The waters off British Columbia, Canada, are littered with dead starfish, and researchers have no idea what's causing the deaths. -SOTT
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Something strange is going on in a southeast Austin neighborhood. Hundreds of fish went belly up in a local pond. Tuesday, the city and a local business are trying to figure out what happened. The city of Austin says more than 200 fish were found dead in a pond near the Onion Creek Golf Club. They're running tests to see what happened. In the meantime, residents there are frustrated by what they see and smell. When Jean Tarcz walked outside to the retention pond behind her home near Onion Creek Golf Course Monday she couldn't believe her eyes. "I saw all these huge fish out there floating...dead." Tarcz said. She says she feels the owner of the retention pond, onion creek club, neglected to care for the pond.
"If you keep the water this low, the aerators cannot work and they just become clogged," Tarcz said. - SOTT See Video Here: http://www.myfoxaustin.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=9292577 Officials with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish are puzzling over the mysterious deaths of more than 100 elk, apparently all within a 24-hour period, in rural New Mexico.
The elk were found Aug. 27 on a 75,000-acre ranch north of the city of Las Vegas. Livestock deaths, by themselves, are not unusual - there are many things that can fell large animals, including predators, poachers, a natural or man-made toxin, disease, drought, heat, starvation, and even lightning. But so far wildlife officials have seemingly ruled out most of these possibilities: The elk weren't shot (nor taken from the area), so it was not poachers. Tests have come back negative for anthrax, a bacteria that exists naturally in the region and can kill large animals. There seems to be no evidence of any heavy pesticide use in the area that might have played a role in the die-off. Though lightning strikes are not uncommon in the Southwest and in New Mexico specifically, killing over 100 animals at one time would be an incredibly rare event. It might be an as-yet unidentified disease, though killing so many at once - and so quickly - would be very unusual. Another possibility is some sort of contamination of the well or water tanks, but so far no toxins have been identified. - SOTT ENVIRONMENT – Climate change is helping pests and diseases that attack crops to spread around the world, a study suggests. Researchers from the universities of Exeter and Oxford have found crop pests are moving at an average of 3km (two miles) a year. The team said they were heading towards the north and south poles, and were establishing in areas that were once to cold for them to live in. The research is published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Currently, it is estimated that between 10% and 16% of the world’s crops are lost to disease outbreaks. The researchers warn that rising global temperatures could make the problem worse. Dr. Dan Bebber, the lead author of the study from the University of Exeter, said: “Global food security is one of the major challenges we are going to face over the next few decades. We really don’t want to be losing any more of our crops than is absolutely necessary to pests and pathogens.” To investigate the problem, the researchers looked at the records of 612 crop pests and pathogens from around the world that had been collected over the past 50 years. “The most convincing hypothesis is that global warming has caused this shift.”These included fungi, such as wheat rust, which is devastating harvests in Africa, the Middle East and Asia; insects like the mountain pine beetle that is destroying trees in the US; as well as bacteria, viruses and microscopic nematode worms. Each organism’s distribution was different – some butterflies and insects were shifting quickly, at about 20km (12 miles) a year; other bacterium species had hardly moved. On average, however, the pests had been spreading by 3km each year since 1960. “We detect a shift in their distribution away from the equator and towards the poles,” explained Dr. Bebber. The researchers believe that the global trade in crops is mainly responsible for the movement of pests and pathogens from country to country. However, the organisms can only take hold in new areas if the conditions are suitable, and the researchers believe that warming temperatures have enabled the creature to survive at higher latitudes. Dr. Bebber said: “The most convincing hypothesis is that global warming has caused this shift. “One example is the Colorado potato beetle. Warming appears to have allowed it to move northwards through Europe to into Finland and Norway where the cold winters would normally knock the beetle back.” The researchers said that better information about where the pests and pathogens were and where they were moving was needed to fully assess the scale of the problem. –BBC
KHABAROVSK, August 28 (RIA Novosti) - Aggressive bears, starving because their natural food sources were destroyed by floods, are becoming a growing threat for Far Eastern villages, local police said on Wednesday. According to Yevgeny Shukshin, the police chief of the Polina Osipenko district in the Khabarovsk Territory, bears currently have difficulties with finding their traditional food - berries and salmon - because of floods. “Chances of meeting the predator have increased,” he said in a statement. “Hunger drives the animals closer to humans, forces them to search for food at garbage dumps. More and more often we are being informed of bears approaching villages.” In one of such incidents, police had to deal with an aggressive bear, which dangerously approached a group of children picking mushrooms. Officers initially tried to scare the animal off, but it ran towards them and was killed. Due to the flooding, which has occurred over several weeks, an emergency situation has been declared in four far-eastern regions - the Amur Region, the Jewish Autonomous Region, the Khabarovsk and Primorye territories - as well as in the Siberian republic of Yakutia. A deputy presidential envoy to the Far East, Vladimir Pysin, said on Tuesday the overall damage is currently estimated at 30 billion rubles ($1 billion). Only in three Far Eastern regions - the Amur Region, the Jewish Autonomous Region and the Khabarovsk Territory - 190 settlements with almost 9,500 buildings were affected. - RIANOVOSTI
August 24, 2013 - Pushed globally as a beneficial to dieters since its approval in 1981, accumulating research indicates that aspartame may actually damage the brain and cause cancer, to name but a few of a wide range of adverse health effects consumers risk by using this 'no-calorie' sugar alternative.
Google "aspartame" and you will find http://www.aspartame.org/ in search result position #1. Billing itself as an 'Aspartame Information Center,' this website opens with "The Benefits of Aspartame," discussing how as a 'low-calorie' sweetener aspartame helps consumers with weight control, diabetes and the prevention of tooth decay. Read more: http://www.disclose.tv/news/Aspartame_Putting_the_DIE_into_dieting_since_1981/92717#ixzz2dGBiTmDE What’s Going on in Honey Bee Colonies Worldwide?
Honey bees are continently exposed to numerous threats: pests and parasites (such as the Varroa mite or Nosema), bacterial diseases (foulbrood), fungal diseases (chalkbrood), viral diseases (invertebrate iridescent virus – IIV), and pesticides. Now honey bees are facing an even greater risk: Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD), a little understood phenomenon in which worker bees from a colony abruptly disappear. Today, the disappearance of honey bees has transformed into a global epidemic, negatively affecting ecosystems in a multitude of environments. Since 2006, North American migratory beekeepers have seen an annual 30 percent to 90 percent loss in their colonies; non-migratory beekeepers noted an annual loss of over 50 percent. Similar losses were reported in Canada, as well as several countries in Europe, Asia, and Central and South America. Why Are Bees Dying & What is Causing this Epidemic? Because there are no bee bodies to examine, scientists are unable to determine the exact cause of death. Initial hypotheses were wildly different including environmental change-related stresses, malnutrition, pathogens (i.e., disease including Israel acute paralysis virus), mites, pesticides such as neonicotinoids or imidacloprid, radiation from cellular phones or other man-made devices, and genetically modified crops with pest control characteristics such as transgenic maize. Now mostscientists believe that CCD is the result of an unfortunate combination of many factors all of which work to increase the honey bee’s stress and reduce its immune system. Why Should We Care? The impact honeybees have on the human population and the environment is far more crucial than we may think. Agricultural crops rely on honeybees worldwide to provide them with life and guarantee their reproduction. Bees facilitate pollination for most plant life, including well over 100 different vegetable and fruit crops. Without bees, there would be significantly less pollination, which would result in limited plant growth and lower food supplies. According to Dr. Albert Einstein, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination…no more men”. Bees’ eradication affects us more than we may think. What Are Scientists Doing to Help? Because a honey bee population collapse would mean an agricultural catastrophe, scientists have been working overtime in an attempt to determine the cause of CCD. Sceintists have linked CCD to many factors including the Varroa mite and Nosema. Recently, a Harvard biologist published a study directly linking the pesticide imidacloprid. Still the consensus is that multiple factors are to blame which is why many scientists are looking at ways to improve a honey bees health as the potential solution. How Can We Help? One of the easiest ways to help rejuvenate the honeybee population is to respect honeybees. Learning to preserve beehives and embrace bees’ roles in our ecosystem can be challenging, but the bees have a job to do and threatening their quality of life will consequentially threaten everyone’s. There are also proactive ways to encourage the regrowth of honeybee colonies. Plant bee-attracting flowers, sponsor honeybee research, or even become a beekeeper. Join a local beekeepers' association to become better informed about the care and keeping of honeybees and other steps you can take to stimulate colony growth and combat CCD. - Read More |
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