Climate change ravaging Antarctic fur seals: study
Paris (AFP) July 23, 2014 -
A food shortage likely caused by climate change is shrinking a South Antarctic fur seal colony and changing the profile of its surviving members, researchers said Wednesday.
South Georgia island's Antarctic fur seal pups have a lower average birth weight, and there are fewer breeding adults - who hold out longer to reproduce than in the past, according to study results published in the jour ...
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One dead as hundreds flee false tsunami alert in Philippines
Manila (AFP) July 23, 2014 -
A false tsunami alarm left one person dead and prompted hundreds of others to flee their homes in the Philippines, where natural disasters are frequent, a civil defence official said Wednesday.
The cause of the sudden panic that hit Candelaria 88 kilometres (55 miles) south of Manila and other impoverished towns is still being investigated, said Henry Buzar, head of the area's disaster manag ...
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After MH17 tragedy, Australia assures search for MH370 goes on
Sydney (AFP) July 23, 2014 -
Australia said the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 continued uninterrupted Wednesday, even as the head of the search coordination agency was sent to Ukraine to help with the MH17 tragedy.
Australia leads the multinational search for MH370 which disappeared on March 8 carrying 239 people and is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.
It has also been drawn ...
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Heatstroke kills three in Japan, thousands hospitalised
Tokyo (AFP) July 23, 2014 -
Sweltering temperatures across Japan have left at least three people dead and 3,000 others taken to hospital with heatstroke in the course of a week, officials said Wednesday.
The state weather agency said temperatures topped 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in several places Wednesday, warning that similarly hot weather would "raise the danger of heatstroke" the next day.
The ...
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Brazil to release millions of GM-mosquitos to fight dengue
Campinas, Brazil (UPI) Jul 23, 2013 -
Next week, the biotech company Oxitec, based in Abingdon, England, will begin raising millions of genetically modified mosquitos at a new factory in Campinas, Brazil. The objective: curb the spread of dengue fever.
These new GM-mosquitos won't target dengue specifically, only other mosquitos - the main vehicle by which the virus travels. These Franken-bugs will mate with females; but t ...
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Urban heat boosts some pest populations 200-fold, killing red maples
Raleigh NC (SPX) Jul 24, 2014 -
New research from North Carolina State University shows that urban "heat islands" are slowly killing red maples in the southeastern United States. One factor is that researchers have found warmer temperatures increase the number of young produced by the gloomy scale insect - a significant tree pest - by 300 percent, which in turn leads to 200 times more adult gloomy scales on urban trees.
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Ecological impact of microbial respiration in oxygen-starved oceans
Vancouver, Canada (SPX) Jul 24, 2014 -
A sulfur-oxidizing bacterial group called SUP05 will play an increasingly important role in carbon and nutrient cycling in the world's oceans as oxygen minimum zones expand, according to research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
University of British Columbia researchers plumbed the depth of a seasonally anoxic fjord, Canada's Saanich Inlet, to ch ...
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