Climate change: Making U.S. bears hungry?

April 16 (NPR) — National Parks Week kicks off Saturday, but the celebration comes at a rough time for National Parks. Harried by federal funding cuts and urban development, the nation’s park system is also facing the rising threat of climate change. Those effects are becoming most visible in Yellowstone, one of the best known […]

Accumulated radiation tops 17,000 microsieverts in Fukushima’s Namie village

TOKYO, April 16 (Kyodo) – The accumulated radiation level in Namie, 30 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, in the three weeks through Friday stood at 17,010 microsieverts, according to a tally released by the science ministry Saturday. The accumulated levels during the period starting March 23 stood at 9,850 microsieverts in […]

Mass death of Pacific salmon may be caused by leukemia-type virus

By Rob Hotakainen, McClatchy Newspapers14 April 2011 WASHINGTON — In Canada’s Fraser River, a mysterious illness has killed millions of Pacific salmon, and scientists have a new hypothesis about why: The wild salmon are suffering from viral infections similar to those linked to some forms of leukemia and lymphoma. For 60 years before the early […]

Nearly 3 million gallons of radioactive water dumped into ocean from Fukushima nuclear plant – Total release estimated at 150 billion becquerels

TOKYO, April 15 (Kyodo) — The total level of radioactive materials in water dumped in the sea from the crippled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture earlier this month was lower than previously estimated, the nuclear safety agency said Friday. But the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency instructed the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric […]

The oceans crisis: ‘Driving toward a cliff while taking copious notes along the way’

By Richard Black 14 April 2011 Just how …….d are the world’s oceans? I’ve put the dots in that sentence so you can insert the word of your choice. According to a high-level seminar of experts in Oxford earlier this week, there’s one word starting with the letter S that would fit quite well, a […]

Penguin, krill populations in freefall as Antarctic warms

By Jessica Marshall11 Apr 2011 Numbers of Chinstrap and Adélie penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula region have dropped by more than 50 percent in the last 30 years, driven mainly by dramatic declines in supplies of tiny, shrimp-like krill, their main prey, says a new study. Krill, meanwhile, have declined by 40 to 80 percent, […]

Graph of the Day: The Spread of White-nose Syndrome Across North America, 2006-2010

Contact: Mollie Matteson, Conservation AdvocateCenter for Biological Diversity, Northeast Field OfficePO Box 188Richmond, Vermont 05477802-434-2388mmatteson@biologicaldiversity.org In the span of just four winters, a deadly new disease called white-nose syndrome (WNS) that devastates bat populations has spread rapidly across the country from east to west. The bat illness was first documented in a cave in upstate […]

Fish farm waste can drift to distant shores

Washington DC (SPX) Apr 08, 2011 – Concentrated waste plumes from fish farms could travel significant distances to reach coastlines, according to a study to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Environmental Fluid Mechanics, available online now. Roz Naylor, Oliver Fringer and Jeffrey Koseff of the Woods Institute for the Environment at […]

Iraq’s Tanjero River polluted and neglected

SULAIMANI, Kurdistan, Iraq, April 7, 2011 (ENS) – The Tanjero River, which runs southwest of the city of Sulaimani, was once a sizeable river flowing with clean water, but today it is reduced to a polluted stream filled with sewage, says the environmental group Nature Iraq. Anna Bachmann of Nature Iraq says that a visit […]

Common nanoparticles found to be highly toxic to Arctic ecosystem

Kingston, Canada (SPX) Apr 07, 2011 – Queen’s researchers have discovered that nanoparticles, which are now present in everything from socks to salad dressing and suntan lotion, may have irreparably damaging effects on soil systems and the environment. “Millions of tonnes of nanoparticles are now manufactured every year, including silver nanoparticles which are popular as […]

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