Blogging the End of the World™
Montserrat’s "mountain chicken" frog is the latest victim of the lethal chytrid fungus sweeping the world. UK researchers say that only two small pockets of the animals on the tiny Caribbean island remain disease-free. The mountain chicken (Leptodactylus fallax) is one of the world’s largest frogs, and appears on the coat of arms of neighbouring […]
Scientists find the signal of a decline in the numbers of insects in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, 20 years after the nuclear accident. Two decades after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, radiation is still causing a reduction in the numbers of insects and spiders. According to researchers working in the exclusion zone […]
When dealing with the world’s most endangered feline species, the Iberian Lynx (estimated population, 200) every death matters. So when a pregnant Iberian Lynx was found dead in Doñana National Park it’s worth passing on the news. The cat in question was pregnant with two cubs and had been run over by a vehicle […]
Danny Jensen, a blogger at Takepart, blogged about what seems to be a bee colony collapse that happened right in his backyard. He has posted many photos and a video showing dead bees everywhere. Read on for more details on colony collapse disorder. … Blogger Writes About Bee Colony Collapse Disorder in his Backyard Technorati […]
Not only is plastic the ubiquitous bane of modern consumerist lifestyles, it’s also increasingly seen as a potential health hazard. Fact: we now know that hard plastic polycarbonate water bottles, canned food and soda pop linings contain the “genderbender” chemical bisphenol A, which hormonally mimics estrogen. Now German researchers have found another unknown estrogenic […]
From Calculated Risk: Total housing starts were at 583 thousand (SAAR) in February, well off the record low of 477 thousand in January (the lowest level since the Census Bureau began tracking housing starts in 1959). Single-family starts were at 357 thousand in February; just above the record low in January (353 thousand). … Housing […]
Leatherback turtles, the most widely distributed reptiles on Earth, are threatened with extinction themselves, in large part due to the carelessness of humans. A professor addresses the threat of plastics to this endangered species. Since leatherbacks prefer eating jellyfish, it’s widely believed they mistake bags or other plastics for their meals. They survived the […]
It’s interesting that there seems to be a long-term declining trend. And, of course, there’s the cliff we’re falling over currently. From Calculated Risk: The Federal Reserve reported that industrial production fell 1.4% in February, and output in February was 11.2% below February 2008. The capacity utilization rate for total industry fell to 70.9%, matching […]
The combined global land and ocean surface average temperature for February 2009 was the ninth warmest since records began in 1880, according to an analysis by NOAA. The analyses in NCDC’s global reports are based on preliminary data, which are subject to revision. Additional quality control is applied to the data when later reports […]
From Calculated Risk: This graph is based on the Manufacturing and Trade Inventories and Sales report from the Census Bureau. This shows the 3 month change (annualized) in manufacturers’ and trade inventories. The inventory correction was slow to start in this recession, but inventories are now declining sharply. This change in inventories will probably have […]
