By FELICITY BARRINGER30 May 2011 IRVINE, Calif. — Scientists have been using small variations in the Earth’s gravity to identify trouble spots around the globe where people are making unsustainable demands on groundwater, one of the planet’s main sources of fresh water. They found problems in places as disparate as North Africa, northern India, northeastern […]
By Robert Burns, Texas A&M3 June 2011 COLLEGE STATION — A few areas received rain, but except for parts of north-central and extreme northeast Texas, the state continued to suffer from moderate to exceptional drought, according the U.S. Drought monitor. Even where the drought had lifted, Texas AgriLife Extension Service personnel reported shortages of hay […]
By Matt Walker Editor, BBC Nature 31 May 2011 Populations of wildlife species in the world-renowned Masai Mara reserve in Kenya have crashed in the past three decades, according to research published in the Journal of Zoology. Numbers of impala, warthog, giraffe, topi, and Coke’s hartebeest have declined by over 70%, say scientists. Even fewer […]
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF28 May 2011 Early last Tuesday, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, a forest activist and tree nut harvester, and his wife, Maria do Espirito Santo, drove a motorcycle through Brazil’s northern Para State, in the Amazon rain forest. As they crossed a river bridge, gunmen lying in wait opened fire with a […]
By Yuriy Humber and Stuart Biggs 30 May 2011 Radioactive soil in pockets of areas near Japan’s crippled nuclear plant have reached the same level as Chernobyl, where a “dead zone” remains 25 years after the reactor in the former Soviet Union exploded. Soil samples in areas outside the 20-kilometer (12 miles) exclusion zone around […]
Growth of tuna fisheries halted in 2008 as catches of this species group decreased by 2.6 percent after the 2007 global record of almost 6.5 million tonnes. While maximum tuna catches in the Pacific Ocean (which represents about 70 percent of the global catches) and in the Indian Ocean were reached in 2007 and 2006, […]
By Adriana Acosta26 May 2011 BAY CITY – With much of the nation focused on historic floods and deadly tornadoes, Texas has been suffering through a drought being compared to the severe record drought of 1895. “With history as a guide, we have some very serious times coming our way without any significant rain in […]
London, May 10, IRNA – An all-party committee of MPs Tuesday expressed concern that only $700 million of a $2 billion appeal has been delivered on the ground to help millions of victims caught up in Pakistan’s worst-ever floods last year. “Two thirds of the funding called for had still not been delivered by the […]
ISLAMABAD, May 29 (PakTribune) – Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday said Pakistan suffered a loss of Rs855 billion ($10 billion USD) to the economy due to the worst floods last year. “The worst affected sector was agriculture that suffered loss of around Rs429 billion, followed by housing (Rs135 billion), Transport and Communications […]
OROUMIEH LAKE, Iran, May 25 (AP) – From a hillside, Kamal Saadat looked forlornly at hundreds of potential customers, knowing he could not take them for trips in his boat to enjoy a spring weekend on picturesque Oroumieh Lake, the third largest saltwater lake on earth. “Look, the boat is stuck. It cannot move anymore,” […]
