Extreme heat in the world’s oceans passed the “point of no return” in 2014 and has become the new normal, according to research. Scientists analysed sea surface temperatures over the last 150 years, which have risen because of global heating. They found that extreme temperatures occurring just 2% of the time a century ago have …
Scientists say a critical ice shelf in Antarctica could break apart within the next three to five years, leading to large sea-level rises. Satellite images presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union suggest the ice keeping together the Thwaites glacier in western Antarctica could soon shatter. The glacier is known as the …
Ancestral Eve “Because only mitochondria from eggs are passed on to children – mitochondria from sperm are lost at fertilisation – we can trace people’s maternal ancestors using mitochondrial DNA. This has allowed us to work out that everyone alive had a common female ancestor living at some point between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. …
Continue reading ‘Interesting ( but nothing to do with Epicurus!)’ »
In 1839 a Cyclone slammed south eastern India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying city of Coringa. Storm waves swept inland, destroying 20,000 ships and killing an estimated 300,000 people. My comment: Was that a freak, one-off event? I don’t know. Maybe no one knows. But it is the sort of …
Continue reading ‘Maybe an historical event that had escaped your notice ?’ »
Speculation has emerged that penguins may be aliens after scientists found traces of a chemical from Venus in their droppings. Experts are struggling to explain how phosphine exists on Earth – 38 million miles away from Venus. Scientists in the UK who believe alien life forms may have already been detected say studying penguins could …
Scientists have recorded the first known instance of a duck that has learned to mimic human speech. The duck in in Australia – called Ripper – said: “You bloody fool.” Parrots, songbirds and hummingbirds were thought to be the only birds thought to be able to mimic human speech, though several mammals such as whales, …
A fake generational war over the climate crisis has distorted public thinking and political strategy, when in fact older generations are just as worried about the issue as younger people, according to research. In fact, the study found older people were actually more likely than the young to feel that acting in environmentally conscious ways …
Climate change is threatening Komodo Dragons, the Earth’s largest living lizards to still walk the Earth. A new report from an international biodiversity conservation organization says the fearsome reptiles are edging closer to global extinction. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List, an assessment of the health of tens of …
The Amazon rainforest is emitting more carbon dioxide than it is able to absorb, a new study has found. The vast rainforest had previously been a carbon sink, absorbing the emissions driving the climate crisis. However, it is now causing its acceleration, emitting a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The majority of the …
Southern Sweden may be home to big cities like Stockholm and Gothenburg, but the North is fast emerging as our nation’s industrial powerhouse. The lithium-ion battery cell factory in Skellefrea keeps taking new orders, the State-owned metals company LKAB has made giant investments in its Northern iron mines, and a zero-emissions steelworks has opened in …
Continue reading ‘News from Sweden. Nothing is simple or easy.’ »
Recently, the tipping point concept has found a new application in climate science as a way to explain, and possibly engineer, social change. The way changes in attitude creep along at a glacial pace before suddenly bursting forth to take root across society is a classic tipping point. This process is useful because it moves …
The world’s 60 largest banks have provided $3.8tn of financing for fossil fuel companies since the Paris climate agreement in 2015, a coalition of NGOs have said. While the coronavirus pandemic has triggered a drop in energy use, funding is still net rising. US and Canadian banks comprise 13 of the 60 banks analysed but …
Continue reading ‘So much for fighting global climate change!’ »
Just the other week, hundreds of residents who live near Luke air force base in Arizona were advised not to drink their water, when tests detected high levels of toxic chemicals. Scientists have found these substances in the blood of nearly all the people they tested in the US. No country or region on earth …
Continue reading ‘The decimation of fertility. No. 3 (last comments)’ »
The end of humankind? It may be coming sooner than we think, thanks to hormone-disrupting chemicals that are decimating fertility at an alarming rate around the globe. A new book called Countdown, by Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, finds that sperm counts …
Women are having fewer children than at any time on record. What are the implications? The U.S.’s total fertility rate, or the number of babies each woman is expected to have during her lifetime, reached a record low of 1.705 births per woman (that’s 1 point 705!)in 2019, the latest year for which data is …
