Questions remain as China remembers 6 years since quake
Beijing (AFP) May 12, 2014 -
Six years after a huge earthquake killed tens of thousands of people in China, questions over poor building work and corruption were still being asked on Monday's anniversary, as online posters remembered the dead.
More than 80,000 were left dead or missing when a 8.0 magnitude tremor struck Sichuan on the afternoon of May 12 2008, including 5,335 school pupils.
The disaster provoked wid ...
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Italy warns EU on asylum as shipwreck survivors land
Catania, Italy (AFP) May 14, 2014 -
An Italian warship on Tuesday unloaded the 17 victims and 206 survivors of a migrant boat shipwreck, as Italy threatened to send asylum-seekers across Europe without more help to stem a wave of arrivals from North Africa.
Hearses carrying the 17 coffins could be seen lined up in the port of Catania in Sicily as the Grecale frigate docked and dozens of medical personnel stood by to assist the ...
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Which has a more efficient 'engine': A tuna or a whale?
Chicago IL (SPX) May 14, 2014 -
A large gray whale and a much smaller skipjack tuna each propels itself through water. Which is the more efficient swimmer? It has been difficult to compare propulsion efficiencies of animals of different sizes, like comparing apples and oranges, but now Northwestern University researchers have developed a new metric, or standard, to measure individual energy consumption efficiency and make such ...
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EU proposes complete ban on drift-net fishing
Brussels (AFP) May 14, 2014 -
The European Union said Wednesday it wants a complete ban by 2015 on drift-net fishing, dubbed by environmentalists as 'walls of death' for killing other marine animals, especially dolphins.
Drift-nets, often vast lengths of near-invisible nylon netting floating near the sea surface, have been banned since 2002 for migratory fisheries but the rules are being flouted, the European Commission ...
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US military opens door to gender treatment for Manning
Washington (AFP) May 14, 2014 -
The Pentagon is looking at transferring convicted leaker Private Chelsea Manning to a civilian prison so she can get hormonal treatment for her gender identity disorder, officials said Wednesday.
Manning, found guilty of sending secret documents to WikiLeaks, is serving out a 35-year sentence and has asked the military to receive hormone replacement therapy to enable her to live as a woman. ...
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China youth suicides blamed on education system: study
Beijing (AFP) May 14, 2014 -
China's high-pressure, exam-driven education system is responsible for the vast majority of suicides by schoolchildren in the country, state media said Wednesday, citing a study.
Official statistics on youth suicides are hard to obtain, but a health ministry journal said that about 500 primary and middle school students kill themselves every year.
A study of 79 such suicides last year fo ...
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Tropical cyclones moving poleward, says study
Paris (AFP) May 14, 2014 -
Tropical cyclones are reaching maximum intensity farther from the equator and closer to the poles, according to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
Over the last 30 years, the peak of these powerful and destructive storms has migrated poleward at the rate of about half a degree of latitude - some 56 kilometres (35 miles) - per decade, they said.
The shift is highest i ...
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Tech troubles hinder resumption of MH370 search
Sydney (AFP) May 14, 2014 -
Technical troubles have hindered a resumption of the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 with a mini-sub lasting only two hours in the water before it had to be raised, officials said Wednesday.
Australian vessel Ocean Shield, carrying the US Navy Bluefin-21 submersible, arrived back in the southern Indian Ocean search zone Tuesday following a port visit to Perth after the air ...
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Eight dead, hundreds ill from 'tainted water' in Philippines
Alamada, Philippines (AFP) May 14, 2014 -
Health officials are testing for cholera and other diseases after eight people died and hundreds more fell ill in a remote area in the Philippines, possibly from contaminated water, authorities said Wednesday.
Most of the victims are children from the southern town of Alamada who suffered from diarrhoea, Lyndon Lee Suy, head of the government agency's infectious disease unit, told AFP.
" ...
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How climate talks can be more successful
Boston MA (SPX) May 15, 2014 -
For more than two decades, members of the United Nations have sought to forge an agreement to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. But so far, these international climate negotiations have had limited success.
What's more, game theoretical modeling of the negotiations suggests that there are feasible solutions to the problem. That is, there are commitments that the countries participati ...
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A Slow Collapse As West Antarctic Melts
Washington DC (SPX) May 15, 2014 -
National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded researchers at the University of Washington have concluded that Antarctica's fast-moving Thwaites Glacier will likely disappear in a matter of centuries, potentially raising sea level by more than a half-a-meter (two feet). Data gathered by NSF-funded airborne radar, detailed topography maps and computer modeling were used to make the determination.
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New Implanted Devices May Reshape Medicine
Dallas TX (SPX) May 15, 2014 -
Researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Tokyo have created electronic devices that become soft when implanted inside the body and can deploy to grip 3-D objects, such as large tissues, nerves and blood vessels. These biologically adaptive, flexible transistors might one day help doctors learn more about what is happening inside the body, and stimulate the body fo ...
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Surprising Species Shake-up Discovered
Burlington VT (SPX) May 15, 2014 -
The diversity of the world's life forms - from corals to carnivores - is under assault. Decades of scientific studies document the fraying of ecosystems and a grim tally of species extinctions due to destroyed habitat, pollution, climate change, invasives and overharvesting. Which makes Nick Gotelli's new report in the journal Science rather surprising.
Gotelli, a professor in UVM's biolog ...
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The physics of ocean undertow
Washington DC (SPX) May 15, 2014 -
People standing on a beach often feel the water tugging the sand away from under their feet. This is the undertow, the current that pulls water back into the ocean after a wave breaks on the beach. Large storms produce strong undertows that can strip beaches of sand. By predicting how undertows interact with shorelines, researchers can build sand dunes and engineer other soft solutions to create ...
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West Antarctic Glacier Loss Appears Unstoppable
Pasadena CA (JPL) May 15, 2014 -
A new study by researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine, finds a rapidly melting section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in an irreversible state of decline, with nothing to stop the glaciers in this area from melting into the sea.
The study presents multiple lines of evidence, incorporating 40 years of observations that indicate the glaciers in the Amunds ...
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Dangerous nitrogen pollution could be halved
Potsdam, Germany (SPX) May 15, 2014 -
Ambitious mitigation efforts, however, could decrease the pollution by 50 percent. The analysis is the very first to quantify this.
"Nitrogen is an irreplaceable nutrient and a true life-saver as it helps agriculture to feed a growing world population - but it is unfortunately also a dangerous pollutant," says Benjamin Bodirsky, lead-author of the study.
In the different forms it can ...
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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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Impact Theory Does Not Explain Post Ice Age Cold Snap
Dallas TX (SPX) May 15, 2014 -
Controversy over what sparked the Younger Dryas, a brief return to near glacial conditions at the end of the Ice Age, includes a theory that it was caused by a comet hitting the Earth. As proof, proponents point to sediments containing deposits they believe could result only from a cosmic impact.
Now a new study disproves that theory, said archaeologist David Meltzer, Southern Methodist Un ...
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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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