Earth ChangesS

Cloud Lightning

Japan struggling with water shortages

Certain regions of Japan have begun taking precautionary measures in light of a growing water shortage across the Asian nation.

With Japan receiving a limited amount of rain during the first half of the year, authorities in certain regions have begun implementing new policies to stretch the nation's dwindling water supply, the Mainichi Shimbun reported Wednesday.

Question

Flashback Vanishing lake baffles Russians

Residents of a village in central Russia are trying to solve the mystery of a lake that disappeared overnight.

Russia's NTV channel showed a huge, muddy basin where the lake once was, in the village of Bolotnikovo.

©BBC

Question

Large lake in southern Chile disappears

A lake in southern Chile has mysteriously disappeared, prompting speculation the ground has simply opened up and swallowed it whole.

The lake was situated in the Magallanes region in Patagonia and was fed by water, mostly from melting glaciers.

©REUTERS/CONAF/Handout
Workers from Chile's National Forestry Corporation (CONAF) stand at the bottom of a dried lake in Magallanes, south of Santiago.

Bulb

Climate Change: Read the sunspots

The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling

Snowman

Forget warming - beware the new ice age

In the 1970s, leading scientists claimed that the world was threatened by an era of global cooling.

Based on what we've learned this decade, says George Kukla, those scientists - and he was among them -- had it right. The world is about to enter another Ice Age.

Wolf

Prey not hard-wired to fear predators

Are Asian elk hard-wired to fear the Siberian tigers who stalk them" When wolves disappear from the forest, are moose still afraid of them?

No, according to a study by Wildlife Conservation Society scientist Dr. Joel Berger, who says that several large prey species, including moose, caribou and elk, only fear predators they regularly encounter. If you take away wolves, you take away fear. That is a critical piece of knowledge as biologists and public agencies increase efforts to re-introduce large carnivores to places where they have been exterminated. Berger's study is published in the latest issue of the journal Conservation Biology.

Cloud Lightning

90 Homes Evacuated Near Colorado Wildfire

White and yellow smoke billowed into the western Colorado sky Tuesday as firefighters battled three wildfires likely sparked by lightning that have burned at least 2,000 acres and forced evacuations of 90 homes.

Telescope

Will Earth Need A Reboot After The Sky Falls?

Earth has been hit and is constantly at risk of attack by interlopers from space. These are called "near earth objects" (NEOs). Major players are asteroids. Most burn harmlessly during their trip through the atmosphere. However, just as in the intensely mediocre films, Armageddon and Deep Impact, there is more than a zero chance that a large one will threaten earth in the near future.

Cloud Lightning

Worst summer drought in 30 years leaves one mln people thirsty in NE China

The worst summer drought to hit northeast China's Liaoning Province in 30 years has left more than one million people short of drinking water, the provincial government said.

Nearly all the 14 cities in Liaoning Province have been affected by the drought, though the situation is more serious in the northwestern and central-southern parts of the province where 88 small and medium-sized reservoirs have dried up, the provincial flood prevention and drought control headquarters told Xinhua on Tuesday.

Attention

Tensions rise as U.S. drought worsens, threatens to spread

North and South Carolina are fighting over a river. In Tennessee, springs are drying up, jeopardizing production of Jack Daniels whiskey. The mayor of Los Angeles is asking residents to take shorter showers. And in Georgia, the governor is praying for rain.

More than a third of the United States is in the grip of a menacing drought that threatens to spread before the summer ends.