Welcome to Sott.net
Tue, 26 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Earth Changes
Map

Bizarro Earth

US: Big Storm Brings Heavy Snow and Strong Winds to Upper Midwest

Melanie S. Welte
The Associated Press
Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:10 UTC
Image
© AP Photo
Scotti Carver sweeps snow from the roof and windshield of his truck.
A fierce winter storm was moving into the nation's midsection Tuesday, promising to wallop the region with heavy snow and strong winds.

Officials were warning residents in parts of the west and Midwest to stay close to home.

"Anybody traveling tomorrow morning is really taking a huge risk I would say - a risk of being stranded and not having anybody be able to help you for 6 or 12 hours, probably," Karl Jungbluth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Johnston, Iowa, said Tuesday.

The storm already blanketed much of the mountain west with snow and drenched Southern California with rain. In the Phoenix area, fierce wind brought down power lines, left four hospitals temporarily without power and created wide outages.
      Read More...
Fish

Blue whale songs are getting deeper, say baffled scientists

Claire Bates
Mail Online
Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:13 UTC
Image
Blue whales are famed for their haunting songs that travel thousands of miles under the ocean. Now scientists have discovered the world's largest mammals are singing in deeper voices every year - and they are not sure why.

A study in the journal Endangered Species Research, has found male blue whales all over the world have lowered their tone. Mark McDonald of WhaleAcoustics first noticed the change about eight years ago when he had to shift automated blue whale song detectors off California to lower frequencies.

He decided to compare the songs in areas ranging from the North Atlantic to the Indian Ocean with the help of researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.
      Read More...
Igloo

US: Up to 4 inches of snow in the foothills coming, a light dusting in Sacramento

Loretta Kalb
The Sacramento Bee
Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:47 UTC
Image
© Paul Kitagaki Jr.
Snow is coming to the Sacramento Valley -- but only a light dusting is expected on the streets of Sacramento. The National Weather Service said today that 2-4 inches of snow is expected to fall at the 1,000-foot elevation, below Auburn and El Dorado Hills.

Cindy Matthews, forecaster, said a dusting of snow is likely to start in the pre-commute hours in Sacramento and should continue off and on throughout the day.

The cold storm system dropping from the northeast out of Canada will be unusual since the coldest temperatures will bypass Northern California communities such as Red Bluff and Redding but drop Sacramento Valley temperatures Monday to a record 27 degrees.
      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Samoan Tsunami wave was 46 feet high


Associated Press
Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:47 UTC
The tsunami that killed more than 200 people in the Samoan islands and Tonga earlier this year towered up to 46 feet (14 meters) high - more then twice as tall as most of the buildings it slammed into, scientists said Friday.

New Zealand scientists studying the size, power and reach of the tsunami as part of efforts to guard against future disasters said they found up to three destructive waves were caused by the magnitude 8.0 undersea earthquake in September.

The massive waves that struck Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga totally destroyed traditional wooden buildings, many of them singly story, along the coast while reinforced concrete buildings sustained only minor damage, said Stefan Reese, a risk engineer with New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

The waves were up to 46 feet (14 meters) high, Reese told The Associated Press. The scientists measured watermarks on buildings and trees to help confirm the height of the waves.

"In some areas there was virtually nothing left" after the waves reached up to 765 yards (700 meters) inland, Reese said.
      Read More...
Magnify

Humans Wonder, Anybody Home?

Susan Gaidos
Science News
Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:00 UTC
Image
© Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post
To prevent Shania the octopus from becoming bored, keepers at the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C. gave her a Mr. Potato Head filled with fish to snuggle.
Brain structure and circuitry offer clues to consciousness in nonmammals

One afternoon while participating in studies in a University of Oxford lab, Abel snatched a hook away from Betty, leaving her without a tool to complete a task. Spying a piece of straight wire nearby, she picked it up, bent one end into a hook and used it to finish the job. Nothing about this story was remarkable, except for the fact that Betty was a New Caledonian crow.

Betty isn't the only crow with such conceptual ingenuity. Nor are crows the only members of the animal kingdom to exhibit similar mental powers. Animals can do all sorts of clever things: Studies of chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins and birds have found that some can add, subtract, create sentences, plan ahead or deceive others.

To carry out such tasks, these animals must be drawing on past experiences and then using them along with immediate perceptions to make sense of it all. In other words, some scientists would say, these animals are thinking consciously.
      Read More...
Magnify

By Feeding the Birds, You Could Change Their Evolutionary Fate


ScienceDaily
Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:00 UTC
Image
© iStockphoto/Andrew Howe
Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) male at a bird feeder.
Feeding birds in winter is a most innocent human activity, but it can nonetheless have profound effects on the evolutionary future of a species, and those changes can be seen in the very near term. That's the conclusion of a report published online on December 3rd in Current Biology, showing that what was once a single population of birds known as blackcaps has been split into two reproductively isolated groups in fewer than 30 generations, despite the fact that they continue to breed side by side in the very same forests.

The reproductive isolation between these populations, which live together for part of the year, is now stronger than that of other blackcaps that are always separated from one another by distances of 800 kilometers or more, the researchers said.

"Our study documents the profound impact of human activities on the evolutionary trajectories of species," said Martin Schaefer of the University of Freiburg. "It shows that we are influencing the fate not only of rare and endangered species, but also of the common ones that surround our daily lives."
      Read More...
Bug

How a Brain Hormone Controls Insect Metamorphosis


ScienceDaily
Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:00 UTC
Image
© iStockphoto/Cathy Keifer
Various views of a monarch butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.
A team of University of Minnesota researchers have discovered how PTTH, a hormone produced by the brain, controls the metamorphosis of juvenile insects into adults.

The finding, published in the Dec. 4 issue of Science, will help scientists understand how insect body size is programmed in response to developmental and environmental cues and offers the opportunity to develop a new generation of more environmentally safe ways to control agricultural pests as well as insects that carry human pathogens.

Scientists have known for 100 years that a brain-derived neuropeptide known as PTTH controls metamorphosis and although its specific sequence was identified 20 years ago, the way it signaled endocrine tissue has remained elusive until now.
      Read More...
Better Earth

Birds Call to Warn Friends and Enemies


ScienceDaily
Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:00 UTC
Image
© iStockphoto/Frank Leung
Yellow-rumped warbler. Birds' alarm calls serve both to alert other birds to danger and to warn off predators.
Birds' alarm calls serve both to alert other birds to danger and to warn off predators. And some birds can pull a ventriloquist's trick, singing from the side of their mouths, according to a UC Davis study.

Many animals respond vocally when they detect predators, but it's not clear to whom they are signaling, said Jessica Yorzinski, a graduate student in animal behavior at UC Davis who conducted the study with Gail Patricelli, professor of evolution and ecology. They might be warning others of the threat, but they might also be telling the predator, "I've seen you."

Yorzinski used a ring of directional microphones around a birdcage to record the songs of dark-eyed juncos, yellow-rumped warblers, house finches and other birds as they were shown a stuffed owl. All the birds were captured in the wild, tested, banded and released within 24 hours.
      Read More...
Roses

'Killer Petunias' Should Join the Ranks of Carnivorous Plants, Scientists Propose


ScienceDaily
Fri, 04 Dec 2009 03:00 UTC
Image
© iStockphoto/Denice Breaux
Fading petunias still hold interest for this fly.
Scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Natural History Museum believe that carnivorous behaviour in plants is far more widespread than previously thought, with many commonly grown plants -- such as petunias -- at least part way to being "meat eaters." A review paper, "Murderous plants: Victorian Gothic, Darwin and Modern Insights into Vegetable Carnivory," is published (4 December 2009) in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

Carnivorous plants have caught the imagination of humans since ancient times, and they fitted well into the Victorian interest in Gothic horrors. Accounts of man-eating plants published in 19th century works have long since been discredited, but they continue to appear in different media including films (Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors) and books (Tentacula in the Harry Potter series). Even popular Japanese cartoon Pokémon includes some characters based on carnivorous plants (Bellsprout, Weepinbell and Victreebell).

Carnivorous plants fascinated Charles Darwin, and he and his friend Sir Joseph Hooker (Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew at that time) had an extensive correspondence concerning them. Darwin's book Insectivorous Plants played a critical role in the idea that plants could eat animals being generally accepted. Before this, many botanists (including Linnaeus) had refused to accept that this could be the case.
      Read More...
Binoculars

Stranded Tundra Swan to Hitch a Free Ride to Vancouver with Air Canada

Hanneke Brooymans
Edmonton Journal
Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:11 UTC
Image
© Larry Wong
An injured swan at the Wildlife Rehabilitaion Society of Edmonton's shelter in southwest Edmonton.
The tundra swan that's swimming in a small pool in Edmonton right now could soon find more paddling space off the B.C. coast.

Air Canada has offered a free flight to Vancouver for the swan, which is currently being cared for by the Wildlife Rehabilitation Society of Edmonton.

The swan arrived at the shelter in October with a fractured wing.

The injury is now healed, but it can't stay at the shelter for the winter.

These birds don't do well in captivity, said Cheryl Feldstein, the society's executive director, adding she is very pleased with the airline's offer of a free flight.

The bird will likely take its flight out to Vancouver on Tuesday or Wednesday, where it will join other swans that overwinter in that area.
      Read More...
Amazon Smile
Revolt! T-shirts