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| May 29, 2014 |
 Antarctic ice-sheet less stable than previously assumed Honolulu HI (SPX) May 29, 2014 - The first evidence for massive and abrupt iceberg calving in Antarctica, dating back 19,000 to 9,000 years ago, has now been documented by an international team of geologists and climate scientists. Their findings are based on analysis of new, long deep sea sediment cores extracted from the region between the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula. The study in Nature bears witness t ... more |  |
NASA IceBridge Concludes Arctic Field Campaign Pasadena CA (JPL) May 29, 2014 - Researchers with NASA's Operation IceBridge have completed another successful Arctic field campaign. On May 23, NASA's P-3 research aircraft left Thule Air Base, Greenland, and returned to Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia marking the end of 11 weeks of polar research. During this campaign, researchers collected data on Arctic sea and land ice - both repeating measurements on rapidly cha ... more |  |
 Weather Impacts on Food: A QandA with NASA's Molly Brown Greenbelt MD (SPX) May 29, 2014 - When floods, droughts, and other natural disasters hit isolated and poor regions of the world, it can have devastating impacts on the local price of food. Research scientist Molly Brown from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is using satellite data to investigate and model the relationship between weather shocks and food prices - an ambitious endeavor in light of a chang ... more |  |
 Large muskies lured by the moon Washington DC (SPX) May 29, 2014 - The lunar cycle may synchronize with feeding activity, luring large muskies to take angler bait, according to results published in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Mark Vinson from U.S. Geological Survey and Ted Angradi from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Previous studies have suggested a relationship between the moon and fish behavior. To investigate this further, scientists ana ... more |  |
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New study finds Antarctic Ice Sheet unstable at end of last ice age Corvallis OR (SPX) May 29, 2014 - A new study has found that the Antarctic Ice Sheet began melting about 5,000 years earlier than previously thought coming out of the last ice age - and that shrinkage of the vast ice sheet accelerated during eight distinct episodes, causing rapid sea level rise. The international study, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, is particularly important coming on the heels of rece ... more |  |
Melting Arctic opens new passages for invasive species Washington DC (SPX) May 29, 2014 - For the first time in roughly 2 million years, melting Arctic sea ice is connecting the north Pacific and north Atlantic oceans. The newly opened passages leave both coasts and Arctic waters vulnerable to a large wave of invasive species, biologists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center assert in a commentary published May 28 in Nature Climate Change. Two new shipping routes h ... more |  |
Fish more inclined to crash than bees Lund, Sweden (SPX) May 29, 2014 - Swimming fish do not appear to use their collision warning system in the same way as flying insects, according to new research from Lund University in Sweden that has compared how zebra fish and bumblebees avoid collisions. The fish surprised the researchers. All animals need some form of warning system that prevents them colliding with objects in their surroundings. The warning system hel ... more |  |
 Panama saves whales and protects world trade Panama City, Panama (SPX) May 29, 2014 - The Republic of Panama's proposal to implement four Traffic Separation Schemes for commercial vessels entering and exiting the Panama Canal and ports was approved unanimously by the International Maritime Organization in London, May 23. Based on studies by Smithsonian marine ecologist Hector Guzman, the new shipping lanes are positioned to minimize overlap between shipping routes and humpb ... more |  |
 Humans traded muscle for smarts as they evolved Shanghai (UPI) May 28, 2013 - You don't need be a scientist to see that it's the brain that sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Humans may not be the fastest or biggest, but they're the smartest, clever enough to populate the globe. But just as there's no such thing as a free lunch, bigger brains don't come on the house. According to a new study, human intelligence came an evolutionary price. Mode ... more |  |
 Hong Kong erosion of press freedom deeply worrying: Amnesty Hong Kong (AFP) May 28, 2014 - The erosion of press freedom in Hong Kong is a cause for deep concern, the head of Amnesty International said Wednesday, urging residents to guard against a gradual loss of liberties. Two senior figures from the Hong Kong Morning News Media Group were attacked in March, weeks after Kevin Lau - a former editor of the liberal Ming Pao newspaper - was critically wounded in a savage knife assa ... more |  |
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 Democracy ain't always a good export Washington DC (UPI) May 28, 2014 - China now exports money. Russia exports gas and oil. The Netherlands sends millions of flowers abroad every day. And, more than occasionally, America tries to export democracy. The tension over sending democracy abroad has been measured in terms of George Washington's pragmatism versus Woodrow Wilson's idealism, the latter elevated to grander status by Jack Kennedy's solemn commitment t ... more |  |
 Samsung unveils new digital health platform San Francisco (AFP) May 28, 2014 - Samsung on Wednesday unveiled a new digital health technology platform that uses sensors to track a range of body functions such as heart rate and blood pressure. Unveiled at an event in San Francisco the new platform dubbed "Simband" does not include any commercial products, but Samsung demonstrated how it might work with a wristband. The South Korean electronics giant showed how a devi ... more |  |
Chinese elderly commit suicide to avoid coffin ban: report Beijing (AFP) May 28, 2014 - Six elderly people in China are said to have committed suicide to ensure they died before new regulations banning coffin burials come into force, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. China has a tradition dating back thousands of years of ancestor worship, which usually requires families to bury their relatives and construct a tomb. But in recent years local governments across the country ... more |  |
Ishihara's opposition party splits into two in Japan Tokyo (AFP) May 28, 2014 - A minor Japanese opposition party, led by former nationalist Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, split into two Wednesday as his drive to change the country's pacifist constitution backfired. Ishihara met flamboyant Osaka city mayor Toru Hashimoto, who had shared the chair of the conservative Japan Restoration Party, and they agreed to part company. An attempt by Hashimoto to merge with an ... more |  |
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen seeks power in Brussels Brussels (AFP) May 28, 2014 - Fresh from victory in European elections in France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen said Wednesday she was confident of creating a new eurosceptic group within weeks inside the European Parliament. After driving her National Front (NF) to first place with 25 percent of the vote in France, Le Pen hopes to form and take command of a far-right grouping of parties in the Parliament, a move that w ... more |  |
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 Outcry as French police demolish Calais migrant camps Calais, France (AFP) May 28, 2014 - French police on Wednesday expelled around 550 people from makeshift camps in the northern port of Calais after a scabies outbreak, drawing criticism from rights groups over the treatment of migrants hoping to reach Britain. Some 200 policemen were deployed to evict the occupants from the camps which were then bulldozed. French officials defended the action on public health grounds. But ... more |  |
 Oman reports 3 swine flu deaths Muscat (AFP) May 28, 2014 - Omani health authorities announced Wednesday three deaths this month from the swine flu virus, the official ONA news agency reported. The health ministry said "82 new cases of H1N1 virus have been registered in May, three of them fatal," without elaborating. The World Health Organisation declared the swine flu pandemic over in August 2010, more than a year after the H1N1 virus that emerg ... more |  |
Mothers of Tiananmen dead fight to keep truth alive Beijing (AFP) May 28, 2014 - The last thing Zhang Xianling told her son was not to go to Tiananmen Square. But in the 25 years since he was shot and left to die she has taken up his activist mantle. The crackdown that ended on June 4, 1989, left hundreds dead - by some estimates, more than 1,000 - and a nation stunned that its leaders had deployed troops, tanks and real bullets against student-led protesters in the v ... more |  |
Australian organic farmer loses GM test case Sydney (AFP) May 28, 2014 - An Australian farmer who lost his organic produce licence after his fields were contaminated by a neighbour's genetically modified canola crop failed Wednesday to win his test case for losses. In a judgment which could influence how GM crops are grown in Australia, Justice Kenneth Martin also denied an injunction to protect Steve Marsh's crops against future contamination. Marsh sued ne ... more |  |
Conservationists say resort planned for Baja California peninsula a threat to biodiversity Cabo Pulmo, Mexico (UPI) May 28, 2013 - Cabo Dorado - the latest iteration of a massive coastal tourism and real-estate project planned for Mexico's Baja California peninsula - is once again worrying local activists. Over the last several years, one version or another of a mega-resort neighboring Mexico's Cabo Pulmo National Park has been put forward by various groups of investors. The last attempt, dubbed Cabo Cortez, was ... more |  |
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