Category Archives: Nature
Highwater in Saale River
Due to heavy snow melting as the temperature turns to be ‘mild’ and simultaneous rainfall, 2011’s Winter highwater is the highest since 1946 in the Saale river in Halle (Saxony-Anhalt). The flood water reached a maximum of 6.92 m on the gauge of Halle Trotha. A record of 7 m would cause a ‘disaster alarm’. (more…)
Online Access to the Plants of the World Is Available
*The Global Plants Initiative Meets at the Smithsonian in Panama Jan. 11-13*
For centuries, jungle explorers from Europe and North America have created art of the plants they discover—pressing bright flowers and green tendrils onto herbarium sheets for prestigious museums and plant collections. But scientists in the most biodiverse countries lack easy access to this basic information needed to identify plants. The Global Plants Initiative, meeting Jan. 11-13 at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, catapults biodiversity research to a new level, sharing plant collections in a massive online database of high-resolution scans. (more…)
Wildlife Die-Offs are Relatively Common, Recent Bird Deaths Caused by Impact Trauma
Large wildlife die-off events are fairly common, though they should never be ignored, according to the U.S. Geological Survey scientists whose preliminary tests showed that the bird deaths in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve and those in Louisiana were caused by impact trauma. (more…)
Epic Journeys of Turtles Revealed
The epic ocean-spanning journeys of the gigantic leatherback turtle in the South Atlantic have been revealed for the first time thanks to groundbreaking research using satellite tracking.
Experts at the Centre for Ecology and Conservation (Cornwall) at the University of Exeter led a five-year study to find out more about these increasingly rare creatures and inform conservation efforts. (more…)
Colossal Fossil: Museum’s New Whale Skeleton Represents Decades of Research
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—There’s a whale of a new display at the University of Michigan Exhibit Museum of Natural History, a leviathan that represents a scientific saga of equally grand proportions. (more…)
High-Tech Software and Unmanned Planes Allow Scientists to Keep Tabs on Arctic Seals
A novel project using cameras mounted on unmanned aircraft flying over the Arctic is serving double duty by assessing the characteristics of declining sea ice and using the same aerial photos to pinpoint seals that have hauled up on ice floes.
The project is the first to use aircraft to monitor ice and seals in remote areas without putting pilots and observers at risk, said Elizabeth Weatherhead of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who is leading the study team. Weatherhead is a senior scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint venture of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (more…)
Crocodiles 168 Times More Dangerous Than Sharks
The fears connected with shark attacks are stronger in the world today than those related to much more dangerous predators – crocodiles. However, crocodiles pose a greater threat to humans than sharks do.
A crocodile snatched Hendrik Coetzee, a South African guide, 35, from his kayak while he led an American expedition into the heart of Congo last week. Two American tourists could only watch the scene in horror as the guide was killed and eaten by the predator. They paddled to safety unharmed. Coetzee’s body has not been recovered.
Stories about croc attacks are just as terrible as they are hopeless. Experts say that it is possible to stay to fight off a shark, but it is much more difficult or even impossible to rescue themselves from an attacking croc. (more…)