The total annual area occupied by overwintering monarch butterflies from 1994 through 2011 has declined significantly, with the all-time smallest area reported during the 2009–10 overwintering season. The dashed line shows the 17-year average (7.24 ha). Both linear (upper) and exponential (lower) regression lines are included. Abstract: During the 2009–2010 overwintering season and following a 15-year […]
By Moleen Nand23 March 2012 AS the world braces for tougher climate conditions in the coming decades, it has become more and more clear that climate change is having a direct impact on our food system. The issue of food security has become of extreme importance especially for Pacific island people today. The world’s most […]
21 March 2012 (CNN) – Whether you’re walking along city streets or in a park or the country anywhere across the southeast the past couple of weeks, pollen counts have been off the charts. Pollen count is measured in a cubic-meter of air, and those are the parts per that cubic-meter. In Atlanta, the pollen […]
By JOSEPHINE MARCOTTY, Star Tribune 16 March 2012 Genetically engineered corn and soybeans make it easy for farmers to eradicate weeds, including the long-lived and unruly milkweed. But they might be putting the monarch butterfly in peril. The rapid spread of herbicide-resistant crops has coincided with — and may explain — the dramatic decline in […]
[cf. Polar bears ill from accumulated environmental toxins] By John Size, CTV News 18 March 2012 Arctic sea ice that’s been melting at a dramatic rate in the last few decades is releasing a chemical soup that could poison the food chain with mercury and other dangerous chemicals, a new study suggests. The NASA-led research […]
We use a Lagrangian particles dispersal method to track where free floating material (fish larvae, algae, phytoplankton, zooplankton…) present in the sea water near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station plant could have gone since the earthquake on March 11th. THIS IS NOT A REPRESENTATION OF THE RADIOACTIVE PLUME CONCENTRATION. Since we do not […]
By Darren Osborne, ABC16 March 2012 The increasing amount of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere over the last 65 years is due to nitrogen-based fertilisers, according to a new study. An international team of scientists, led by University of California-Berkeley researcher Dr Sunyoung Park, made the finding after studying air collected at the Cape Grim […]
A group of European Union member states are planning to thwart key reforms aimed at conserving dwindling fish stocks By Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent, www.guardian.co.uk 15 March 2012 The prospects of banning the wasteful practice of discarding edible fish at sea may be extinguished within the next few days, as a group of European Union […]
7 March 2012 (National Geographic) – In an arachnophobe’s worst nightmare, swarms of spiders spin webs in a bush in flood-ravaged Wagga Wagga (map), Australia, Tuesday. After a week of record rain, floodwaters across eastern Australia have forced the ground-dwelling spiders—and at least 13,000 people—to flee their homes, according to Reuters. The rampant webs blanketing […]
By Harry R. Weber and Michael Kunzelman, from Associated Press wire2 March 2012 NEW ORLEANS – BP agreed late Friday to settle lawsuits brought by more than 100,000 fishermen who lost work, cleanup workers who got sick and others who claimed harm from the oil giant’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster, the worst offshore oil […]
