Blogging the End of the World™
By Christophe Simon 19 September 2017 (AFP) – Brazilian police said Tuesday that a British woman missing during an attempt to paddle the entire Amazon by kayak has been murdered and that three people are in custody The Amazonas state police force said a 17-year-old suspect has confessed to being part of a gang that […]
By Bob Henson 19 September 2017 (Weather Underground) – After a direct hit on the small Lesser Antilles island of Dominica on Monday night, followed by a brief weakening, Hurricane Maria reintensified to Category 5 strength with winds of 160 mph on Tuesday morning. Maria will likely be a catastrophic Category 5 or high-end Category […]
13 September 2017 (Survival International) – Brazilian Indians have appealed for global assistance to prevent further killings after the reported massacre of uncontacted tribespeople, and have denounced the government cuts that left their territories unprotected.Paulo Marubo, a Marubo indigenous leader from western Brazil, said: “More attacks and killings are likely to happen. The cuts to […]
By Kathryn Hansen 10 September 2017 (NASA) – Hurricane Irma churned across the Atlantic Ocean in September 2017, battering several Caribbean islands before moving on to the Florida Keys and the U.S. mainland. As the clouds cleared over places like the Virgin Islands, the destruction became obvious even from space.These natural-color images, captured by the […]
Dr. Jeff Masters 18 September 2017 (Weather Underground) – Category 5 Hurricane Maria made a direct hit on the small Lesser Antilles island of Dominica (population 72,000) near 9 pm EDT Monday, becoming Dominica’s first Category 5 landfall on record. At the time of landfall, an Air Force hurricane hunter aircraft measured surface winds of […]
By Ben Panko 7 September 2017 (Smithsonian) – What if the world’s parasites suddenly went extinct? Given how much work we’ve put into combating malaria-carrying mosquitoes and horrifying Guinea worms, it sounds like a reason for celebration. But think twice: Actually, losing these much-despised mooches, bloodsuckers and freeloaders could have disastrous consequences for the environment […]
Yaoundé, Cameroon, 7 September 2017 (TRAFFIC) – Weak governance, corruption, and shifting trade dynamics are significant factors seriously undermining the control of ivory trafficking throughout five countries in Central Africa, according to a new TRAFFIC study launched today.In the first comprehensive assessment of ivory trade in the region in nearly two decades, investigators from TRAFFIC […]
By Helena Bottemiller Evich 13 September 2017 (Politico) – Irakli Loladze is a mathematician by training, but he was in a biology lab when he encountered the puzzle that would change his life. It was in 1998, and Loladze was studying for his Ph.D. at Arizona State University. Against a backdrop of glass containers glowing […]
By Wayne Drash 15 September 2017 (CNN) – The right time to talk climate change is now. It might seem premature when people in the Caribbean, Florida, and Texas are still mucking out their flooded homes. And no, changes in our planet’s atmosphere did not cause Hurricanes Harvey or Irma. But the consensus among scientists […]
By Raymond Perkins 14 September 2017(Facebook) – A couple of time lapse videos from last night, taken from the Wind River bridge, near Carson, Oregon. This is a section of the fire that they are not going to fight, far too steep to get anyone or equipment into.Pretty scary how fast this fire can just […]
