This week's top 20 stories in Earth, Nature and Environment: August 11-18th, 2016
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. - John Muir
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1 +17y+ ago
NASA: Last Month Was Earth's Hottest in Recorded History
Earth just broiled to its hottest month in recorded history, according to NASA. Even after the fading of a strong El Nino, which spikes global temperatures on top of man-made climate change, July burst global temperature records. NASA calculated that July 2016 was 1.51 degrees Fahrenheit (0.84 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1950-1980 global average. That's clearly hotter than the previous hotter months, about 0.18 degrees warmer than the previous record of July 2011 and July 2015, which were so close they were said to be in a tie for the hottest month on record, said NASA chief climate scientist Gavin Schmidt.
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Submitted on August 16th 2016 by geoleo
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2 +17y+ ago
Silicon-Based Life: Could Living Rocks Exist?
It's possible life could form based on elements other than carbon, but they would look much different than the life we are used to.
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Submitted on August 16th 2016 by rti9
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3 +17y+ ago
Zika virus: Floridians fear 'Pandora's box' of genetically altered mosquitos
The Florida Keys are three months away from a straw poll vote on whether to release millions of genetically modified mosquitoes on an island just east of Key West, and the tourist destination is awash in lawn signs. Alongside the typical signs to vote for court clerk, judge, sheriff or school board are signs that showcase the overhead view of a mosquito and read: “NO CONSENT to release of genetically modified mosquitoes”. For the last five years, the biotechnology company Oxitec has been developing a plan to experimentally...
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Submitted on August 14th 2016 by geoleo with 1 comments
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4 +17y+ ago
9 Amazing New Arachnid Species
Whether they’re dancing, hunting, or being a pain in the nose, these new arachnid species will knock all 8 of your socks off.
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Submitted on August 14th 2016 by rti9
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5 +17y+ ago
Talk About An Ancient Mariner! Greenland Shark Is At Least 272 Years Old
Sharks can live to be at least 272 years old in the Arctic seas, and scientists say one recently caught shark may have lived as long as 512 years. That's according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science that says Greenland sharks can live longer than any other known animal advanced enough to have a backbone. Until now, the record-holder for the oldest vertebrate was the bowhead whale, known to have lived up to 211 years.
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Submitted on August 12th 2016 by TNY
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6 +17y+ ago
The Blob That Cooked the Pacific
A giant patch of warm water known as the blob shocks the Pacific, in what some fear is a preview of our future oceans.
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Submitted on August 14th 2016 by gladsdotter
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7 +17y+ ago
Neonic Pesticide Link to Long-Term Wild Bee Decline
The large-scale, long-term decline in wild bees across England has been linked to the use of neonicotinoid insecticides by a new study.
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Submitted on August 16th 2016 by jcscher
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8 +17y+ ago
Meet the worst ants in the world
Argentine ants have invaded every continent in just one century.
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Submitted on August 14th 2016 by Appaloosa with 2 comments
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9 +17y+ ago
Spectacular 180-Second Lightning Show
Ron Risman
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Submitted on August 14th 2016 by AdelleChattre with 2 comments
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10 +17y+ ago
We have almost certainly blown the 1.5-degree global warming target
Limiting global warming to 1.5℃ already looks out of reach, so where do we go from here?
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Submitted on August 15th 2016 by kxh with 1 comments
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11 +17y+ ago
The climate crisis is already here – but no one’s telling us
The media largely relegate the greatest challenge facing humanity to footnotes as industry and politicians hurtle us towards systemic collapse of the planet. By George Monbiot. (Aug. 3, 2016)
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Submitted on August 15th 2016 by AdelleChattre with 2 comments
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12 +17y+ ago
Disasters like Louisiana floods will worsen as planet warms, scientists warn
The historic and devastating floods in Louisiana are the latest in a series of heavy deluges that some climate scientists warn will become even more common as the world continues to warm. On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) is set to classify the Louisiana disaster as the eighth flood considered to be a once-in-every-500-years event to have taken place in the US in little over 12 months. Since May of last year, dozens of people have been killed and thousands of homes have been swamped with water in extreme events in Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina...
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Submitted on August 16th 2016 by larylin
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13 +17y+ ago
Colorado Towns Work to Preserve a Diminishing Resource: Darkness
As people around the world stepped into their backyards or onto rooftops to peer up at the annual spectacle of the Perseid meteor shower early on Friday morning, few of them had a view like Wilson Jarvis and Steve Linderer.
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Submitted on August 13th 2016 by LisMan with 3 Related Links:
1. Illuminating the Effects of Light Pollution Added by LisMan on August 13th 2016.
2. Get Ready for the Perseids Meteor Shower: ‘It Will Rival the Stars in the Sky.’ Added by LisMan on August 13th 2016.
3. Light Pollution Masks the Milky Way for a Third of the World’s Population Added by LisMan on August 13th 2016.
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14 +17y+ ago
Saving Canada's only desert
Driving into the town of Osoyoos, British Columbia, visitors notice the landscape becomes drier. The lodgepole pines and Douglas fir trees that dominate the Okanagan Valley's forests become sparse. If you look closely enough, you may even spot a cactus. Known as the hottest place in Canada, Osoyoos is surrounded by the Okanagan Desert, a semi-arid region that is home to hundreds of plant and animal species unique to the area. This region is particularly special, Lael Parrott, director of the Okanagan Institute for Biodiversity...
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Submitted on August 15th 2016 by belangermira
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15 +17y+ ago
Radar tracking reveals the ‘life stories’ of bumble bees
Scientists have tracked the flight paths of a group of bumble bees throughout their entire lives in what is thought to be the first lifetime tracking study of any animal in such glorious detail.
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Submitted on August 15th 2016 by swift528491
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16 +17y+ ago
Scotland just produced enough wind energy to power it for an entire day
For the first time on record, wind turbines have generated more electricity than was used in the whole of Scotland on a single day. An analysis by conservation group WWF Scotland found unseasonably stormy weather saw turbines create about 106 per cent of the total amount of electricity used by every home and business in the country on 7 August. Gale-force winds lashed much of the country with a speed of 115mph recorded at the top of Cairngorm mountain.
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Submitted on August 12th 2016 by junglman
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17 +17y+ ago
How natural are nature documentaries?
Chasing down honesty in BBC’s The Hunt
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Submitted on August 16th 2016 by gladsdotter
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18 +17y+ ago
We have made it harder for big-brained animals to survive
Our big brains have long been hailed as our greatest asset. We are smart, have conquered almost every corner on Earth, manipulated our habitat to suit us, and are developing increasingly-innovative technology to make our lives easier. Without our brains, none of these things would have been possible. Though they are costly organs – they require a great deal of energy to power – humans are living proof that the cost can pay off, biologically speaking. We have managed to find ways to overcome the added burden it has taken to evolve ever-bigger brains.
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Submitted on August 17th 2016 by zyery with 1 comments
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19 +17y+ ago
An Alien, Underwater Village
Armoured in scuba gear, battling below-freezing 45mph gusts and jammed between sliding ice sheets weighing in the tons, photographer Chris Gug had a moment of reckoning while submerged in Montana’s frigid Grinnell Glacier Lake.
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Submitted on August 17th 2016 by jcscher
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20 +17y+ ago
Rising avocado prices fuelling illegal deforestation in Mexico
The popularity of the avocado in the US and rising prices for the “superfood” are fuelling deforestation in central Mexico. Mexican farmers can make much higher profits growing avocados than from most other crops and so are thinning out pine forests to plant young avocado trees. Such is the size of the market that it has become a lucrative business for Mexico’s drug gangs, with extortion money paid to criminal organisations such as Los Caballeros Templarios (The Knights Templar) in Michoacán – the state that produces most of Mexico’s avocados – estimated at 2bn pesos ($109m) a year.
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Submitted on August 11th 2016 by ticktack
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Here are this week's top five Earth & Nature tribes:
/t/climate 37 posts, 25 comments, 37 votes.
/t/animals 37 posts, 15 comments, 173 votes.
/t/environment 36 posts, 23 comments, 179 votes.
/t/weather 19 posts, 7 comments, 43 votes.
/t/extremeweather 19 posts, 10 comments, 101 votes.
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