Topic: NATURE - on October 29, 2006 at 11:49:00 AM CET
£3.68 trillion: The price of failing to act on climate change
Britons face the prospect of a welter of new green taxes to tackle climate change, as the most authoritative report on global warming warns it will cost the world up to £3.68 trillion unless it is tackled within a decade.
The review by Sir Nicholas Stern, commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and published tomorrow, marks a crucial point in the debate by underlining how failure to act would trigger a catastrophic global recession. Unchecked climate change would turn 200 million people into refugees, the largest migration in modern history, as their homes succumbed to drought or flood.
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Topic: NATURE - on October 28, 2006 at 11:10:00 AM CEST
New Glowing Mushrooms Found in Brazil
Like a black light poster come to life, a group of bioluminescent fungi collected from Ribeira Valley Tourist State Park near São Paulo, Brazil, emanates a soft green glow when the lights go out.
The mushrooms are part of the genus Mycena, a group that includes about 500 species worldwide. Of these only 33 are known to be bioluminescent—capable of producing light through a chemical reaction.
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Topic: NATURE - on October 26, 2006 at 4:23:00 PM CEST
Huge Native American face on Google Earth
Somewhere in Alberta in Canada you can spot mountains that look like the face of an Indian.
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Topic: NATURE - on October 20, 2006 at 2:35:00 PM CEST
Stingray jumps aboard boat, stabs man
The incident -- reminiscent of last month's death of TV's Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin -- occurred as 81-year-old James Bertakis plied the waters near his home in Lighthouse Point, Fla., a town just north of Fort Lauderdale.
"It was a freak accident," said Lighthouse Point acting fire Chief David Donzella. "It's very odd that the thing jumped out of the water and stung him. We still can't believe it."
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Topic: NATURE - on October 17, 2006 at 12:05:00 PM CEST
Horniest male beetles have the tiniest testicles
Dung beetle research may be about to boost the cliché about men with flashy sports cars. According to new study, male beetles with the most dramatic and ostentatious sets of horns apparently pay for that with smaller testicles.
The research is one of the first studies to experimentally demonstrate that investing energy in one mating advantage may come at the expense of another.
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Topic: NATURE - on October 10, 2006 at 4:34:00 PM CEST
Dorfbewohner flüchten vor trauernden Elefanten
Die 14 Elefanten befanden sich auf der Suche nach einem Mitglied ihrer Herde, das am Wochenende in einen Bewässerungsgraben gefallen und ertrunken war. Die Bewohner hatten das Tier anschliessend beerdigt.
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Topic: NATURE - on October 10, 2006 at 3:41:00 PM CEST
A Famous Wave Returns to Spain
The last Sunday of September in this Basque town on the Spanish coast wallows in an idyllic, late-summer quiet. Fitness-happy old men take their sagging bellies for a walk in the mirror-like sea. "Twenty times back and forth, then I'll be done," one of them says, while his wife, having planted a parasol in the sand, attends to the lives of the rich and famous in her magazine.
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Topic: NATURE - on October 3, 2006 at 11:21:00 AM CEST
A Brain Cell is the Same as the Universe
Physicists discover that the structure of a brain cell is the same as the entire universe.
"Oh God, guide me, protect me; make of me a shining lamp and a brilliant star." -- Abdu’l-Bahá
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Topic: NATURE - on September 30, 2006 at 4:42:00 PM CEST
Lightning bolt throws photographer in the air
When the sky darkened and lightning began to flash, Kane Quinnell grabbed his new digital camera, hoping to snap some pictures of the approaching storm.
Not having a tripod, he balanced the camera on his car, parked under the carport of his then Old Toongabbie home, and aimed the lens southward.
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Topic: NATURE - on June 12, 2006 at 3:22:00 PM CEST
Inderin heiratet Kobra
JBimbala Das (30), Inderin aus dem ostindischen Bundesstaat Orissa, hat sich in eine Kobra verliebt und die Schlange geheiratet. «Obwohl Schlangen weder sprechen noch verstehen können, kommunizieren wir auf eine besondere Art», sagte die Dreißigjährige der Nachrichtenagentur PTI.
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Topic: NATURE - on June 10, 2005 at 9:09:00 AM CEST
Chilli bombs to combat elephants
Wildlife experts in India's north-eastern state of Assam are trying out tripwires and "red chilli bombs" to keep wild elephants away from villages.
The battery-operated devices with warning bells are being fixed a few hundred metres from houses to warn people in good time of coming animals.
The measures are aimed at preventing herds of wild elephants from destroying crops and attacking villagers.
In the past 15 years, elephants have killed more than 600 people in Assam.
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Topic: NATURE - on March 15, 2005 at 3:07:00 PM CET
DEVA Blooms 2005
DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK — The wettest year on record here has transformed this forbidding wilderness of scruffy mountains and buckled earth into a vividly unfamiliar world of wildflowers and reflecting pools, triggering ecological cycles not seen before on so large a scale.
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