Providence, R.I. — Earth is currently in what climatologists call an interglacial period, a warm pulse between long, cold ice ages when glaciers dominate our planet's higher latitudes. For the past million years, these glacial-interglacial cycles have repeated roughly on a 100,000-year cycle. Now a team of Brown University researchers has a new explanation for that timing and why the cycle was different before a million years ago.

Using a set of computer simulations, the researchers show that two periodic variations in Earth's orbit combine on a 100,000-year cycle to cause an expansion of sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere. Compared to open ocean waters, that ice reflects more of the sun's rays back into space, substantially reducing the amount of solar energy the planet absorbs. As a result, global temperature cools.

"The 100,000-year pace of glacial-interglacial periods has been difficult to explain," said Jung-Eun Lee, an assistant professor in Brown's Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Studies and the study's lead author. "What we were able to show is the importance of sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere along with orbital forcings in setting the pace for the glacial-interglacial cycle."

The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

A British court on Thursday blocked pollution claims against Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell by more than 40,000 Niger Delta residents demanding action over decades of oil spills in the region.

Members of the Ogale and Bille communities had applied for the case to be heard in Britain, arguing they could not get justice in Nigeria. But the High Court in London said it did not have jurisdiction in the case.

"Our community is disappointed but not discouraged by this judgement," King Emere Godwin Bebe Okpabi, ruler of the Ogale Community, said in a statement.

"This decision has to be appealed, not just for Ogale but for many other people in the Niger Delta who will be shut out if this decision is allowed to stand.

"Shell is simply being asked to clean up its oil and to compensate the communities it has devastated," he said.

The firm's lawyer Peter Goldsmith told judge Peter Fraser during a hearing in November that the cases concerned "fundamentally Nigerian issues", and should not be heard in London. However, Daniel Leader from legal firm Leigh Day, representing the claimants, responded that the spills had "blighted the lives of the thousands".

He said they had "no choice" other than to seek legal redress in London. Goldsmith also argued that the case involves Shell's Nigerian subsidiary SPDC, which runs a joint venture with the Nigerian government.

He claimed that the case was aimed at establishing the High Court's jurisdiction over SPDC, opening the door for further claims.

Review of the response to the Ebola virus points to the world not being prepared for infectious disease outbreaks

An analysis of reports on the response to the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa has researchers sounding the alarm about worldwide infectious disease outbreak preparedness.

Suerie Moon of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, and a team of researchers examined seven post-Ebola reports.

They identified critical problems and made recommendations including strengthening compliance with the International Health Regulations, or IHR, improving outbreak-related research and information sharing, reforming the World Health Organization, or WHO, and broadening the humanitarian response system.

"We found remarkable consensus on what went wrong with the Ebola response and what we need to do to address the deficiencies," study authors said in a press release. "Yet not nearly enough has been done. Ebola, and more recently Zika and yellow fever, have demonstrated that we do not yet have a reliable or robust global system for preventing, detecting and responding to disease outbreaks."

The team urged the world "to mobilize greater resources and put in place monitoring and accountability mechanisms to ensure we are better prepared for the next pandemic."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said eight people became ill after contracting a rare rat virus in Illinois and Wisconsin. The one unifying factor between all the infected people was their contact with pet rats.

Two of the people who fell ill worked in ratteries in Wisconsin, with one going to hospital. People are infected when they breathe in dust contaminated with rodent droppings or urine.

"A home-based rodent breeder in Wisconsin was hospitalized in December 2016 with fever, headache and other symptoms," the CDC said in a statement.

"Symptoms may include fever, severe headache, back and abdominal pain, chills, blurred vision, redness of the eyes, or rash. In rare cases, infection can also lead to acute renal disease," the CDC added. "However, not all people infected with the virus experience symptoms. Most people infected with Seoul virus recover."

Both breeders tested positive for Seoul virus, a member of the Hantavirus family of rodent-borne viruses, according to the CDC. Others fell ill who purchased pet rats from animal suppliers in Wisconsin and Illinois. All the people have recovered.

A pair of researchers affiliated with the Natural History Museum in Chemnitz and Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg, both in Germany, has found evidence in ancient tree rings of a solar sunspot cycle millions of years ago similar to the one observed in more modern times. In their paper published in the journal Geology, Ludwig Luthardt and Ronny Rößler describe how they gathered an assortment of petrified tree samples from a region in Germany and used them to count sunspot cycles.

Scientists know that the sun undergoes a sunspot cycle of approximately 11 years—some spots appear, grow cooler and then slowly move toward the equator and eventually disappear—the changes to the sun spots cause changes to the brightness level of the sun—as the level waxes and wanes, plants here on Earth respond, growing more or less in a given year—this can be seen in the width of tree rings. In this new effort, the researchers gathered petrified tree samples from a region of Germany that was covered by lava during a volcanic eruption approximately 290 million years ago (during the Permian period), offering a historical record of sun activity.

The research pair obtained 43 petrified tree specimens (tree-trunk slices) and report that they were able to count 1,917 rings which were preserved well enough to allow for observation under a microscope. Because the trees had all died at the same time, the researchers were able to establish a baseline between them which allowed for comparing tree ring growth between samples over the same time periods—which covered 79 years. Doing so, they report, revealed very clearly a cycle of growth similar to that seen in modern trees, though in this case, it was slightly different. Today the cycle is an average of 11.2 years, back then it was 10.6—close enough, the researchers suggest, to conclude that the sun has been behaving very predictably for at least 290 million years.

It should be noted that not everyone agrees with the theory that sunspot activity leaves such a clear record in tree rings—other factors might be involved such as general global temperature, weather patterns or even outbreaks of insect populations.

More information: Ludwig Luthardt et al. Fossil forest reveals sunspot activity in the early Permian, Geology(2017)

Scientists are racing to create a vaccine for the plague - before terrorists develop the deadly disease into a weapon. The illness is largely seen as a thing of the past, best known for wiping out a third of Europe's population during the Black Death of the 1300s. But experts warn it is one of the most likely candidates for a bioweapon - especially given the increasing rate of antibiotic resistance.

Lead researcher Dr Ashok Chopra, whose research is being backed by the Department of Defense, warns the scenario is a more realistic prospect than we think. 'Terrorists can easily grow the bacteria and make the strains resistant to antibiotics,' Dr Chopra, a microbiologist and immunologist at the University of Texas microbiologist, told Daily Mail Online.

'The pneumonic plague is very contagious and very hard to treat. It could kill millions. 'Think of the Black Death of the 14th century. It is not unrealistic that we would experience the same number of mass casualties. It could be quite devastating.'

There are three strains of the plague - pneumonic, bubonic, and septicemic - all caused by bacteria called Yersinia pestis. The most common type is the bubonic plague, typically found on animals and transmitted to humans via fleas.

It was the bubonic plague that caused the Black Death, as well as America's first outbreak in 1900 when infected animals were imported from Asia to San Francisco. However, the pneumonic plague, which is airborne, is fatal almost 100 percent of the time.

Nine people have been affected by an unknown virus which has caused people to develop muscle pain and discharge a black urine.

This was confirmed by Dr. Gubbio Soares, a researcher at the virology laboratory at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA). He stated that his research team have been able to determine that the ailment was caused by a virus, but haven't been able to identify what virus it is.

The team will require at least 15 days to figure out the origin of the virus. "We already know that it is a virus that causes the disease, but we have not yet determined which type. "We need about 10 to 15 days to make this identification."

As at the time of this report, only the transmission mode has been identified according to Soares who believes this is done orally. Another symptom of the virus is an increment in the body's CPK enzyme.

Addressing the effect of the enzyme on a patient who had the virus, Soares thinks such a person should admitted at the hospital until the urine returns to normal. "He had a patient with CPK index of 100 thousand units per liter of blood, while the normal one is 200 units per liter,"

"Because of the risk of kidney failure, patients should be hospitalized until the urine returns to normal."

Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease, a viral disease that killed more than 3,700 deer in 2012, has impacted the population this year, with more than 2,000 deer found dead in 23 counties, The Mitchell Daily Republic reported. The heaviest losses have been in Brule, Aurora and Beadle Counties. In Beadle County, 209 deer were found dead and in Brule County, 206 deer were found dead.

Hughes and Sully Counties were not spared. A total of 140 deer were found dead in Hughes County, while 85 were found in Sully County, said Andy Lindbloom, senior big game biologist.

"We definitely got closer to 2012 than we would have liked," Lindbloom said.

The state issued about 29,000 resident licenses this year. It also issued about 42,000 individual tags, a 33 percent increase from last year.

Lindbloom said that about 1,500 licenses were returned as of Monday afternoon. Hunters with licenses for the muzzleloader deer season have until the end of this week to send their tags in for a refund.

The human race faces a one in 500 chance of extinction in the next year, an expert mathematician has claimed.

Dr Fergus Simpson, a mathematician at the University of Barcelona's Institute of Cosmos Sciences, said there was a 0.2 per cent chance of a "global catastrophe" occurring in any given year over the course of the 21st Century.

The calculation is based on the Doomsday Argument, which it is claimed can predict the number of future members of the human species given an estimate of the total number of humans born so far.

"Our key conclusion is that the annual risk of global catastrophe currently exceeds 0.2 per cent," Dr Simpson wrote in an academic paper called Apocalypse Now? Reviving the Doomsday Argument, accessed through Cornell University's online library.

"In a year when Leicester City FC were crowned Premier League champions, we are reminded that events of this rarity can prove challenging to anticipate, yet they should not be ignored," he added.

According to Dr Simpson's calculations, around 100 billion people have already been born and a similar number will be born in the future before the human race expires.

He estimated there was a 13 per cent chance humanity would fail to see out the 21st Century.

This is a more optimistic conclusion than previous studies, with British Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees suggesting there was a 50 per cent probability of human extinction by the year 2100 in his 2003 book Our Final Hour.

Long Islanders thought winter had arrived early when they walked near the Shinnecock Canal in Hampton Bays, New York, on Monday.

The water looked like it was covered in a thick sheet of ice, but upon closer examination, residents could see it was actually thousands of silver bunker fish wiggling on top of each other, struggling to survive.

Dozens of people posted pictures and videos of the unusual sight on Facebook.

"Strange phenomenon. Cause of man or nature?" local resident Gustavo Zuluaga Buritica asked.

"Wow never seen anything like it!" Long Islander Eric Reilly commented.

As videos of the rare sight go viral, people are now looking for answers.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation told CBS News on Tuesday that they are monitoring the incident.

"No additional fish kills have been reported overnight or today," said Erica Ringewald, the department's media relations director. "Some dead bunker are floating in the Shinnecock Bay but most are believed to have sunk to the bottom."