Wild Weather - Wet in England, Sizzling in the Continent

The weather has officially gone crazy. Everywhere. In Gloucester, where they had a month’s worth of rain in an hour. In Beverly, where the same thing happened a few weeks ago. In Hungary, where 500 have died from heatstroke. And in Greece, where hundreds of fire-fighters are struggling to control raging forest fires.

Europe is already experiencing their second heat wave of the summer. Record temperatures in June left hundreds hospitalised in Greece. Now, temperatures in the Mediterranean have been topping 40° C for weeks.

It was reported today that two men died attempting to pump out flood water in Tewksbury yesterday. Waters are also still rising in the Thames, and it predicted that many of London’s satellite towns may still succumb to flooding.

And guess what? It is down to climate change. There has been a marked increase in extreme weather, and it correlates with increasing temperatures and greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. Even the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has publicly acknowledged that global warming contributed to the flooding this month.

Want to put up your own “citizen” shots of the floods? You can do it easily at the daily green’s website.

Exhaust Fumes Give Heart Disease, New Study Shows

It turns out that exhaust fumes don’t just destroy your lungs and decimate the planet, they give you heart disease as well. A study released by UCLA suggests that inhaling tiny particles from exhaust fumes induces cardiovascular atherosclerosis, the single largest killer in the west.

The researchers examined how this occurred and discovered that the particles combine with the fat in arteries to make 1,555 genes more active. Most of these genes are ones crucial in regulating arteries.

It is thought that the particles exacerbate the hardening of the blood vessels caused by oxidation. Previous studies have shown that when airborne particles rise to 10 micrograms per cubic metre, deaths from heart disease rise 6%.

Endangered Tiger Cubs Born in Romania

Two Siberian Tiger Cubs, one of the world’s most endangered species, have been born in a zoo in Romania. The cubs, Lenuta and Costel were born to six year old Gina and her mate Geo. They now weigh three kilos each.

Siberian Tigers are perilously close to extinction. Native to Russia and northern China, their numbers have fallen to as little as three hundred due to hunting and loss of habitat. Prospects are improving for the tiger, however. There were as few as fifty remaining in the wild in the 1930s, but poaching has been brought under control and numbers have increased. The Chinese government also plans to release six hundred captive bred tigers into the wild from the Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Centre later this year.

Be Green or Burn, says Pope

The Pope has made an impassioned plea for people to behave in an environmentally aware fashion. He spoke at the end of a three week holiday in northern Italy, and expressed concern that humanity’s current course threatens its very existence.

“We must respect the interior laws of creation, of this Earth, to learn these laws and obey them if we want to survive.” Said the Pontiff, spiritual leader of 1.1 billion Roman Catholics.

This obedience to the voice of the Earth is more important for our future happiness … than the desires of the moment. Our Earth is talking to us and we must listen to it and decipher its message.

The Roman Catholic Church has become increasingly vocal on environmental issues since Benedict VI inherited the Papal tiara. In April, the Vatican sponsored a climate change conference in Italy.

The Pope also used this week’s closed door event to rubbish the claims of US creationists and evolution sceptics. He told the congregation of priests present:

They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other, this clash is an absurdity because there is much scientific proof in favour of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.

Invasion of the Mega Squid!

Continuing today’s jumbo maritime theme, it is being reported that Californian waters have been invaded by seven foot long squid.

The Humboldt squid, which has a similar diet to sharks, is preying on commercial fishing populations such as anchovy and hake. The appearance of the voracious predator could be a disaster for already hard pressed fishermen.

The oversized cephalopod usually stays far closer to the equator. However, decimation of their traditional prey, tuna, through fishing, has forced them into colder waters.

870 endangered tortoises found in two suitcases. Two men Arrested.

Two men in Chennai, India were caught with 870 endangered star tortoises on a flight boarding to Malaysia. Anti smuggling officials, acting on a tip-off, caught the two men late on Sunday evening.

The tortoises, packed in two suitcases, ranged from inch-long babies to adolescents about the size of a computer mouse, an official from the local wildlife department said.

The tortoises are eaten in certain parts of Southeast Asia and are also popular as pets. An official who did not want to be named, said that on the black market the suitcases full of tortoises could have fetched $15,000.

In April, customs officials in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, found more than 400 star tortoises in an Indian man’s cabin luggage. The man was deported and the surviving tortoises returned to India.

Star Tortoises are protected by Indian wildlife laws, making it a punishable offence to transport them illegally. Offenders can face up to three years in Jail, as well as a hefty fine or both. Let’s hope these guys get what’s coming to them.

Hunt for the Mega Fish!

Zeb Hogan,a biologist from the University of Reno has launched the Mega Fish project in conjunction with the National Geographic Society, in a last ditch attempt to save “the real-life Loch Ness monsters and Bigfoots of the aquatic world.”

Various giant freshwater fish species are perilously close to extinction. Far more than smaller species, they have been decimated by fishing, pollution and dams.

“From the point of view of the fish, there’s nothing worse than a dam.”

Says Hogan.

“Dams block upstream migration, destroy spawning habitat, and can turn large stretches of river into ecological wastelands.”

Many of these species are simply massive. The Chinese Paddlesfish, which lives in the Yangtze River weighs half a tonne and can grow to a length of seven and a half metres, whilst the Giant Freshwater Stingray has a diameter of up to three metres.

Good Fences… Destroy Unique Ecosystems

The American government doesn’t get irony. Good fences don’t make good neighbours, as every high school literature student knows. But they’re going to build one anyway, a massive great border fence to keep out those dirty Mexicans. The idea is stupid on many levels; it will also be an environmental disaster.

The riparian forest that runs along the Rio Grande River in Texas is one of the most ecologically diverse areas in the USA. It is a lush subtropical belt between two vast, arid plains. It is already threatened by urban sprawl and agriculture, which has divided the forest in to many small pockets, and ecologists believe that the border fence will only exacerbate this.

Dividing the habitat into many small islands greatly reduces its ability to support a balanced ecosystem, as animals are no longer free to roam. The border fence would, in all likelihood, lead to the local extinction of the already threatened Ocelot, and would decimate the unique butterfly population of the area. The forest, spread over four counties, contains over three hundred species of butterfly, more than the rest of the country east of the Mississippi put together.

Ice Baby, Ice! Used Instead of Air Con For Skyscrapers!

Some skyscrapers in New York have found a cool new alternative to air conditioning. The buildings are keeping cool by using ice, instead of the traditional AC.

Ice cooling cuts down on pollution and costs. By not using AC, many skyscrapers in New York are fighting global warming. Officials say replacing traditional air conditioners with ice cooling in one Manhattan office is as good as taking about 220 cars off the road.

How It Works:

• At night, when power demands are low, water is frozen in large silver tanks.

• The cool air emanating from the blocks is piped throughout the building.

• At night the water is frozen again, and the process repeated.

Simmons blogs at Thoughts on the World and Thoughts on Global Warming. He can be reached at worldthoughts@gmail.com.

Mastodon Genome Surrenders its Secrets

Newly extracted DNA from the tooth of a Mastodon has led to some fascinating insights into evolutionary history. Evolutionary biologist at the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany pieced together the first mastodon mitochondrial genome.

The research shows that woolly mammoths are more closely related to Asian Elephants than African Elephants. It also reveals interesting parallels between human and elephant evolution. The research suggests that African Elephants diverged from Mastodons 7.6 million years ago, at around the same time that gorillas were diverging from the line that humans and chimpanzees evolved from. In turn, mammoths and Asian Elephants split 6.7 million years ago, at the same time that hominids split from chimpanzees. Scientists are now wondering if the evolutionary divergences in these very different species were caused by the same cataclysmic events.

Mastodons, one of the Pleistocene megafauna, became extinct around 10,000 years ago. They resembled woolly mammoths, though they were browsers rather than grazers.

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