Water extraction boosts California quake risk: study
Paris (AFP) May 14, 2014 -
Relentless pumping of water to irrigate farms in part of California's Central Valley is boosting the risk of earthquakes on the San Andreas fault, geologists said on Wednesday.
A century and a half of water extraction has bit by bit released a massive weight on a local part of the Earth's crust, causing it to spring up and ease a brake on the notorious fault, they said.
"This process bri ...
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All in the Rotation
Berkeley CA (SPX) May 15, 2014 -
Viruses are the enigma of the biological world - despite having their own DNA and being able to adapt to their environment and evolve, they are not considered to be alive like cells. In order to reproduce and multiply - a requirement of "life" - a virus must invade a living cell, eject its DNA into that of the cell, and commandeer the cell's biological machinery.
While a virus, essentially ...
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Coral Reefs are Critical for Risk Reduction and Adaptation
Arlington VA (SPX) May 15, 2014 -
Stronger storms, rising seas, and flooding are placing hundreds of millions people at risk around the world, and big part of the solution to decrease those risks is just off shore. A new study finds that coral reefs reduce the wave energy that would otherwise impact coastlines by 97 percent.
"Coral reefs serve as an effective first line of defense to incoming waves, storms and rising seas, ...
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Thai army chief warns military 'may use force' if unrest continues
Bangkok, Thailand (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
Thailand's army chief warned Thursday that the military may "use force" if political violence escalates in a six-month crisis which has left 28 people dead and hundreds wounded.
"I want to warn every group - especially those who use violence and war weapons against innocent civilians - to stop now because if the violence continues the military may be needed to come out... to restore peace ...
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Main issues facing the EU after elections
Brussels (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
Near record unemployment and a very modest economic recovery, a massive trade pact with the United States, plus the Ukraine crisis and other foreign policy challenges are all key issues facing the European Union in the next five years.
UNEMPLOYMENT, DEBT CRISIS COSTS
Generating jobs at a time when 26 million people are out of work across the EU is the single most important issue running ...
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China official had cash stash of $16 million: report
Beijing (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
A Chinese official was found to have kept more than 100 million yuan ($16 million) in cash at his home, in the country's latest apparent corruption scandal, a report said Thursday.
Police deployed 16 money-counting machines to count the stash held by Wei Pengyuan, whose job involved approving the construction of power stations, respected financial media outlet Caixin reported.
Four of th ...
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Winners and losers in cereal production from El Nino
Paris (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
Food experts on Thursday drew up the first global map of how the El Nino weather phenomenon affects production of four key cereals.
El Nino improves the global yield of soybeans by 2.1 to 5.4 percent, but changes the yields of maize, rice and wheat by -4.3 percent to +0.8 percent, they said.
When El Nino goes into reverse, a process called La Nina, the change in global average yields of ...
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Hong Kong begins destroying huge ivory haul
Hong Kong (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
Hong Kong on Thursday began destroying nearly 30 tonnes of ivory seized from smugglers in the world's largest such operation, a major step in the fight against the illegal trade in elephant tusks.
The move to incinerate a stockpile seized since 2003 comes after intense pressure from conservation groups.
"Today's ceremony sends a loud and clear message to both the local and the internatio ...
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Floods kill three in 'worst natural catastrophe' to hit Serbia
Belgrade (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
Three people have drowned in Serbia and more than 3,000 evacuated following flooding caused by torrential rain that prompted authorities to declare a state of emergency, officials said Thursday.
"A man who refused to leave his home as suggested by rescuers drowned overnight in Umcari," a southwestern suburb of the Serbian capital Belgrade, mayor Sinisa Mali said.
Another man and a woman ...
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Earth Science Applications Travelogue: Maury Estes
Huntsville AL (SPX) May 15, 2014 -
When you think about the beneficiaries of NASA Earth observations, does the Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) come to mind? It should! To find more about NASA's connection to the ocean blue, research scientist Maury Estes embarked on a weeklong research cruise in the Gulf of Mexico to learn how fisheries experts, scientists and oceanographers use satellite-derived data in fishery field stu ...
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Novel ORNL technique enables air-stable water droplet networks
Oak Ridge TN (SPX) May 16, 2014 -
A simple new technique to form interlocking beads of water in ambient conditions could prove valuable for applications in biological sensing, membrane research and harvesting water from fog. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a method to create air-stable water droplet networks known as droplet interface bilayers.
These interconnected wat ...
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Scientists reveal new picture in the evolution of flightless birds
Oxford UK (SPX) May 16, 2014 -
Because of their far-flung geography and colorful examples including the African ostrich, Australian emu, New Zealand kiwi and long lost giants such as the New Zealand moa, Baker, et. al. have examined a fascinating part in the story of the avian tree of life: flightless birds, or ratites.
Straddling the middle ground is the South American tinamous which can fly, and thus were not grouped ...
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Ocean winds keep Antarctica cold, Australia dry
Canberra, Australia (SPX) May 16, 2014 -
Australian National University-led research has explained why Antarctica is not warming as much as other continents, and why southern Australia is recording more droughts. Researchers have found rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are strengthening the stormy Southern Ocean winds which deliver rain to southern Australia, but pushing them further south towards Antarctica.
Lead ...
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Fossil palm beetles 'hindcast' 50-million-year-old winters
Burnaby, Canada (SPX) May 16, 2014 -
Fifty-million-year-old fossil beetles that fed only on palm seeds are giving Simon Fraser University biologists Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes new information about ancient climates.
According to their research, published online this week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, these fossil beetles indicate that during a period of global warming in the geological past, t ...
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Corn dwarfed by temperature dip suitable for growing in caves, mines
West Lafayette IN (SPX) May 16, 2014 -
Lowering temperatures for two hours each day reduces the height of corn without affecting its seed yield, a Purdue study shows, a technique that could be used to grow crops in controlled-environment facilities in caves and former mines. Raising the crops in isolated and enclosed environments would help prevent genetically modified pollen and seed from escaping into the ecosystem and crossing wit ...
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MH370 search on hold after trouble with mini-sub
Sydney (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
The hunt for the missing Malaysian passenger jet in the Indian Ocean was put on hold Thursday after technical issues with a US Navy mini-submarine that require spare parts to be sent from Britain.
Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Agency (JACC), which is leading the search, revealed Wednesday that the Bluefin-21 submersible lasted only two hours in the water this week before it had to be ...
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Japan whaling town sued by dolphin activists
Tokyo (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
Animal rights activists said Thursday they had sued a major Japanese whaling town internationally condemned for its dolphin hunts for banning "foreign-looking" visitors from its whale museum.
Sarah Lucas, head of "Australia for Dolphins," filed a lawsuit on Tuesday at the regional court of Wakayama, western Japan, where the town of Taiji is located, demanding an end to "discrimination based ...
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Wildfires burn homes as California roasts
Los Angeles (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
Thousands of people fled raging wildfires in roasting southern California on Wednesday as flames destroyed homes and triggered evacuations at a nuclear power plant, a military base and an amusement park.
The blazes, which also closed a major north-south highway, come amid record temperatures in the western US state, where the annual wildfire season typically starts much later in the year. ...
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Dog bites in US reaching 'epidemic proportions'
Washington (AFP) May 15, 2014 -
Dog bites are reaching "epidemic proportions," a well-known TV dog trainer said Thursday, as video of a cat fearlessly chasing off a dog that bit a small boy in California went viral.
Every year more than 4.5 million Americans - more than half of them children - are bitten by dogs, said the American Humane Association ahead of National Dog Bite Prevention Week, which begins Sunday.
Ins ...
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103-year-old killer whale seen cruising northern Pacific Ocean
Vancouver, British Columbia (UPI) May 15, 2013 -
Granny is back, and she's rolling deep - 25 whales deep. "Granny" is what scientists call the matriarch of a pack of killer whales known as the "J-Pod," or the "Southern Resident Killer Whales." And Granny is estimated to be 103 years old.
Thought to be born roughly a year before the Titanic sank, Granny was recently spotted cruising the cold northern Pacific waters off the coast of Br ...
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