By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) – The Yangtze River dolphin, the Christmas Island shrew and the Venezuelan skunk frog are all victims in an alarming flood of extinctions, but how do scientists decide when such "possibly extinct" creatures no longer exist? The United Nations says the world faces the worst spate of extinctions […]
by Jessica Aldred, The Observer As the rain begins to fall on Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park, thousands of zebra, wildebeest and giraffe will begin one of the world’s greatest migrations. But many of the herds trampling across the grass at the foot of the Rift Valley highlands are falling in number – and scientists do […]
By Tom Knudson, tknudson@sacbee.com Driving home from Lake Tahoe, Leah Wills watched the column of ash-gray smoke from the Moonlight fire grow and grow – until finally she was under it. Overhead, the sky that September afternoon in 2007 turned eerie pink. Orange-red flecks of burning bark streaked like missiles through the air. And the […]
Prolonged periods of drought resulting from China’s 23rd consecutive "warm winter" will pose a serious threat to the country’s crop yields, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) said in a report published Tuesday. Some regions could experience droughts until the spring, the report said, adding that the warm weather might even continue until summer. Warm winter […]
A persistent pollutant, tributyltin, has effects on gene activity in a wide range of animal species at concentrations of parts per billion. and its chemical relatives bind to nuclear receptors that in turn activate genes influencing the formation of fat storage cells. This and other evidence suggests a possible role for tributyl tin in the […]
NEAH BAY — Measurements of ocean acidification off the North Olympic Peninsula coast at Tatoosh Island show acidity is rising more than 10 times faster than climate models have predicted. The researchers cannot say whether the trend is widespread. The eight years of research also revealed that the corrosive effect of acidic ocean waters could […]
AFP – Earth’s climate appears to be changing more quickly and deeply than a benchmark UN report for policymakers predicted, top scientists said ahead of international climate talks starting Monday in Poland. Evidence published since the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change’s (IPCC) February 2007 report suggests that future global warming may be driven not just […]
The Canadian Coast Guard has confirmed that in a major first, a commercial ship traveled through the Northwest Passage this fall to deliver supplies to communities in western Nunavut. The MV Camilla Desgagnés, owned by Desgagnés Transarctik Inc., transported cargo from Montreal to the hamlets of Cambridge Bay, Kugluktuk, Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak in September. […]
ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2008) — Researchers at the Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales and at a subsidiary of CNES have discovered that the accelerated melting of continental icepacks is the major reason for the rise in sea level over the 2003 to 2008 period, something which has minimized the effect of thermal expansion […]
AFP – Brazil’s Amazon jungles, known as the lungs of the world, lost almost 12,000 square kilometres (4,800 sq. miles) in just 12 months, a rise of almost 4.0 percent, new figures showed Friday. Amazon deforestation up almost 4.0 percent (AFP) Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:21:29 GMT Technorati Tags: Amazon,deforestation
