Posted by admin in World News on 09 5th, 2009 | 2 Comments
Lawsuit Filed to Block Pipeline Project
Less than two weeks after the State Department gave the go-ahead for a major new pipeline to carry Alberta oil sands crude into the United States, a network of environmental and Native American groups filed a lawsuit to stop it.
The suit, filed today in United States District Court in San Francisco,...
Posted by admin in Global Warming on 09 5th, 2009 | No Comments
Temperature Will Soar in Some U.S. States Within the Century
The heat is on. We all know climate change is a very real and very dangerous fact of life, and many people are changing their lives in an attempt to stop it. But just how hot could things get?
The Nature Conservancy has developed a new online tool called the ClimateWizard, which maps past and projected...
Posted by admin in Global Warming on 09 5th, 2009 | No Comments
Investment in geo-engineering needed immediately
Experiments on giant sunshades for the Earth and vast forests of artificial trees must begin immediately, according to the Royal Society, to ensure such mega-engineering plans are available as a safety net in case global talks to combat climate change fail.
The scientists spent a year assessing geo-engineering...
Posted by admin in Global Warming on 09 5th, 2009 | No Comments
Arctic at warmest levels in 2,000 years or more
New research shows that the Arctic reversed a long-term cooling trend and began warming rapidly in recent decades. The blue line shows estimates of Arctic temperatures over the last 2,000 years, based on proxy records from lake sediments, ice cores and tree rings. The green line shows the long-term cooling...
Posted by admin in Animals on 09 5th, 2009 | No Comments
Google trick tracks extinctions
Google’s algorithm for ranking web pages can be adapted to determine which species are critical for sustaining ecosystems, say researchers.
According to a paper in PLoS Computational Biology, “PageRank” can be applied to the study of food webs.
These are the complex networks of who...
Posted by admin in Animals on 09 5th, 2009 | No Comments
Political infighting threatens survival of the bluefin tuna
The bluefin tuna is one of the ocean’s most magnificent creatures, a half-tonne predator that swims at 40mph. But political scheming in Brussels may condemn it to death
The last chance to save one of the most majestic fish in the sea is on the verge of collapse because of political jockeying in...
Posted by admin in World News on 09 5th, 2009 | No Comments
Anti-nuclear rally in Berlin becomes campaign issue
Thousands of people from across Germany, including farmers on tractors, are in Berlin this Saturday to protest against the nuclear energy industry and in support of a plan to shut down the country’s nuclear reactors.
The future of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants, due to be shut down by...
Posted by admin in Animals on 09 5th, 2009 | No Comments
Chimpanzees Develop ‘Specialized Tool Kits’ To Catch Army Ants
Chimpanzees in the Congo have developed specialised ‘tool kits’ to forage for army ants, reveals new research published today in the American Journal of Primatology. This not only provides the first direct evidence of multiple tool use in this context, but suggests that chimpanzees have developed...
Posted by admin in Animals on 09 5th, 2009 | No Comments
Wolves Beat Dogs on Logic Test
Wolves do better on some tests of logic than dogs, a new study found, revealing differences between the animals that scientists suspect result from dogs’ domestication.
In experiments, dogs followed human cues to perform certain tasks despite evidence they could see suggesting a different strategy...
Posted by admin in World News on 09 5th, 2009 | No Comments
New Protests Reported in Restive Chinese Region
BEIJING — Thousands of Han Chinese protesters swarmed around government buildings in the capital of the restive Xinjiang region on Thursday to demand a crackdown on Uighurs after rumors spread that they were sticking hundreds of Hans with H.I.V.-tainted hypodermic needles.
The fresh conflict in the...