Eclectic Perambulations in the Noosphere
At least 5.7 million bats across 16 US states and Canada have died from White-nose syndrome, scientists studying the fungal ailment say.
"White-nose syndrome has spread quickly through bat populations in eastern North America, and has caused significant mortality in many colonies,"
An eared grebe in need of rescuing, after it crash-landed onto the snow-covered ground in St. George, UT, mistaking it for a lake. Credit: Utah Division of Wildlife, Lynn Chamberlain
"Thousands of migrating birds crash-landed onto parking lots and other thinly snow-covered surfaces in St. George, Utah, Monday night (Dec. 12), apparently mistaking the glinting open spaces for lakes. Community members and state wildlife officials are working together to clean up from the disaster, rescuing survivors and disposing of the casualties."
"Nearly a week after Hurricane Irene drenched New England with rainfall in late August 2011, the Connecticut River was spewing muddy sediment into Long Island Sound and wrecking the region's farmland just before harvest. The Thematic Mapper on the Landsat 5 satellite acquired this true-color satellite image on September 2, 2011.
With its headwaters near the Canadian border, the Connecticut River drains nearly 11,000 square miles (28,500 square kilometers) and receives water from at least 33 tributaries in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The 410-mile river—New England's longest—enters Long Island Sound near Old Lyme, Connecticut, and is estimated to provide 70 percent of the fresh water entering the Sound."
Millions of spiders have crawled into trees in Pakistan to escape flood waters, shrouding them with their silky webs.
The eye-catching phenomenon is an unexpected side-effect of last year's flooding which claimed the lives of almost 2,000 people.
However, since the monsoon weather devastated the nation last July, much of the water has still not yet receded.
The tiny arachnids have sought refuge amongst the trees weaving beautifully intricate webs between the leaves. Locals say there are now fewer mosquitos reducing the risk of malaria
The branches are now so cocooned in spiders webs it gives the appearance of them being shrouded in a large net.
People in this part of Sindh, in south eastern Pakistan, near Karachi, have never seen this phenomenon before, but locals are reporting that there are now fewer mosquitos than they would expect, given the amount of stagnant, standing water that is around.
"Micah Frank, a New York based sound programmer has created a haunting sonification of the Japanese earthquake using Tectonic to map the seismic activity.
Tectonic is a realtime seismic analysis and sound synthesis system. Sound is created in realtime by earthquakes as they occur across the globe. A tightly integrated system between Max/MSP, Google Earth and Symbolic Sound’s Kyma processes earthquake data that is translated into sound synthesis parameters. A USGS XML feed is parsed into numerous fields including magnitude, elevation, time of day and geographical coordinates. These data are mapped to synthetic spectrums and processed by granular, aggregate and subtractive synthesis.
This is eerie stuff. You can hear the terror when the rhythms shift."
Press Releases March 2011 - Bees Under Bombardment - United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
From Chemicals to Air Pollution, New UNEP Report Points to Multiple Factors Behind Pollinator Losses
Geneva/Nairobi, 10 March 2011 - More than a dozen factors, ranging from declines in flowering plants and the use of memory-damaging insecticides to the world-wide spread of pests and air pollution, may be behind the emerging decline of bee colonies across many parts of the globe.
