100-foot deep Andes lake disappears


A five-acre glacial lake in Chile's southern Andes has disappeared -- and scientists want to know why.

Park rangers at Bernardo O'Higgins National Park said they found a 100-feet-deep crater in late May where the lake had been in March. Several large pieces of ice that used to float atop the water also were spotted.

100-foot deep Andes lake disappears

cnn.com

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Grow Your Own Mushrooms


mushroomvideos.comyoutube.com

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Fungus fingered in US honeybee wipeout


Scientists may have fingered a possible major contributory cause to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) - the hitherto unexplained disappearance of millions of honeybees in Europe, the US and seemingly Taiwan.

According to the Los Angeles Times, researchers have identified the single-celled fungus Nosema ceranae in dead bees from hives in Merced County, California. Other teams have similarly spotted the fungus in affected hives across the US, as well as two further fungi and 12 viral infections.

theregister.co.uk

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Nice campaign by National Geographic.


Nice campaign by National Geographic.

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Happy Earth Day, Love, Google.


Earth Day

google.com Earth Day [Wikipedia]earthday.orgecopod.org

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Tiny fossils reveal ice history


Tiny they may be, but fossil diatoms discovered deep under the ocean floor are revealing new details about Antarctica's warmer past.

The single-celled algae were pulled up by the Antarctic Geological Drilling (Andrill) Program, which has been operating from the Ross Ice Shelf.

Fossils in my margarita

bbc.co.uk

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Amazing Cave in Mexico


The geologist announced this week that he and a team of researchers have unlocked the mystery of just how the minerals in Mexico's Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) achieved their monumental forms. Buried a thousand feet (300 meters) below Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan Desert, the cave was discovered by two miners excavating a new tunnel for the Industrias Peñoles company in 2000.

The cave contains some of the largest natural crystals ever found: translucent gypsum beams measuring up to 36 feet (11 meters) long and weighing up to 55 tons.

Cave in Mexico

mostinterestingblog.blogspot.com crystalinks.com

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Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?


It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

independent.co.uk

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Global Air Pollution


The only way to get a complete picture of air pollution around the globe is to measure it from space. This new image compiles data from 18 months of observations by the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite.

It shows concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a mostly man-made gas that comes from power plants, heavy industry, trucks and the burning of biomass. Lightning in the air and microbial activity in soil also produce NO2, which can cause respiratory problems.

Global Air Pollution

space.com

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What a catch! Giant 90-year-old fish reeled in off Alaska


A commercial fishing boat hauled in what may have been one of the oldest creatures in Alaska -- a giant rockfish estimated to be about a century old.

The 44-inch, 60-pound female shortraker rockfish was caught last month by the catcher-processor Kodiak Enterprise as it trawled for pollock 2,100 feet below the surface, south of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.

cnn.com

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Mystery over five-legged frogs


Experts are investigating after frogs with five legs were found in a river.

Environmental agency Natural England said specialists did not know what had caused the deformity.

metro.co.uk

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Did Cuddly Knut kill a panda?


Berlin Zoo is having to frantically deny reports that Cuddly Knut, its adorable yet controversial polar bear cub, was indirectly responsible for the death of its panda Yan Yan.

The worldwide media attention that Knut got when he made his fluffy debut has drawn huge crowds to the zoo to witness the 3½-month-old cub do its thing – which top-selling newspaper Bild claims caused Yan Yan so much stress that she died.

metro.co.uk

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