Antarctic Ice Shelf Falling Apart

BERLIN (April 29) — Massive ice chunks are crumbling away from a shelf in the western Antarctic Peninsula, researchers said Wednesday, warning that 1,300 square miles of ice — an area larger than Rhode Island — was in danger of breaking off in coming weeks.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf had been stable for most of the last century, but began retreating in the 1990s. Researchers believe it was held in place by an ice bridge linking Charcot Island to the Antarctic mainland.

But the 127-square-mile bridge lost two large chunks last year and then shattered completely on April 5.

"As a consequence of the collapse, the rifts, which had already featured along the northern ice front, widened and new cracks formed as the ice adjusted," the European Space Agency said in a statement Wednesday on its Web site, citing new satellite images.

The first icebergs broke away on Friday, and since then some 270 square miles of ice have dropped into the sea, according to the satellite data.

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The Most Distant Light in the Universe?

The little smudge in astronomers' pictures may be the most distant object ever seen -- a dying star, exploding in what astronomers call a gamma-ray burst, 13 billion light-years from Earth.

Since the universe itself is believed to be 13.7 years old, the explosion happened when the universe was very young -- five percent as old as it is now. The explosion was spotted by several telescopes at 3:55 a.m. EDT on April 23. The light literally came to us from somewhere near the edge of space.

The image above came from the Gemini observatory in Hawaii. The one below is combined from several sensors on board NASA's Swift orbiting telescope, designed specifically to look for these most spectacular of cosmic events.

"We're seeing the demise of a star -- and probably the birth of a black hole -- in one of the universe's earliest stellar generations," said Derek Fox of Penn State University in a press statement.

A light-year is a little less than six trillion miles. Do some math, and if the explosion was 13 billion light-years away, it was about 76,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles off.

“This makes it easily the most distant object ever seen by humanity,” said Edo Berger of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The European Southern Observatory, which detected the explosion too, agreed.

NASA scientists think other objects, imaged by the Hubble telescope, may have been farther away -- but they weren't seen just as they exploded.

The explosion was of "modest brightness," said astronomers, and lasted only about ten seconds. But it was violent beyond description. Scientists say gamma-ray bursts, which happen when stars run out of fuel for the nuclear fusion that powers them, are the "most powerful events in the universe," in the words of Britain's Science and Technology Council, destroying everything around them for light-years around them.

For now, the new find is only known by the name GRB 090423.

SE Asia will be hit hard by climate change

Nov. 2, 2007 file photo, acacia logs are seen collected before being transported as the natural forest is seen at right in Pangkalan Kerinci, Riau province, on Sumatra island, Indonesia. Southeast Asia will be hit particularly hard by climate change, causing the region's agriculture-dependent economies to contract by as much as 6.7 percent annually by the end of the century, according to a study released Monday, April 27, 2009.

BANGKOK – Southeast Asia will be hit particularly hard by climate change, causing the region's agriculture-dependent economies to contract by as much as 6.7 percent annually by the end of the century, according to a study released Monday.

The Asian Development Bank study focused on Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Those countries are especially vulnerable because they have large coastal populations facing rising sea levels and rely heavily on rice and other agriculture products which could suffer from water shortages as well as floods. Vietnam was found to be the most vulnerable.

"Climate change seriously threatens Southeast Asia's families, food supplies and financial prosperity," said Ursula Schaefer-Preuss, the ADB's vice president for knowledge management and sustainable development. "If Southeast Asian nations delay action on climate change, their economies and people will ultimately suffer.'

If nothing is done to combat global warming, the report said that by 2100 the four Asian countries would see temperatures rise an average of 8.6 Fahrenheit (4.8 Celsius) from the 1990 level. They would also likely suffer drops in rainfall leading to worsening droughts and more forest fires, more destructive tropical storms and flooding from rising seas that could displace millions of people and lead to the destruction of 965 square miles (2,500 square kilometers) of mangroves.

The economic cost, according to the report, would be 2.2 percent of gross domestic product by 2100 if only the impact on markets is considered, 5.7 percent if health costs and biodiversity losses are factored in and 6.7 percent of gross domestic product if losses from climate-related disasters are also included. CONTINUE

After the Codyssey, the Eeliad: an epic tale of survival and the sea

Anguilla anguilla elvers resting

Every November, when the Moon is at its darkest, there’s a stirring on riverbeds, lake bottoms and marshlands around Europe. Countless silver serpents respond to an ancient urge and turn towards faster-moving water, beginning a perilous, 4,500-mile journey down deep ocean trenches and across undersea mountain ranges.

Until now nothing has been known about their incredible journey, only that the smallest larvae of the European eel are found in the mid-Atlantic Sargasso Sea. How the spawning adults get there and how long it takes them is one of the animal kingdom’s most enduring mysteries: bar a single specimen recovered from the belly of a sperm whale, not a single silver eel has ever been recovered from the open ocean.

With the help of a tiny floating tag, the first details of their epic journey are being revealed. The device was implanted into the belly of an 87cm (34in) female European eel near Hoganasa on the west coast of Sweden last November and was discovered on a Scottish beach two weeks ago.

“We were astonished,” said Dr David Righton of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the leader of the project he has named the Eeliad on account of its epic proportions. (His previous project, involving cod, was called the Codyssey.) “The oceans are vast and there was a high risk that none would be found but we’ve had two turn up already. The first came back very soon after release, on the west coast of Ireland. That eel died and the tag came out. But the second tag has revealed some spectacular information.” CONTINUE

Discovery of Earth-mass Planet Looms

The discovery of the lightest exoplanet ever found, less than twice the mass of the Earth, has electrified a week-long meeting on astronomy and space science in Europe.

The stunning finding was made by a team headed by Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory. The icing on the cake is a related discovery that a previously discovered "super-Earth" orbiting the same star appears to reside in the habitable zone.

The finding portends the discovery of a true Earth-mass planet, which could come in about two years, Mayor said.

Mayor made the very first discovery of an exoplanet, a Jupiter-sized world that orbits the star 51 Pegasi, in 1994. Among his many planet discoveries since then at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile, Mayor has made a specialty of observing the star Gliese 581. Located 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra ("the Scales"), Gliese 581 is a red dwarf star with only one-third of the mass of our sun.

Two years ago, Mayor discovered a planet the size of Neptune and two super-Earths orbiting this star. The newly discovered planet, named Gliese 581 e, is now the fourth known planet in this solar system and the lightest, weighing in at only 1.94 Earth masses. It flies round the star at dizzying speed, taking just 3.15 days to complete an orbit. "The surprise for me was to discover a planet with by far the lowest mass seen to date," says Mayor. CONTINUE

Drowning in plastic: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the size of France

There are now 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre of the world's oceans, killing a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals each year. Worse still, there seems to be nothing we can do to clean it up. So how do we turn the tide?

A shark carcase on Kamilo Beach, Hawaii, where plastic particles outnumber sand grains until you dig down about a foot Photo: ALGALITA MARINE RESEARCH FOUNDATION

A jar of Pacific water held by the environmentalist Charles Moore hints at the amount of plastic swirling just below the ocean's surface Photo: MATT CRAMER/AMRF

David de Rothschild with a one-third mock-up and a computer-generated image of the Plastiki, the catamaran made entirely of recycled plastic in which he intends to cross the Pacific

Plastic is absolutely ubiquitous, forming the most basic infrastructure of modern consumer society Photo: BRETT RYDER

Richard Grant reports on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and a new expedition that aims to make us reassess our relationship with plastic. Illustrations by Brett Ryder

Way out in the Pacific Ocean, in an area once known as the doldrums, an enormous, accidental monument to modern society has formed. Invisible to satellites, poorly understood by scientists and perhaps twice the size of France, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a solid mass, as is sometimes imagined, but a kind of marine soup whose main ingredient is floating plastic debris.

It was discovered in 1997 by a Californian sailor, surfer, volunteer environmentalist and early-retired furniture restorer named Charles Moore, who was heading home with his crew from a sailing race in Hawaii, at the helm of a 50ft catamaran that he had built himself. CONTINUE

Orchards may vanish by the end of the century, conservationists warn

Natural England and National Trust project launched to preserve rare varieties of apples, pears and plums, bring communities together and protect biodiverse habitats

An apple crop being harvested in Somerset. Their price is set to rise this year. Photograph: Mark Bolton/Corbis

Small traditional orchards could vanish from the British landscape by the end of the century unless action is taken to save them, environmental experts and campaigners warned yesterday.

Natural England and the National Trust claimed 60% of England's orchards had isappeared since the 1950s as they launched a £500,000 project aimed at halting the decline. The crisis has been even worse in some areas, such as Devon, which has lost almost 90% of its orchards.

The organisations argued that if nothing was done, a focal point for communities across the country and a crucial habitat for flora and fauna could be wiped out forever.

The loss of orchards would be accompanied by a huge loss of apple varieties, some unique to just a few square miles, and many of them with wonderfully eccentric names such as the Hangy Down, the Oaken Pin and Polly White Hair. CONTINUE

Rise in US dust storms spurs environmental fears

Increase in dirt affects ecosystems in Western states

WASHINGTON - Nestled in the San Juan Mountains at 9,300 feet, and surrounded by 13,000-foot peaks, Silverton, Colo., seems an unlikely place for a dust storm, especially with two feet of snow on the ground. So Chris Landry was alarmed on the afternoon of April 3 when he spotted a brown haze on the horizon; an hour later, a howling wind had engulfed the town in a full-fledged dust storm, turning everything from the sky to the snow a rusty red.

"It was almost surreal," recalled Landry, executive director of the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies. The landscape looked like Mars after the storm passed, he said: "You could feel the dust, you could taste the dust."

The scene Landry witnessed that day was the most severe example of a phenomenon that has overtaken parts of the West this year, one that could exacerbate a slew of environmental problems there in the years to come. The Colorado Rockies, including the headwaters of the Colorado River and the Rio Grande, have experienced 11 serious dust storms this year, a record for the six years researchers have been tracking them. CONTINUE

Earth's closest star 'dimmest it's been for a century'

The sun is the dimmest it has been for almost a century, scientists say.

Leading astronomers admit they are baffled why the Earth's closest star has gone so quiet - and when it will burst back into life.

The sun normally goes through an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak - a period known as the solar maximum - the sun is covered with dozens of sun spots as it spits out vast flares and balls of superheated gas the size of planets.

Baffled: Scientists last year assumed the sun was entering an active phase but instead it has hit a 100-year low in sunspot activity

At the other end of the cycle, during the solar minimum, it is calm with relatively few sun spots and few eruptions. Last year, scientists assumed the sun was about to become more active after a quiet few years.

But instead it has hit a 100-year low in sunspot activity, a 50-year low in solar wind pressure and a 55-year low in radio emissions. The observations have intrigued astronomers who are studying new images at the UK National Astronomy Meeting this week.

Natural cycles of the sun directly affect our climate. Between 1645 and 1710, the sun went through an unusually quiet spell which some believe triggered a mini Ice Age.

Some climate change sceptics have claimed the warming of the Earth in the last 100 years is the result of solar activity. However, studies have shown the sun's activity has been decreasing since 1985 while the Earth's temperature has risen sharply.

Most climate scientists believe the rise in temperatures since the 1970s is likely to be caused by the release of greenhouse gases which trap heat around the Earth.

Dr Jim Wild, of Lancaster University, said: 'Over the last couple of years the sun has been getting dimmer. In terms of visible brightness it is an incredibly small drop. But in terms of extreme ultraviolet radiation, it has dropped by a few per cent.

'The accepted view is solar brightness has some effect on climate, but it looks like the sun has been dimming.

'Despite that we are still seeing temperatures increase in general. This is not going to save us from climate change.'

The sunspot cycle is driven by the movement of complex magnetic fields.

Milky Way 'tastes of raspberries'

The Milky Way "could taste of raspberries", according to scientists.

They have discovered two of the most complex carbon-rich molecules ever found in interstellar space, including a substance called ethyl formate, the chemical responsible for the flavour of the fruit.

The molecules were detected in the star-forming region of space known as Sagittarius B2 in a giant dust cloud at the heart of our galaxy.

The findings were announced during the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science at the University of Hertfordshire.

Meanwhile, scientists believe they are one step closer to finding planets that could support life after discovering a new planet.

Gliese 581 d, is said to be "well within" the "habitable zone", where liquid water oceans could exist and life could be sustained.

It is one of four found in the Gliese system, which has five times the mass of Earth and orbits its host star in 66.8 days.

Researcher Stephane Udry, of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, said: "Gliese 581 d is probably too massive to be made only of rocky material, but we can speculate that it is an icy planet that has migrated closer to the star.

"'D' could even be covered by a large and deep ocean - it is the first serious 'water world' candidate." CONTINUE

‘Superweed’ explosion threatens Monsanto heartlands

“Superweeds” are plaguing high-tech Monsanto crops in southern US states, driving farmers to use more herbicides, return to conventional crops or even abandon their farms.

The gospel of high-tech genetically modified (GM) crops is not sounding quite so sweet in the land of the converted. A new pest, the evil pigweed, is hitting headlines and chomping its way across Sun Belt states, threatening to transform cotton and soybean plots into weed battlefields.

In late 2004, “superweeds” that resisted Monsanto’s iconic “Roundup” herbicide, popped up in GM crops in the county of Macon, Georgia. Monsanto, the US multinational biotech corporation, is the world’s leading producer of Roundup, as well as genetically engineered seeds. Company figures show that nine out of 10 US farmers produce Roundup Ready seeds for their soybean crops.

Superweeds have since alarmingly appeared in other parts of Georgia, as well as South Carolina, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, according to media reports. Roundup contains the active ingredient glyphosate, which is the most used herbicide in the USA.

GM protesters demonstrate near the French town of Toulouse in March 2008.

How has this happened? Farmers over-relied on Monsanto’s revolutionary and controversial combination of a single “round up” herbicide and a high-tech seed with a built-in resistance to glyphosate, scientists say.

Today, 100,000 acres in Georgia are severely infested with pigweed and 29 counties have now confirmed resistance to glyphosate, according to weed specialist Stanley Culpepper from the University of Georgia.

“Farmers are taking this threat very seriously. It took us two years to make them understand how serious it was. But once they understood, they started taking a very aggressive approach to the weed,” Culpepper told FRANCE 24. CONTINUE

Microbes that 'breathe iron' are found in Antarctic

Taylor Glacier of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, where the life form, isolated for 1.5 million years, was found

Unique organisms have developed from more than a million years in isolation

A community of microbes that have lived cut off from the rest of the world for more than 1.5 million years has been discovered beneath a vast glacier in the Antarctic.

The organisms have survived in total darkness on nothing but the minerals and long-decayed organic matter that were also trapped at the base of the glacier. Instead of breathing oxygen, they have learnt to "breathe" iron to produce energy.

The discovery of the microbes demonstrates the tenacious capacity of life to survive in the most extreme environments, and raises the prospect that it may one day be possible to find life in equally extreme environments both on Earth and on other planets.

"It's a bit like finding a forest that nobody has seen for 1.5 million years," said Professor Ann Pearson of Harvard University, one of the scientists who made the discovery. "Intriguingly, the species living there are similar to contemporary organisms, and yet quite different – a result, no doubt, of having lived in such an inhospitable environment for so long."

The scientists discovered the microbes by analysing the very salty water flowing out of a crack in the wall of the Taylor Glacier in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of East Antarctica. The glacier is famous for its "Blood Falls", an outflow of rusty-red mineral deposits first discovered in 1911.

The brine seeping from the glacier contained no oxygen, indicating that it had been isolated from the atmosphere, but it did include the telltale genetic signatures of living organisms living beneath the mass of ice. CONTINUE

Tons of released drugs taint US water

In this photo taken on Feb. 26, 2009, aeration basins are seen in operation at the Wilmington Wastewater Treatment Plant in Wilmington, Del. Scientists took samples from the Delaware River nearby and found elevated concentrations of the painkiller codeine that are prompting them to try and track the source of the drug; this treatment plant handles sewage from a nearby pharmaceutical factory that makes codeine

U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.

Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.

Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them — as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.

As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists: the EPA monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water under federal pollution laws, while the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.

The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking. CONTINUE

Ancient microbes discovered alive beneath Antarctic glacier

(CNN) -- Beneath an Antarctic glacier in a cold, airless pool that never sees the sun seems like an unusual place to search for life.

Scientists find surprising evidence of bacterial life beneath the Antarctic ice near Blood Falls, seen here.

But under the Taylor Glacier on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, near a place called Blood Falls, scientists have discovered a time capsule of bacterial activity.

At chilling temperatures, with no oxygen or sunlight, these newly found microbes have survived for the past 1.5 million years using an "iron-breathing" technique, which may show how life could exist on other planets.

For years the reddish waterfall-like feature on the side of Taylor Glacier captured the attention of explorers and scientists. Earlier research indicates the color of Blood Falls is due to oxidized iron, but how the iron got to the surface of the glacier remained a mystery.

"When I saw iron, I thought, 'Wow -- that's an energy source for microbes. There has got to be microbes associated with that,' " said Jill Mikucki, lead author of a study about the strange bacteria, published this week in the journal Science. Watch Mikucki talk about the discovery »

Scientists found these isolated microorganisms use iron leached from the glacial bedrock in a series of energy-producing metabolic reactions. With the help of sulfate, the iron is transformed and eventually deposited on the surface of the glacier. Air oxidizes the iron, giving Blood Falls its redish hue. Continue

Dubai claims world's first cloned camel

The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday claimed its own version of Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal, after the birth of a cloned camel in Dubai this month.

Injaz, claimed to be the world's first cloned camel. Injaz, a female, was born on April 8, 2009 Photo: AFP

"This is the first cloned camel in the world," said Dr Nisar Wani, a researcher at the Camel Reproduction Centre.

Injaz, a female one-humped camel, was born on April 8, after more than five years of work by scientists at the Camel Reproduction Centre and the Central Veterinary Research Laboratory, The National newspaper reported.

"This significant breakthrough in our research programme gives a means of preserving the valuable genetics of our elite racing and milk producing camels in the future," Dr Lulu Skidmore, scientific director at the Camel Reproduction Centre, said in a statement.

Injaz, whose name means "achievement" in Arabic, is the clone of a camel that was slaughtered for its meat in 2005, The National said. CONTINUE

‘Catastrophic’ Sea-Level Rise Possible, Coral Reef Fossils Show

April 15 (Bloomberg) -- Fossilized coral reefs formed the last time the Earth was warmer than today show sea levels could rise rapidly by the end of the century if global warming triggers a collapse of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

A “catastrophic” rise in sea levels of 4 meters to 6 meters (13 feet to 19.6 feet) is possible, said Paul Blanchon, a scientist at the National University of Marine Sciences in Cancun, Mexico, whose team studied the fossilized reefs. The death and re-emergence on higher elevation of reefs 121,000 years ago could only result from a rapid increase in ocean levels caused by the breakdown of ice sheets, he said.

Ice caps like those that cover the Antarctic and Greenland are thought to be melting at a rate that could raise sea levels by about 12 meters over the next millennium, Blanchon said. His report, to be published in the April 16 issue of Nature, says global warming caused by burning fossil fuels could shorten that time frame to several hundred years.

“What we’re saying is ice sheets may not just melt due to global warming,” Blanchon said. “That’s the real problem that we face, can these ice sheets basically slide into the ocean.”

The complete melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet would add about 7 meters to sea levels and endanger low-lying coastal cities, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in 2007. Current computer models project that the Antarctic Ice Sheet will remain too cold for widespread surface melting and will gain in mass from increased snowfall.

Wilkins Ice Shelf

A bridge of ice connecting two Antarctic islands broke up earlier this month, putting the Wilkins Shelf behind it at risk. CONTINUE

Thousands of dolphins block Somali pirates

Thousands of dolphins blocked the suspected Somali pirate ships when they were trying to attack Chinese merchant ships passing the Gulf of Aden, the China Radio International reported on Monday. Photo Gallery>>>

BEIJING, April 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Thousands of dolphins blocked the suspected Somali pirate ships when they were trying to attack Chinese merchant ships passing the Gulf of Aden, the China Radio International reported on Monday.

The Chinese merchant ships escorted by a China's fleet sailed on the Gulf of Aden when they met some suspected pirate ships. Thousands of dolphins suddenly leaped out of water between pirates and merchants when the pirate ships headed for the China's.

The suspected pirates ships stopped and then turned away. The pirates could only lament their littleness befor the vast number of dolphins. The spectacular scene continued for a while.

China initiated its three-ship escort task force on Dec. 26 last year after the United Nations Security Council called on countries to patrol gulf and waters off Somalia, one of the world's busiest marine routes, where surging piracy endangered intercontinental shipping.

China's first fleet has escorted 206 vessels, including 29 foreign merchant vessels, and successfully rescued three foreign merchant ships from pirate attacks. CONTINUE

Germany bans Monsanto's GM maize

Greenpeace has long campaigned against the planting of GM maize

Germany is to ban the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) maize - the only GM crop widely grown in Europe.

The decision, announced on Tuesday by German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner, is a blow to the US biotech firm Monsanto, which markets the maize.

Monsanto's variety, called MON 810, is resistant to the corn borer, a moth larva which eats the stem.

MON 810 is controversial in the EU. Several countries have banned it, defying the European Commission.

Ms Aigner, a member of the conservative Bavaria-based Christian Social Union (CSU), said she had concluded that "there is a justifiable reason to believe that... MON 810 presents a danger to the environment".

The variety has been allowed in Germany since 2005. Ms Aigner said the decision to ban it now, based on new data, was purely scientific, not political. She also said it was a specific case, and not a fundamental decision against all GM crops.

In March EU governments resisted European Commission pressure to get bans on MON 810 lifted. The commission wanted Austria and Hungary to allow cultivation of MON 810. The variety is also banned in France and Greece.

The UK was among a handful of countries that supported the commission's position, the AFP news agency reports.

Germany was planning to sow MON 810 on just 3,600 hectares (8,892 acres) for this summer's harvest, mostly in its eastern states.

Opponents of GM crops say more scientific data is needed, arguing that their long-term genetic impact on humans and wildlife could be harmful.

The biotech industry says the crops are as safe as traditional varieties, and that they would provide plentiful, cheaper food.

Overfishing to wipe out bluefin tuna

A harpooned bluefin tuna caught in fishing net

MADRID (Reuters) - Overfishing will wipe out the breeding population of Atlantic bluefin tuna, one of the ocean's largest and fastest predators, in three years unless catches are dramatically reduced, conservation group WWF said on Tuesday.

As European fishing fleets prepare to begin the two-month Mediterranean fishing season on Wednesday, WWF said its analysis showed the bluefin tuna that spawn -- those aged four years and older -- will have disappeared by 2012 at current rates.

"For years people have been asking when the collapse of this fishery will happen, and now we have the answer," said Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean.

The fish, which can weigh over half a tonne and accelerate faster than a sports car, are a favorite of sushi lovers. Demand from Japan has triggered an explosion in the size of the Mediterranean fleet over the past decade and many of those boats use illegal spotter planes to track the warm-blooded tuna.

"Mediterranean (Atlantic) bluefin tuna is collapsing as we speak and yet the fishery will kick off again tomorrow for business as usual. It is absurd and inexcusable to open a fishing season when stocks of the target species are collapsing," added Tudela. CONTINUE

10,000 aftershocks follow Italy quake

ROME (AFP) — Scientists have detected 10,000 aftershocks since last week's earthquake in Italy of which around 1,000 could be felt, a top expert said on Monday, warning that the tremors will probably get stronger.

"We do not exclude slightly stronger aftershocks, it's even probable" that there will be tremors above 3.0 on the Richter scale, Enzo Boschi, head of the National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology, told ANSA news agency.

He said around 1,000 aftershocks measuring 2.5 or more on the Richter scale had been felt in the central Italy region since last Monday's quake which killed 294 people.

The quake, which destroyed large parts of the Abruzzo region and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, measured 5.8 on the Richter scale.

Climate change hits Australia first, and hard

Floods, fires, droughts, disease, extinctions and a dying Great Barrier Reef may be a hint of things to come globally.

In the 1959 Gregory Peck classic “On the Beach,” humanity's last holdouts in the aftermath of a global nuclear war huddle in Australia and wait for the inevitable atomic wind to carry the rest of the species away. When it comes to today's real-world climate crisis, though, Australia is going first, not last.

As Times staff writer Julie Cart reported Thursday, Australia appears to be experiencing the effects of climate change earlier and more dramatically than most of the other inhabited parts of the globe. A Southern Hemisphere continent that was already a land of climate extremes has become more so in recent years. Even as the tropical north is deluged by flooding and warmer ocean currents are spawning more powerful cyclones, the parched south and interior have turned into baking dead zones. The results: vast brush fires, killer heat waves, increased tropical diseases, ruined crops, loss of livestock, severe water shortages and quickening species extinction. CONTINUE

Honeybee Shortage Worries Farmers In Japan

Photo: The Mainichi
You have read about the crisis US farmers are experiencing as honey bees are affected by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Has it hit Japan, or what is going on? Why are bee keepers like Osamu Mamuro, president of Mamuro Bee Farm in Yoshimi, Saitama Prefecture so worried this year?

Japan is home to many small-scale beekeeping operations, and has a long history of bee keeping. Unlike the US, beekeepers in Japan do not often transport their honeybees long distances, meaning there is less stress that could affect the survival of the insects. There are no genetically modified crops cultivated commercially here. The honeybee shortage this year is noted as there has been a sharp decrease in the number of bees kept by beekeepers. But noone seems to know "why" this is happening.

Photo: Pollinator Paradise
Japan's fruit and vegetable farmers depend on honeybees to pollinate their plants, and the shortage of bees is now creating fears of a produce and fruit shortage.

Traditional methods of beekeeping persist along the ancient roads of Japan's mountainous regions, according to Manabu Akaike, Japan for Sustainability. From the 8th century on, honey was a precious battlefield supply, and historians guess that honey-cultivation was encouraged starting around this time. The story of Japanese beekeeping is also the story of a traditional regional industry that can be put into active use today as a valuable resource for regional economic stimulation as well as for research on nature-based manufacturing methods.

Photos from Blueberry Farmers T&F

The Mainichi talked to Kiyoshi Kimura, head researcher at the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science, who recently visited the United States to study CCD:

"There have been small-scale honeybee losses for many years, but a massive collapse like they had in the U.S. is very unusual," says Kimura, comparing the Japanese problem with the American CCD crisis of three years ago. "We must investigate the situation in Japan."

It is estimated that over 90 crops are benefited by honey bee pollination and the value of this service to the United States agriculture was at least 18 billion dollars in 1998, according to Dr. M. (Tom) Sanford in Florida, who also describes how Japanese apple growers first discovered that bees were helpful to increase apple harvest - in the 1930s. Fascinating stuff:

An apple grower, E. Matsuyama in Japan, noticed these small brown bees working his apple blossoms and nesting in nail holes in his wooden house in the 1930's. Soon he made more nail holes in his house, and as the bees multiplied and his apple crop prospered; he switched to cutting sections of hollow reeds for the bees to nest in. Hornfaced bees pollinate a third of Japan's apples, and their use is spreading in North American and China.

From the flowering of the ume (Japanese apricot) trees in February, to the making of soba noodles in November, farmers tend to their land and crops, while the honeybees work alongside them, engaged in their own "farming" as they gather nectar and prepared to propagate. Farming and bee cultivation are strongly linked in the cyclical nature of their enterprises.

Every effort will be needed to make sure that important pollinators like honey bees are thriving.

Scientists capture volcano’s lightning

Electrical discharges mapped inside Mount Redoubt’s clouds of ash

Bretwood Higman

Scientists have pierced the veil of clouds around a volcanic plume to "see" the lightning within.

For the first time, scientists have been able to “see” and trace lightning inside a plume of ash spewing from an actively erupting volcano.

When Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano began rumbling back to life in January, a team of researchers scrambled to set up a system called a Lightning Mapping Array that would be able to peer through the dust and gas of any eruption that occurred to the lightning storm happening within. Lightning is known to flash in the tumultuous clouds belched out during volcanic eruptions.

The lightning produced when Redoubt finally erupted on March 22 was "prolific," said physicist Paul Krehbiel of New Mexico Tech. CONTINUE

Obama may fire pollution particles into stratosphere to deflect sun's heat in desperate bid to tackle global warming

President Barack Obama is considering a radical plan to tackle global warming by firing pollution particles into the stratosphere to deflect some of the sun’s heat.

The controversial experiment was touted yesterday as a possible last resort to help cool the Earth’s air by the president’s new science advisor John Holdren.

‘It’s got to be looked at. We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table,’ said Mr Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology.

Sunscreen: Could its rays be deflected as a last resort to beat global warming?

Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, outlined the idea of shooting either sulphur dioxide particles, aluminium oxide dust or specially designed aerosols into the stratosphere - the upper level of the atmosphere between ten and 30 miles above the Earth's surface.

It is hoped that this would cool the planet by artificially reflecting sunlight back into space before it can be absorbed.

Naval guns, rockets, high-flying aircraft and even hot air balloons have been put forward as possible ways of firing the agent into the air.

Drastic action: Barack Obama wants to use technology to combat climate change

Mr Holdren admitted the scheme could have grave side effects and would not completely solve all the problems from soaring greenhouse gas emissions.

But he said he had raised the idea with the Obama administration and added: 'We might get desperate enough to want to use it.'

Mr Holdren insisted that dramatic action is needed to halt climate change which he compared to being 'in a car with bad brakes driving towards a cliff in a fog'.

There has been widespread resistance in the scientific community to attempts to deliberately modify the environment on such a large scale.

Opponents fear that tampering with the atmosphere's delicate balance could have consequences that would be even worse than global warming.

But Mr Holdren suggested time could be running out. He outlined several 'tipping points' involving climate change that may be fast approaching, such as the complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic.

He said that once such milestones are reached it increases the chances of 'really intolerable consequences'.

Mr Holdren also proposed the option of developing 'artificial trees' that would suck carbon dioxide - the chief human-produced greenhouse gas - out of the air and store it.

The synthetic tree, described as looking like a goal post with Venetian blinds, would draw carbon dioxide out of the air, as plants do during photosynthesis.

The idea seemed too costly at first, and is only on the drawing board, but Mr Holdren said it was feasible.

Astrophysicist warns of asteroid hitting earth

Story HERE

What if space experts determined that an asteroid was likely to strike the earth. Turns out it's not a question of "if" but "when."

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is not only a meteor and planetary expert, he's a host of the PBS science favorite "Nova."

He says one of the thousands of asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter is on a course to come alarmingly close to earth. Apophis is about the size of the Rose Bowl. It's predicted to pass between the earth and its communication satellites on Friday, April 13th - 2029. It will be the biggest thing we've ever seen come close to earth. Dr. Tyson says it won't hit us, but if it orbits around on a particular trajectory - "Threading the keyhole" he calls it, Apophis will come around and "smack" us seven years later - if nothing is done to prevent it. He says it'll plunge into the Pacific Ocean, create a huge temporary hole and cause monster wave after monster wave that will devastate the west coast.

Tyson says we can't let that happen. "I don't want to be the laughing stock of the galaxy and go extinct as a species because we didn't do something about it." Tyson attended the 25th National Space Symposium In Colorado Springs this week to accept the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award. He says it will take the cooperation of private and public space agencies and companies, and it will take funding to solve this challenge. But - he adds - we have time.

Asteroid impact

Why isn't Pluto a planet?

Wordie Ice Shelf has disappeared

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One Antarctic ice shelf has quickly vanished, another is disappearing and glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought due to climate change, U.S. and British government researchers reported on Friday.

They said the Wordie Ice Shelf, which had been disintegrating since the 1960s, is gone and the northern part of the Larsen Ice Shelf no longer exists. More than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square km) have broken off from the Larsen shelf since 1986.

Climate change is to blame, according to the report from the U.S. Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey, available at pubs.usgs.gov/imap/2600/B

"The rapid retreat of glaciers there demonstrates once again the profound effects our planet is already experiencing -- more rapidly than previously known -- as a consequence of climate change," U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.

"This continued and often significant glacier retreat is a wakeup call that change is happening ... and we need to be prepared," USGS glaciologist Jane Ferrigno, who led the Antarctica study, said in a statement.

"Antarctica is of special interest because it holds an estimated 91 percent of the Earth's glacier volume, and change anywhere in the ice sheet poses significant hazards to society," she said.

In another report published in the journal Geophysical Letters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that ice is melting much more rapidly than expected in the Arctic as well, based on new computer analyses and recent ice measurements.

The U.N. Climate Panel projects that world atmospheric temperature will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius because of emissions of greenhouse gases that could bring floods, droughts, heat waves and more powerful storms.

As glaciers and ice sheets melt, they can raise overall ocean levels and swamp low-lying areas.

'Crown of Thorns' Galaxy Photographed in Space

NASA, ESA and W. Harris (McMaster University, Ontario, Canada)

A new Hubble image highlights striking swirling dust lanes and glittering globular clusters in oddball galaxy.

An unusual large galaxy with a shape bordering between spiral and elliptical has been spotted by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

NGC 7049 sits in the southern constellation Indus, and is the brightest of a cluster of galaxies, a so-called Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG). Typical BCGs are some of the oldest and most massive galaxies, which provide excellent opportunities for astronomers to study the elusive globular clusters lurking within.

The halo, a ghostly region of diffuse light surrounding the galaxy, is composed of myriads of individual stars and provides a luminous background to the swirling ring of dust lanes surrounding NGC 7049's core. CONTINUE

Weary N.D. residents brace for 2nd river crest

Officials in Fargo aim to add 300,000 sandbags to current stockpile

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FARGO, N.D. - Marc Shannon says he trusts the two-week-old sandbag dike behind his south Fargo house, but that didn't stop him from asking a passing survey crew for some help as he prepared for a second crest of the swollen Red River.

"Can you do me a huge favor?" Shannon asked one crew as they walked neighborhoods Tuesday using lasers to check dike levels. "Can you shoot my step there so I know what my main floor is?"

Shannon wanted to know how high waters would have to creep to flood the first floor of his house. After surviving a record-setting crest at the end of March, he and other weary Fargo residents were hoping their sandbags can handle another round. CONTINUE

10 raccoons discovered with bird flu antibodies

UTSUNOMIYA--Ten wild raccoons have been found with signs of previous H5N1 bird flu infections, according to a joint study by Tokyo University and Yamaguchi University.

This is the first time mammals in this country have been found with bird flu virus antibodies, which develop as a result of infection. Before the discovery, only birds had been found with bird flu antibodies.

The research team, which presented a paper on its findings at a conference of the Japanese Society of Veterinary Science in Utsunomiya on Saturday, warned that infected raccoons could introduce the virus into chicken farms and noted that countermeasures were needed.

It is believed that the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus is highly likely to mutate into a new type of influenza. In Japan, there have previously been reports of domestic chickens, wild whooper swans, jungle crows and mountain hawk-eagles infected with the virus.

The research team collected and examined blood from 988 raccoons captured since 2005 at three locations in western Japan and one location in eastern Japan. In the blood of 10 raccoons from three of the locations, the team found antibodies that had developed after past H5N1 infections. In two of the three places, not even birds had been found with the antibodies before this time.

According to Taisuke Horimoto, an associate professor of Tokyo University's Institute of Medical Science, raccoons do not live in packs. He said the blood test this time showed that in comparison with other infectious diseases, the proportion of animals found with the H5N1 antibodies was low.

The researchers think the 10 raccoons likely were not infected by other raccoons, but by eating the carcasses of infected birds or inheriting the antibodies from a parent at birth.

Raccoons are found throughout the nation. Many of them are descended abandoned pets or have run away from zoos.

Scientists Race to Prevent 'Catastrophic Disaster' in Space

A NASA diagram of the thousands of man-made objects, 95 percent of which are junk, orbiting the Earth

In 1970, Marshall Kaplan, then an aerospace engineering professor at Penn State, had a peculiar dream — he wanted to retrieve Sputnik, the world's first orbiting satellite, from space.

Sputnik had been launched by the Russians in 1957, and by 1970 it was no longer operational. Kaplan wanted to go get it.

NASA had never considered space retrieval before, but it thought it was a good idea. Kaplan got the job, but it didn't work out — because the time frame was too short. Sputnik, nearing the end of its life cycle, was already about to deorbit — the technical term for what happens when an object circling the Earth gets close enough to be caught in gravity and burned to cinders in the atmosphere.

But that didn't mean Kaplan needed a new line of work.

In fact, his work was just beginning. CONTINUE

Drought Threatens to Destroy California Farmers

It's heartbreaking to see the area that supplies 40%
of the nation's food supply vanishing.
–Timothy Quinn, Association of California Water Agencies


Photo: Many farms in California may go dry due to drought (AP)

April 4, 2009
KGO / ABC, Sacramento

SACRAMENTO, CA (KGO) -- Three years of drought are also threatening to destroy California farmers, and the state's multi-billion dollar agriculture industry.

The news of the smaller snowpack doesn't improve the dry situation in the usually fertile Central Valley. That means farmers can't expect to see more water for their crops.

Making the problem worse is a still in-tact court order to reduce pumping in the delta to save endangered fish.

"On the high side, they're getting a 20% delivery. Only 20% of the water they would normally count on is going to be delivered. And they can't make a crop with that amount of water," said Timothy Quinn from the Association of California Water Agencies.

It's heartbreaking to see the area that supplies 40% of the nation's food supply vanishing, with farmers refusing to plant or just ripping up their crops.

"You know, nothings behind me. We have no water," said farmer Jeff Yribarren

Some water is starting to be sent to a small number of farms, but the supply has to stretch throughout summer.

Without more water, California's $37 billion dollar agricultural industry on the line.

"We're the number one agricultural state in the nation and we are the fifth agricultural economy in the world. And it lowers California's status," said California Food and AG Board President Al Motna

Farmers say lifting the environmental restrictions would help. But not so fast, says the Sierra Club, because of the long term consequences.

"It represents the fact that we are sucking water out of the system. It's not being replaced and pretty soon, we soon might not have enough water for all people and users in California," said Jim Metropulos from the Sierra Club.

Empty fields have cost thousand of jobs, with the unemployed pressuring Sacramento to solve the problem.Consumers will feel it next.

"It's going to dramatically impact the supply of food, the cost of food and the availability of food," said Motna.

Considering we are in the third year of a drought, the Department of Water Resources says the snow pack needed to be holding 120% of its usual water content.

Powerful Italian quake kills many

Daylight revealed the extent of the destruction

At least 50 people have been killed in a powerful earthquake that struck central Italy, Italian officials say.

Five children are said to be among the dead and many remain unaccounted for as a massive search for the trapped is under way.

The 6.3-magnitude quake struck at 0330 (0130 GMT) close to L'Aquila city, 95km (60 miles) north-east of Rome.

A civil protection official said 3,000 to 10,000 buildings in the medieval city may have been damaged.

And as many as 50,000 people are feared to have been made homeless.

The BBC's Duncan Kennedy in L'Aquila described bemused and confused locals wrapped in blankets and carrying their personal belongings in suitcases walking, like a stream of refugees, through the devastation.

At the moment, the situation is not fully under control, our correspondent says.

The rescue service is stretched to breaking point as it tries to reach all the devastated buildings and deal with the mounting casualty toll, he adds.

State of emergency...CONTINUE

Antarctic ice shelf half the size of Scotland on verge of collapse

This picture shows part of the WIlkins ice shelf as it began to break apart. Jim Elliott/British Antarctic Survey/AP

A huge ice shelf in the Antarctic is in the last stages of collapse and could break up within days in the latest sign of how global warming is thought to be changing the face of the planet.

The enormous Wilkins ice shelf is now barely attached to land. The latest reports show that a thin sliver of ice attaching it to the Antarctic's Charcot Island is rapidly collapsing and threatening to break.

The Wilkins shelf is about half the size of Scotland, or the same size as the US state of Connecticut. It is the largest slab of ice so far to disintegrate and retreat in the Antarctic. Pictures from the European Space Agency show that fresh rifts have appeared in Wilkins' 'ice bridge' to Charcot Island and that a large chunk of ice has broken away, though the shelf still remains attached to other pieces of land. ESA estimated that the loss of the ice bridge could see the northern half of Wilkins break free, representing up to 1,400 square miles of ice floating off on the ocean in a gigantic ice berg.

Though the collapse of Wilkins shelf will not raise sea levels directly - as ice shelves float on the sea surface - its demise is a warning sign of potentially disastrous changes in the earth's climate. Change at Wilkins has come fast, often taking scientists by surprise with the speed of the break-up. In February last year a 164- square-mile chunk broke off. Then in May another slab of ice, this time measuring 62 square miles, fell away. The ice shelf has lost a total of 694 square miles over the past 12 months, representing some 14 per cent of its size. That shrank the vital ice bridge to just 984 yards at its narrowest location. Now that bridge too is coming under huge strains.

The news comes hot on the heels of the release of a survey by British and American researchers warning of the perilous state of Antarctic ice shelves and fast melting glaciers, and laying the blame firmly on global warming. CONTINUE

'Alarming' Decline in Dolphins Off Hawaii

Population Down for False Killer Whales Off Hawaii

Study Says Fishing Lines and Food Supplies Hit False Killer Whale Population Off Hawaii

The population of false killer whales in waters close to Hawaii appears to have dramatically declined over the past 20 years, a new study says.

In this photo photo, a false killer whale chases prey in waters off Hawaii. A new study says the population of this dolphin species appears to have dramatically declined over the past 20 years.

(Robin Baird/ Earthjustice/AP Photo)

It's not known for sure why the dolphin species is decreasing, but the academic paper says the reason likely has to do with declining food supplies and how the mammals are getting caught and injured on the longline fishing lines that stretch as many as 50 miles long from some commercial fishing vessels.

The report's publication in this month's edition of Pacific Science comes weeks after environmental activists sued the federal government for allegedly failing to prevent longline fishing fleets from accidentally capturing the animals off Hawaii.

False killer whales can grow as long as 16 feet and weigh over one ton. They look like killer whales, but they're almost completely black instead of black and white.

They're found in tropical and temperate waters worldwide, including Maryland, Japan, Australia and Scotland. CONTINUE

Chunk of Antarctic ice the size of Rhode Island nears collapse

An Antarctic ice shelf is at risk of losing a chunk the size of Rhode Island after a retaining ice bridge began to break up.

The ice bridge between two islands, which holds back the Wilkins ice shelf, began to develop faults yesterday, according to the European Space Agency, or ESA. As much as 3,700 square kilometers of ice shelf may break off as a result, said Angelika Humbert, a glaciologist at Muenster University in Germany.

This ice bridge wont survive, Humbert, who monitors ESA satellite images daily, said today in a telephone interview. With this bridge disintegrating, a part of the northern ice shelf will break off over the next few days to weeks.

The breakup is the latest sign that warmer temperatures are affecting the Antarctic Peninsula, the part of the southern continent that points north toward South America. In 2002, the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed, and at least six other shelves have broken away over the past 20 years.

Ice shelves are breaking up in very short time scales, from one year to the next, Humbert said. Before the 1990s, Wilkins was healthy.

Ice shelves are attached to land but rest on the sea so when they melt, they dont add to sea-level rise. Even so, their loss can accelerate the flow of land-based ice toward the ocean, which does raise water levels.

While temperatures have changed little in the bulk of Antarctica, the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in the past 50 years, according to ESA. Thats led to the collapse of Larsen B and other ice shelves.

Wilkins is further south and larger than any Antarctic ice shelf observed to retreat in the past, David Vaughan, a scientist with the U.K. survey group, said in an interview last year. Its breakup could be a taste of other things to come if climate change continues in the Antarctic, he said.

Mercury in seals linked to vanishing sea ice

Every summer, seal hunters in the village of Ulukhaktok in Canada’s Northwest Territories carve out small pieces of muscle from ringed seals during their annual subsistence hunt. As part of their collaboration with Arctic researchers, they carefully bag the tissue samples, draw blood, and measure each seal.

After more than 30 years of monitoring the seals, the researchers have noticed a disturbing pattern: levels of the dangerous metal mercury in the seals are connected to the state of sea ice on the ocean. The new research, published in ES&T, reveals that more mercury may be spiraling up the food chain as sea ice disappears.

“The trend now in the loss of sea ice suggests that mercury in ringed seals will increase over time,”� says Gary Stern, a study coauthor from the University of Manitoba (Canada). His team, along with colleagues from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, measured mercury levels in ringed seals collected from 1973 to 2007 and related the levels to the length of the summer ice-free season in the seals’ habitat.
The Arctic environment already contains more mercury than animals there can take up, Stern explains. However, a shifting climate could result in ecosystems converting the mercury into highly toxic forms that biomagnify up the food chain. CONTINUE

White-Nose Syndrome Killing Bats Is Spreading Fast

Scientists Fear a Fungus Could Kill Millions of Bats That Keep Insects in Check

A mysterious fungus is killing off thousands of bats around the country. Scientists are calling it white-nose syndrome, because of the distinctive white smudges on the noses and wings of infected bats.

A world without bats would mean a world with a whole lotta bugs.

(Getty Images)

White-nose itself doesn't kill bats, but it disturbs their sleep so that they end their hibernation early. During the winter there are no insects to eat, so the bats literally starve to death.

Bats may be one of Mother Nature's least cuddly creatures, but they are ecologically important, keeping mosquitos and insects that attack crops in check.

Researchers say the syndrome has killed upward of half a million bats from New England to Virginia.

"If current trends continue, we will be losing millions of bats in the next couple years," said Al Hicks, a wildlife biologist with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

In some of the worst-hit areas, the mortality rate is 90 percent. Scientists are even using the word "extinction."

White-nose first was reported in Albany, N.Y., three years ago. The syndrome has spread quickly through the Northeast and down to Virginia and West Virginia.

Craig Stihler, a biologist from the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, recently investigated a bat cave in Franklin, W.Va., deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, to see if white-nose had hit there.

"It's a real mystery. Nobody knows where it came from. This fungus just appeared. It's unprecedented. Nobody's ever seen die-out from bats like this before," Stihler said

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Kenyan lions being poisoned by pesticides'

Conservationists call for ban after 'staggering' number of deaths

Kenya's lion population is a fifth of what it was in the 1970s

Conservationists in Kenya are calling for a deadly pesticide to be banned after it was linked to the poisoning of a "staggering" number of lions and other wildlife.

The East African nation famous for its immense game reserves is also home to traditional cattle herders whose livestock often comes under threat from predators such as lions and hyenas. In the past, this has seen lions shot or speared but more recently herders have switched to using deadly chemicals sprinkled over animal carcasses and left as traps for the big cats.

The lion researcher Laurence Frank, from the University of California, said lions were dying at a "staggering rate" with as many as 75 poisoned in the past five years. Combined with other threats including loss of habitat, this could eventually see the lion become extinct, Dr Frank told CBS's 60 Minutes.

Conservationists in Kenya are calling for a deadly pesticide to be banned after it was linked to the poisoning of a "staggering" number of lions and other wildlife.

The East African nation famous for its immense game reserves is also home to traditional cattle herders whose livestock often comes under threat from predators such as lions and hyenas. In the past, this has seen lions shot or speared but more recently herders have switched to using deadly chemicals sprinkled over animal carcasses and left as traps for the big cats.

The lion researcher Laurence Frank, from the University of California, said lions were dying at a "staggering rate" with as many as 75 poisoned in the past five years. Combined with other threats including loss of habitat, this could eventually see the lion become extinct, Dr Frank told CBS's 60 Minutes. CONTINUE

6,000 Rare Dolphins Found in South Asia

Although not considered an acrobatic animal, the Irrawaddy dolphin occasionally leaps into the air. Credit: Alice Rocco

A huge population of rare dolphins threatened by climate change and fishing nets has been discovered in South Asia.

Researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society estimate that nearly 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins, marine mammals that are related to orcas or killer whales, were found living in freshwater regions of Bangladesh’s Sundarbans mangrove forest and adjacent waters of the Bay of Bengal.

There has been hardly any marine mammal research done in this area up to this point.

Each discovery of Irrawaddy dolphins is important because scientists do not know how many remain on the planet. Prior to this study, the largest known populations of Irrawaddy dolphins numbered in the low hundreds or less.

In 2008, they were listed as vulnerable in the IUCN Red List based on population declines in known dolphin populations.

"This discovery gives us great hope that there is a future for Irrawaddy dolphins," said Brian D. Smith, lead author of a study describing the discovery. “Bangladesh clearly serves as an important sanctuary for Irrawaddy dolphins, and conservation in this region should be a top priority.”