Earth Changes
The Ivan Groznyy ("Ivan the Terrible") volcano erupted early on Thursday morning on the island of Iturup, part of the Kuril group in Russia's Far East. The volcano spewed a column of ash onto the surrounding area. Local people in the nearest towns, Goryachiye Klyuchi (9 kilometers away) and the city of Kurilsk (25 kilometers), noticed a faint smell of hydrogen sulfide gas, which disappeared later. The eruption poses no threat to nearby human settlements. Scientists recorded signs of the impending eruption on Wednesday, when gas emissions on the volcano's northeast slope increased, a Sakhalin region Emergency Ministry representative told RIA Novosti. Observation of the volcano continues. - RIA Novosti
State health department statistics show 381 cases and 16 deaths related to West Nile statewide. "The numbers of cases, the number of deaths are remarkable, and we need to sit up and take notice," Rawlings said during a city council briefing. "We do have a serious problem right now." Aerial spraying for mosquitoes could begin Thursday evening, depending on weather conditions. The state health department, which will pay for the $500,000 aerial spraying with emergency funds, has a contract with national spraying company Clarke. Clarke officials have said two to five planes will be used in Dallas County. Dallas City Council members voiced concerns about aerial spraying's health effects on humans and animals. Rawlings said the aerial dosage will be much lower than the dosage used so far during ground spraying. He also said aerial spraying recently has been safely used in California, Massachusetts and New York.
© Krasowit
It's been nearly 18 months since the disastrous nuclear meltdown at Fukushima. There have been many reports on the huge amounts of radioactivity escaping into the air and water, unusually high levels in air, water, and soil - along with atypically high levels of toxic chemicals in food - that actually "passed" government inspection and wasn't banned like some other food.
Conspicuously absent are reports on effects of radiation exposure on the health of the Japanese people. Have any health officials publicly announced post-March 2011 numbers on fetal deaths, infant deaths, premature births, birth defects, cancer, or other health conditions? The answer so far is an emphatic "no."
The prolonged silence doesn't mean data doesn't exist. Japanese health officials have been busy with their usual duties of collecting and posting statistics on the Internet for public inspection. It's just that they aren't calling the public's attention to these numbers. Thus, it is the public who must find the information and figure out what it means. After locating web sites, translating from Japanese, adding data for each of 12 months, and making some calculations, mortality trends in Japan after Fukushima are emerging.
The Japanese government health ministry has posted monthly estimated deaths for the 12 months before and after Fukushima, for the entire nation of Japan. These are preliminary figures, but they have historically been very good estimates of final numbers. A further look is in order.
© J. Glover - Atlanta, Georgia/Wikimedia Commons
Nova - an American golden eagle in the care of the Southeastern Raptor Rehabilitation Center at Auburn University.
Nova - an American golden eagle in the care of the Southeastern Raptor Rehabilitation Center at Auburn University.
Two villagers in Muling county, Heilongjiang province, were attacked by a golden eagle several times within two years after they ate a young golden eagle, Heilongjiang Morning Post reported on Tuesday.
A golden eagle attacked a man named Yang for more than 20 minutes when he was harvesting wheat on Saturday morning. After Yang was helped into a police car, the golden eagle continued the attack, diving at the windshield and chasing the car for 700 meters, the report said.
Yang was badly injured in his face, neck and arms, but it was not the worst time he was injured by golden eagles, according to the report. In April 2011, when he was planting in the mountain, a golden eagle attacked him, cutting his head, and he got 21 stitches.
A fellow villager named Wu has also been attacked by the golden eagle several times since August 2010. In April 2011, he received gashes in his head and hands in an attack and piece of flesh was ripped from his forehead. Wu received more than 40 stitches to close his wounds from that attack, the report said. He moved out the village to avoid further attacks.
According to the report, Yang said they had stolen a young golden eagle from its nest and ate it in August 2010, because they heard that eating golden eagles could cure hemorrhoids. Villagers say the golden eagle is seeking revenge.
For hundreds of years, golden eagles have been famous in China for their ferocity and strength, the report said. In Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), Mongolian hunters used to train them to hunt wolves. It is said that one golden eagle caught 14 wolves.
© CBS News
Pine Plains, N.Y. - A rabid beaver that attacked a Boy Scout leader swimming in the Delaware River was killed after Scouts in the troop pelted it with rocks.
The Poughkeepsie Journal reports that 51-year-old Normand Brousseau, of Pine Plains, N.Y., was swimming in eastern Pennsylvania on Aug. 2 when a beaver swam through his legs and bit him in the chest.
"I thought it was a giant carp fish," he told the paper.
After initially throwing the animal from his body, it returned to continue the attack, biting Brousseau in the leg, buttocks, arm, hand and torso before he managed to grab it and hold its jaw closed.
Brousseau threw the beaver ashore while Scouts helped him out of the water. After being momentarily stunned, the beaver began attacking a pool noodle.
At that point, the Scouts stepped in to put down the animal.
"We started throwing rocks at it," Nick Hedges, 16, said. "We could see it was still dangerous."
A doctor confirmed the beaver had rabies a day after the attack.
Dutchess County health officials say a rabid beaver attack is unusual.
© Associated Press
Bubbles come to the surface where pipelines come across Bayou Corne near Pierre Part, La.
Bubbles come to the surface where pipelines come across Bayou Corne near Pierre Part, La.
Mark Cartwright, president of United Brine Services, a subsidiary of Texas Brine Co., said the company spent the last week "intensely focused" on an emergency response as they try to figure out the cause behind a sinkhole near Bayou Corne.
Cartwright said they'll be drilling a relief well to investigate a brine cavern they own, which is housed within the Napoleonville salt dome. It will take at least 40 days to drill the well, and scientists have speculated that the 372-foot-wide and 422-foot-deep sinkhole might be related to structural problems within the cavern, he said.
"Our efforts are going to be more focused on diagnostics, and looking into what caused this event," Cartwright said at a press conference in Gonzales.
Commissioner of Conservation Jim Welsh ordered the company Thursday to drill a well and investigate the salt cavern and "further evaluate potential causes of the subsidence near its well site," as well as obtain samples of cavern content.
The waterspout on Thursday, Aug. 9, churned across Sky Harbor Airport in Duluth and Barker's Island in Superior. For the few seconds it was on land, the waterspout was classified as a weak tornado.
First checks with the Weather Service office in Duluth turned up no previous Twin Ports tornadoes. But meteorologists there kept digging through the records.
"After doing more research, it was discovered that there was a tornado in Duluth on May 26, 1958," meteorologist Carol Christenson wrote in a memo on Monday to Duluth weather reporters.
The Duluth News-Tribune at the time called the 1958 storm a "miniature tornado" that collapsed a garage and damaged two Duluth-area lake cabins.
© Brad Coville, Wilson Times
About seven houses along R.B. Avenue and Moyton Drive received major damage and some are beyond repair.
The Stantonsburg Police Department, Wilson County Emergency Management, firefighters, the Wilson County Sheriff's Office and the American Red Cross all responded to the emergency scene.
Judy Watson helped guide customers to the back of the Piggly Wiggly store in town as the storm approached. Her husband, Robert, who owns the store with her, was at their home on Saratoga Street when the storm hit.
"I saw the funnel cloud as it was leaving the area," Robert said. "It was an intense moment."
Their carport has been ripped away from their home. The whole end of their home's roof was lifted up by winds. You can spot cracks of daylight from inside the house where the ceiling became unhinged from the wall. Housing insulation litters the area where the carport used to stand. The carport itself has been reduced to dozens of shredded boards.
The smell has become common since the volcano erupted at 11.50pm on August 6 with residents as far as Blenheim noticing it.
The Horizon Regional Council today received "multiple complaints" about the smell being back and some residents said the sulphur had become an irritant.
Council emergency manager Shane Bayley said the smell was the result of wind drift from the mountain and was not a cause for concern.
"Our air quality monitoring sites in Taumarunui and Taihape are not showing any elevated presence of fine air particles.
To date, at least two million hectares of autumn crops nationwide have been affected. The areas include Hebei, Jilin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Shanxi provinces, the Inner Mongolia region and Beijing and Tianjin municipalities. The government will allocate 200 million yuan ($3.5 million) to fight the pests, the official added. - NY Daily
