SKIRMISHER

Over the past two or three decades, scientists have noticed with growing alarm that vast stretches of coastal waters are turning into dead zones — patches of seabed so depleted of oxygen that few creatures, if any, can survive there. In 2004, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) took stock of the phenomenon — which [...]

Scientists say amphibian death could be the start of the first mass extinction since the dinosaurs.
Lots of amphibians (a third to a half of all species) are dying, and their deaths are the breaking-edge of what many scientists are calling the first mass extinction since the dinosaurs checked out 65 million years ago, researchers say [...]

Ice at the North Pole melted at an unprecedented rate last week, with leading scientists warning that the Arctic could be ice-free in summer by 2013.
Satellite images show that ice caps started to disintegrate dramatically several days ago as storms over Alaska’s Beaufort Sea began sucking streams of warm air into the Arctic.
What really unsettles [...]

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Jesus H Christ in a chicken basket!
There is at least a modest scientific basis for the myth: Cockroaches are more resistant to radiation than humans and nearly all other noninsect animals. This is because they are relatively simple organisms with fewer genes that might develop mutations. Roach cells also divide more slowly than human cells, [...]

A drop of sea water, magnified 20 times, showing showing zooplankton you normally don’t see. Taken by wildlife photographer Peter Parks using special optics and awesome magnification skillz.
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{Mad: Dramatic chipmunk}

After discovering that a single 550-kg cow can produce 800 to 1,000 liters (28 to 35 cubic feet) of greenhouse gas emissions each day, scientists in Argentina go hardcore — by strapping plastic tanks to the backs of cows for efficient burp and fart collection.
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{Photo: a very embarrassed cow}

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts [...]

Vincent Callebaut’s Lilypad floating city concept details a completely self-sufficient shelter for climate change refugees of the future.

Each Lilypad floating city can hold approximately 50,000 people. A mixed terrain man-made landscape, provided by an artificial lagoon and three ridges, create a diverse environment for the inhabitants. Each Lilypad is intended to be either near a [...]

A team of scientists led by University of Wisconsin-Madison geologists Takayuki Ushikubo, Valley and Noriko Kita have completed an analysis of ancient minerals called zircons which shows liquid water existed at least 4.3 billion years ago and that heavy weathering by an acrid climate possibly destroyed the surface of the Earth’s earliest continents when the [...]