts and sporting tans.
Christopher Toutant walked out of the international arrivals area still wearing Bermuda shorts and a light shirt.
It didn't occur to him to prepare for a record-breaking cold snap back home.
Peter Spiker, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, says temperatures in the Edmonton area early Sunday morning were among the coldest anywhere in the country.
© The Canadian Press
Duane Maul walks along a Edmonton street Sunday afternoon, in a homemade winter coat. Maul said he made the coat out of a deep sheep skin carpet and some bonded leather. "It's good down to -40," said Maul. "You won't even feel the cold."
Duane Maul walks along a Edmonton street Sunday afternoon, in a homemade winter coat. Maul said he made the coat out of a deep sheep skin carpet and some bonded leather. "It's good down to -40," said Maul. "You won't even feel the cold."
At least that's how some folks were taking it as they strode into the Edmonton airport over the weekend after arriving from their vacations in Mexico, still dressed in their shorts and sporting tans.
Christopher Toutant walked out of the international arrivals area still wearing Bermuda shorts and a light shirt.
It didn't occur to him to prepare for a record-breaking cold snap back home.
Peter Spiker, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, says temperatures in the Edmonton area early Sunday morning were among the coldest anywhere in the country.
© AP Photo/Adelaide Zoo
Australia's Governor General Quentin Bryce observes male giant panda Wang Wang after the official opening of the panda exhibit at the Adelaide Zoo, Australia.
Australia's Governor General Quentin Bryce observes male giant panda Wang Wang after the official opening of the panda exhibit at the Adelaide Zoo, Australia.
Wang Wang and Funi, on loan from China, arrived at the Adelaide Zoo two weeks ago but were officially welcomed Sunday by leaders at the opening ceremony of their 8 million Australian dollar ($7.25 million) enclosure. Their exhibit will open to the public on Monday.
"Look after yourselves, keep healthy and active, eat your greens and maybe, when the time is right, think about starting a family," Governor General Quentin Bryce said in a speech directed at Funi and Wang Wang, who were sprawled against nearby boulders, chewing bamboo shoots. "There are not enough of you in this world."
Chinese Ambassador Zhang Junsai said he was already thinking of Australian names for a possible panda cub.
Last week, a powerful blizzard paralyzed parts of the US Midwest. Mike Hollingshead of Blair, Nebraska, walked outside after the storm and this is what he saw:
Sunlight shining through ice crystals had produced a bright pair of sundogs and a vivid circumzenithal arc. "These tend to appear on the backside of a storm's clearing line as ice crystals blow through the air," notes Hollingshead. "It's a beautiful sight but not a ton of fun to photograph at 5o F with winds blowing 40 mph."
© Mike Hollingshead
Sunlight shining through ice crystals had produced a bright pair of sundogs and a vivid circumzenithal arc. "These tend to appear on the backside of a storm's clearing line as ice crystals blow through the air," notes Hollingshead. "It's a beautiful sight but not a ton of fun to photograph at 5o F with winds blowing 40 mph."
© Agence France-Presse
The sperm whale is the largest of all toothed whales and is considered a vulnerable species.
The sperm whale is the largest of all toothed whales and is considered a vulnerable species.
Nine whales measuring up to 40 feet in length were stranded Thursday on a beach in Puglia, the heel of boot-shaped Italy.
Only two managed to swim back to deeper waters and at least five were dead by Saturday, said Nicola Zizzo, one of the veterinarians caring for the animals. He said officials were considering euthanising the last two whales still trapped in high waves just off the beach.
The rough seas were making it difficult to understand even how many whales were still alive, with other experts telling Italian media that only one was breathing.
The sperm whale is the largest of all toothed whales and is considered a vulnerable species.
Bangkok - A second drug used to treat cattle for pain could be deadly to endangered vultures and should be prohibited as part of a campaign to prevent their extinction, according to a study released Wednesday.
Millions of long-billed, slender-billed and oriental white-backed vultures have died in South Asia - mostly in India - after eating cattle carcasses tainted with diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory painkiller given to sick cows.
Now, researchers writing in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters have found that a second drug, ketoprofen, has proven toxic to vultures and should no longer be used to treat livestock in Asia.
Millions of long-billed, slender-billed and oriental white-backed vultures have died in South Asia - mostly in India - after eating cattle carcasses tainted with diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory painkiller given to sick cows.
Now, researchers writing in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters have found that a second drug, ketoprofen, has proven toxic to vultures and should no longer be used to treat livestock in Asia.
© Reuters
The ice breaker L'Astrolabe in the Antarctic sea. Many scientists expect a repeat of the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century when the Earth cooled and the Thames froze every winter
The ice breaker L'Astrolabe in the Antarctic sea. Many scientists expect a repeat of the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century when the Earth cooled and the Thames froze every winter
Like a magician who fools themselves but not audience, the Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW) lobby have identified the wrong problem and the wrong solution.
Global cooling threatens disaster for humanity in the developed and developing world alike, yet the media and the scientific consensus ignores this peril.
The Climategate controversy revolves around whether warming has been real and why it has not persisted - but it misses the point.
Cycles are involved, not short-term trends, and many respected scientists, especially those in Russia and China, think that a cooling cycle is coming.
© AP Photo
Carol Silvestri has a little fun with her penguin hat as she braves chilling temperatures during an annual trip to the city with her sisters.
Carol Silvestri has a little fun with her penguin hat as she braves chilling temperatures during an annual trip to the city with her sisters.
Power failures in the Midwest, dozens of lost hunters in the West and howling winds that helped blow over a bus in New York provided just a few lingering miseries from the first major storm of the season.
Emergency rooms took in people who had slipped and fallen, overdone shoveling or reached their hands into clogged snowblowers, while tow trucks freed drivers from the sides of icy roads and everyday residents simply struggled to get around in the frigid winds.
"Like I stuck my face in the freezer," was how Bincy Mathew described the feeling in Chicago on Thursday, complaining about his watering eyes: "I think they are going to freeze up."
Analyses of noble gases hint that air didn't fizz from within the planet
Isotopic analyses of the gases krypton and xenon suggest that much of Earth's atmosphere came from outer space, not inner space.
Krypton and xenon appear in Earth's atmosphere - and in the universe as a whole - only in trace amounts. Detailed analyses of the gases provide clues about where those atmospheric components originated, says Greg Holland, an isotope geochemist at the University of Manchester in England. Those analyses, reported in the Dec. 11 Science, suggest that those gases, as well as many others now cloaking our planet, arrived via comets or were swept up from nearby gas clouds during the late stages of Earth's formation.
Some scientists have proposed that the gases in Earth's atmosphere originated within the planet, says Holland. According to those arguments, the atmosphere either seeped out of the Earth as the planet gradually cooled or were expelled from the crust when large numbers of asteroids pummeled the planet and melted its surface around 3.9 billion years ago. But new isotopic evidence gathered by Holland and his colleagues suggests that those scenarios probably aren't right.
Isotopic analyses of the gases krypton and xenon suggest that much of Earth's atmosphere came from outer space, not inner space.
Krypton and xenon appear in Earth's atmosphere - and in the universe as a whole - only in trace amounts. Detailed analyses of the gases provide clues about where those atmospheric components originated, says Greg Holland, an isotope geochemist at the University of Manchester in England. Those analyses, reported in the Dec. 11 Science, suggest that those gases, as well as many others now cloaking our planet, arrived via comets or were swept up from nearby gas clouds during the late stages of Earth's formation.
Some scientists have proposed that the gases in Earth's atmosphere originated within the planet, says Holland. According to those arguments, the atmosphere either seeped out of the Earth as the planet gradually cooled or were expelled from the crust when large numbers of asteroids pummeled the planet and melted its surface around 3.9 billion years ago. But new isotopic evidence gathered by Holland and his colleagues suggests that those scenarios probably aren't right.
