Environment

Study sounds alarm for slow-breeding forest elephants

PARIS, France (AFP) — Even without poachers, Central Africa’s forest elephants would need almost a century to get their numbers back up to 2002 levels, said a study Wednesday that pried into the elusive creatures’ slow-breeding ways. The population had been decimated by illegal hunting, with an estimated 65 percent decline between 2002 and 2013, said researchers. Roaming the tropical forests of Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon and Democratic Republic of Congo, the tusker sub-species […]

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Plants less thirsty as climate warms: study

MIAMI, United States (AFP) — A warming planet might not dry out Earth as much as previously believed, because plants will become less thirsty as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rises, researchers said Monday. Previous studies have projected that more than 70 percent of the planet will experience more drought as carbon-dioxide levels quadruple from pre-industrial levels over about the next 100 years, said the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. […]

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Singapore shrouded in smog as haze returns to SE Asia

SINGAPORE, Singapore (AFP) — Acrid smog blanketed Singapore Friday as the city-state was hit by the year’s first major outbreak of haze, an annual crisis sparked by forest fires in neighboring Indonesia. Singapore’s air quality index reached unhealthy levels with conditions deteriorating through the day, marking the worst return of the haze to the city since vast parts of Southeast Asia were affected in 2015. Last year’s haze outbreak was among the worst in memory, […]

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Moon is key to when jellyfish hit beach: Israeli study

JERUSALEM, Israel (AFP) — Swimmers wanting to avoid being stung by jellyfish may want to watch the sky as much as the sea after Israeli researchers found a link between their arrival and the phase of the moon. The Israeli study found the lunar calendar is a key determinant of when jellyfish arrive on the Mediterranean country’s shores. In the middle of the lunar months — the days before and during the full moon — […]

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How earthquakes happen

Seismic activity is concentrated along fault lines ­­ areas of fracture in the Earth’s crust ­­ generally found near ridges or tectonic plate boundaries. Constantly in motion, these huge plates sometimes collide, forcing one beneath the other. The resulting friction creates energy along the fault lines, which eventually become unstable and rupture, sending out a shock wave. The energy released is felt as an earthquake. After the initial jolt, aftershocks can strike as neighboring plates […]

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Myanmar’s peacock: a national symbol dying off in the wild

by Reuben EASEY YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Embraced by kings and freedom fighters alike, Myanmar’s peacocks have long been a national symbol of pride and resistance — but they are becoming ever harder to spot in the wild. Ornithologist Thet Zaw Naing is worried. Every year that goes by, Myanmar’s national bird becomes a less familiar sight. “They always walk on the ground and they sleep in trees at night,” he tells AFP. “And before […]

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NASA says 2016 heat to take its toll on Arctic Sea ice

  (REUTERS)  Record-breaking warm temperatures in the first half of 2016 have primed the Arctic for another summer of low sea ice cover, said NASA on Friday (August 19). “Globally it’s been the warmest year on record,” said NASA scientist Walt Meier from Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland “That’s resulted in an earlier melt of the Arctic sea ice and an opening of the ocean. And so we’re on track for one of […]

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Harley-Davidson in $15m pollution settlement with US

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) – US motorcycle giant Harley-Davidson on Thursday entered a $15 million settlement with US authorities who accused the company of making and selling illegal devices that increased air pollution from its bikes. The company, the iconic American manufacturer of large and loud motorcycles, agreed to buy back and cease selling so-called “super tuners,” which improved performance but increased hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions. The company has produced and sold about 340,000 […]

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July was Earth’s hottest month in modern times: US

  MIAMI, United States (AFP) – by Kerry SHERIDAN Soaring temperatures worldwide made July the Earth’s hottest month in modern times, setting a new high mark for global heat in 137 years of record-keeping, US government scientists said Wednesday. The report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration came just two days after the US space agency NASA released its climate data, which also found July was a record-breaking month. “July is typically the hottest month for […]

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Research finds Greenland shark can live for around 400 years

(Reuters) The Greenland shark, a big and slow-moving deep-ocean predator that prowls the waters of the Arctic and North Atlantic, can claim the distinction of being the planet’s longest-living vertebrate, with a lifespan perhaps reaching about 400 years. Its extremely sluggish growth rate, about four-tenths of a inch (1 cm) per year, had already tipped off scientists that it lived a very long time, and research published on Thursday (August 11) calculated the Greenland shark‘s […]

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Not all is green in Mexico City’s Aztec garden district

by Pauline DE DEUS MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) — Colorful gondolas lazily ferry tourists around the floating gardens of Mexico City’s Xochimilco district, but not all is green in this idyllic vestige of the Aztec empire increasingly choked by urbanization. Criss-crossed with natural canals and artificial islands, Xochimilco is the last reminder of how the Aztecs lived 500 years ago at the time the Spanish conquistadors arrived, when Mexico City was mostly covered in water. […]

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Spiders and scorpions join fight against superbugs

A British lab is searching for new medicines in the poisonous secretions of some of the world’s deadliest creatures, addressing the increasingly desperate challenge of finding viable new drugs.  Over-prescription and over-use in farming of antibiotics has given rise to so-called ‘superbugs’, multi-drug resistant infections that can evade even the medicines designed to kill them. Experts have warned since the 1990s that lethal superbugs were on the horizon, but few drugmakers have attempted to develop […]

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