15 September 2011 (MSNBC) – The drought in Texas that has fueled wildfires, devastated agriculture and caused water shortages actually worsened in the past week while several other states also saw spreading drought, according to a weekly report issued Thursday. The forecast for three months out isn’t any better: Texas was told to expect abnormally […]
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 14 (AP) — A key federal report into what caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history was being readied for release as early as today amid revelations that BP made critical mistakes on the well and failed to tell its partners and the U.S. government when it realized it. An […]
By Brian Williams, The Courier-Mail13 September 2011 HERE’S evidence you do not have to be big and tough to survive everything Mother Nature can throw at you. This endangered mahogany glider survived February’s devastating Cyclone Yasi at Cardwell in north Queensland. With little cover in her tree-top home, she made it through weeks of rain […]
By arevamirpal::laprimavera9 September 2011 So says the government corporation Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 5 months after the leak of highly contaminated water was first discovered (in April) at the water intake for Reactor 2 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. So, instead of 4,700 terabecquerels of radioactive iodine and cesium as TEPCO announced back in […]
By Andy Coghlan7 September 2011 Huge crabs more than a metre across have invaded the Antarctic abyss, wiped out the local wildlife and now threaten to ruin ecosystems that have evolved over 14 million years. Three years ago, researchers predicted that as the deep waters of the Southern Ocean warmed, king crabs would invade Antarctica […]
By Andrew Prince19 April 2011 Two-thirds of the Arctic coastline is made of permafrost — an environment that is very sensitive to warming temperatures. A new report says erosion is causing these coastline regions to recede by an average of 1.5 feet per year. Unlike rock shoreline, permafrost loses its structure when it warms above […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com August 29, 2011 In one scene a young man, perhaps not long ago a boy, named Douglas stands shirtless and in shorts as he runs a chainsaw into a massive tropical tree. Prior to this we have already heard from an official how employees operating chainsaws must have a bevy of […]
By Ella Davies Reporter, BBC Nature 30 August 2011 Killer whales, the ocean’s fiercest predators, are easily recognisable by their black and white markings. But their future seems less clearly defined. Marine experts are concerned about an invisible threat to the animals that has been building in our seas since World War II. That was […]
The pH of ocean waters has decreased by about 0.1 since preindustrial times. Each tenth of a pH point represents a tenfold change in acidity. Living corals begin to die off in acidic waters, and the calcium carbonate shells of mollusks, including some commercial shellfish, become weak, resulting in higher rates of mortality. Thirsty for […]
By Ben Raines, Press-Register 25 August 2011 MOBILE, Alabama – Scientific analysis has confirmed that oil bubbling up above BP’s sealed Deepwater Horizon well in recent days is a chemical match for the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed into the Gulf last summer. The Press-Register collected samples of the oil about […]
