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| December 18, 2013 |
 Arctic sea ice volume up from record low Paris (ESA) Dec 17, 2013 - Measurements from ESA's CryoSat satellite show that the volume of Arctic sea ice has significantly increased this autumn. The volume of ice measured this autumn is about 50% higher compared to last year. In October 2013, CryoSat measured about 9000 cubic km of sea ice - a notable increase compared to 6000 cubic km in October 2012. Over the last few decades, satellites have shown a downward ... more |  |
 'Superbugs' found breeding in sewage plants Houston TX (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - Tests at two wastewater treatment plants in northern China revealed antibiotic-resistant bacteria were not only escaping purification but also breeding and spreading their dangerous cargo. Joint research by scientists from Rice, Nankai and Tianjin universities found "superbugs" carrying New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1), a multidrug-resistant gene first identified in India in 2010, in was ... more |  |
 Saving the Great Plains water supply East Lansing MI (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - Significant portions of the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest bodies of water in the United States, are at risk of drying up if it continues to be drained at its current rate. In the current issue of Earth's Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, Michigan State University scientists are proposing alternatives that will halt and hopefully reverse the unsustainable use of water dr ... more |  |
 Cat domestication traced to Chinese farmers 5,300 years ago St. Louis MO (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - Five-thousand years before it was immortalized in a British nursery rhyme, the cat that caught the rat that ate the malt was doing just fine living alongside farmers in the ancient Chinese village of Quanhucun, a forthcoming study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has confirmed. "At least three different lines of scientific inquiry allow us to tell a story about cat do ... more |  |
Change in Pacific nitrogen content tied to climate change Livermore CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - Using deep sea corals gathered near the Hawaiian Islands, a Lawrence Livermore scientist, in collaboration with UC Santa Cruz colleagues, has determined that a long-term shift in nitrogen content in the Pacific Ocean has occurred as a result of climate change. Overall nitrogen fixation in the North Pacific Ocean has increased by about 20 percent since the mid 1800s - a shift similar to ma ... more |  |
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Climate change puts 40 percent more people at risk of absolute water scarcity Potsdam, Germany (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - Water scarcity impacts people's lives in many countries already today. Future population growth will increase the demand for freshwater even further. Yet in addition to this, on the supply side, water resources will be affected by projected changes in rainfall and evaporation. Climate change due to unabated greenhouse-gas emissions within our century is likely to put 40 percent more people ... more |  |
Researchers split water into hydrogen, oxygen using light, nanoparticles Houston TX (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - Researchers from the University of Houston have found a catalyst that can quickly generate hydrogen from water using sunlight, potentially creating a clean and renewable source of energy. Their research, published online Sunday in Nature Nanotechnology, involved the use of cobalt oxide nanoparticles to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Jiming Bao, lead author of the paper and an ... more |  |
Stanford researchers take a step toward developing a 'universal' flu vaccine Stanford CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - Every year the approach of flu season sets off a medical guessing game with life or death consequences. There are many different strains of flu and they vary from year to year. So each season authorities must make an educated guess and tell manufacturers which variants of the flu they should produce vaccines against. Even when this system works, flu-related illnesses can kill 3,000 to 49,0 ... more |  |
Deep-sea corals record dramatic long-term shift in Pacific Ocean ecosystem Santa Cruz CA (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - Long-lived deep-sea corals preserve evidence of a major shift in the open Pacific Ocean ecosystem since around 1850, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The findings, published December 15 in Nature, indicate that changes at the base of the marine food web observed in recent decades in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre may have begun more than 150 ye ... more |  |
Diet and digestion in cows, chickens and pigs drives climate change 'hoofprint' Nairobi, Kenya (SPX) Dec 17, 2013 - The resources required to raise livestock and the impacts of farm animals on environments vary dramatically depending on the animal, the type of food it provides, the kind of feed it consumes and where it lives, according to a new study that offers the most detailed portrait to date of "livestock ecosystems" in different parts of the world. The study, published today in the Proceedings of ... more |  |
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 World experiences hottest November in 134 years: US Washington (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - The month of November was the hottest experienced on Earth since record-keeping began in 1880, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday. The finding was based on globally averaged land and ocean surface temperatures last month, NOAA said in a statement. "The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for November 2013 was record highest fo ... more |  |
 Russian parliament votes on Kremlin amnesty Moscow (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - The Russian lower house of parliament on Tuesday approved in a first reading a Kremlin-sponsored bill on amnesty that could see the jailed members of the Pussy Riot band released early. But under the proposed measure there would be no clemency for the former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and many of the opposition demonstrators accused of using violence against police at a protest a day be ... more |  |
 Santa takes gourmet dinner to Japan nuclear evacuees Koriyama, Japan (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - When Santa arrived at a school hosting children who fled Japan's nuclear disaster, he brought the usual presents, but he also bore something a little less ordinary - gourmet Christmas dinner. The "Caravan Bon Appetite" is an initiative of French chefs in Japan who originally rushed to help provide basic food to survivors of the huge earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 18,000 and wr ... more |  |
 Italy volcano eruption dies down, airport re-opens Rome (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - A spectacular eruption of the Mount Etna volcano in Sicily in southern Italy died down on Tuesday, allowing the nearby airport of Catania to re-open after a two-day stoppage that disrupted dozens of flights. The 3,350-metre (10,990-foot) high volcano began erupting on Saturday - the most intense activity seen in months - with its lava flow lighting up the night sky and clouds of ash billow ... more |  |
UN supplies seeds for typhoon-hit Philippine farmers Rome (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - The UN food agency on Tuesday said it had begun supplying farmers in the Philippines with emergency seed supplies after a devastating typhoon that struck just at the beginning of the planting season. The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said it was delivering rice and corn seed to rural communities in the Visayan island group that will allow farmers to collect a harvest in ... more |  |
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Two insecticides a risk for human nervous system: EU Brussels (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - The EU warned Tuesday that two widely used insecticides, one of which has been implicated in catastrophic bee population decline, may pose a risk to human health by harming brain development. The neonicotinoid insecticides acetamiprid and imidacloprid "may affect the developing human nervous system," the European Food Safety Authority said. This marked the first time such a link has been ... more |  |
 'Smart' snowplows sense winter road conditions for effective cleanup Boulder, Colo. (UPI) Dec 17, 2013 - Snowplows with new digital intelligence systems can help transportation workers clear winter roads more quickly and effectively, U.S. scientists say. This winter, four U.S. states are deploying hundreds of plows with custom-designed sensors that perform ongoing measurements of road and weather conditions, the National Center for Atmospheric Research reported Tuesday. The system c ... more |  |
 Six die in Brazil landslides: firefighters Sao Paulo (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - Three children were among six people killed Tuesday in landslides triggered by torrential rain in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, firefighters said. "There are six fatalities. The bodies of a child and three adults have been recovered," a fire brigade official said. "When we tried to rescue the other two a new landslide prevented us from doing so." Both of the final ... more |  |
Note from 1959 asks far north visitors to measure glacier distance Quebec City, Quebec (UPI) Dec 17, 2013 - Canadian researchers said a message in a bottle revealed a rock cairn located 333 feet from a glacier was only 3.9 feet away in 1959. Warwick Vincent, who led a team of scientists studying at Laval University's remote research station in Ward Hunt Island, one of the most northerly pieces of Canadian land, said the team discovered a message in a bottle placed on a cairn of rocks that app ... more | |
 Rights abuses persist in China despite plan to scrap camps: Amnesty Beijing (AFP) Dec 17, 2013 - China's much-vaunted abolition of its widely loathed "re-education through labour" camps risks being no more than a cosmetic change because of other rights abuses, Amnesty International said Tuesday. Arbitrary detention will persist in unofficial "black jails", drug rehabilitation centres and other facilities, the rights group said in a report. The "re-education through labour" scheme, k ... more |  |
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