Activists held after trying to halt Faroe Island dolphin hunt
Stockholm (AFP) Aug 31, 2014 -
Fourteen activists from the radical animal rights group Sea Shepherd have been arrested in Denmark's Faroe Islands while trying to halt a traditional dolphin hunt, their organisation said Sunday.
The activists were detained Saturday on the island of Sandoy while attempting to save a pod of 33 pilot whales - members of the dolphin family - which were being driven toward shore to be slaughte ...
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Thailand totters towards waste crisis
Bangkok (AFP) Sept 01, 2014 -
A blaze at a vast rubbish dump home to six million tonnes of putrefying trash and toxic effluent has kindled fears that poor planning and lax law enforcement are tipping Thailand towards a waste crisis.
Locals had long pressed for the closure of the foul-smelling Praeksa landfill site, which is wedged between a cluster of industrial estates on the fringes of Bangkok.
But a ferocious eig ...
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Climate focus at UN small islands summit in Samoa
Wellington (AFP) Sept 01, 2014 -
A major United Nations conference on small island nations began in Samoa on Monday, with the emphasis on helping them survive the pressing challenge posed by climate change.
Some 3,000 delegates are attending the UN Small Island Developing States meeting, making it the largest event ever staged in the tiny Pacific nation of about 200,000 people.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the ...
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Dramatic Papua New Guinea volcano quietens
Rabaul, Papua New Guinea (AFP) Aug 30, 2014 -
A volcano which has erupted in Papua New Guinea was Saturday spewing fragments from its crater and rumbling loudly, but its activity appeared to be subsiding, a seismologist said.
Mount Tavurvur, which destroyed the town of Rabaul when it erupted simultaneously with nearby Mount Vulcan in 1994, came to life again early Friday, with rocks and ash erupting from its centre.
The eruptions on ...
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Panasonic, Tata join hands in water treatment: report
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 30, 2014 -
Japan's Panasonic will develop a water purification system together with India's Tata Group, tapping into a fast-growing market in Asia, a media report said Saturday.
The electronics giant has developed a prototype of a device that will detoxify harmful substances in groundwater, making it potentially safe to drink, the Japanese economic daily Nikkei said.
The system, which is compact ...
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New Earth-Observing Instrument Makes Successful Balloon Flight
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 28, 2014 -
In New Mexico on the morning of Aug. 18, a high-altitude balloon successfully carried the HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science (HySICS) instrument to an altitude of 123,000 feet, above most of the Earth's atmosphere, to reach space-like conditions and demonstrate new technologies for acquiring high-accuracy science measurements of the Earth.
Scientists use outgoing shortwave radiance, ...
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Sentinel-1 poised to monitor motion
Paris (ESA) Aug 28, 2014 -
Although it was only launched a few months ago and is still being commissioned, the new Sentinel-1A radar satellite has already shown that it can be used to generate 3D models of Earth's surface and will be able to closely monitor land and ice surface deformation.
As the first in a fleet of satellite missions for Europe's Copernicus environmental monitoring programme, Sentinel-1A was launc ...
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Not all phytoplankton in the ocean need to take their vitamins
Toronto, Canada (SPX) Sep 01, 2014 -
Some species of marine phytoplankton, such as the prolific bloomer Emiliania huxleyi, can grow without consuming vitamin B1 (thiamine), researchers have discovered. The finding contradicts the common view that E. huxleyi and many other eukaryotic microbes depend on scarce supplies of thiamine in the ocean to survive.
"It's a really different way to think about the ocean," says CIFAR Senior ...
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Antarctic sea-level rising faster than global rate
Southampton, UK (SPX) Sep 01, 2014 -
A new study of satellite data from the last 19 years reveals that fresh water from melting glaciers has caused the sea-level around the coast of Antarctica to rise by 2cm more than the global average of 6cm.
Researchers at the University of Southampton detected the rapid rise in sea-level by studying satellite scans of a region that spans more than a million square kilometres.
The me ...
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Together, humans and computers can figure out the plant world
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 01, 2014 -
As technology advances, science has become increasingly about data - how to gather it, organize it, and analyze it. The creation of key databases to analyze and share data lies at the heart of bioinformatics, or the collection, classification, storage, and analysis of biochemical and biological information using computers and software.
The tools and methods used in bioinformatics have been ...
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Marine protected areas inadequate for protecting fish and ocean ecology
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 01, 2014 -
A new study reports that an expansion of marine protected areas is needed to protect fish species that perform key ecological functions. According to investigators from the Wildlife Conservation Society and other organizations, previous efforts at protecting fish have focused on saving the largest numbers of species, often at the expense of those species that provide key and difficult-to-replace ...
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Snails Tell of the Rise and Fall of the Tibetan Plateau
Boulder CO (SPX) Sep 01, 2014 -
The rise of the Tibetan plateau - the largest topographic anomaly above sea level on Earth - is important for both its profound effect on climate and its reflection of continental dynamics.
In this study published in GSA Bulletin, Katharine Huntington and colleagues employ a cutting-edge geochemical tool - "clumped" isotope thermometry - using modern and fossil snail shells to investigate ...
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Reducing water scarcity possible by 2050
Montreal, Canada (SPX) Sep 01, 2014 -
Water scarcity is not a problem just for the developing world. In California, legislators are currently proposing a $7.5 billion emergency water plan to their voters; and U.S. federal officials last year warned residents of Arizona and Nevada that they could face cuts in Colorado River water deliveries in 2016.
Irrigation techniques, industrial and residential habits combined with climate ...
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Leading Ebola researcher says there's an effective treatment for Ebola
Galveston TX (SPX) Sep 01, 2014 -
A leading U.S. Ebola researcher from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has gone on record stating that a blend of three monoclonal antibodies can completely protect monkeys against a lethal dose of Ebola virus up to 5 days after infection, at a time when the disease is severe.
Thomas Geisbert, professor of microbiology and immunology, has written an editorial for Nature d ...
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China defence ministry tells US to stop 'close-in' surveillance
Beijing (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
China's military on Thursday told the United States to end air and naval surveillance near its borders, saying it was damaging relations between the Pacific powers and could lead to "undesirable accidents".
The US should "take concrete measures to decrease close-in reconnaissance activities against China towards a complete stop", defence ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said at a monthly briefi ...
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Satellite used to control unmanned aerial vehicle
Toulouse, France (UPI) Aug 28, 2014 -
A solar-powered unmanned aerial system from Airbus Defense and Space has been flown for more than 11 days non-stop.
The test of the Zephyr 7 High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite, or HAPS, was conducted for Britain's Ministry of Defense in controlled airspace, the company said.
The aircraft carried a new primary payload and for the first time satellite communications were used to contro ...
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African troops in fresh offensive against Islamists in Somalia: army
Mogadishu (AFP) Aug 30, 2014 -
Somali and African Union forces have launched a fresh offensive to roust Shebab Islamist fighters from key ports, army and government officials said Saturday, in an effort to cut off a main revenue source for the extremists.
"Operation Indian Ocean started late last night.... The enemy is fleeing and the forces are making successful advances so far," said Abdukadir Mohamed Nur, the governor ...
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Obama to spell out message to Putin on former Soviet land
Washington (AFP) Sept 01, 2014 -
Setting the stage for a NATO summit dominated by the worst East-West tensions in decades, President Barack Obama will go to Estonia this week with a simple message for Vladimir Putin - don't mess with NATO's ex-Soviet members.
With Europe and the United States accusing the Russian president of sending his troops to intervene directly in Ukraine, Obama's trip to Europe, his second of the yea ...
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Google tests using drones to deliver goods
San Francisco (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
Google on Thursday said it is testing using drones to deliver items bought online, putting its own spin on similar efforts by Internet retail titan Amazon.com.
Two years of research into what Google referred to as "Project Wing" was capped this month with test flights delivering candy, water, medicine, dog treats and other items to two farmers in Queensland, Australia.
"Self-flying vehic ...
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Iran says fresh US sanctions have deepened mistrust
Tehran (AFP) Aug 30, 2014 -
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday condemned a new round of American sanctions linked to his country's nuclear activities, saying mistrust had been "further deepened" by the fresh measures.
His remarks followed the US government's announcement of a slew of penalties targeting dozens of Iranian individuals and entities, including shipping and oil companies, banks and airlines.
Th ...
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No option but army role to end Pakistan crisis: minister
Islamabad (AFP) Aug 29, 2014 -
Pakistan's interior minister said Friday the intransigence of anti-government protest movements had left no alternative but mediation by the army to end a two-week political crisis that has shaken the nuclear-armed nation.
The country's powerful army chief General Raheel Sharif on Thursday held talks with populist cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri and cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan in the stando ...
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Pakistan border ceasefire violations 'provocative': India
New Delhi (AFP) Aug 30, 2014 -
India on Saturday branded a string of ceasefire violations along its frontier with rival Pakistan as "serious" and "provocative" and said they were hindering better ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
On Saturday, a soldier died in Indian Kashmir in a clash with suspected rebels near the heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC), police said.
Indian and Pakistani forces have been ...
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Mugabe says 'friendly' China vows to help Zimbabwe economy
Harare (AFP) Aug 31, 2014 -
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, returning from a state visit to China, said Sunday Beijing had pledged to assist his southern African country's ailing economy "to the best of its ability".
China will "continue to be as friendly to us as it was before ... The support we have asked for in the various areas, China will provide to the best of its ability," Mugabe said in comments carried on ...
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China insists on right to choose candidates for HK leader
Hong Kong (AFP) Aug 31, 2014 -
China Sunday announced rules giving it control over who can stand in Hong Kong's next leadership election, triggering tears and fury in the city where democracy activists vowed to stage a mass sit-in.
The standing committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's rubber-stamp parliament, decided that the city's next chief executive will be elected by popular vote in 2017, but candid ...
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NASA deep-space rocket, SLS, to launch in 2018
Washington (AFP) Aug 27, 2014 -
The US space agency's powerful deep-space rocket, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), aims to blast off for the first time in 2018, NASA said Wednesday.
The SLS has been in development for three years already, and when finished it should propel spacecraft beyond Earth's orbit and eventually launch crew vehicles to Mars by the 2030s.
NASA has now completed a thorough review of the pro ...
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