70,000 hit by India flooding, more to come

Flood-affected people are rescued on a motor boat by National Disaster Response Force personnel in Puthimari, India on Tuesday. (AP)

GUWAHATI, India - Floods and landslides caused by three days of incessant rain killed six people and left thousands homeless in India's remote northeast, one of the country's most flood-prone regions, officials said on Wednesday.

A sudden wave of flood waters swamped hundreds of villages in the region, destroying houses, farmland and roads, forcing thousands of people to take shelter on high ground, in government buildings and schools.

Three people, including one child, were buried in mudslides and three others were washed away by fast flowing waters in two northeastern mountainous states of Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, police said.

In the oil- and tea-rich state of Assam, around 70,000 people have been affected by flash floods, as authorities called rescue workers to evacuate stranded people.

Officials said heavy rains and later the release of excess water from dams by power generating companies in Arunachal Pradesh and neighboring Bhutan caused flooding in the region.

"It all started overnight and we are trying to shift the people to safer places," said Hemkanta Pegu, a local civil servant in Assam's Lakhimpur district.

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Rising sea levels to erode Sydney beaches

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Rising sea levels as a result of climate change will erode Sydney's iconic beaches by 2050, with some at risk of disappearing, and threaten beachfront homes and commercial properties, a new climate change study said.

Sea levels along Sydney's coast are expected to rise by up to 40 cm above 1990 levels by 2050 and by 90 cm by 2100, with each one centimeter of rise resulting in one meter of erosion on low-lying beaches, said the Sydney climate change impact report.

"The Sydney region has a heavy density of residential and commercial beachfront developments that may be threatened by either ocean inundation or sea level rise-induced recession," said the report by the NSW Department of Climate Change.

"Rising sea levels may exacerbate flood risk in coastal rivers," said the report received on Wednesday.

The report said further study was needed to determine the extent of coastal erosion in particular locations.

But low-lying Sydney beaches such as Collaroy and Narrabeen, which have already been severely eroded by storm seas, and Dee Why and Curl Curl, are most at risk.

Beaches which have a hard promenade, such as Manly, Bondi and Coogee, will shrink as sand is washed away and may need sand deposits in order to survive in further decades.

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Mercury was once alive with volcanoes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While it seems like a geologically dead planet today, early in its history tiny Mercury may have been a caldron of volcanic activity, NASA scientists said on Wednesday.

Data from the U.S. space agency's car-sized MESSENGER probe's latest close encounter with the planet nearest the sun on October 6 is helping to settle a debate dating back to the 1970s over the role volcanoes played in Mercury's history.

MESSENGER sent back images showing extensive and deep lava flows on the surface, including hardened lava more than a mile deep filling a crater 60 miles in diameter.

The unmanned spacecraft also detected a so-called "wrinkle ridge," a long geological feature on Mercury's surface about 2,000 feet high apparently caused by long-ago contraction of the planet as it cooled, the scientists said.

That's about twice as high as similar features seen on the surface of Mars, according to Maria Zuber, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist working on the mission.

This was the second of three scheduled encounters before MESSENGER enters into orbit around Mercury in 2011. It flew past Mercury on January 14 and will return in September 2009.

Combined with data from January's fly-by, the new observations suggest Mercury was gripped by volcanic activity on a planetary scale, the scientists said.

"The bottom line is volcanism was very important in the history of Mercury," Mark Robinson of Arizona State University, another scientist working on the mission, told reporters.

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2004 tsunami biggest in 600 years

Animation of the tsunami caused by the earthquake showing how the tsunami radiated from the entire length of the 1,600 km (994 mi) rupture.

Long gap could explain earthquake that launched killer waves

NEW YORK - The tsunami that killed 230,000 people in 2004 was the biggest in the Indian Ocean in some 600 years, two new geological studies suggest.

That long gap might explain how enough geological stress built up to power the huge undersea earthquake that launched the killer waves four years ago, researchers said.

The work appears in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Two research teams report that by digging pits and taking core samples in Thailand and northern Sumatra, they found evidence that the last comparably large tsunami struck between the years 1300 and 1400.

The researchers found deposits of sand that were apparently left by the waves, and estimated their age with carbon dating of associated plant debris.

The December 2004 disaster killed people in 14 countries. Waves more than 100 feet high struck northern Sumatra and deposited sand more than a mile inland, researchers said. In Thailand, the waves also ran more than a mile inland, leaving deposits of sand some 2 to 8 inches thick.

London sees first October snowfall in 74 YEARS

Jack Frost is obviously a little more impatient than usual this year.

Just two days after the end of British Summertime, the first snowfall of the season turned large swathes of the country white last night.

Even London was hit by a light dusting last night - the first time the capital has seen snow in October since 1934.

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Snow joke: A commuter cycles home in snowy Coventry, cutting a track through the fresh layer

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A car heads through blizzard-like conditions in Stevenage, Hertfordshire

That was the year footballer Stanley Matthews first pulled on an England jersey, Adolf Hitler became Fuhrer and Alcatraz prison opened its gates off San Francisco.

Other areas of the South-East, including Hertfordshire, just 20 miles out of London, were covered in a thick blanket of snow.

Thousands of homes in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Essex were today without power as the unseasonal weather led to substation problems.

The last time it snowed in the region in October was 1974.

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The cold snap saw snow falling on London

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It was the first time snow has settled in North London in October for decades

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The Arctic blast hit Northern Ireland and Scotland hardest: Here children in Newtownabbey, County Antrim were delighted by the early snowfalls

The Millennium Bridge over the Thames was coated in snow

Children in Stevenage, Hertfordshire managed to make snowmen and Welwyn Garden City saw two inches of thick snow.

Oxford and parts of Bedfordshire were also covered as the weather front swept across the Home Counties.

In the Midlands, an area from Herefordshire in the West to Cambridgeshire in the East was transformed into a Christmas card scene.

It may be October but this Aberdeenshire scene could have come straight from a Christmas card

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One-third of world fish catch used for animal feed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One-third of the world's ocean fish catch is ground up for animal feed, a potential problem for marine ecosystems and a waste of a resource that could directly nourish humans, scientists said on Wednesday.

The fish being used to feed pigs, chickens and farm-raised fish are often thought of as bait, including anchovies, sardines, menhaden and other small- to medium-sized species, researchers wrote in a study to be published in November in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources.

These so-called forage fish account for 37 percent, or 31.5 million tons, of all fish taken from the world's oceans each year, the study said. Ninety percent of that catch is turned into fish meal or fish oil, most of which is used as agricultural and aquacultural feed.

Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science and a professor at Stony Brook University in New York, called these numbers "staggering."

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Central Texas still in grips of drought

Pilar Clements, center, with daughter Ferin Dalby, visits Jacob's Well in Hays County daily. She said the water level has dropped a lot. The spring flow has been intermittent during the past week.

Cities are asked to cut back and farmers and ranchers suffer, but little rain is expected through early next year.

Charles Fritsch typically waits until the first of November to supplement the grass his cattle eat with hay at his Twin Creek Ranch in eastern Travis County. But an exceptionally dry year has left little grass on the 175-acre ranch , forcing Fritsch for weeks to buy some hay at escalating prices.

"We've had a dry year, then a wet year and now a dry year," said Fritsch, who said drought has driven hay prices from $45 a bale to more than $80 a bale. "We'd just like to get back to a normal year."

As winter nears, federal authorities describe South Texas, the Panhandle and most of West Texas as not experiencing even mild drought. But across Central Texas, drought has stifled water supplies already taxed by a hot summer and never-ending demand. Exact definitions differ, but drought is often described as a period when an area receives less than 75 percent of its average annual precipitation. Average yearly rainfall for Austin is 34 inches; so far this year, 15 inches have fallen.

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For many evangelicals, it will be the end of the world if Obama wins

The evangelical movement is fearful on many fronts, Mark Hennessy discovers in Colorado Springs

QUIETLY SPOKEN, religiously and politically conservative, and living in the heartland of evangelical Christianity in the US, Daniel Lopez pondered the end of time that could come if Barack Obama becomes president.

"When I think of it, it brings to mind the prophecies that the Bible tells us about," said Lopez, sitting in the shade outside Focus on the Family's headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

"On the one hand, it is exciting for us as conservatives because we can actually see what God prophesied coming about; but on the other hand, it is frustrating to see somebody become president who is a blatant liar."

Lopez and his family moved three years ago from California to Colorado Springs, which has over the past couple of decades become home to thousands of evangelical Christians, and more than 100 of their churches.

The most influential religious operation in the city is not, however, a church as such, but the sprawling Focus on the Family complex established by James Dobson, one of the US's most influential figures.

Each year, he broadcasts to 200 million religious conservatives at home and abroad, and he reigns supreme in Colorado Springs since pastor Ted Haggard fell from grace after he was found to have solicited a male prostitute for sex and drugs.

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For many evangelicals, it will be the end of the world if Obama wins

The evangelical movement is fearful on many fronts, Mark Hennessy discovers in Colorado Springs

QUIETLY SPOKEN, religiously and politically conservative, and living in the heartland of evangelical Christianity in the US, Daniel Lopez pondered the end of time that could come if Barack Obama becomes president.

"When I think of it, it brings to mind the prophecies that the Bible tells us about," said Lopez, sitting in the shade outside Focus on the Family's headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

"On the one hand, it is exciting for us as conservatives because we can actually see what God prophesied coming about; but on the other hand, it is frustrating to see somebody become president who is a blatant liar."

Lopez and his family moved three years ago from California to Colorado Springs, which has over the past couple of decades become home to thousands of evangelical Christians, and more than 100 of their churches.

The most influential religious operation in the city is not, however, a church as such, but the sprawling Focus on the Family complex established by James Dobson, one of the US's most influential figures.

Each year, he broadcasts to 200 million religious conservatives at home and abroad, and he reigns supreme in Colorado Springs since pastor Ted Haggard fell from grace after he was found to have solicited a male prostitute for sex and drugs.

The evangelical movement is fearful on many fronts, Mark Hennessy discovers in Colorado Springs

QUIETLY SPOKEN, religiously and politically conservative, and living in the heartland of evangelical Christianity in the US, Daniel Lopez pondered the end of time that could come if Barack Obama becomes president.

"When I think of it, it brings to mind the prophecies that the Bible tells us about," said Lopez, sitting in the shade outside Focus on the Family's headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

"On the one hand, it is exciting for us as conservatives because we can actually see what God prophesied coming about; but on the other hand, it is frustrating to see somebody become president who is a blatant liar."

Lopez and his family moved three years ago from California to Colorado Springs, which has over the past couple of decades become home to thousands of evangelical Christians, and more than 100 of their churches.

The most influential religious operation in the city is not, however, a church as such, but the sprawling Focus on the Family complex established by James Dobson, one of the US's most influential figures.

Each year, he broadcasts to 200 million religious conservatives at home and abroad, and he reigns supreme in Colorado Springs since pastor Ted Haggard fell from grace after he was found to have solicited a male prostitute for sex and drugs.

The evangelical movement is fearful on many fronts, Mark Hennessy discovers in Colorado Springs

QUIETLY SPOKEN, religiously and politically conservative, and living in the heartland of evangelical Christianity in the US, Daniel Lopez pondered the end of time that could come if Barack Obama becomes president.

"When I think of it, it brings to mind the prophecies that the Bible tells us about," said Lopez, sitting in the shade outside Focus on the Family's headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

"On the one hand, it is exciting for us as conservatives because we can actually see what God prophesied coming about; but on the other hand, it is frustrating to see somebody become president who is a blatant liar."

Lopez and his family moved three years ago from California to Colorado Springs, which has over the past couple of decades become home to thousands of evangelical Christians, and more than 100 of their churches.

The most influential religious operation in the city is not, however, a church as such, but the sprawling Focus on the Family complex established by James Dobson, one of the US's most influential figures.

Each year, he broadcasts to 200 million religious conservatives at home and abroad, and he reigns supreme in Colorado Springs since pastor Ted Haggard fell from grace after he was found to have solicited a male prostitute for sex and drugs.

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Centipedes are dangerous weapons

Malaysian man could face jail, caning after dumping bugs in neighbor's bed

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A Malaysian man has been accused of trying to hurt his neighbor with a dangerous weapon — centipedes.

Prosecutor Mazri Mohamed said Wednesday that R. Prabakaran has been charged with attempting to cause harm with a dangerous weapon after allegedly unleashing four centipedes and bugs in his neighbor's bed last week following an argument.

Prabakaran, 21, allegedly climbed on to the roof to enter his neighbor's house where he committed the offense, Mazri said.

Prabakaran pleaded not guilty Tuesday in a court in the southern city of Johor Baru and has been released on bail, Mazri said.

It was not clear what species the centipedes were. Some species are poisonous.

If found guilty, Prabakaran faces up to three years prison and a caning.

Great destruction, in Pakistan quake

Scores dead after Pakistan quake

Hundreds are killed and many more are thought to be buried under rubble after a 6.4-magnitude quake in Pakistan's Baluchistan province

People bring a man injured by Wednesday's earthquake, at a local hospital in Quetta, Pakistan on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008. A strong earthquake in southwestern Pakistan killed at least 135 people, injured scores more and destroyed hundreds of mud houses Wednesday, officials said. The death toll was expected to rise as reports arrived from remote areas of the affected province of Baluchistan, an impoverished area bordering Afghanistan where the quake struck before dawn with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4.
Pakistani quake leaves 150 dead, 15,000 homeless

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A strong earthquake struck before dawn Wednesday in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 150 people, injuring scores more and leaving an estimated 15,000 homeless, officials said.

The death toll was expected to rise as reports arrived from remote areas of Baluchistan, the impoverished province bordering Afghanistan where the magnitude 6.4 quake struck.

The worst-hit area appeared to be Ziarat, where hundreds of mostly mud and timber houses had been destroyed in five villages, Mayor Dilawar Kakar said. Some homes were buried in a landslide triggered by the quake, he said.

"There is great destruction. Not a single house is intact," Kakar told Express News television.

Maulana Abdul Samad, the minister for forests in Baluchistan, said at least 150 people were confirmed to have died. Kakar said hundreds of people have been injured and some 15,000 were homeless.

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Animal rights fanatic 'planted home-made petrol bombs at Oxford university

An animal rights fanatic planted two home-made petrol bombs at Oxford University as part of a "terrorist campaign" against its plans to build a research laboratory, a court has heard.

Mel Broughton left his DNA on one of the unexploded devices, the court heard Photo: David Modell

The scene of an arson attack at the Oxford University zoology and pyschology departments in December 2006 Photo: INS

Mel Broughton was behind two devices that ripped apart a sports pavilion owned by Queen's College and a further two unexploded bombs which were found beneath a Portacabin, used as an office at Templeton College, it was alleged.

A jury was told that Broughton, 48, a self-proclaimed fanatic and leading figure of the group SPEAK, which campaigned against Oxford University's plans to build an animal testing laboratory, left his DNA on one of the unexploded devices.

He is standing trial at Oxford Crown Court where he denies charges of conspiracy to commit arson, an alternative charge of possession of articles with intent to destroy property and keeping an explosive substance with intent namely a quantity of sparklers.

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Polio infections increasing and spreading to new countries

Polio Spreads to New Countries and Increases Where It’s Endemic

Polio infections are increasing and spreading to new countries, according to case counts recently released by the World Health Organization.

Since April, outbreaks have been found in 10 countries beyond the 4 in which polio is considered endemic — Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. And in those four countries, the number of cases is more than double the number found by this time in 2007.

In Africa, cases have been found as far south as Angola and as far west as Ethiopia. Each detected case implies another 200 cases with few or no symptoms, experts say.

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"Two planets" would be required to sustain current lifestyles within a generation

WWF says reckless consumption threatens the planet

GENEVA (Reuters) - The Earth's natural resources are being depleted so quickly that "two planets" would be required to sustain current lifestyles within a generation, the conservation group WWF said on Wednesday.

The Swiss-based WWF, also known as the World Wildlife Fund, said in its latest Living Planet Report that more than three quarters of the world's population lives in countries whose consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal.

Its Living Planet Report concluded that reckless consumption of "natural capital" was endangering the world's future prosperity, with clear economic impacts including high costs for food, water and energy.

"If our demands on the planet continue to increase at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles," said WWF International Director-General James Leape.

Jonathan Loh of the Zoological Society of London said the dramatic ecological losses from pollution, deforestation, over-fishing and land conversion were having serious impacts.CONTINUE

1,000 head of cattle died in Bangladesh storm

Fifteen killed, many injured in Bangladesh storm

DHAKA, Oct 28 (Reuters) - At least 15 people were killed and some 300 injured by a tropical storm that battered southern Bangladesh, officials said on Tuesday.

At least 10 fishing boats with 50 aboard were missing in the Bay of Bengal after tropical storm Rashmi lashed the south of the country with winds of up to 80 kmh (50 mph), community leaders said.
Thousands of homes and areas of crops were damaged, while electrical and telephone poles were brought down, cutting power and disrupting communications.

At least 1,000 head of cattle died as offshore islands and coastal areas were swept by a tidal surge two meters (nine feet) higher than normal.

Storms batter the poor south Asian country every year. Cyclone Sidr ravaged the coast last November, killing nearly 3,500 people and displacing some two million. A cyclone in 1991 killed nearly 140,000 Bangladeshis and another in 1970 -- the worst on record -- killed about half a million people

The temples of doom

Population explosion, ecological disaster and weak leadership ... that's what probably killed off the Maya at the height of their powers. Are the modern-day parallels too close for us to ignore? Rory Carroll reports

The Mayan ruins of Palenque and the Temple of the Sun in Chiapas, Mexico. Photograph: Rex features

The ruins lie silent and abandoned in the heart of the jungle; blocks of stone surrendered to the vines, which twist and writhe over temples, plazas and pyramids. Weeds and forest creatures have colonised the inner sanctums; mahogany and cedar trees swallow what once were roads, blotting out the sun. This is Tikal, the ancient Mayan city of northern Guatemala. There was a time when tens of thousands of people lived here. The architecture and urban planning - there are epic monuments, boastful inscriptions and even courts for playing ball games - embody boundless human confidence.

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Endangered Saimaa seal threatened by fishing, climate change

AFP – The rare Saimaa ringed seal, seen here, which lives only in Finland and whose population is estimated …

HELSINKI (AFP) – The rare Saimaa ringed seal, which lives only in Finland and whose population is estimated at just 260, is increasingly threatened by fishermen's nets and the melting of its icy habitat due to climate change, experts say.

The seal lives only in Finland's biggest lake, Lake Saimaa, in the eastern part of the country. It is a subspecies of the ringed seal that became a fresh water mammal some 9,500 years ago when ice melted after the ice age and it became trapped in the lake.

It has suffered from man's actions, in the form of pollution in the 1960s and the 1970s, and more recently from warmer winters and fishing.

Calving seals use snow to build a protective lair on the ice for their pups, which are born at the end of February or in early March.

"During the last three winters the ice and snow have come late or the snow has melted early, so seals have not been able to build lairs and the pups have remained without the protection of a lair," Jari Luukkonen, conservation director at WWF Finland, told AFP.

This has resulted in many cubs dying soon after birth and the population has started to fall.

Nets from sports fishermen are another death trap for the young cubs as they learn to catch their own food.

Statistics by state agency Metsaehallitus show the seal population increased from 189 in 1990 to 280 in 2005, but it has gradually fallen to around 260 in the past few years, a declining trend that has conservationists concerned.

According to stock estimates, some 50 to 60 pups are born annually, but up to 30 percent of them die during the first year.

"Getting entangled in fishing nets is the biggest single cause of death brought on by man. If we get rid of that, the Saimaa seal could probably survive the climate change," Luukkonen said.

A temporary law on fishing restrictions in Lake Saimaa is due to be renewed in May 2009 and a working group set up by the ministry of agriculture and forestry is currently discussing how the legislation should be tweaked.

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Yellowstone Amphibians Declining Under Climate Change

Yellowstone From Above | Video: Discovery Earth

Oct. 27, 2008 -- Despite being protected longer than anywhere else on Earth, Yellowstone's amphibians are declining fast. The culprit, say researchers: climate change.

In 1992 and 1993, researchers in Elizabeth Hadly's group at Stanford University surveyed amphibians dwelling in ponds left behind by glaciers in northern Yellowstone National Park. Over the last three summers, Hadly's graduate student Sarah McMenamin repeated the study.

McMenamin looked for the four species of amphibians found in the park -- a salamander, two frogs and a less common toad -- in 49 ponds, counting even the presence of one member of a given species in a particular pond as a "population." Fewer than half of the populations recorded in the 1992 survey remained 15 years later.

"I found that not only had a lot of the amphibian populations disappeared from the ponds, but the ponds themselves were disappearing," McMenamin said.

First taste of winter as Arctic blast brings sleet and snow

An Arctic blast will give Britain its first taste of winter sending temperatures well below freezing and bringing snow and sleet to many parts.

Arctic blast will bring snow

Winds blowing directly from the North Pole will bring a sudden cold snap, leaving the mild autumn conditions enjoyed across much of the country just a memory.

Sheltered Scottish glens could see temperatures drop to a bitter 17F (-8C) on Tuesday night while most areas will see temperatures slip below freezing point for two nights.

Gardeners are being warned to prepare for the first widespread frost of the year.

The Highways Agency said that its fleet of road gritters is on stand-by to keep major routes clear, while Network Rail has supplies of de-icer ready in case of tracks freezing.

It marks the end of the mild conditions which have allowed one of the best shows of autumn colour from Britain's trees in recent years.

Forecasters are blaming a change in change in wind direction for the wintery spell with Arctic gusts replacing the mild south-west Atlantic breezes enjoyed in recent weeks.

"It is the first real taste of winter this year," said Barry Grommet, a Met Office forecaster.

While most low-lying areas are expected to escape with little more than a dusting of snow or sleet during passing showers on Tuesday, others will be less lucky.

"There could be quite a lot of snow over the northern hills across Scotland predominately, but we must not rule out places like Snowdonia and the moors of north-east England," Mr Grommet said.

"Many places are likely to see a frost, we have seen isolated frosts last week but it is quite widespread."

Gales could reach 50mph in Scotland making temperatures feel even colder.

Overnight temperatures will be around 26F (-3C) over many areas, reaching only 37F (3C) by day in the north of England and Scotland.

The south will fare slightly better during the day at least, with likely highs of 44F (7C) in London on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"Our advice to drivers is to plan your journey and be prepared before heading out on the roads," said Amelia Yeodal, a spokeswoman for the Highways Agency.

"Check the weather forecasts and road conditions before leaving, and if bad weather is expected have warm clothing and an emergency pack in the car, which includes food and water, boots, de-icer, a torch and a spade."

Conditions will warm up by the end of the week but there is unlikely to be a return to the sunny autumn skies of recent weeks.

"In terms of what we have been used to, the milder than average temperatures, I think we have probably seen the back of those for the moment," said Mr Grommet.

"After this cold snap we return to temperatures that are likely to be much nearer average."

Farm-Credit Squeeze May Cut Crops, Spur Food Crisis

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The credit crunch is compounding a profit squeeze for farmers that may curb global harvests and worsen a food crisis for developing countries.

Global production of wheat, the most-consumed food crop, may drop 4.4 percent next year, said Dan Basse, president of AgResource Co. in Chicago, who has advised farmers, food companies and investors for 29 years. Harvests of corn and soybeans also are likely to fall, Basse said.

Smaller crops risk reviving prices of farm commodities that sank from records in 2008 after a six-year rally that spurred inflation and sparked riots from Asia to the Caribbean. Futures contracts on the Chicago Board of Trade show wheat will jump 16 percent by the end of 2009, corn will rise 15 percent and soybeans will gain 3 percent.

``The credit situation is worrying even the biggest and best farmers,'' said Brian Willot, 36, a former University of Missouri commodity analyst who now grows soybeans on 2,000 acres in Brazil. ``For the financially weak, credit has dried up completely. For the strong, credit has been delayed and interest rates are higher.''

The number of hungry around the world is at risk of increasing as the financial crisis cuts investment in agriculture and crops, said Abdolreza Abbassian, secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. The total increased by 75 million last year to 923 million, the UN estimates.

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Climate change affecting Walden Pond plants

Reuters – A swimmer stands in Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts October 12, 2008. REUTERS/Brian Snyder (UNITED …

WASHINGTON – Naturalist Henry David Thoreau might well be surprised that while much of the land around Walden Pond remains undeveloped, many of the plants he knew so well are gone, probably a result of climate change.

Some 27 percent of the species documented by Thoreau in the mid-1800s have disappeared, researchers report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

And as many as 36 percent exist there in such small numbers that their disappearance may be imminent, report researchers led by Charles C. Davis of Harvard University.

Warming temperatures have led to changes in the timing of seasonal activities in some plant species, but not others, the team reports. The mean temperature in the area has risen 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit (2.4 Celsius) over the past century.

They found that plants that move to an earlier flowering time in warmer weather do well.

But species that did not respond to temperature changes have decreased greatly, including anemones, buttercups, asters, campanulas, bluets, bladderworts, dogwoods, lilies, mints, orchids, roses, saxifrages and violets.

Closest Planetary System Hosts Two Asteroid Belts

New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope indicate that the nearest planetary system to our own has two asteroid belts. Our own solar system has just one.

The star at the center of the nearby system, called Epsilon Eridani, is a younger, slightly cooler and fainter version of the sun. Previously, astronomers had uncovered evidence for two possible planets in the system, and for a broad, outer ring of icy comets similar to our own Kuiper Belt.

Now, Spitzer has discovered that the system also has dual asteroid belts. One sits at approximately the same position as the one in our solar system. The second, denser belt, most likely also populated by asteroids, lies between the first belt and the comet ring. The presence of the asteroid belts implies additional planets in the Epsilon Eridani system.

"This system probably looks a lot like ours did when life first took root on Earth," said Dana Backman, an astronomer at the SETI Institute, in Mountain View, Calif., and outreach director for NASA's Sofia mission. "The main difference we know of so far is that it has an additional ring of leftover planet construction material." Backman is lead author of a paper about the findings to appear Jan. 10 in the Astrophysical Journal.

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Hi-Res and Full Caption Double the Rubble This artist's conception shows the closest known planetary system to our own, called Epsilon Eridani

Hi-Res and Full Caption Young Solar System in the Making This artist's diagram compares the Epsilon Eridani system to our own solar system. The two systems are structured similarly, and both host asteroids (brown), comets (blue) and planets (white dots).

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

75 Percent Of Hawaii Suffering Drought

HONOLULU - The entire state is drier than normal right now, with three-fourths of us suffering from drought, National Weather Service forecasters said Friday.

Last winter served up some wild weather, including several rounds of flooding. It was normal for Hawaii's wet season that begins in October and usually persists until April.

"But once mid-February rolled around, then it really got dry and March was extremely dry. April again, was very dry and it sort of balances out what happened in the early part of the wet season," National Weather Service hydrologist Raymond Tanabe said.

This trend prevailed through the dry summer season, and still exists.

Farmers are suffering most. Forecasters at the National Weather Service on Friday revealed that it may be a while before they see wetter .

"Climate prediction center -- What they're looking for is -- they're not looking for a tilt in either wetter or drier-than-normal condition at least into the rest of 2008. But once 2009 rolls around, they're looking for above normal rainfall conditions," Kodama said.

Winter is also when the islands see the biggest surf.

"We've already had a high-surf advisory for the north- and west-facing shores and we expect more and more frequent of these events to occur as we get into the deeper part of winter," NWS meteorologist Raymond Tanabe said.

However, with no the El Nino in place, Hawaii has a reduced chance for monster surf events.

NWS forecasters said residents can expect vog a little more often. Trade winds blow just 50 percent of the time in winter compared to 90 percent in the summer.

"That doesn't automatically mean that the vog is going to come up this direction, but when we see the winds go southeast, that's a favorable direction for the vog to come up over the islands -- I'd say 25 percent of the time we'll see that," NWS meteorologist Bruce Ballard said.

Climate deal may be too late to save coral reefs, scientists warn

reefs including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia could begin to break up within a few decades, research suggests. Photograph: Cathie Page

A new global deal on climate change will come too late to save most of the world's coral reefs, according to a US study that suggests major ecological damage to the oceans is now inevitable.

Emissions of carbon dioxide are making seawater so acidic that reefs including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia could begin to break up within a few decades, research by the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University in California suggests. Even ambitious targets to stabilise greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, as championed by Britain and Europe to stave off dangerous climate change, still place more than 90% of coral reefs in jeopardy.

Oceanographers Long Cao and Ken Caldeira looked at how carbon dioxide dissolves in the sea as human emissions increase. About a third of carbon pollution is soaked up in this way, where it reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid. Experts say human activity over the last two centuries has produced enough acid to lower the average pH of global ocean surface waters by about 0.1 units.

Such acidification spells problems for coral reefs, which rely on calcium minerals called aragonite to build and maintain their exoskeletons.

"We can't say for sure that [the reefs] will disappear but ... the likelihood they will be able to persist is pretty small," said Caldeira.

The new study was prompted by questions by a US congressional committee on how possible carbon stabilisation targets would affect coral loss.

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Sounds from distant stars may shed light on climate change

Sounds made by three distant stars have been recorded for the first time, as part of research that could shed light on climate change on Earth.

The pulsating vibrations of the stars - which are up 200 light years away and more massive than our Sun - were picked up on a French orbital telescope Corot.
Each star has a slightly different "song", as the sound depends on their size, age and composition.

Scientists are now studying the recordings in an effort to find out more about what goes on inside stars, part of a branch of science known as "stellar seismology".

Oscillations from stars, which are caused by nuclear fusion which shakes the interior, provide clues about the process of solar radiation.

Radiation from our Sun is one factor that contributes to temperature changes on Earth, and scientist hope that by comparing the sounds made by different starts they can learn more about naturally-caused climate change.

"It's not easy," Professor Ian Roxburgh of Queen Mary College, London, one of the scientists working on the project, told the BBC.

"It's like listening to the sound of a musical instrument and then trying to reconstruct the shape of the instrument."

The stars - HD 49933, HD 181420 and a group known as a globular cluster - are between 1.2 and 1.4 times larger than the Sun, and are located between 100 and 200 light years from Earth.

Their vibrations are greater than our Sun's, but not to the degree predicted by computer models, suggesting that astronomers may have to take another look at some of their theories.

Dutch see famous ice skating race melt away

Skaters pass a windmill in Birdaard, Netherlands, on Jan. 4, 1997, during the country's famous ice race.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Global warming is taking a heavier toll than previously thought on a grueling 120-mile speedskating marathon over frozen rivers and canals linking 11 towns in northern Holland.

A study published Friday by the respected Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency said the race is likely to be held only once every 18 years because of higher winter temperatures. Three years ago, it estimated the likelihood at once every 10 years.

Organizers insist on a minimum thickness of 6 inches of ice along virtually the entire route in the northern province of Friesland to ensure it is safe enough to carry thousands of skaters.

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Risks of global warming greater than financial crisis

HONG KONG (Reuters) - The risks of inaction over climate change far outweigh the turmoil of the global financial crisis, a leading climate change expert said on Monday, while calling for new fiscal spending tailored to low carbon growth.

"The risk consequences of ignoring climate change will be very much bigger than the consequences of ignoring risks in the financial system," said Nicholas Stern, a former British Treasury economist, who released a seminal report in 2006 that said inaction on emissions blamed for global warming could cause economic pain equal to the Great Depression.

"That's a very important lesson, tackle risk early," Stern told a climate and carbon conference in Hong Kong.

As countries around the world move from deploying monetary and financial stabilization measures, to boosting fiscal spending to mend real economies, Stern said the opportunity was there to bring about a new, greener, carbon-reducing world order.

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Embryology bill paves way for human-ape hybrids

Scientists would be able to create a 'humanzee' - a cross between a human and a chimpanzee or other animal - thanks to a loophole in controversial fertilisation laws, MPs warned last night.

The prospect of animals being inseminated with human sperm was raised during an impassioned Commons debate on the Government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

The Bill has outraged church leaders and traditionalists as it allows the creation of human-animal embryos for medical research.

Some MPs fear a loophole in the fertilisation laws will allow scientists to create human-ape hybrids

It also relaxes guidelines to make it easier for lesbians and single women to have IVF treatment and lets parents choose 'saviour siblings' for seriously ill children.

The Bill, which is the most significant shake-up of embryology laws for 20 years, cleared its third reading last night - the final Commons hurdle - after the Government imposed a three-line whip on Labour MPs.

Gordon Brown - whose son James Fraser has cystic fibrosis - has described the proposed legislation as a 'moral endeavour'.

But 16 Labour rebels defied the Government to vote against it, including Catholic former Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, who quit the Government this month.

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US Plans $8 Billion Super Storm Tracker

(Oct. 24) -- The U.S. government is looking to launch a new and powerful weather satellite that will be better able to pinpoint where hurricanes and tornadoes may strike.

The Geostationary Orbiting Environmental Satellite, called GOES-R, will possess technologies not found in weather satellites such as the ability to photograph hurricane storm tracks every 30 seconds and capture images of cloud-to-cloud lightning that can precede tornadoes.

Keeping a Closer Eye on the Sky

The government plans to build a powerful new weather satellite that will improve the forecasting of hurricanes and tornadoes. Using new technology, the satellite will photograph hurricane storm tracks every 30 seconds, up from the current 7.5 minutes. Here, Tropical Storm Fay churns over Florida Aug. 20.

Weather Resources: Get Your Forecast | Weather Maps

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will award the contract for the nearly $8 billion system in December.

"If you tighten the error associated with the storm track, that means fewer people you have to evacuate, which saves money, and getting the timing right saves lives," said Mike Ruggles, program director for the Geostationary Orbiting Environmental Satellite at Raytheon.

Raytheon is one of two companies competing to process the data produced by the satellite.

Ruggles said he hopes the satellite will give a five-day hurricane forecast the accuracy of a three-day forecast.

Atlantic Hurricane Season 2008

Waves whipped up by Hurricane Omar smash against a waterfront road Oct. 15 in Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. After drenching Aruba with heavy rains, Omar weakened and headed into the open Atlantic Ocean. It regained hurricane strength again briefly before it dissipated.

Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at private forecasting company Weather Underground, agreed the satellite will provide better short-term predictions about a storm's intensity.

He said he does not believe that the satellite will improve landfall predictions for hurricanes by more than "another few percent."

The $7.6 billion system, which includes ground support and two satellites, is scheduled to be launched in 2015.

NASA has been launching weather satellites since the 1950s. Current satellites, which orbit at an altitude of 22,300 miles over the same spot, have been in space since the early 1980s, and will quit working soon because of old age.

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The mystery pink light that appeared over London

Pink sky at night: The mystery light drifts over a London church

While a pink sky at night might be a shepherd's delight, London residents were left scratching their heads last night as a mysterious pink cloud drifted over the city.

Bemused bystanders in Mayfair craned their necks to witness the strange alien-like cloud that appeared for just under an hour at around 8:30pm.

It hovered over buildings before breaking up and slowly disappearing.

But after dismissing theories of UFOs and atmospheric phenomenons, the Met Office said the blob was likely to be nothing more than the lights of the city reflected in a cloud.

A spokesman said: "If you have very high cloud, as we did last night, you tend to get odd splodges of low cloud that will reflect the pink or sometimes orangey-pink lights of the city from all angles and stand out from the darkness of the sky.

"It can be truly spectacular to witness."

Missing endangered B.C. killer whales feared dead of starvation

A pod of about thirty orcas (killer whales) swims along the west coast of Vancouver Island off the West Coast Trail, in this 2002 file photo.

VICTORIA - Seven endangered southern resident killer whales are believed to have died over the last year, leading some orca watchers to fear for the survival of the three pods that spend their time around southern Vancouver Island and Puget Sound.

The tally comes from the Center for Whale Research in Friday Harbour, which had difficulty completing its count this year because the whales were unusually spread out.

If all seven have died, it brings the population to 83 and represents the biggest die-off in 10 years. The population is believed to have stood historically at about 120 and its lowest point, after decades of shooting and capture, was 71 in 1973.

"I believe they are starving," said Ken Balcomb, Center for Whale Research executive director. "They need to eat, and that means they need chinook salmon. We have to manage our wild salmon properly, and that means for the benefit of the ecosystem and natural world, rather than jobs."

Some deaths had already been reported, such as the unsurprising death of 98-year-old K7, known as Lummi. Two of the three calves born in the last year - L111 and J43 - have also died. That mortality rate is not unusual, as the survival rate for calves in the first year is 50 per cent, Balcomb said.

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South Korea land grab killing migratory birds

SEOUL (Reuters) - A huge South Korean land reclamation project has destroyed wetlands, killed migratory birds and pushed endangered species toward extinction, a report obtained at the weekend said.

The Saemangeum land reclamation, completed in 2006 on the west coast and covering about 400 square kms (155 sq miles) -- about seven times larger than Manhattan -- has removed one of the largest feeding grounds on the Yellow Sea for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds who pass by each year, it said.

"Within Saemangeum, (we) recorded a decline of 137,000 shorebirds, and declines in 19 of the most numerous species, from 2006 to 2008," according to the study by conservation groups Birds Korea and Australasian Wader Studies Group that will be released at an international Ramsar convention on wetlands this week in South Korea.

Migratory birds traveling between Russia and Alaska in the north to New Zealand and Australia in the south congregate for often their only refueling stop at Yellow Sea tidal flats to feast on shellfish and other food.

South Korea, now one of the world's largest economies, launched its reclamation project decades ago to increase its farm land when it was trying to rise from the ashes of the 1950-1953 Korean War and now says it will use the land for factories and recreation sites.

The study indicated that the critically endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper and the endangered Spotted Greenshank were being pushed to extinction by the loss of wetlands.

"There have been large declines and some of this is irreversible," said Nial Moores, a British-born conservationist and director of Birds Korea. "We anticipate the declines will not only continue but become more obvious in other species."

South Korean environmental officials have said they thought there would be no major harm done to migratory birds because they would be able to find food at nearby wetlands in the country.

"The evidence very strongly indicates that most shorebird populations are declining in the Republic of Korea (South Korea), the study said.

The study said the loss of wetlands at Saemangeum has decreased water quality on the coast, which has led to a loss of marine life and puts other areas at risk.

The conservation groups who conducted the study through bird counts for three years are calling on the South Korean government to restore the tidal flow in the area by opening and enlarging the sluice gates.

Death toll rises in Yemen floods

Large tracts in southwestern Yemen have been submerged [AFP]

The death toll from floods sweeping through southwestern Yemen following heavy rains has risen to 49, officials have said.

The floods have been most severe in the provinces of Hadramaut and Mahara.

Officials said that four people were killed by lightning in the southern provinces of Tayez and Lahj, and a mother and son were also killed when lightning struck them in the al-Mahwit region north of the capital Sanaa.

Hadramaut and Mahara were both declared disaster zones on Friday, officials said.

Rescue co-ordinators said that among the victims were seven people who perished in al-Mukalla, the capital of Hadramaut which is located on the shores of the Arabian Sea.

Among the affected areas is the Unesco world heritage site of Shibam, where the area's historic mudbrick buildings are threatened with collapse.

Shibam, which was totally isolated by the flood waters, is home to more than 20,000 people and is famous for its mudbrick high-rises that have given the town the nickname of "the Manhattan of the desert".

On Friday, Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president, visited Hadramaut's capital of Mokalla to oversee rescue operations after tasking a government commission with handling the effort.

Local authorities said that more than 500 houses had been destroyed across Hadramaut, where at least 3,500 people were made homeless.

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'Magnetic Death Star' fragments unearthed in New Jersey

Ancient global warming begat crystalline mutants

Some good news and bad news about global warming: The bad news is that Earth's rising temperatures could threaten coastlines, endanger wildlife, and - in some extreme cases - melt your ice cream. But it could also turn some of us into crystalline magnet men of immense size and power.

Giant magnet creatures in my warm planet? It's more common than you think.

An international team of scientists say they've discovered "giant" magnetofossiles, believed to be pieces of an organism informally dubbed a "Magnetic Death Star." Freshly unearthed at a dig in New Jersey, the microorganisms are up to eight times larger than previously known magnetofossiles and thrived some 55 million years ago — during an ancient and not well understood bout of global warming known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Images courtesy of CalTech

During aforementioned PETM, Earth's average temperature rose more than 9 degrees Fahrenheit as massive amounts of carbon entered the atmosphere in the space of only a few thousand years.

The resulting environmental stress seems to have had done quite a number on life-forms, say Caltech researchers.

Increased CO2 levels appear to have promoted dwarfing in mammals. However, several major mammalian orders like horses and primates suddenly appear in the fossil record and began their spread across the globe.

Almost half of the common sea bottom-dwelling microorganisms known as foraminifera became extinct in the warmer waters, incapable of carrying the levels of dissolved oxygen for which they were adapted.

That's no moon...

"Imagine our surprise to discover not only a fossil bloom of bacteria that make iron-oxide magnets within their cells, but also an entirely unknown set of organisms that grew magnetic crystals to giant sizes," said Caltech postdoctoral scholar Timothy Raub.

We're still talking tiny stuff here. A typical sample of the "giant" spearhead-shaped crystal measures about four microns long — meaning about a hundred would fit at the period end of a sentence, the researchers note. But their size is about eight times larger than the previous world record for the largest bacterial iron-oxide crystal.

(Guinness World Records sadly doesn't have a category for largest bacterial iron-oxide crystal. Curse you, limelight-stealing "Longest Ears on a Dog" researchers!)

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Polar bears dying out in Russian region

MOSCOW (AFP) – Polar bears are dying out in the remote Arctic region of Chukotka because of melting ice and increased killing by humans, an expert with the International Fund for Animal Welfare warned on Friday.

"If this tendency continues, the population will disappear very quickly, said Nikita Ovsyanikov, a researcher from Wrangel Island natural park in Chukotka who has spent the past 18 years studying polar bears in the region.

"We need to create new protected areas in the Arctic," said Ovsyanikov, who has conducted research on behalf of IFAW.

The shrinking of the Arctic ice sheet is forcing more bears to live on land in the summer where they often have trouble finding food, which means they have to go into villages to scavenge and are more likely to be shot, he said.

Polar bear furs are also becoming increasingly popular in Russia, where the killing of polar bears is strictly forbidden except for self-defence. IFAW estimates around 100 polar bears are killed illegally in Russia every year.

There are a total of around 22,000 polar bears in the Arctic. Five thousand of them live between Chukotka and the US state of Alaska and are being forced further and further north because of the melting ice, IFAW said.

Australia has been "almost eviscerated" by drought and economic downturn

Governor-General Quentin Bryce walks through a tomato hothouse at Shepparton as part of her Murray-Darling tour that she finished this week. Photo: Angela Wylie

RURAL Australia has been "almost eviscerated" by the twin perils of drought and economic downturn, the Governor-General has warned, and said she fears for the future of country towns.

As she wound up her tour of the Murray-Darling Basin yesterday, Quentin Bryce said farming communities were crying out for national leadership on climate change and drought, and said irrigators were angry at being painted as environmentally irresponsible.

But Ms Bryce told The Age she had again been impressed by the indomitable spirit of country people, and that she believed a solution was possible to keep farmers on the land, as well as restoring the ailing river system.

At her final stop in Deniliquin in NSW's Riverina, she heard from the region's mayor that the town's rice mill and abattoir had closed in the past year, robbing the already struggling region of scores of jobs.

And Ms Bryce met a group of "women in irrigation", who presented her with a ribbon-wrapped box, filled with their stories of life on the land. Their stoicism in the face of dire circumstance moved her to tears, she said.

The Governor-General said the words of Leanne Small, a landowner whose family had farmed near Deniliquin for three generations, summed up perfectly the themes of her fortnight-long tour:

"This is a national disaster that needs a fully resourced national response. It's not in the interests of the country to leave us to deal with this as individuals and small community groups," Ms Small said.

"If this process is allowed to continue in an unguided way, it can undermine the sustainability of communities and regions that could have a viable future."

Ms Bryce, herself a product of a country town in Ilfracombe in Queensland's west, said she feared for the future of country Australia.

"When you talk to the teachers, they're all talking about losing children from the school … And we have to think about what that means for the community, to say nothing about the money that's not coming into a town," she said. Continued...

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'Flying syringe' mosquitos, other ideas get Gates funding

A group of mosquitos are shown inside a net

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded 100,000 dollars each on Wednesday to scientists in 22 countries including funding for a Japanese proposal to turn mosquitos into "flying syringes" delivering vaccines.

The charitable foundation created by the founder of software giant Microsoft said in a statement that the grants were designed to "explore bold and largely unproven ways to improve global health."

The grants were awarded for research into preventing or curing infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis and limiting the emergence of drug resistance.

They are the first round of funding for the Gates Foundation's "Grand Challenges Explorations," a five-year 100-million-dollar initiative to "promote innovative ideas in global health."

The funding was directed to projects that "fall outside current scientific paradigms and could lead to significant advances if successful," the Gates Foundation statement said.

"We were hoping this program would level the playing field so anyone with a transformational idea could more quickly assess its potential for the benefit of global health," said Tachi Yamada, president of global health at the Gates Foundation.

The Gates Foundation said 104 grants were awarded from nearly 4,000 proposals. The recipients included universities, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and six private companies.

"It was so hard for reviewers to champion just one great idea that we selected almost twice as many projects for funding as we had initially planned," Yamada said.

Among the proposals receiving funding was one from Hiroyuki Matsuoka at Jichi Medical University in Japan.

"(Matsuoka) thinks it may be possible to turn mosquitoes that normally transmit disease into 'flying syringes,' so that when they bite humans they deliver vaccines," the Gates Foundation said.

It said Pattamaporn Kittayapong at Mahidol University in Thailand received a grant to "explore new approaches for controlling dengue fever by studying bacteria with natural abilities to limit the disease."

Founded in 1994, the Seattle, Washington-based Gates Foundation is the largest private philanthropical organization in the world.

U.S. riding out worst storms on record

	By David J. Phi

More frequent and powerful hurricanes from the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico since the mid-1990s have created one of the most dangerous and costliest storm eras in recorded history, a USA TODAY analysis of weather data shows.

Since 1995, there have been 207 named storms in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Gulf of Mexico — a 68% increase from the previous 13 years, according to statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Of those storms, 111 were hurricanes, a 75% increase over the previous period.

PHOTO GALLERY: 2008 Atlantic hurricane season

WATERMARK: USA TODAY's coverage of post-Katrina recovery

This year, with just over one month left in the Atlantic hurricane season, there have been 15 named storms, seven of which have been hurricanes.

The latest to make U.S. landfall were Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which battered the Louisiana and Texas coasts last month, destroyed billions of dollars' worth of homes and businesses, and caused deluges as far inland as Missouri and Chicago.

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Australia hit by freak storms and snowfall

An electrical storm in Australia has left thousands in Queensland without power, while a blanket of snow has fallen near Sydney.

; http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1488655367/bctid1873026437 http://www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=1139053637

The country is meant to be warming up for summer but hailstones the size of golf balls fell on the streets of Brisbane as lightning lit up the sky.

Further south, snow has been falling in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, with temperatures reaching as low as 2 degrees.

Emergency crews were on alert as authorities measured winds of up to 60mph, and thunder and lightning left thousands in the dark.

Weather service Weatherzone said snow in October had been reported less than five times in the past 50 years.

Meteorologists expect the inclement weather to continue for another couple of days.

Scientists make cat that glows in the dark

By day he is just a normal tabby but when the lights go out this ginger cat glows in the dark.

Scientists have genetically modified a cat as part of an experiement that could lead to treatments for conditions like cystic fibrosis.

Mr Green Genes, the cat that glows in the dark (right) and under normal conditions (left)

Named Mr Green Genes, he look likes a six-month-old cat but, under ultraviolet light, his eyes, gums and tongue glow a vivid lime green, the result of a genetic experiment at the Audubon Centre for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans.

Mr. Green Genes is the first fluorescent cat in the United States and probably the world, said Betsy Dresser, the centre's director.

The researchers made him so they could learn whether a gene could be introduced harmlessly into the feline's genetic sequence to create what is formally known as a transgenic cat.

If so, it would be the first step in a process that could lead to the development of ways to combat diseases via gene therapy.

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Flooding death toll in Honduras rises to 23

Raging rivers have destroyed dozens of bridges; more rain expected

	Residents wade a flooded street in La Lima Cortes, Honduras, on Tuesday. View related photos
Delmer Martinez / AP

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Flooding and mudslides fueled by heavy rains have claimed at least 23 lives in Honduras since last week, officials said Wednesday. Eight other people are missing.

Rain has destroyed about 24,000 houses and damaged 79,000 acres planted with grains and coffee, emergency services official Randolfo Funez said. More than 19,000 people have been evacuated from their homes.

More rain is expected in eastern Honduras in coming days.

Raging rivers and landslides have destroyed dozens of bridges and damaged more than 150 highways across the country.

President Manuel Zelaya has declared a national state of emergency and asked for international aid.

Two large landslides blocked the Coyol River in western Honduras, forming a lake 150 nearly 500 feet deep at some points and threatening towns downstream.

U.S. soldiers stationed in Honduras have plucked dozens of people off the roofs of their homes in flooded communities.

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Satellite Images of Antarctica: The Whole Picture

The first high-resolution satellite mosaic of Antarctica was created by Byrd Polar Research Center in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency. The image revealed features never seen before, such as ice streams some 800 kilometers long. Image

By Peter Rejcek, Antarctic Sun Editor

A decade after using an Earth-observing satellite to image Antarctica to create the first high-resolution mosaic of the continent, Ken Jezek hopes the world's space agencies will pull together their spaceborne resources to map the cryosphere in unprecedented detail and breadth.

The International Polar Year (IPY) project will rely on countries from Russia to China to the United Kingdom to use the constellation of Earth-observing satellites to capture data about ice sheets and sea ice in areas undergoing rapid changes. GIIPSY, for Global Inter-agency IPY Polar Snapshot Year, will use a range of satellite frequencies, from microwave to optical, to create a series of different images for a benchmark that scientists can use to track future changes.

"The challenges are formidable," concedes Jezek, a geophysicist with Byrd Polar Research Center at The Ohio State University in Columbus. "We're trying to get everyone who currently has a satellite operating to coordinate [their efforts], and to coordinate their acquisitions in such a way that the burden of acquisitions doesn't fall on any single agency, which may not have the mandate or resources to do that job."

Jezek sees GIIPSY as an ambitious successor to a project that BPRC coordinated with the Canadian Space Agency and NASA beginning in 1997 called RADARSAT Antarctic Mapping Project (RAMP).

Launched in November 1995 by NASA from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Canada's RADARSAT-1 satellite featured a powerful synthetic aperture radar that allowed it to image Earth day or night, in all weather and through cloud cover, smoke and haze.

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Lawmakers back animal-human embryo research

The lower house of parliament approved legislation Wednesday allowing scientists to create animal-human embryos for medical research, in the biggest shake-up of embryology laws in two decades.

Despite opposition from religious and pro-life groups, MPs in the House of Commons backed the Human Embryology and Fertilisation Bill by 355 votes to 129. It will now go to a vote in the House of Lords, and could be law by November.

The wide-ranging bill, which has been debated for months, would also allow "saviour siblings" -- children created as a close genetic match for a sick brother or sister so their genetic material can help treat them.

In addition, it gives lesbians and single women easier access to in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment by removing requirements for clinics to consider a child's need for a father.

Health Minister Dawn Primarolo told lawmakers the bill was about helping the one in seven couples who needed fertility assistance, and about research to deal with diseases such as Alzheimer's, which affects 350,000 Britons.

Hybrid embryos, created by inserting the nuclei of a human cell into an animal egg, can ensure a more plentiful supply of stem cells for use in research into treating conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is a strong defendant of the measures, saying Britain owes it to future generations. His son, Fraser, has cystic fibrosis, a disease which could one day benefit from embryo research.

However, 16 MPs from his ruling Labour party, including former minister Ruth Kelly, a staunch Catholic who quit the government this month, voted against the bill and religious groups warned it was the next step on a "slippery slope".

Earth In Midst Of Sixth Mass Extinction: 50% Of All Species Disappearing

Buttercups. Losing the buttercup, where it occurs in grasslands, would have a much bigger impact on the system than losing a daisy or a sunflower.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2008) — The Earth is in the midst of the sixth mass extinction of both plants and animals, with nearly 50 percent of all species disappearing, scientists say.

Because of the current crisis, biologists at UC Santa Barbara are working day and night to determine which species must be saved. Their international study of grassland ecosystems, with flowering plants, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The current extinction event is due to human activity, paving the planet, creating pollution, many of the things that we are doing today," said co-author Bradley J. Cardinale, assistant professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology (EEMB) at UC Santa Barbara. "The Earth might well lose half of its species in our lifetime. We want to know which ones deserve the highest priority for conservation."

He explained that the last mass extinction near the current level was 65 million years ago, called the Cretaceous Tertiary extinction event, and was probably the result of a meteor hitting the Earth. It is best known for the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, but massive amounts of plant species became extinct at that time as well.

According to the current study, the most genetically unique species are the ones that have the greatest importance in an ecosystem. These are the ones that the scientists recommend be listed as top priority for conservation.

"Given that we are losing species from ecosystems around the world, we need to know which species matter the most –– and which we should pour our resources into protecting," said first author Marc W. Cadotte, postdoctoral fellow at UCSB's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS).

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Huge Mountain Range Should Not Be There

The Gamburtsev mountains were discovered by a Soviet expedition using seismic sounding. They were named after Grigoriy A. Gamburtsev (1903-1955), a Russian geophysicist. The BEDMAP consortium; project managed by British Antarctic Survey, produced the best subglacial map of Antarctica to date. Credit: British Antarctic Survey

An Antarctic mountain range that rivals the Alps in elevation will be probed this month by an expedition of scientists using airborne radar and other Information Age tools to virtually "peel away" more than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of ice covering the peaks.

One of the mysteries of the mountain range is that current evidence suggests that it "shouldn't be there" at all.

The researchers hope to find answers there to some basic questions about the nature of the southernmost continent, including the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet. For instance, it is unclear how Antarctica came to be ice-covered in the first place and whether that process began millions of years ago in the enigmatic Gamburtsev Mountain range.

Working every day at extreme altitudes, in 24 hours of sunlight and at temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius, the researchers of the Antarctica's Gamburtsev Province (AGAP) team hope to learn whether the Gamburtsevs were born of tectonic activity in Antarctica or date from a period millions of years ago, when Antarctica was the center of an enormous supercontinent located at far lower latitudes.

Robin Bell of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, who shares the leadership of the U.S. science effort, said AGAP will help scientists understand one of Antarctica's last major mysteries.

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Global Warming: Faster, Stronger, Sooner

Change Accelerating Beyond U.N. Predictions

Photo: NASA

Even the worst-case scenarios described by climate scientists are proving, in many cases, too timid.

Global warming is happening faster than anticipated.

Those are the conclusions of a new WWF analysis of scientific reports to appear in peer-reviewed journals since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change made its last assessment in 2007.

The environmental group calls its report, “Climate change: faster, stronger, sooner."

"Yikes" would also have been suitable.

The group calls for a more ambitious worldwide response than has been so-far proposed -- though its focus is on spurring action in the European Union. Of course, even getting the world's major polluters to agree to binding targets for reducing carbon emissions has so far proved an elusive goal, complicated by competing national interests, economic concerns and petro-dictatorship politics.

World Is Undergoing Mass Extinction

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Oct. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say the Earth is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals, with nearly 50 percent of all species disappearing.

Biologists at the University of California-Santa Barbara say they are working to determine which species must be saved.

"The current extinction event is due to human activity, paving the planet, creating pollution, many of the things that we are doing today," said study co-author Assistant Professor Bradley Cardinale. "The Earth might well lose half of its species in our lifetime. We want to know which ones deserve the highest priority for conservation."

Cardinale said the last mass extinction near the current level, the Cretaceous Tertiary extinction, occurred about 65 million years ago when a meteor struck the Earth. It's best known for causing the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, as well as numerous plant species.

"Given that we are losing species from ecosystems around the world, we need to know which species matter the most and which we should pour our resources into protecting," said first author Marc Cadotte.

Cadotte, Cardinale and co-author Associate Professor Todd Oakley report their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A time of hunger, cholera in Somalia

Hunger, cholera add to Somalia's woes while the country's crumbling medical system is on life-support itself.

At least 32 people have died due to hunger and cholera in Somalia, most of them children and old people, according to doctors.

The Press TV correspondent in South Mogadishu reported on Tuesday that about 15 people died of cholera in Cabudwaaq town of the Galgaduud region due to lack of clean drinking water and medicines to treat the disease.

Also, 17 people died of hunger in Gilib town in southern Somalia, our correspondent added.

In another incident, at least 10 people were killed and 20 others injured after a truck overturned in lower Shabelle region.

Witnesses told Press TV that the tragedy occured because the truck driver fell asleep at the wheel.

UK's ancient woodland being lost 'faster than Amazon'

Several acres of Two Mile wood outside Weymouth are under threat from plans to build a bypass. This remnant of ancient forest is known for its association with the writer Thomas Hardy. Photograph: Woodland Trust

Ancient woodland in Britain is being felled at a rate even faster than the Amazon rainforest, according to new research today. It shows that almost half of all woods in the UK that are more than 400 years old have been lost in the past 80 years and more than 600 ancient woods are now threatened by new roads, electricity pylons, housing, and airport expansion.

The report from the Woodland Trust comes as the government prepares to sign a compulsory purchase order to buy several acres of Two Mile Wood outside Weymouth to build a bypass. This remnant of ancient forest, known for its association with Thomas Hardy, is one of Britain's finest bluebell woods and is full of old beech, oak and hornbeam trees.

"Ancient woodland, designated as over 400 years old in England, is the UK's equivalent of rainforest. It is irreplaceable," said Ed Pomfret, campaigns director of the trust. "It's our most valuable space for wildlife, and home to rare and threatened species. Once these woods have gone, they will never come back. They are historical treasure troves."

Species such as the willow tit, marsh tit, barbastelle bat, Bechstein's bat, pearl-bordered fritillary butterfly and dormouse all rely on ancient woodland to survive.

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1,500 Chinese raccoon dogs die from tainted feed

AFP/Graphic – Graphic on the melamine scandal in China one month after it came to light. Bangladeshi authorities said …

BEIJING – Some 1,500 dogs bred for their raccoon-like fur have died after eating feed tainted with melamine, a veterinarian said Monday, raising questions about how widespread the industrial chemical is in China's food chain.

The revelation comes amid a crisis over dairy products tainted with melamine that has caused kidney stones in tens of thousands of Chinese children and has been linked to the deaths of four infants.

The raccoon dogs — a breed native to east Asia whose fur is used to trim coats and other clothing — died of kidney failure after eating the tainted feed, said Zhang Wenkui, a veterinary professor at Shenyang Agriculture University.

"First, we found melamine in the dogs' feed, and second, I found that 25 percent of the stones in the dogs' kidneys were made up of melamine," said Zhang, who performed a necropsy — an animal autopsy — on about a dozen dogs.

Zhang declined to say when the animals died, but a report Monday in the Southern Metropolis Daily said the deaths occurred over the past two months.

The animal deaths were a reminder of last year's uproar over a Chinese-made pet food ingredient containing melamine that was linked to the deaths of dozens of dogs and cats in the United States and touched off a massive pet food recall.

It was not immediately clear how the chemical entered the raccoon dog feed. But in the tainted milk scandal and last year's pet food recall, melamine was believed to have been added to artificially boost nitrogen levels, making products seem higher in protein when tested.

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Global warming leads India tigers to village attacks

KOLKATA, India, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The number of tiger attacks on people is growing in India's Sundarban islands as habitat loss and dwindling prey caused by climate change drives them to prowl into villages for food, experts said on Monday. Wildlife experts say endangered tigers in the world's largest reserve are turning on humans because rising sea levels and coastal erosion are steadily shrinking the tigers' natural habitat.

"Owing to global warming, the fragile Sundarbans lost 28 percent of its habitat in the last 40 years. A part of it is the core tiger reserve area from where their prey migrated."The Sundarbans, a 26,000 sq km (10,000 sq mile) area of low-lying swamps on India's border with Bangladesh, is dotted with hundreds of small islands criss-crossed by water channels.

"In the past six months, seven fishermen were killed in an area called Netidhopani," Pranabes Sanyal of the World Conservation Union said. But as sea levels rise, two islands have already disappeared and others are vulnerable.

Wildlife experts say the destruction of the mangroves means the tigers' most common prey, such as crocodiles, fish and big crabs, is dwindling. Sundarban villagers pass through tiger territory on boats to fish in the sea, or to collect honey in forest areas.

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Huge cyclone churns at Saturn’s north pole

The closest look yet at the ringed planet’s poles offers detailed views of massive storms, with strange differences between north and south.

SOUTHERN STORMNewly released images of Saturn’s south pole, taken by the Cassini spacecraft in May 2007, show the entire polar region, including a hurricane-like vortex at the core. The bottom image is in infrared, showing dark areas where clouds absorb the planet’s internal heat. The upper, false-color image combines views from many wavelengths. Aqua areas are clouds and haze, not seen over the pole itself.

Hurricanes Ike and Katrina can’t hold a candle to the giant storm centers on Saturn. Planetary scientists have gotten their closest look yet at polar hurricanes on the ringed planet, and find that the storms are big enough to engulf Earth.

Researchers unveiled the images on October 13 in Ithaca, N.Y., at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences.

The Cassini spacecraft, which has been touring Saturn and its moons since 2004, took the images in July.

Unlike Earth’s hurricanes, which drift across oceans, these storms are locked to Saturn’s poles. They may be driven by Saturn’s internal heat, which can create giant weather patterns by causing massive parcels of atmospheric gases, most likely ammonium hydrosulfide, to rise and fall.

It’s also possible that sunlight trapped in the planet’s atmosphere could drive the motions, says Andy Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

“It’s going to be a delicate balance between the internal heat and the external sunlight,” that creates these features, comments Heidi Hammel of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. Saturn’s storm activity could churn at the boundary where the planet’s internal atmospheric heat couples with the upper atmosphere, where sunlight is the main driver, she suggests.

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Syria faces severe drought

Oct. 19 - Syrian Bedouin search for new water resources because of persistent drought.

The United Nations is appealing for $20 million U.S. dollars to help a million people in Syria cope with the worst drought in four decades. Herders and subsistence farmers are hardest-hit, many have lost their livestock and crops.

Syria faces severe drought @ Yahoo!7 Video

Climate change a new horseman of the apocalypse

THE world's zoos are becoming field hospitals in a war zone, as they try to salvage species from extinction, Adelaide and Monarto Zoo chief executive Chris West says.

"We've watched for too long critical species being overcome by habitat destruction, over-exploitation from logging, fishing and hunting, invasive species, pollution and emergent diseases," Dr West said.

"But now climate change is looming as a huge new horseman of the apocalypse, whose impact threatens to dwarf that of all the others.

"In the face of such a threat, zoos are now being called upon to urgently realise their huge conservation potential."

Dr West will host the annual conference of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums in Adelaide from today.

The conference has attracted the leaders of some of the world's largest zoos including the London Zoo and those in Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Moscow and St Louis.

David Attenborough will make a presentation by video, and climate change experts Andy Lowe and Barry Brook will also address delegates.

Zoos becoming 'refugee camps for animals'

An international conference in Adelaide will hear how the world's zoos are becoming refugee camps for critically endangered animals threatened by climate change.

More than 300 wildlife, zoo and conservation leaders from 42 nations will attend the conference.

The chief executive of the Adelaide and Monarto zoos, Chris West, says the zoos are having to salvage species that face threats from rising temperatures.

He says the trend is happening a lot faster than experts had once predicted.

"The sort of projections that said that by mid-century we may have lost a third of the existing animals and plants on the planet, that looks begins to look if anything optimistic," he said.

Mr West says it is important governments recognise the conservation roles that zoos are adopting.

Climate change is 'faster and more extreme' than feared

Climate change is happening much faster than the world's best scientists predicted and will wreak havoc unless action is taken on a global scale, a new report warns.

Arctic sea-ice in September 1979 and 2007, showing the biggest reduction since satellite surveillance began. Photo: Fugro NPA Ltd

Extreme weather events' such as the hot summer of 2003, which caused an extra 35,000 deaths across southern Europe from heat stress and poor air quality, will happen more frequently.

Britain and the North Sea area will be hit more often by violent cyclones and the predicted rise in sea level will double to more than a metre, putting vast coastal areas at risk from flooding.

The bleak report from WWF - formerly the World Wildlife Fund - also predicts crops failures and the collapse of eco systems on both land and sea.

And it calls on the EU to set an example to the rest of the world by agreeing a package of challenging targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions to tackle the consequences of climate change and to keep any increase in global temperatures below 2C.

The agency says that the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - a study of global warming by 4,000 scientists from more than 150 countries which alerted the world to the possible consequences of global warming - is now out of date.

WWF's report, Climate Change: Faster, stronger, sooner, has updated all the scientific data and concluded that global warming is accelerating far beyond the IPCC's forecasts.

As an example it says the first 'tipping point' may have already been reached in the Arctic, where sea ice is disappearing up to 30 years ahead of IPCC predictions and may be gone completely within five years - something that hasn't occurred for a million years.

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A three-year-old female moose has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease in western Wyoming.

STAR VALLEY MOOSE TESTS POSITIVE FOR CWD

Cheyenne--- A three-year-old female moose has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease in western Wyoming. CWD is a fatal neurological disease of deer, elk, and moose that affects the brain, causing weight loss, abnormal behavior, and, eventually, death. There is no evidence that CWD has any human-health implications.

"This finding was a very big surprise, said Wyoming Game and Fish Department Wildlife Disease Specialist Hank Edwards."Number one, because this is the first CWD-positive moose we have ever found in Wyoming. And number two, because this moose was in an area that is a significant distance from any other known CWD areas."

The animal was found approximately two miles south of Bedford, Wyoming, and showed no clinical signs of CWD, which include loss of body condition, excessive drooling, and drooping ears and head. It was unable to stand up but was in very good nutritional condition.

Testing at the WGFD laboratory in Laramie determined this animal had elaeophorosis (arterial worm disease), which accounted for its inability to stand. According to Edwards, mule deer are the normal host for elaeophorosis, where it does not cause serious disease. Elaeophorosis is rarely seen in elk, but can cause significant disease in moose. Additional testing by the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory confirmed that the moose also tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease. Based on laboratory tests and lack of clinical sign, Edwards said this animal was in the early stages of CWD.

Though CWD has been found in deer and elk in many parts of Wyoming and other states, it is extremely rare in moose. Only three other wild moose in North America have tested positive for the disease, all of them in Colorado.

As a result of this finding, the Game and Fish will increase CWD surveillance activities in this region of Wyoming. According to WGFD Jackson Region Wildlife Supervisor Tim Fuchs: "We will immediately begin to gear up our CWD surveillance in the Star Valley. We plan on enlisting hunters in that area to help us by submitting their animals for CWD testing. To do this, we are establishing check stations throughout the region, and through news releases and other media we'll be letting hunters know we need their help."

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US Virgin Islands warns of oil spills after Omar

The sun rises over a beach, with the outer bands of the Hurricane Omar storm system visible in the background, in Humacao, Puerto Rico, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008. Puerto Rico was spared the effects of Hurricane Omar, which veered east of the U.S. Territory, and was quickly moving away from the northern Leeward Islands early Thursday, after crossing over them as a major Category 3 storm. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

CHRISTIANSTED, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — St. Croix authorities were trying to contain oil spills after more than 40 boats sank or washed ashore during Hurricane Omar.

About half the vessels lost their anchors, including houseboats, catamarans and pricey yachts and sailboats owned by tourists. The other half were tied at marinas but broke loose, Carlos Fachette, enforcement director for the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, said Friday.

The hurricane caught many local boaters off-guard because they did not take the storm seriously, according to Kim Jones of the St. Croix Yacht Club.

"It's devastating," she said of the damage. "That puts a brake into people getting into boating, which is such a way of life in the Caribbean. It's going to take a lot to rebound."

Roughly 400 boats are registered in St. Croix, she said.

Omar became a tropical storm again Friday night, far from land in the Atlantic Ocean.

Police on Friday also had to rescue three people from a 35-foot catamaran when it hit a reef and ran aground near Salt River Bay, Fachette said.

All St. Croix beaches have been deemed unsafe because of high pollution levels, and the Schooner Channel area of the Christiansted Harbor remained closed.

Omar passed overnight Wednesday between St. Martin and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the government has spent more than US$1 million in cleanup costs.

The storm caused more than US$700,000 in damages to roads in St. Croix and destroyed more than 100 utility poles in the eastern region. About half of the island's 55,000 people remained with power on Friday, said Cassandra Dunn, Water and Power Authority spokeswoman.

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Sun's protective 'bubble' is shrinking

The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned.

Data has shown that the sun's heliosphere is shrinking Photo: AP

New data has revealed that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago.

Scientists are baffled at what could be causing the barrier to shrink in this way and are to launch mission to study the heliosphere.

The Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, will be launched from an aircraft on Sunday on a Pegasus rocket into an orbit 150,000 miles above the Earth where it will "listen" for the shock wave that forms as our solar system meets the interstellar radiation.

Dr Nathan Schwadron, co-investigator on the IBEX mission at Boston University, said: "The interstellar medium, which is part of the galaxy as a whole, is actually quite a harsh environment. There is a very high energy galactic radiation that is dangerous to living things.

"Around 90 per cent of the galactic cosmic radiation is deflected by our heliosphere, so the boundary protects us from this harsh galactic environment."

The heliosphere is created by the solar wind, a combination of electrically charged particles and magnetic fields that emanate a more than a million miles an hour from the sun, meet the intergalactic gas that fills the gaps in space between solar systems.

At the boundary where they meet a shock wave is formed that deflects interstellar radiation around the solar system as it travels through the galaxy.

The scientists hope the IBEX mission will allow them to gain a better understanding of what happens at this boundary and help them predict what protection it will offer in the future.

Without the heliosphere the harmful intergalactic cosmic radiation would make life on Earth almost impossible by destroying DNA and making the climate uninhabitable.

Measurements made by the Ulysses deep space probe, which was launched in 1990 to orbit the sun, have shown that the pressure created inside the heliosphere by the solar wind has been decreasing.

Dr David McComas, principal investigator on the IBEX mission, said: "It is a fascinating interaction that our sun has with the galaxy surrounding us. This million mile an hour wind inflates this protective bubble that keeps us safe from intergalactic cosmic rays.

"With less pressure on the inside, the interaction at the boundaries becomes weaker and the heliosphere as a whole gets smaller."

If the heliosphere continues to weaken, scientists fear that the amount of cosmic radiation reaching the inner parts of our solar system, including Earth, will increase.

This could result in growing levels of disruption to electrical equipment, damage satellites and potentially even harm life on Earth.

But Dr McComas added that it was still unclear exactly what would happen if the heliosphere continued to weaken or what even what the timescale for changes in the heliosphere are.

He said: “There is no imminent danger, but it is hard to know what the future holds. Certainly if the solar wind pressure was to continue to go down and the heliosphere were to almost evaporate then we would be in this sea of galactic cosmic rays. That could have some large effects.

“It is likely that there are natural variations in solar wind pressure and over time it will either stabilise or start going back up.”

Earth, but not as we know it

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Dr Jan Zalasiewicz is the author of "The Earth After Us -- What legacy will humans leave in the rocks?" His book examines what might remain of our civilization in the strata 100 million years from now, and how aliens might piece together the story of the planet and our brief but dramatic impact on it.

Wadi El-Hutan, Egypt: The ancient Tethys Sea receded between 250 and 35 million years ago.

Comparing present day environmental change with perturbations back in the deep past has always interested Zalasiewicz, a lecturer in geology at the UK's University of Leicester. Here he imagines what distinctive traces humans might leave in the strata and how the past is improving our knowledge of climate change.

CNN: How far does our geological knowledge go back?

Dr Jan Zalasiewicz: Right to the beginning. If you look at meteorites then we have bits of the origin of the solar system -- that's a little bit over 4,500 million years ago.

There has recently been a report saying that geologists have found some rocks which are possibly over four billion years old. And there are certainly crystals that have been found that are in excess of 4.3 billion years old. So we are getting very close to the origin of the Earth.

A more or less continuous record starts from about 3.8 billion years. From there, by and large, there is a very good record. The Earth really has a fantastic record of the past. Because of the peculiarities of the way continents and oceans form on Earth it is far better than anything one could ever hope to find on Mars, Mercury or Venus. Earth is the history planet.

CNN: Does a reliable climate record stretch back 3.8 billion years?

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Beluga whales in Alaska listed as endangered

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The depleted population of beluga whales that swim off the coast of Alaska's largest city was listed as endangered on Friday by the federal government.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, called the listing "premature" after she had pressed for more time to make beluga population counts.

Environmentalists hailed the listing decision, but criticized the time it took to materialize.

"Hopefully the State of Alaska will now work toward protecting the beluga rather than, as with the polar bear, denying the science and suing to overturn the listing," Brendan Cummings, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it has determined that belugas in Cook Inlet, the channel that flows from Anchorage to the Gulf of Alaska, are at risk of extinction and deserving of strict protections under the Endangered Species Act.

The population, which fell to a low of 278 in 2005 from 653 in 1994, has yet to rebound from a period of over-harvesting by the region's Native hunters, officials said.

Hunting of Cook Inlet belugas largely ceased in 1999, but the population continues to struggle, officials said.

"In spite of protections already in place, Cook Inlet beluga whales are not recovering," James Balsinger, acting assistant administrator for NOAA's Fisheries Service, said in a statement. Continued...

Malaria reported to kill 400 in Nigerian state in a month

AFP/Graphic – An illustration explaining how malaria infects humans. An outbreak of malaria in northern Nigeria's …

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) – An outbreak of malaria in northern Nigeria's Katsina state has killed 401 people in the last four weeks, a health official told AFP Friday.

"In the last 28 days 401 people have died of malaria which has become hyper-endemic in the state," Halliru Idris, director of public health in the state's health ministry, told AFP.

"The toll may be higher because it only includes those who died in hospitals, excluding those who might have died at home," Idris said.

He said 50,311 malaria cases were recorded in the state of 4.5 million people over the past four weeks, which he attributed to the high rainfall recorded this rainy season, which saw more mosquitoes breed than usual.

The government has deployed health workers to the worst affected districts to fumigate mosquito breeding areas such as open sewers and ponds as well to distribute mosquito bed nets.

Malaria is the most lethal disease in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, which according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) accounts for a quarter of all malaria cases in Africa.

World Bank chief Robert Zoellick last month said Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are Africa's hardest-hit, accounting for between 30 and 40 percent of deaths from malaria on the continent.

Sandstorm causes havoc in Baghdad

Dozens treated at hospitals; flights disrupted due to haze

Ahmad al-Rubaye / AFP-Getty Images

Masks were in use around Baghdad on Thursday as a sandstorm swept through the city.

View related photos

BAGHDAD - A heavy sandstorm turned Iraq's capital into a pinkish haze Thursday, sending dozens of people to the hospital with respiratory problems and delaying a number of international flights.

On the streets of Baghdad, people covered their mouths with masks, scarves and other bits of clothing as sand whipped across the city. Doctors said the weather was aggravating respiratory conditions, especially among the elderly.

"We received 35 emergency cases since the early morning," said Dr. Nihad Jabar, who works in the emergency wing of Baghdad's Ibn al-Nafis Hospital. Most were treated and released but four people over 60 were admitted to intensive care because their cases were "very critical," Jabar said.

Dr. Moayid Ala, at the same hospital, said the number of people suffering from respiratory problems is increasing each year. At the crosstown Kindi hospital, officials said they admitted 17 people, most with asthma-related difficulties.

Sandstorms are a regular occurrence in Baghdad, which is shielded from the desert by a thin strip of arable land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

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'Dramatic evidence' of Arctic melt, experts warn

Report cites signals ranging from Greenland ice sheet to reindeer herds

Science/AAAS

Water from melting ice slides down into Greenland's ice sheet.

WASHINGTON - Autumn temperatures in the Arctic are at record highs, the Arctic Ocean is getting warmer and less salty as sea ice melts, and reindeer herds appear to be declining, researchers reported Thursday.

"Obviously, the planet is interconnected, so what happens in the Arctic does matter" to the rest of the world, Jackie Richter-Menge of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H., said in releasing the third annual Arctic Report Card for the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"There continues to be widespread and, in some cases, dramatic evidence of an overall warming of the Arctic system," the experts stated in their report.

Compiled by 46 scientists from 10 countries, the report looks at six areas in the Arctic: atmosphere, sea ice, Greenland, ocean, biology and land. It found a "warming" trend in the first three signals and "mixed" signals in the latter three.

The region has long been expected to be among the first areas to show impacts from global warming, which the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is largely a result of human activities adding carbon dioxide and other gases to the atmosphere.

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When injured, plants cry for help

If under attach by a pathogen, plant's leaf sends an S.O.S to the roots

Thimmaraju Rudrappa

The green represents the beneficial bacterium Bacillus subtilis, which has formed a biofilm on the roots of Arabidopsis after the leafs sent down a cry of help.

When injured, plants can cry for help via a chemical phone call to the roots.

If under attack by a pathogen , such as disease-causing bacteria, a plant's leaf can send out an S.O.S. to the roots for help, and the roots will then secrete an acid that brings beneficial bacteria to the rescue, scientists announced today. The finding builds on research earlier this year showing that parasitic plants can tap into a host plant's communication system.

"Plants are a lot smarter than we give them credit for," said Harsh Bais, assistant professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware. "People think that plants, rooted in the ground, are just sitting ducks when it comes to attack by harmful fungi or bacteria , but we've found that plants have ways of seeking external help," he notes.

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Extreme conditions spread into Kentucky, Virginias; water shortages loom

Southern drought creeping northward

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - The drought that plagued the Deep South for more than a year is creeping northward, and officials in multiple states are restricting outdoor burning in the face of water shortages and forest fire risks from falling leaves and tinder-dry conditions.

Extreme drought conditions, the second-worst possible, have now spread into Kentucky, and severe conditions have returned to West Virginia and southwest Virginia, officials from the U.S. Drought Monitor say.

"The last three months have sucked every bit of moisture we've had," said Ben Webster, a fire staff assistant for the West Virginia Division of Forestry.

In eastern Kentucky, retailers sent bottled water to drought-stricken Magoffin County after its primary water source, the Licking River, fell to low levels and residents were told to conserve tap water.

The county's school system continue to serve meals on disposable plates with plastic utensils. Lunch trays have been temporarily shelved to save on dishwashing.

Kentucky also suffered through a severe drought a year ago, but "this is probably the worst that I've had to deal with," said Joe Hunley, Magoffin County's schools superintendent.

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U.S. Congress has approved $5 million for an independent study space-based missile defenses

U.S. to study possible space-based defense

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress has approved $5 million for an independent study of possible space-based missile defenses, a potential step toward a system once mocked as "Star Wars."

The seed money was included in a little-noticed part of the 2009 Defense Appropriations bill, signed into law by President George W. Bush on September 30 as part of a catch-all funding measure.

U.S. defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp could be big beneficiaries of any decision to move ahead with space-based defenses.

Last year, Congress rejected $10 million sought for such a study amid concerns it could lead to "weaponization" of space. The Bush administration had sought $10 million again this year to start a "testbed" in space, a sort of proof of concept.

The $5 million appropriation lets the Pentagon hire one or more entities to review the feasibility and advisability of adding space-based interceptors to the growing numbers of U.S. interceptor missiles on the ground and at sea.

The U.S. bulwark is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in all stages of their flight. President Bush ordered the Pentagon to start fielding it four years ago to guard against a launch from North Korea or Iran, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency says on its website.

The new look at a space-based layer comes as a previously unstated premise for U.S. missile defense -- hedging against a potential threat from China -- is starting to be discussed openly in Washington.

An advisory board to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for instance, urged in a recently leaked draft report that the United States counter China's growing might with new missile defense capabilities, "including taking full advantage of space." Continued...

Millions of locusts set to descend

AUTHORITIES are working frantically to contain a locust plague that threatens to destroy tens of millions of dollars worth of crops and pastures in the NSW Riverina and surrounding areas.

While the juvenile locusts, known as nymphs, are yet to grow wings, there are fears the plague could spread into Victoria and South Australia if the nymphs are not killed in the next few days. Spraying is already under way.

More than 400 infestations of juvenile plague locusts have been identified so far, and dozens of outbreaks have formed into kilometre-long bands, each band containing millions of insects, The Australian reports.

Planes manned by officers from the Australian Plague Locust Commission and the NSW Department of Primary Industry flew over the affected areas yesterday, pinpointing the best places for aerial and land-based spraying. More than 100 outbreaks have been detected near the town of Wagga Wagga alone.

At the head of a band, the concentration of insects can be as high as 5000 per square metre. Locusts breed rapidly, going from egg to adult which lays eggs within a 10-week period, with each female laying up to 40 eggs.

Ten hectares of locusts on the ground can become a square kilometre swarm. The outbreaks have been spurred on by warm weather and recent rains.

Director of the Australian Plague Commission Chris Adriaansen said the timing of the outbreaks was cruel because many farmers were experiencing their first good season in years.

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Armyworms attacking pastures, wheat in Texas

AP – This undated photo released by the Texas A&M Agricultural Communications Department shows an armyworm …

DALLAS – Texas farmers are once again battling armyworms and the voracious creatures are attacking fields and pastures in formidable numbers.

"There are probably more armyworms this year than in previous years," Allen Knutson, an entomologist with the Texas A&M University System, said Thursday.

The armyworm, which is actually the caterpillar or larva of the night-flying moth, do the most damage in the fall, when they're at their peak, nearly fully grown at about an inch-and-a-half long. They'll chomp on any plant, but prefer grasses, especially the lush and well-fertilized hay meadows and pastures in North, East and Central Texas.

"Unless the farmer is looking very closely, he won't realize he has a problem" until it's too late, Knutson said. "Almost overnight a field can be consumed by armyworms. A farmer drives by and says 'Oh my goodness, I've lost my crop.'"

The armyworm gets its name from its method of operation. The larvae occur in large army-like numbers and when they eat all the food in one area they "march" en masse, across roads and fence lines, to the next field for feeding, unseen in the darkness and cool of the night.

"When small, they eat very little," Knutson said. "But after 10 days to two weeks, they turn into eating machines."

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'Dynamic and Dramatic Times in the Arctic'

Thawing permafrost, melting ice sheets and threats to Arctic wildlife are just some of the growing concerns about the effect of global warming at the top of the planet, according to a new U.S. government report card.

An undated handout photo from the Center for Northern Studies shows the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf...

An undated handout photo from the Center for Northern Studies shows the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf disintegrating. The incredibly rapid rate at which Canada's Arctic ice shelves are disappearing is an early indicator of the "very substantial changes" that global warming will impose on all mankind, a top scientist said on September 3, 2008.

(Denis Sarrazin/Center for Northern Studies/Reuters)

The report card notes that 2007 was the warmest year on record in the Arctic region, with sea-ice cover at record lows, less snow cover and increased effects on walruses and polar bears.

"These are clearly dynamic and dramatic times in the Arctic," said report editor Jackie Richter-Menge, a researcher with the Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H.

The massive ice sheet in Greenland underwent "record melting" in 2007, the report said, losing at least 24 cubic miles of ice.

That is about 100 times the amount of ice that the city of Los Angeles uses in an entire year, according to Eric Rignot, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was not involved in the report card.

And the length of time that the ice sheet is melting has increased: 20 more days of melting than average, researchers report, with some areas of the ice sheet seeing as many as 53 more days of melting every season.

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Moscow supermarket shelves increasingly empty in Soviet era reminder

Russian shoppers have been served an uncomfortable reminder of the Soviet era after finding shelves in some Moscow supermarkets empty, a further sign that the woes of the financial markets have begun to affect the mainstream economy.

For a generation of Russians who queued daily in the snow for the most basic of staples, the symbolism of a bare supermarket shelf is so powerful that it could potentially destroy the reputation of Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, as saviour of the world's largest country.

The shortages are not yet widespread. Even so, goods have begun to vanish from dozens of Moscow supermarkets over the past fortnight.

At a branch of the supermarket chain Samokhval in southwestern Moscow, a handful of shoppers pushed their trolleys through empty rows of shelves that once groaned under the weight of imported wares.

The deep freezes hummed, although there was nothing to freeze. Only a row of baked beans, a few jars of olives and sealed cupboards filled with vodka and cheap wine interrupted the void.

Unlike in the dying days of the Soviet Union, when the madcap policies of a bankrupt ideology inflicted deprivation across the country, today's shortages are very much rooted in modern Russia's enthusiastic embrace of capitalism.

Samokhval, which has 60 outlets across the capital, is the victim of a credit crunch whose tentacles have spread to virtually all sectors of the Russian economy. With trust a commodity in short supply, distributors have been unwilling to refinance the chain's debts and have stopped supplying.

Similar problems have affected Mosmart, which has 58 outlets and is also suffering from empty shelves.

The breadlines are unlikely to reform any time soon -- most supermarkets seem to be operating almost as normal -- yet such shortages seem extraordinary in a city that revels in its reputation as the world's most expensive.

A consumer boom, built on runaway oil prices, has turned Russians into some of the world's most aggressive spenders.

Yet the global financial crisis and investor jitters over Russia's increasingly aggressive foreign policy and its propensity to intervene in the private sector at the whim of the Kremlin have led to share prices tumbling.

The Moscow stock exchange's main indices lost over nine percent yesterday, and have fallen over two-thirds since touching all-time highs in May.

So rapidly have events moved that many Russians are almost unaware of the meltdown. A government-ordered news blackout of the market's woes has helped perpetuate the ignorance, convincing many that it was only the West that was affected. Tabloids have run stories claiming that Britons are so short of cash they can no longer bury their dead.

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World Health Organization Investigates Mystery South African Disease

The World Health Organization, a U.N. health agency, said Friday that it is investigating a mysterious disease that has so far killed three people in the South African city of Johannesburg. WHO says the disease appears to be a form of hemorrhagic fever.

Tests have proved negative for Ebola, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Marburg fever and other main types of hemorrhagic fever.

Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman, said that the first death on Septemer 13 was a female tour guide who had fall ill in Zambia before being evacuated to South Africa. The subsequent two deaths on September 30 and October 4 involved a paramedic and a nurse who treated the woman.

WHO said Friday that 121 people are currently being monitored, and that they hope to receive further test results by Sunday.

Hunger in India states 'alarming'

India has some of the highest rates of child malnutrition in the world

Twelve Indian states have "alarming" levels of hunger while the situation is "extremely alarming" in the state of Madhya Pradesh, says a new report.

Madhya Pradesh's nutrition problems, it says, are comparable to the African countries of Ethiopia and Chad.

India has more people suffering hunger - a figure above 200 million - than any other country in the world, it says.

The report, released as part of the 2008 Global Hunger Index, ranks India at 66 out 88 countries.

'Scored worse'

The hunger index has been released by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) along with Welthungerhlife and the University of California.

It measures hunger on three indicators which include child malnutrition, rates of child mortality and the number of people who are calorie deficient.

The problem of hunger is measured in five categories - low, moderate, serious, alarming or extremely alarming.

The survey says that not one of the 17 states in India that were studied were in the low or moderate hunger category.

"Despite years of robust economic growth, India scored worse than nearly 25 sub-Saharan African countries and all of South Asia, except Bangladesh," the report says.

The best performing state was Punjab, which has a 'serious' hunger problem and does less well than developing countries such as Gabon, Vietnam and Honduras.

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Zimbabwe: Starving children lie dying

Death is stalking Zimbabwe’s children, as a potentially catastrophic famine gathers momentum. Aid agencies say that half the population, about five million people, face starvation, two-thirds of children are out of school and water shortages have led to deadly cholera outbreaks.

The Times went on a 600-mile (965km)journey through the eastern province of Manicaland and discovered a country whose reserves of food are exhausted and where the diseases of hunger — kwashiorkor, marasmus and pellagra — are appearing to a degree never seen in the country before.

Emaciated children are dying in hospitals, many more are being turned away to die at home. At one Manicaland hospital a doctor said that they were getting more cases of hunger-related diseases than ever before. “Half of the admissions end up in the mortuary,” the doctor said. The situation is the same across the country, including urban areas. “In the 32 years I have worked in Zimbabwe as a paediatrician I have never known a more serious situation,” said Greg Powell, chairman of the Zimbabwe Child Protection Society. “We can predict an exponential increase in cases of kwashiorkor and malnutrition over the next six months.”

Six weeks ago President Mugabe relaxed partially a three-month-old ban on food distribution by aid agencies but restrictive regulations still handicap the delivery of relief severely.

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Climate Change May Harm Health of Humans, Raise Disease Risk

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- The world needs to be better prepared to react to the deleterious effects that climate change may have on humans, including dirtier water, crop shortages and a higher risk of disease and food spoilage, European officials said.

Special attention should be given to the impact that warming weather, malnutrition among the poor and more intense storms can have on people, according to a panel of health and food officials speaking today at a forum in Rome marking World Food Day.

United Nations scientists expect rising temperatures this century will affect food and water supplies in central Asia, southern Europe and eastern Europe, according to a World Health Organization report published this year. The Mediterranean area already is experiencing water scarcity issues.

``In the face of what know about the serious threats posed by climate change to health, the question today is not whether public health action is necessary but what to do and how to do it,'' said Marc Danzon, WHO's regional director for Europe.

The World Food Day panel discussion participants included experts from the WHO as well as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the European Food Safety Authority and the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs in Italy, where precipitation has dropped 14 percent in five decades.

Climate change presents ``new challenges in the area of food and feed safety as well as in related areas such as plant and animal health,'' Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle, executive director of the European Food Safety Authority, said in a statement.

Eruption of 3 volcanoes has scientists asking questions

PUZZLE: Is there a common thread or were events just coincidence?

How likely is it that three neighboring volcanoes would all erupt at the same time -- as the Kasatochi, Okmok and Cleveland volcanoes in the Aleutians did this summer?

About as likely as a storm that only appears once in a thousand years, says Anchorage volcanologist Peter Cervelli, who'll deliver a paper on the subject this winter to the American Geophysical Union.

In other words, seldom enough that Cervelli is now exploring the question of whether Alaska's triple eruption was only a coincidence involving three independent volcanoes or whether it was triggered by some common mechanism.

There's no question that the volcanoes are related in a broad geological sense, says Comelli, a numerical modeler at the Alaska Volcano Observatory. That's because all 40 active volcanoes in the Aleutian Arc -- a 1,500-mile-long necklace of volcanic peaks that stretch from Kiska Island in the west to Mount Spurr near Anchorage in the east -- owe their existence to the deep, subterranean collision of two tectonic plates.

As the northward moving Pacific plate, consisting of dense material from the ocean floor, dives beneath the North American plate, consisting of lighter material from the continent, friction between the two melts rock, which turns to magma, which eventually shoots skyward through a relief-valve network of volcanoes.

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'6 million Ethiopians need emergency aid

The number of Ethiopians needing emergency assistance has leapt by 40 percent from 4.6 million to 6. 4 million people since June, a report says.

In its latest published report, the Oxfam International agency said the same time cereal rations to those needing assistance have been reduced by a third because not enough food is reaching the country.

The charity agency called on all donors to respond generously to the worsening crisis as, according to the UN, the total aid effort is currently under-funded to the tune of $260 million.

"Today's figures, terrible as they are, show only half the picture. Over 13.5 million Ethiopians are in need of aid in order to survive. The number of those suffering severe hunger and destitution has spiraled. More can and must be done now to save lives and avert disaster," said Oxfam's country director, Waleed Rauf.

He added that in comparison with the funds going to shore up the global financial system, the aid needed to save lives in Ethiopia is a drop in the ocean.

"We need donors to demonstrate that same kind of urgency when responding to acute hunger and underlying vulnerabilities in places like Ethiopia."

Rauf noted that a number of donor countries have already made substantial contributions to the humanitarian response in Ethiopia since the beginning of this year.

"This has helped to save people's lives, but now that the needs are increasing all donors must provide additional money," he noted, AFP reported.

Ethiopia is Africa's second most populous country with around 80 million inhabitants and has been badly affected by droughts, civil conflict and rising food prices.

Endangered Miss. frogs get a break in the weather

NEW ORLEANS - Pick up a Mississippi gopher frog and it covers its eyes with its forefeet, like someone afraid to see what's coming next. And for at least a decade, it's had a good reason not to look.

This year, for a change, nature gave a bit of a break to one of the nation's most endangered species.

The frogs breed only in ponds so shallow they dry up in summer. Hot, dry springs have stranded tadpoles every year since 1998, when 161 froglets hopped out of Glen's Pond in coastal Harrison County, Miss.

The pond held water longer this year. And 181 tadpoles survived a deadly parasite, made it through metamorphosis and headed into the surrounding DeSoto National Forest.

Biologists saved seven generations. They wash some eggs in well water, apparently removing the parasite, hatch them in a lab and put the tadpoles in screen-covered outdoor tanks.

Scientists believe fewer than 100 mature adults live in the wild. Five zoos — in New Orleans, Memphis, Detroit, Miami and Omaha, Neb. — have another 75 frogs.

"Our efforts have managed to stave off likely extinction but there's a long way to go," said Joe Pechmann, an associate professor of biology at Western Carolina University who has studied the frogs since 2002.

Mississippi gopher frogs once lived in longleaf pine forests from western Alabama to southeast Louisiana. Timbering all but eradicated those forests.

Scientists estimate the population from those breeding each year. This year, 50 came to Glen's Pond. Thirty of them were tank-raised; the other 20 had hatched in 2001 and 1998.

Other counts are next to impossible: the frogs live underground, in stump holes and burrows dug by other animals.

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Starvation: In Somalia, a 'forgotten crisis'

A mother and her child sitting in a feeding center tent in Somalia where the child is being treated for malnutrition.(Jehad Nga for The New York Times)

AFGOOYE, Somalia: There is a sense of overwhelming hopelessness just stepping into one of the feeding centers around here and seeing dozens of women sitting with listless babies in their laps, snapping their fingers, trying to get a flicker of life out of their dying children.

Little eyes close. Wizened one-year-olds struggle to breathe. From the doorway, you can see the future of Somalia fading away.

While the audacity of a band of Somali pirates who recently hijacked a ship full of arms has grabbed the world's attention, it is the slow-burn suffering of millions of Somalis that seems to go almost unnoticed.

The suffering is not new. Or especially surprising. This country on the edge of Africa has been slowly, but inexorably, sliding toward an abyss for the past year and a half, or some would argue, for the past 17 years.

United Nations officials have called Somalia "the forgotten crisis."

The causes are displacement, unemployment, drought, inflation, a squeeze on global food prices and a war that will not end. Fighting between Somalia's weak transitional government and a determined Islamist insurgency has been heating up in the past few weeks, driving thousands from their homes and cutting people off from food. The hospital wards here are one indicator of the conflict's intensity.

"In the past two months," said Dr. Mohammed Hussein, "our patients have doubled."

In August, they had 200 women lined up every day with emaciated babies. Today, it is 400.

More than three million people, about half of Somalia's population, now need emergency rations to survive. Nobody seems to like it. Many say they feel humiliated.

"That's all we talk about - when will the next handout come," said Zenab Ali Osman, a grandmother raising her daughter's children.

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Bird Flu Samples: Washington could use them to make biological weapons

In this June 5, 2008 file photo, chickens look out of their pen in a downtown neighborhood in Jakarta, Indonesia. When Indonesia's health minister stopped sending bird flu viruses to a research laboratory in the U.S. out of fear Washington could use them to make biological weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates laughed and called it "the nuttiest thing" he'd ever heard. Yet buried deep inside an 86-page supplement to U.S. export regulations is a single sentence barring U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu for the same reason. (AP Photo/Irwin Fedriansyiah, File)

US controls bird flu vaccines over bioweapon fears

By ROBIN McDOWELL – 4 hours ago

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — When Indonesia's health minister stopped sending bird flu viruses to a research laboratory in the U.S. for fear Washington could use them to make biological weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates laughed and called it "the nuttiest thing" he'd ever heard.

Yet deep inside an 86-page supplement to United States export regulations is a single sentence that bars U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu and dozens of other viruses to five countries designated "state sponsors of terrorism."

The reason: Fear that they will be used for biological warfare.

Under this little-known policy, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria and Sudan may not get the vaccines unless they apply for special export licenses, which would be given or refused according to the discretion and timing of the U.S. Three of those nations — Iran, Cuba and Sudan — also are subject to a ban on all human pandemic influenza vaccines as part of a general U.S. embargo.

The regulations, which cover vaccines for everything from Dengue fever to the Ebola virus, have raised concern within the medical and scientific communities. Although they were quietly put in place more than a decade ago, they could now be more relevant because of recent concerns about bird flu. Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they were not even aware of the policies until contacted by The Associated Press last month and privately expressed alarm.

They make "no scientific sense," said Peter Palese, chairman of the microbiology department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He said the bird flu vaccine, for example, can be used to contain outbreaks in poultry before they mutate to a form spread more easily between people.

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Climate change ground zero

Fighting a losing battle... last month Humayun Kabir watched as his 100-year-old ancestral home was washed away. Boats now sail where his home once stood.

The earth is disappearing from under the feet of millions of impoverished Bangladeshis.

Nasir Ahmed is terrified of the full moon. In the dead of night three weeks ago it induced an unprecedented tidal surge that inundated his coastal village on the island of Bhola, in southern Bangladesh, leaving him, his wife Nasima, and their six children without shelter.

"I was quite well set up before, but my situation has become desperate," says Nasir, a fisherman who earns less than a dollar a day. "We are now going without food."

The family has taken refuge in an abandoned hut on a crumbling embankment a few metres from the new shoreline. When the next full moon comes, the tide could devour that shelter too.

Bhola's geography has put it at climate change ground zero. It is a flat slither of land - 15 kilometres by 150 kilometres - flanked by huge rivers and with the Bay of Bengal to the south.

Increased temperatures mean a torrent of additional melt-water from Himalayan glaciers is gushing down the great rivers of India - the Ganges and the Brahmaputra - into the Bangladeshi delta, causing savage erosion. At the same time coastal areas are being gradually flooded by rising sea levels. If that wasn't enough, Bhola is cyclone-prone and likely to experience more frequent and extreme storms as sea temperatures rise because of global warming.

But Bhola is also home to nearly 2 million people. The experience of Nasir Ahmed and his family will be replicated over and over as global warming reshapes Bangladesh, where climate change is not a problem limited to the future. Already it takes a toll. The massive tide that washed away Nasir Ahmed's home last month was the worst inundation of Bhola that anyone can remember. Canals four kilometres inland broke their banks, flooding homes and businesses never before affected by tidal flows.

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Large population of endangered dolphins found off Bangladesh

The world's largest population of vulnerable Irrawaddy dolphin has been found in Bangladesh's waters

DHAKA (AFP) — The world's largest population of vulnerable Irrawaddy dolphins -- famed as aquarium attractions -- has been found in Bangladesh's waters, according to a five-year wildlife study.

Until now, it was believed the small light-grey mammal was threatened and the International Union of Conservation of Nature had put five of its Southeast Asian populations on its list of critically endangered animals.

But the study, launched in 2003 by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and the Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project, has counted 5,832 Irrawaddy dolphins along Bangladesh's coast and estuaries.

"It's by far the biggest population of Irrawaddy dolphins in the world," said project director Brian Smith of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

"It's very good news for all of us," he said.

The researchers surveyed the waters along Bangladesh's 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) of coastline, said Rubayat Mansur, who led the research team.

"We're absolutely thrilled to make such an important discovery... We don't know any other place where these dolphins are found in such large numbers," he told AFP.

In other areas where the dolphins are known to converge, such as the Mekong delta, populations have been estimated at less than 100.

Global warming could wipe out half of Antarctica's penguins

More than half the colonies of Antarctica's penguins, including emperor penguins made famous by the Hollywood film "Happy Feet", face decline or being wiped out if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius.

Rising temperatures in coming decades would lead to less sea ice in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica and fewer nesting sites and feeding grounds for penguins, says the World Wildlife Fund in its report "2 deg C is Too Much".

Emperor penguins: Made famous by the film 'Happy Feet' the species now faces an uncertain future because of global warming

"The problem is very serious. Antarctica and the Arctic are the most threatened regions from climate change," according to Juan Casavelos, WWF's Antarctic Climate Change Coordinator.

"In the Antarctic Peninsula, the temperature has risen 2.5 deg C in the past 50 years, which is five times faster than the global average," he said.

Global temperatures have already risen on average by about 0.6 deg C since the Industrial Revolution, mainly through the burning of fossil fuels.

An Adelie penguin feeds its chicks - rising temperatures would lead to fewer nesting sites and feeding grounds

The report said that unless nations slash carbon emissions, the world would warm by an average 2 deg C in less than 40 years.

But temperatures near the Poles have already risen much faster, leading to dramatic melting of glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula, off the bottom of South America, and sea ice at the North Pole.

"The situation is quite critical because in the past 50 years, the emperor penguin population has decreased by 50 per cent in all of Antarctica," Casavelos said.

On the Antarctic Peninsula's north-western coast, Adelie penguin numbers have dropped dramatically over the past 25 years, WWF's report said, calling for rich nations to agree to steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in U.N.-led climate talks.

"Fifty per cent of the colonies of the iconic emperor penguin and 75 percent Adelie penguin colonies face marked decline or disappearance if the global temperature is allowed to rise 2 deg C above pre-industrial levels," the report said.

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Expect severe winter in U.S. East –

HOUSTON – The eastern United States could be on the verge of its coldest, snowiest winter since at least 2003-04, and homeowners should brace for huge heating bills if oil prices stay high, private forecaster AccuWeather said Wednesday.

“Given this economic environment, the winter will push some homeowners to the brink,” said AccuWeather long-range forecaster Joe Bastardi, referring to the credit crisis and oil prices which are substantially higher than last year.

Elsewhere in the nation, winter should be less severe this year than last, with the Midwest less snowy and the West mostly warmer. The Northwest could see above-average snowfall, AccuWeather said.

Winter will start early this year, with December bringing perhaps the most severe weather of the season, Bastardi said. There should be a warm-up in January followed by another bout of severe weather in late January or early February, he said.

“In the eastern half of the nation, people will look at the bookends of cold,” Bastardi said.

World Bank warns on 'human crisis' of high food prices

• Poor 'pushed to brink of survival'
• Children will not grow into healthy adults

World Bank president Robert Zoellick urged governments to act to contain a mounting "human crisis" today, as he warned that 44 million of the world's poorest people would be driven into malnutrition this year, as a result of high food prices.

"While people in the developed world are focused on the financial crisis, many forget that a human crisis is rapidly unfolding in developing countries. It is pushing poor people to the brink of survival," Zoellick said.

The Bank estimates that the total number of malnourished people around the world will rise to 967 million this year, as families struggle with the rising price of basic foodstuffs.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, as development ministers prepare to gather for the Bank's annual meetings this weekend, Zoellick called for emergency action from rich economies to tackle the problem, and warned that its effects can persist for a generation.

"This means children will not grow into healthy adults," he said.

Zoellick welcomed the joint rate cut by central banks around the world - and especially the participation of China, the first time it has joined in such an action - but he added: "My message to the G7 and other rising powers is, we also need coordinated action to support developing countries, and those that are most vulnerable."

He said the Bank was closely monitoring a group of around 30 emerging economies that are at particular risk of suffering a budget crisis, because volatile commodity crises and the rising cost of borrowing as a result of the credit crunch.

Zoellick said the Bank would also help developing countries to devise relatively cheap "targeted safety net" programmes to protect their poorest citizens from rising prices, for around 1% of GDP. "That's a very, very good investment."

He repeated his call for seven major developing countries, including China and India, to be brought into the G7 club of rich economies, to provide a better reflection of the shifting balance of power in the world.

New Thinking on When the Arctic Froze

The Arctic may be a frigid, ice-covered area today, but it hasn't always been quite so cold.

Scientists have long wondered when the Arctic first transitioned to its ice-covered state; a new study suggests this could have happened millions of years earlier than was previously thought.

The standard view of the formation of the huge ice sheets that cover Earth's poles was that continental-scale glaciation of Antarctica occurred about 34 million years ago, while the Arctic wasn't covered by ice until some 31 million years later — much more recently geologically-speaking.

But the new findings hint that Arctic ice may not have taken quite as long to form, with evidence placing its formation closer in time to that of Antarctic ice. Now researchers say Arctic ice could have formed about 23 million years ago.

A group of U.S. and U.K. climatologists, led by Robert DeConto of the University of Massachusetts, used a model to test the idea that Arctic ice formed much earlier than thought. Their work was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the results are detailed in the Oct. 2 issue of the journal Nature.

The model took into account the long-term decline in carbon dioxide — a heat-trapping greenhouse gas — known to have occurred over about the past 65 million years or so. It also included the effect of variations in Earth's orbit with respect to the sun, which can affect temperatures on Earth.

The model showed that for ice to form in the Arctic, carbon dioxide levels had to reach a much lower level than needed for ice to form over Antarctica, or it would be too warm for the ice to freeze out. This is because polar continents in the Northern Hemisphere are at lower latitudes than in the Southern Hemisphere and receive more warmth (from incoming sunlight) in the summer.

With the evidence that scientists currently have, it is clear that carbon dioxide levels were too high for Arctic ice to have formed at the same time as Antarctic ice, but the levels dipped down below the needed threshold about 23 million years ago, meaning that Arctic ice could have first formed 20 million years earlier than expected, the authors said.

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Speaker warns of Antarctica warming

Photo by MARIA STENZEL Photographs of the Antarctic were taken by Maria Stenzel, photojournalist for National Geographic, who gave a talk titled "The Deep South: Antarctica as Ground Zero for Global Warming" Tuesday night at Springfield's Symphony Hall as part of the Springfield Public Forum series.

SPRINGFIELD - If there is a "canary in the coal mine" in Antarctica, it is the Adelie penguin, and global warming is rapidly reducing the species' population, according to a National Geographic photojournalist who has specialized in the coldest continent.

Since 1970, the size of the penguins' nesting colonies in some coastal areas has decreased by 50 percent or more, said Maria Stenzel, who appeared Tuesday at Symphony Hall as part of the annual Springfield Public Forum lecture series. She provided a personal account of how climate change is affecting Antarctica.

"The Antarctic peninsula has one of the greatest rates of global warming. The average temperature in the summer there is 4 degrees warmer than it used to be, and in the winter it is 10 degrees warmer. So less sea ice is forming," she said.

Sea ice provides sanctuary for krill, a shrimp-like crustacean that is a key to the Antarctic food chain. Krill are also a central to the Adelie penguins' diet, she said. And less sea ice has meant up to an 80 percent drop in krill populations in some areas.

"So everything has escalated," she said.

Stenzel grew up in Ghana, the Netherlands and New York. Following graduation from University of Virginia, she went to Washington, D.C., in 1980 and was able to get an entry-level job at National Geographic, where she was introduced to the world of photojournalism.

She has documented dinosaur digs in Madagascar, Inca mummies high in the Andes and indigenous groups from the rain forest to the Arctic. However, her greatest interest has remained the Antarctic, a mysterious region of more than 5 million square miles.

The Springfield Public Forum, which is one of the nation's longest-running public lecture series, began in 1935. The next forum will take place Oct. 14 when veteran journalist Roger Mudd will offer an insider's view of Washington and the media.

On Nov. 13, Rob Gifford, National Public Radio's London Bureau chief and former China correspondent, will provide his perspective on China. And in this year's final forum, on Nov. 19 National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg will discuss what the future of the Supreme Court makeup under the new presidential administration.

Rock slide in Yosemite injures three, forces partial closure

Email Picture

The slide is the second in two days at the national park. About 1,000 people, including visiting schoolchildren, are evacuated.

SACRAMENTO -- A major rock slide this morning at Yosemite National Park injured three visitors, destroyed more than half a dozen cabins and prompted park officials to evacuate popular Curry Village as a precaution.

The slide let loose about 7 a.m. more than halfway up the 3,200-foot face of Glacier Point, which looms above the tent cabins and concession services on the valley floor below.

An 1,800-cubic-yard slab of rock cartwheeled down the cliff, shattered and sent boulders and fist-sized granite shrapnel spraying toward the edge of Curry Village and its more than 500 tent cabins, regular cabins and hotel rooms.

Park Ranger Erik Skindrud said about 1,000 visitors had to be evacuated in the slide's aftermath, many of them visiting schoolchildren and their chaperons.

One boy suffered a head laceration and had to get stitches at the valley's medical clinic. Two other people received treatment after fleeing the rock fall. A young child was treated for an asthma attack, and an adult suffered cuts when she fell, Skindrud said.

Disasters kill more in 2008 than in tsunami: UN

The quake in China's Sichuan province left more than 87,000 dead

GENEVA (AFP) — More people died from natural disasters in the first six months of 2008 than in the Asian tsunami of 2004 due mainly to the earthquake in China and cyclone in Myanmar, the United Nations said Wednesday.

"2008 is a terrible year. There have already been more victims than in the tsunami," said Salvator Briceno, head of the UN's disaster management agency (ISDR).

More than 230,000 people lost their lives from disasters and another 130 million were affected, he said on the occasion of the International Day for Disaster Reduction.

Cyclone Nargis which hit Mynamar in May is estimated to have killed around 138,000 people while the earthquake in south-west China's Sichuan province left a death toll of 87,500.

Record floods in India as well as a devastating hurricane season in the Caribbeans also all contributed to the grim statistics.

The UN estimates the economic cost of natural disasters for the first half of this year at 35 billion dollars (26 billion euros), up from an average of 15 billion dollars for the same period over the past ten years.

Water seen as the new oil for U.S. Army

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Soldiers, weapons, food and fuel are important but the U.S. Army absolutely cannot operate for long without water, a top Pentagon official said on Tuesday.

This simple fact is just as true for domestic bases as it is in "austere" forward installations in Iraq, said Tad Davis, the Army's deputy assistant secretary for environment, safety and occupational health.

"Somebody recently said water's the new oil and there's a lot to be said for that," Davis said at the Reuters Global Environment Summit.

"You can get out there ... and deploy to an area for conducting operations, but if water's not there for drinking purposes and for cooking, showering, laundry, things like that, then you're not going to be able to sustain the force."

In Iraq, 80 percent of cargo in Army convoys headed into forward areas over the last several years consisted of fuel and water. To make the convoys shorter -- and therefore less of a target -- the Army worked on making bases more fuel-efficient and looked for ways to reuse or purify existing water supplies, Davis said.

Ultimately, they set up six water bottling facilities in Iraq to serve U.S. Army needs.

ARMY CONSTRUCTION BOOM

In the United States, the dimensions of the problem are more complex, because the Army is in the midst of a construction boom to accommodate an additional 75,000 soldiers over the next three or four years, Davis said. Continued...

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Twin quakes hit Tibet

Two earthquakes have struck Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and surrounding areas, leaving at least nine people dead, according to Chinese state media reports.

The figure was revised down after the Xinhua news agency, citing local rescue officials, withdrew its earlier estimate of at least 30 dead late on Monday.

The quake in the restless region next to Nepal and India came a day after an earthquake in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan killed at least 72 people.

Another strong quake also hit Afghanistan on the same day.

The US Geological Survey said the first earthquake in Tibet had a magnitude of 6.6 and struck at 4:30pm (08:30 GMT), 80km west of Lhasa.

About 15 minutes later a 5.1 tremor hit an area approximately 96km west of Lhasa.

The nine bodies, along with 11 seriously injured victims, were found in the ruins of collapsed building in Gedar township in Damxung county, near the epicentre, Xinhua quoted a local official overseeing rescue efforts as saying.

The Chinese agency said historical sites and "key cultural relics" were not damaged.

Earthquake prone

China's far west is quite earthquake prone.

On Sunday a magnitude-5.7 earthquake shook the Xinjiang region, which borders Tibet, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Tibet, a remote, sparsely populated region, has been hit by several moderate earthquakes in recent weeks.

Last month, a magnitude 6 earthquake struck near its border with Nepal but there were no reports of damage or casualties.

Monday's quake in Tibet comes just months after the massive quake in China's Sichuan province, which killed at least 80,000 and devastated whole towns and villages in May.

Penguins ride air force jet to South Atlantic

In this photo released Monday, Oct. 6, 2008 by International Fund for Animal Welfare, penguins are released at the Cassino Beach, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2008. More than 370 frigid water penguins that mysteriously stranded in the warm waters of northeastern Brazil have been released into the ocean, environmentalists said. (AP Photo/International Fund for Animal Welfare)

In this photo released Monday, Oct. 6, 2008 by International Fund for Animal Welfare, penguins are released at the Cassino Beach, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, Saturday, Oct. 4, 2008. More than 370 frigid water penguins that mysteriously stranded in the warm waters of northeastern Brazil have been released into the ocean, environmentalists said. (AP Photo/International Fund for Animal Welfare)

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — More than 370 penguins that mysteriously washed up on Brazil's equatorial beaches were flown south on a huge air force cargo plane and released closer to the frigid waters they call home, animal advocates said Monday.

Onlookers cheered as the young Magellanic penguins were set free on a beach in southern Brazil and scampered into the ocean, the International Fund for Animal Welfare said in a statement. It called the penguin release the largest ever in South America.

The penguins were among nearly 1,000 that have washed up on Brazil's northeastern coast in recent months, said group spokesman Chris Cutter. About 20 percent of the penguins died and the rest were not healthy enough send back.

The penguins, which had been kept at an animal rehabilitation center in the northeastern city of Salvador, were flown on an air force C130 turboprop plane usually used for heavy military cargo to southern Brazil and set free on Saturday.

Experts hope a small group of older penguins released along with the young ones will help guide them south to the Patagonia.

Magellanic penguins breed in large colonies in southern Argentina and Chile and migrate north as far as southwest Brazil between March and September.

Environmentalists say it is not know why the penguins were stranded so far north, but suggest they could have been carried beyond their usual range by a flow of warm water.

Disease warning on climate change

Changes to the climate are enabling mosquitoes to move northwards

Climate change may hasten the spread of diseases that can move from wild animals to humans, warns the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in a report.

The Deadly Dozen highlights 12 zoonoses - animal-borne diseases - that may spread as the climate warms.

The US-based organisation advocates establishing a global early warning network making use of Western and indigenous people's knowledge.

The report was launched here at the World Conservation Congress.

"We've seen Lyme disease work its way up from the US into Canada, and West Nile fever as well," said William Karesh, director of WCS's global health programmes.

"Basically what you have now are fewer frozen nights in this region, and that allows the ticks and mosquitoes that carry these diseases to survive further north."

In its landmark assessment of climate impacts, released last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that elevated temperatures would change the distribution of animals that carry diseases affecting humans, and that improved disease surveillance was a "climate adaptation" measure that some countries were already taking.

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Red List of endangered species - thousands of species at risk of disappearing

The world is in the grip of an extinction crisis with thousands of species at risk of disappearing forever.

The survival of at least one in four land mammals is in doubt but it could be as high as one in three, according to the latest Red List of endangered species. In the world's oceans and seas the situation is even worse with one in three marine mammals under threat. Amphibians are also in severe trouble with 366 species added to the 2008 Red List. There are now 2,030 species - one in three - either threatened or extinct. And a representative sample of reptiles shows that over one in five face a battle to survive. Life on Earth is disappearing fast with man inflicting most of the damage, according to the most comprehensive report of its kind drawn up by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Quake kills 74 in Kyrgyz mountain village

A Kyrgyz man stands near a destroyed house at the site of a major earthquake in Nura

BISHKEK (AFP) — Rescuers toiled on Monday in a remote mountain village close to Kyrgyzstan's border with China searching for survivors of a powerful earthquake that killed at least 74 people, 41 of them children.

Hours later, a powerful tremor also struck a sparsely populated area of China's Himalayan region of Tibet, killing at least 30 people, Chinese state media reported.

The Kyrgyz quake, which measured 6.6 according to the US Geological Survey and was felt hundreds of kilometres (miles) around, razed the village of Nura, located in the Tian Shan mountains at an altitude of 2,000 metres (6,500 feet), said Kyrgyzstan's emergency situations minister, Kamchybek Tashiyev.

"The picture we saw was frightening. The village of Nura is fully destroyed, 100 percent," Tashiyev said.

The devastation in the village, from where rescuers were ferrying out the injured by helicopter, was graphically described by the head of Kyrgyzstan's Institute of Seismology, Kanatbek Abdrakhmatov.

"These were dilapidated houses, made of clay and straw, so they were totally destroyed," he told AFP.

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Prices for 16 basic food items shoot up in third quarter

Flour, potatoes, cheddar cheese and apples show the largest increases.

Supermarket prices for 16 basic food items surged to a record in the third quarter because of higher commodity costs and increased processing and transportation expenses, the American Farm Bureau Federation said Thursday.

The average cost of typical weekly consumer purchases rose 11% to $48.68 in the three months ended Sept. 30, from $44.03 a year earlier, the federation said. Costs rose 4.3% from the second quarter.

"Sustained high costs for processing, hauling and refrigerating food products are reverberating at the retail level," said Jim Sartwelle, an economist for the federation.

The share of the food dollar that went to farmers and ranchers fell to 19% in the quarter, the lowest in the quarterly survey's 20-year history and down from about 32% in 1980, the federation said.

Retail prices for flour, potatoes, cheddar cheese and apples showed the largest increases in the quarter. A 5-pound bag of flour cost $2.62, up 37% from a year earlier, while 5 pounds of potatoes rose 32% to $3.38. Prices for cheddar cheese and apples surged 21%.

Vegetable oil rose 17%, a dozen eggs jumped 13%, pork chops were up 6.8% and hamburger cost 5% more, the federation said.

Corn futures surged 70% on the Chicago Board of Trade during the quarter from a year earlier, wheat increased 11% and live cattle rose 8.2%.

Food-price inflation may run as high as 6% this year, the highest since 1980, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.

A total of 74 volunteer shoppers in 32 states participated in the survey, conducted in August, the Farm Bureau Federation said.

Half of mammals 'in decline', says extinction 'Red List'

Half the world's mammals are declining in population and more than a third probably face extinction, said an update Monday of the "Red List," the most respected inventory of biodiversity.

A comprehensive survey of mammals included in the annual report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which covers more than 44,000 animal and plant species, shows that a quarter of the planet's 5,487 known mammals are clearly at risk of disappearing forever.

But the actual situation may be even grimmer because researchers have been unable to classify the threat level for another 836 mammals due to lack of data.

"In reality, the number of threatened mammals could be as high as 36 percent," said IUCN scientist Jan Schipper, lead author of the mammal survey, in remarks published separately in the US-based journal Science.

The most vulnerable groups are primates, our nearest relatives on the evolutionary ladder, and marine mammals, including several species of whales, dolphins and porpoises.

"Our results paint a bleak picture of the global status of mammals worldwide," said Schipper.

The revised Red List, unveiled at the IUCN's World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, is further evidence that Earth is undergoing the first wave of mass extinction since dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, many experts say.

Over the last half-billion years, there have only been five other periods of mass extinction.

The Red List classifies plants and animals in one of half-a-dozen categories depending on their survival status.

Nearly 40 percent of 44,838 species catalogued are listed as "threatened" with extinction, with 3,000 of them classified as "critically endangered," meaning they face a very high probability of dying out.

There were a few slivers of good news showing that conservation efforts can prevent a species from slipping into the category from which there is no return: "extinct."

Seas turn to acid as they soak up CO2

The Bay of Naples is renowned for its breathtaking beauty and glittering clear waters. For centuries, tourists have flocked to the region to experience its glories.

But beneath the waves, scientists have uncovered an alarming secret. They have found streams of gas bubbling up from the seabed around the island of Ischia. 'The waters are like a Jacuzzi - there is so much carbon dioxide fizzing up from the seabed,' said Dr Jason Hall-Spencer, of Plymouth University. 'Millions of litres of gas bubble up every day.'

The gas streams have turned Ischia's waters into acid, and this has had a major impact on sea life and aquatic plants. Now marine biologists fear that the world's seas could follow suit.

'Every day the oceans absorb more than 25m tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,' said Hall-Spencer. 'If it were not for the oceans, levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would be far higher than they are today and the impact of climate change would be far worse. However, there is a downside: it is called ocean acidification.'

Scientists calculate that the seas are absorbing so much carbon dioxide that they are 30 per cent more acidic than they were at the start of the Industrial Revolution. The change is three times greater and has happened 100 times faster than at any other time during the past 20 million years.

Tomorrow hundreds of scientists will gather in Monaco for the 'Second International Symposium on the Ocean in a High CO2 World'. One focus of debate is likely to be the Plymouth study. The seas off Ischia - which are affected by carbon dioxide from volcanic activity - offer a first-class opportunity to investigate what might happen in the next few decades.

Scientists found that in Ischia's highly acidic water:

• Biodiversity of plants and fish has dropped by 30 per cent

• Algae vital for binding coral reefs have been wiped out

• Invasive 'alien' species, such as sea-grasses, are thriving

• Coral and sea urchins have been destroyed, while mussels and clams are failing to grow shells.

The conference will also tackle the dangers posed to fish larvae, which are sensitive to high levels of acid, as well as the threat to commercial fish stocks.

'Many developing countries have seafood as their prime source of food,' said Dr Carol Turley, of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory. 'If they lose that, the result could be famine.'

At least a half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico

Environmental damage widespread after Ike

L.f. Chambers / AP

Petty Officer 2nd Class Brad Lindsey inspects a container at a pollution site on Goat Island, Texas, Thursday, Sept. 25. Teams have been working throughout the Houston-Galveston and Port Arthur, Texas, areas to identify, assess and remediate pollution sites since the passing of Hurricane Ike.

WASHINGTON - Hurricane Ike's winds and massive waves destroyed oil platforms, tossed storage tanks and punctured pipelines. The environmental damage only now is becoming apparent: At least a half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the marshes, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas, according to an analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.

In the days before and after the deadly storm, companies and residents reported at least 448 releases of oil, gasoline and dozens of other substances into the air and water and onto the ground in Louisiana and Texas. The hardest hit places were industrial centers near Houston and Port Arthur, Texas, as well as oil production facilities off Louisiana's coast, according to the AP's analysis.

"We are dealing with a multitude of different types of pollution here ... everything from diesel in the water to gasoline to things like household chemicals," said Larry Chambers, a petty officer with the U.S. Coast Guard Command Center in Pasadena, Texas.

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Ancient Peru pyramid spotted by satellite

Infrared and multispectral images reveal 9,000-square-mile structure

National Research Council, Italy |

In this satellite image, the white arrows show the buried pyramid and the black arrows other structures which have yet to be investigated.

A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru's Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome.

Nicola Masini and Rosa Lasaponara of Italy's National Research Council (CNR) discovered the pyramid by analyzing images from the satellite Quickbird, which they used to penetrate the Peruvian soil.

The researchers investigated a test area along the river Nazca. Covered by plants and grass, it was about a mile away from Cahuachi's archaeological site, which contains the remains of what is believed to be the world's biggest mud city.

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Death toll from Haiti storms nearly 800

(CNN) -- The death toll from a string of hurricanes and tropical storms in Haiti has risen to nearly 800 people, an official with the Haitian Red Cross says.

A man carries drinking water through the flooded streets of Gonaives, Haiti, last month.

Jean Pierre Guiteau, the group's executive officer, said they suspected the numbers may climb further because many people were still missing.

Heavy rainfall from four major storms in August and September created fatal flooding and mudslides in Haiti.

Tropical Storm Fay caused flooding and significant damage when it hit the impoverished island nation. Heavy rains from Hurricane Gustav, considered a major hurricane, caused destructive mudslides after it made landfall in Haiti on August 26, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Tropical Storm Hanna passed over northern Haiti in early September, bringing heavy rain and flooding. Ike, another major hurricane, caused flooding and mudslides.

The United States has provided more than $30 million in humanitarian assistance to Haiti in the wake of the storms, the U.S. Agency for International Development said. The United Nations' Central Emergency Response Fund has allocated more than $4 million for post-hurricane humanitarian aid, the agency said.

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Climate change ‘will cut water supplies’

Householders will have to reduce their consumption of water by a third or more over the next 40 years because climate change will cause river levels to slump, new research has shown.

Average river flows will be 10 to 15 per cent lower than at present, according to a study by Ian Barker, head of water resources at the Bristol-based Environment Agency. The study overturns the assumption by climate-change modellers that while summer and winter rainfall patterns will alter, the overall quantity will remain much the same.

China issues orange alert for tropical storm Higos

A rescue ship waits at a port in Haikou, capital of south China's Hainan Province Oct. 3, 2008. Higos, the 17th tropical storm this year, will drop heavy rain on parts of south China's Guangdong and Hainan provinces over the next two days, the country's National Meteorological Observatory said on Thursday. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

BEIJING, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- China issued an orange alert on Friday for tropical storm Higos that was expected to bring gales and heavy rain to southern coastal areas from Friday to Saturday.

Higos, the 17th tropical storm of the year, will land on the eastern coastal area of the southern island province of Hainan between Friday evening and early Saturday morning, or shave the area and approach western Guangdong Province, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) forecast.

Vessels drive back to a port in Haikou, capital of south China's Hainan Province Oct. 3, 2008. Higos, the 17th tropical storm this year, will drop heavy rain on parts of south China's Guangdong and Hainan provinces over the next two days, the country's National Meteorological Observatory said on Thursday. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

The storm was at the central area of the South China Sea at 8 a.m. on Friday, about 220 km southeast of Wanning City, Hainan. Itwas packing winds of up to force 8, or 64.8 km per hour, and moving northwest at a speed of about 20 km per hour, according to the NMC.

With an orange alert, the second highest warning, the NMC warned vessels to take shelter in ports and urged local authorities to prepare for emergencies in the upcoming strong wind and rain storms.

The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters activated a third degree emergency response on Friday to prevent flooding.

Higos was formed on Tuesday in the Pacific Ocean, coming on theheels of storms Jangmi and Hagupit, which combined killed about 20 people in China.

Penguins washed ashore more than 2,000 miles from home

In warm Brazil, a perplexing inrush of penguins

Birds have washed ashore more than 2,000 miles from home

Two of the penguins that have washed up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Not everyone in Rio de Janeiro has taken to the penguins quite the way Cecilia Breves has, but even for her, there is a learning curve.

Her new penguin friends do not, it turns out, care for the red plastic igloo she purchased, except when it rains. Nor are all the young ones adept at swallowing whole sardines -- she has ruined more than one blender grinding their daily fish smoothies. And when she took to cradling them on her lap to watch TV in the evenings -- being, as they are, wild flightless birds that aren't housebroken -- it didn't take long for her to realize she must first swaddle them in a towel, for cleanliness.

"I was very happy when I had one or two, because they are so cute. They'd follow me around everywhere," said Breves, 57, a retired photographer. "It's much harder when there are eight of them."

The sheer quantity of young penguins that have washed up on Brazil's sun-drenched beaches this year has confounded nearly everyone who comes in contact with them. Each summer and early fall, some gray-and-white Magellanic penguins could be expected to drift here, washed by ocean currents more than 2,000 miles north from their homes in southern Argentina near the bottom of the world.

'I have never seen anything like this'
This year is different. Like some maritime dust-bowl migration, more than 1,000 of these penguins have floated ashore in Brazil, nearly as far north as the equator. By the time their webbed feet touch sand, many are gaunt and exhausted, often having lost three-quarters of their body weight. Even more have died.

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have washed ashore more than 2,000 miles from home

Seeds of 1,690 species of plants on verge of extinction will be frozen and preserved

Matsumotosenno, a kind of dianthus caryophyllaceous plant that is feared to become extinct. (Photo courtesy of the Environment Ministry)

The Environment Ministry is set to dry, freeze and preserve the seeds of 1,690 species of plants that it fears are on the verge of extinction, ministry officials said.

The ministry has designated 1,690 of about 7,000 types of plants, including nonflowering plants such as fiddlehead ferns, as endangered species, and intends to preserve the seeds of most of them.

"The method of drying and freezing seeds allows us to preserve a large number of seeds. It's effective in preventing their extinction," a ministry official said.

In the project to be launched in October, the ministry will cooperate with botanical gardens and research institutes across the country to collect seeds of the endangered plants from their habitats.

It will then dry them while maintaining their ability to put forth buds and preserve them in a freezer at Tokyo's Shinjuku Gyoen park that is 20 degrees Celsius below freezing point. Experts say seeds can be preserved for tens of years if frozen.

The protection of plants on the verge of extinction is important for conserving biodiversity.

A total of 26 botanical gardens across the country are cooperating in growing endangered plants, but there has been no example of systematically preserving seeds of such plants.

Scientists close to cracking wheat's genetic code

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists believe they have found a way to map the hugely complex genetic code of wheat, the staple food for 35 percent of the world's population.

The move could lead to improved crop varieties that are resistant to drought and disease at a time when surging demand has stoked fears over future grain supply, sending prices soaring to record highs earlier this year.

French scientists said on Thursday they had constructed a map of the largest wheat chromosome, chromosome 3B, and demonstrated it should be possible to sequence the plant's entire genetic code.

"We hope that in the next five years we will have the physical map for the whole genome," Etienne Paux of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Clermont-Ferrand told Reuters.

In the past, the wheat genome has been viewed as all but impossible to sequence because of its sheer size. It comprises 17 billion base pairs of the chemicals that make up DNA -- five times more than the human genome.

The 3B chromosome alone is more than twice the size of the entire genome of rice, which was the first major food crop to be sequenced six years ago.

Once the whole wheat genome is sequenced, researchers say it will be much easier to identify genes that can be used either in conventional plant breeding programs or to develop genetically modified crop varieties.

"We can now really accelerate the identification of regions involved in agronomically important traits," Paux said. Continued...

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300 people still missing since Ike hit Texas

(CNN) -- Alligators loom over submerged cars. Mountains of debris are embedded in the ground. The bodies of cows, trucks and the remnants of homes lie in and out of the water. And unverified sightings of missing loved ones still make the rounds.

Some residents fear that remains of missing people will be found in piles of debris scattered across Gilchrist, Texas.

More than 300 people are missing since Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast last month, and the obstacles to finding them are frustrating family and friends who desperately wan