Tropical Storm Odile forms off Mexico Pacific coast
Mexico City (AFP) Sept 10, 2014 -
Tropical Storm Odile formed off Mexico's Pacific coast on Wednesday and could grow into a hurricane, but it is expected to stay away from land, forecasters said.
The storm was 350 kilometers (220 miles) southwest of the port of Lazaro Cardenas, with maximum sustained winds of 65 kilometers (40 miles) per hour, the National Weather Service said.
Odile could produce heavy rain in the coast ...
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Ancient sloths became big-bodied very quickly
London (UPI) Sep 10, 2014 -
Today, sloths take their time, sluggishly making their way from branch to branch in the jungles of South and Central America. Modern sloths are also small. Their ancestors, on the other hand, were giant, and they became that way rather quickly, evolving at an impressive pace.
To get a better understanding of how sloth species diversified over time, scientists from University College Lon ...
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Displaced Iraqis brace for onset of Kurdish winter
Khanke, Iraq (AFP) Sept 11, 2014 -
Displaced Iraqis who escaped a jihadist-led onslaught north of Baghdad during the scorching summer are braced to face another enemy: the onset of winter in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan.
At the newest camp in Khanke, a few kilometres (miles) from the Turkish border in Iraq's Dohuk province, lorries have been ferrying in equipment to house the displaced people with some degree of winter-pr ...
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Mexican 'water monster' salamander battles extinction
Mexico City (AFP) Sept 11, 2014 -
Dubbed the "water monster" by the Aztecs, the axolotl salamander is battling extinction in the remnants of Mexico City's ancient lake, alarming scientists hoping mankind learns from its ability to regenerate organs.
The creature, whose colors vary from milky white to black and olive green, has survived in the Xochimilco canals since most of the lake was drained over the centuries following t ...
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Ozone problem on course for fix by mid-century: UN
Paris (AFP) Sept 10, 2014 -
In some rare good news for the environment, the UN on Wednesday said Earth's damaged ozone layer was "well on track" for recovery by mid-century, although fixing it over Antarctica would take longer.
In their first review in four years on Earth's vital shield, UN agencies said a 1987 treaty to protect the ozone layer was so successful it was indirectly adding to problems in another area - g ...
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Climate change could 'fundamentally alter' US forests
Washington (AFP) Sept 10, 2014 -
Wildfires, insects and drought are crippling forests in the western United States' iconic Rocky Mountains, scientists warned on Wednesday, urging more efforts to stop global warming.
"If left unchecked, the climate change that is driving this triple assault could fundamentally alter these forests as we know them," said the report by the Union for Concerned Scientists.
Researchers found t ...
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Pakistan blows up dyke to protect city from floods
Lahore, Pakistan (AFP) Sept 10, 2014 -
Authorities in Pakistan have blown up a strategic embankment to divert raging floodwaters away from a city, officials said Wednesday, as the death toll passed 250 around the country.
More than half a million people have been affected by the floods which began in the Himalayan territory of Kashmir last week and have flown downriver into Pakistan's populous Punjab province, the National Disast ...
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Hong Kong voting rights on agenda at UN rights body
Geneva (AFP) Sept 10, 2014 -
The United Nations' human rights body said Wednesday it would take up the issue of voting rights in Hong Kong, where activists are railing against Beijing's move to vet local candidates.
The Human Rights Committee, which monitors respect of an international treaty on civil and political rights, will hold a public session on the thorny issue on October 23, spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssel told ...
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Snow storms hit western Canada (and it's only September)
Ottawa (AFP) Sept 10, 2014 -
Calgary's one million residents are well accustomed to heavy snow and freezing temperatures - but not in early September.
Unseasonable snow storms battered the western Canadian city for a third day in a row Wednesday, downing power lines to thousands of homes and businesses.
The city at the center of Canada's oil sector saw record snowfall this week, including 10 to 15 centimeters (four ...
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Ancient underground complex sat beneath Stonehenge
Stonehenge, England (UPI) Sep 10, 2014 -
The massive hunks of granite that make up Stonehenge are just part of a much larger puzzle. As new research reveals, Stonehenge is what remains of was once a vast complex of burial mounds and shrines - some above the earth, much more buried beneath.
As part of the Hidden Landscapes Project, researchers from the University of Birmingham teamed up with an international team of archeologi ...
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Amazon deforestation up 29 pc in 2013 -- Brazil
Brasilia (AFP) Sept 10, 2014 -
Deforestation in the Amazon rose 29 percent between August 2012 and July of last year to 5,891 square kilometers (2,275 square miles), Brazilian officials said Wednesday, posting an amended figure.
Last year, authorities indicated a slightly lower figure of 5,843 square kilometers for a 28 percent rise.
That reversed several years of decline despite being the second lowest annual increas ...
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Fire closes landmark Yosemite tourist trail
Los Angeles, United States (AFP) Sept 09, 2014 -
A raging wildfire in Yosemite National Park saw access closed Tuesday to the towering Half Dome peak, one of the most famous landmarks at the world-renowned tourist venue.
Millions of visitors flock to Yosemite, in California, every year, many hiking up trails onto the vast rock formation which overlooks Yosemite Valley.
But the fire, which broke out Sunday and has some 330 firefighters ...
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Testing the fossil record
Bergen, Norway (SPX) Sep 11, 2014 -
Researcher Bjarte Hannisdal is a co-author of an article in the journal Nature Communications, in which he and two colleagues ask a long-standing question: How good is the fossil record?
Palaeontologists have developed methods to try to identify and correct for bias and incompleteness in the fossil record. The new study suggests that some of these correction methods may actually be mislead ...
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Shift in Arabian Sea Plankton May Threaten Fisheries
New York NY (SPX) Sep 11, 2014 -
A growing "dead zone" in the middle of the Arabian Sea has allowed plankton uniquely suited to low- oxygen water to take over the base of the food chain. Their rise to dominance over the last decade could be disastrous for the predator fish that sustain 120 million people living on the sea's edge.
Scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and their colleagues are ...
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The Search for Ebola Immune Response Targets
La Jolla CA (SPX) Sep 11, 2014 -
The effort to develop therapeutics and a vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus disease (EVD) requires a complex understanding of the microorganism and its relationship within the host, especially the immune response. Adding to the challenge, EVD can be caused by any one of five known species within the genus Ebolavirus (EBOV), in the Filovirus family.
Now, researchers at the La Jolla Inst ...
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Globalization threatens benefits of an African 'green revolution'
Vancouver, Canada (SPX) Sep 11, 2014 -
A prospective "green revolution" in Africa could boost land use and carbon emissions globally, according to a study co-authored by a University of British Columbia researcher.
The term "green revolution" typically describes the use of agricultural innovations - such as the development of new seeds - to increase yields, particularly in developing countries.
Past green revolutions in A ...
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Lake Michigan communities to apply for marine sanctuary status
Manitowoc, Mich. (UPI) Sep 2, 2014 -
The Great Lakes currently hosts only one marine sanctuary, the Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena, Michigan. But Lake Michigan could get another sanctuary, as several Wisconsin communities along the western side of the lake are applying for the federal designation.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency which grants the designation, is expecting an applicat ...
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Smart farming the key to China's food problems: study
Paris (AFP) Sept 03, 2014 -
Clever farming techniques would provide China with more than enough grain to feed its escalating population in the coming decades while easing stress on its environment, scientists reported on Wednesday.
China faces a double crunch as its population of 1.35 billion rises to an expected peak of 1.47 billion in 2030, which will require more than 650 million tonnes of rice, wheat and corn annua ...
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The key to drilling wells with staying power in the developing world
Federal Way WA (SPX) Sep 03, 2014 -
What happens after a well is drilled, fitted with a hand pump, and a community celebrates having access to clean water for the first time? Half of them break down in a year.
When a community lacks sufficient resources and training, these wells would be rendered unusable; however, a new study by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's (UNC) Water Institute and Water and Sanitation fo ...
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Chinese scientists' team efforts in dissecting rice complex agronomic traits in recent years
Beijing, China (SPX) Sep 03, 2014 -
Rice is a main food source for more than half of the global population and is a model plant for genome-based research.
Since the turn of the century, Chinese scientists have embarked on a "Long March" toward more intricate understanding of the complex agronomic traits of rice, spurred in part by the completion of the draft genome sequence of the indica variety 93-11 and a fine sequence ana ...
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EU court rules against France over nitrates water pollution
Luxembourg (AFP) Sept 04, 2014 -
The European Union's top court ruled on Thursday that France had failed to adequately prevent water pollution by nitrates and ordered the government to implement regulation or face penalties.
The European Commission took the French government to court for failing to prevent water pollution in vulnerable zones, including some of France's iconic shoreline.
Synthetic nitrate fertilisers are ...
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Rising risk of failed seasons as climate change puts pressure on Africa's farmers
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (SPX) Sep 05, 2014 -
Small-scale family farmers across Africa- already struggling to adapt to rapidly rising temperatures and more erratic rains-risk being overwhelmed by the pace and severity of climate change, according to the 2014 African Agriculture Status Report (AASR).
The analysis, prepared by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), with contributions from several African scholars, provide ...
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Ozone pollution in India kills enough crops to feed 94 million in poverty
Washington DC (SPX) Sep 05, 2014 -
In one year, India's ozone pollution damaged millions of tons of the country's major crops, causing losses of more than a billion dollars and destroying enough food to feed tens of millions of people living below the poverty line.
These are findings of a new study that looked at the agricultural effects in 2005 of high concentrations of ground-level ozone, a plant-damaging pollutant formed ...
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Research shows declining levels of acidity in Sierra Nevada lakes
Riverside CA (SPX) Sep 05, 2014 -
California's water supply depends on a clean snow pack and healthy mountain lakes. The lakes receive a large amount of runoff in the spring from the melting snowpack. If the snowpack is polluted, the lakes will be polluted.
James O. Sickman, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Riverside, has conducted research on lakes in the Sierra Nevada-the most sensitive lakes i ...
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Chinese firm serves up 'smart chopsticks' for food-wary diners
Beijing (AFP) Sept 04, 2014 -
From recycled cooking oil to fox meat and chemicals, a litany of food scandals have turned Chinese diners' stomachs, but a new "smart chopsticks" concept by Internet search giant Baidu could put the answer in their hands.
The device, which the firm says can tell consumers whether the food in front of them is safe to eat, was born of an April Fool's video, a spokesman said Thursday.
Baidu ...
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