Scientists say the ozone layer is recovering

Scientists say the ozone layer is recovering - Scientists say ozone layer is recovering, credit phase-out of aerosol chemicals since the '80s - Earth's protective ozone layer is beginning to recover, largely because of the phase-out since the 1980s of certain chemicals used in refrigerants and aerosol cans, a U.N. scientific panel reported Wednesday in a rare piece of good news about the health of the planet.

Scientists said the development demonstrates that when the world comes together, it can counteract a brewing ecological crisis.

For the first time in 35 years, scientists were able to confirm a statistically significant and sustained increase in stratospheric ozone, which shields the planet from solar radiation that causes skin cancer, crop damage and other problems.

From 2000 to 2013, ozone levels climbed 4 percent in the key mid-northern latitudes at about 30 miles up, said NASA scientist Paul A. Newman. He co-chaired the every-four-years ozone assessment by 300 scientists, released at the United Nations.

 

 This undated image provided by NASA shows the ozone layer over the years, Sept. 17, 1979, top left, Oct. 7, 1989, top right, Oct. 9, 2006, lower left, and Oct. 1, 2010, lower right. Earth protective but fragile ozone layer is finally starting to rebound, says a United Nations panel of scientists. Scientists hail this as rare environmental good news, demonstrating that when the world comes together it can stop a brewing ecological crisis. (AP Photo/NASA)

"It's a victory for diplomacy and for science and for the fact that we were able to work together," said chemist Mario Molina. In 1974, Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland wrote a scientific study forecasting the ozone depletion problem. They won the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work.

The ozone layer had been thinning since the late 1970s. Man-made chlorofluorocarbons, called CFCs, released chlorine and bromine, which destroyed ozone molecules high in the air. After scientists raised the alarm, countries around the world agreed to a treaty in 1987 that phased out CFCs. Levels of those chemicals between 30 and 50 miles up are decreasing.

The United Nations calculated in an earlier report that without the pact, by 2030 there would have been an extra 2 million skin cancer cases a year around the world.

Paradoxically, heat-trapping greenhouse gases — considered the major cause of global warming — are also helping to rebuild the ozone layer, Newman said. The report said rising levels of carbon dioxide and other gases cool the upper stratosphere, and the cooler air increases the amount of ozone.

And in another worrisome trend, the chemicals that replaced CFCs contribute to global warming and are on the rise, said MIT atmospheric scientist Susan Solomon. At the moment, they don't make much of a dent, but they are expected to increase dramatically by 2050 and make "a big contribution" to global warming.

The ozone layer is still far from healed. The long-lasting, ozone-eating chemicals still lingering in the atmosphere create a yearly fall ozone hole above the extreme Southern Hemisphere, and the hole hasn't closed up. Also, the ozone layer is still about 6 percent thinner than in 1980, by Newman's calculations.

Ozone levels are "on the upswing, but it's not there yet," he said.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said there are encouraging signs that the ozone layer "is on track to recovery by the middle of this century."

Steiner called the effort to get rid of ozone-destroying substances "one of the great success stories of international collective action in addressing a global environmental change phenomenon."

"More than 98 percent of the ozone-depleting substances agreed over time have actually been phased out," he said. If not for such efforts, Steiner said, "we would be seeing a very substantial global ozone depletion today."

Paul Wapner, a professor of global environmental politics at American University, said the findings are "good news in an often dark landscape" and send a message of hope to world leaders meeting later this month in New York for a U.N. climate summit.

"The precedent is truly important because society is facing another serious global environmental problem, namely climate change," said Molina, a professor in San Diego and Mexico City. The 71-year-old scientist said he didn't think he would live to see the day that the ozone layer was rebuilding.

Earlier this week, the United Nations announced that atmospheric levels of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, surged to another record high in 2013. The increase from 2012 was the biggest jump in three decades. ( Associated Press )

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Fine Asian Art and Antiques Sale At Kaminski Features Impressive Pieces

Fine Asian Art and Antiques Sale At Kaminski Features Impressive Pieces - High quality Chinese items shone at Kaminski Auction’s recent Fine Asian Art and Antiques sale, held on Saturday, January 26.

High quality Chinese items shone at Kaminski Auction’s recent Fine Asian Art and Antiques sale, held on Saturday, January 26. Over four hundred lots reached the auctioneers podium over the course of the six-hour sale for a day of competitive in person, online, and over the phone bidding. From ceramic s, to jade and ivory, the auction offered a variety of valuable items from Asia. The top lot of the day, however, belonged to none of those familiar categories. The striking top lot, an antique zitan wooden throne, sparked a frenzy of bidding that drove the price far and away above the original estimate of $6,000.00 to $8,000.00. Ultimately sold for $29,000.00, the stunning throne featured elaborate carved designs. A carved dragon encircled with a fire and cloud pattern highlighted the back panel. Dragons decorating the armrests continued the intricate motif.

The other top lots of the sale, although smaller in size, made a similarly large impression upon the bidding audience. A green jadeite bangle from the nineteenth century also sold well above estimate. The elegant, gold embellished piece carried an estimate of $600.00 to $900.00, but initiated quick and competitive online bidding that finally brought the price to $5,500.00.

Many ceramic pieces also sold above estimate. Particularly noteworthy were the few fine examples of famille rose and famille vert ceramics among the top lots of the sale. One such lot was Lot 7087, a famille vert vase in the gu form with four dragons and a floral scrolling pattern. This eye-catching piece captured significant interest and reached $4,750.00, far more than its estimated $800.00 to $1,200.00 value.

A famille rose figure of a reclining happy Buddha also commanded the interest of the audience. The exceptional sculpted and painted detail of this Buddha drove the price above the original high estimate. The popular piece sold for $2,100.00. A famille rose candleholder that carried a Jia Qing mark on the base, scrolling flower designs and auspicious marks, sold for $3,250.00.

An exceptional set of three export rose mandarin Chinese platters from the early nineteenth century, was also among the top selling lots of the auction. The platter set was finely decorated with a wide figural borders running around central cartouches of butterflies and vegetables. It sold for $3,250.00.

Two more unusual lots piqued special interest with the auction’s in-person and online audience. An atypical ivory box from eighteenth century Mughal Empire of India attracted many bidders. The intriguing box was labeled “Spink and Son #11” and was affixed with silver handles that emphasized intricate carvings covering the box. The box sold at its high estimate of $4,000.00.

A remarkable set of ten collectable Chinese one Jiao bank notes rounded out the top ten lots of the sale. The 1960 bank notes were marked with the serial number IV IX 9412164-9412171, and sold for a high $3,250.00.

Other items of interest included a brown agate Dzai bead, which sold for above the $800.00 high estimate for $1,100.00.

The Fine Asian Art and Antiques sale wrapped up a busy month of auction for Kaminski. The successful auction saw the sale of many valuable Asian objects to a substantial phone and in person audience, as well as over 321 Internet bidders, with a total of $165,000.00 in online sales. Please email asian(at)kaminskiauctions(dot)com or contact Bob Yang at 508-873-9595.

KAMINSKI
Kaminski Auctions, located on the North Shore of Boston, has been serving the New England antiques market for over 25 years as a full service auction house and appraisal service for fine art, antiques and estates.

With two locations in Beverly, Massachusetts, including a new state of the art auction gallery located at 117 Elliott Street, and a historic 1850’s barn and office facility at 564 Cabot Street, Kaminski Auctions hosts 25 auctions a year.

In today’s highly competitive market of fine art and antiques, Kaminski Auctions provides its customers with bicoastal services and marketing with west coast offices in Beverly Hills and San Diego, California.

Kaminski Auctions offers specialty departments in Asian Art and Antiques, Silver, Glass and Lamps, Couture and Vintage Clothing, Photography and Modern Design . We have highly trained and knowledgable appraisers on staff that will help you determine the true value of your antiques, or entire collections. Free Appraisal days are offered every Tuesday from 10:00am-4:30pm at our 564 Cabot Street location in Beverly, Massachusetts & our 5171 Santa Fe Street location in San Diego, California. We welcome emailed photos of your items! ( prweb )

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Scientists have no idea when the next city-killing asteroid is coming

Scientists have no idea when the next city-killing asteroid is coming -The coincidence of today’s dramatic meteor hit in Russia and tonight’s near-miss by an asteroid, dubbed 2012 DA14, raises an important issue: Humans have no systematic way to scan the skies for threats from outer space.

2012 DA14 is a classic example: It was discovered only 12 months ago, not by a space agency but by a Spanish dentist. It will come so close to earth that it will actually come between us and some of our satellites. It weighs either 130,000 or 180,000 tonnes (143,000 or 198,000 US tons), depending on which NASA website you trust, and is half as big as a sports stadium. For comparison, today’s meteor over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk was only between 10 and 50 tonnes.

As asteroids go 2012 DA14 is pretty tiny. But had its orbit been only slightly different, it would have impacted our planet with a 3.5-megaton blast, equivalent to the force of 200 Hiroshima bombs (though it’s sobering to note that that’s only three times the power of the biggest warhead in America’s arsenal today, and a mere one-seventh as powerful as the biggest bomb ever built).

Oh, and even if we’d known it was coming? We would have been powerless to do anything, as no space agency is equipped to redirect the course of an asteroid.

These are the sorts of things that members of the B612 foundation, including former NASA scientists, worry about. Today, if ever, is their day. From an eye-opening post on their site:

…the fact that we knew ahead of time that 2012 DA14 is about to buzz by Earth is really only a matter of luck. Ninety nine percent of the time we are oblivious, simply because we have not mapped and tracked 99 percent of Near Earth Asteroids.

There are about a million asteroids in our solar system as large or larger than DA14. Of those, fewer than 10,000 have been identified and tracked.

Censuses of asteroids in our immediate neighborhood capture only a fraction of the objects that could pose a threat. 2012 DA14 is in the <100 data-blogger-escaped-category.="" data-blogger-escaped-m="" data-blogger-escaped-nasa="" data-blogger-escaped-p="">Meteors strike earth five to ten times per year. Obviously, few are as dramatic as what exploded over Chelyabinsk. But sometimes we get unlucky. On June 30, 1908, something gigantic smacked into Siberia in what’s known as the Tunguska Event. 770 square miles (2,000 square kilometers) of forest were flattened. If the object—either a meteoroid or comet—had struck a city instead, it would have wiped it out completely. The devastated region, note Ed Lu of B612 and Martin Rees, Britain’s Astronomer Royal, was about the size of the San Francisco Bay Area.

And, they say, there is an estimated 30% chance of another such rock hitting the planet this century. The problem: unless we spot such rocks years in advance, we can’t deflect them in time. Which is why B612 is trying to build a space telescope to spot and map all the asteroids big enough to pose a serious threat. ( qz.com )

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'Lost' Tectonic Plate Found Beneath California

'Lost' Tectonic Plate Found Beneath California - A tectonic plate that disappeared under North America millions of years ago still peeks out in central California and Mexico, new research finds.

The Farallon oceanic plate was once nestled between the Pacific and North American plates, which were converging around 200 million years ago at what would become the San Andreas fault along the Pacific coast. This slow geological movement forced the Farallon plate under North America, a process called subduction.

Much of the Farallon plate got pushed down into the mantle, the gooey molten layer below the Earth's crust. Off the coast, parts of the plate fragmented, leaving some remnants at the surface, stuck to the Pacific plate.

Now, new research published Monday (March 18) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that these pieces of Farallon plate are attached to much larger chunks at the surface. In fact, part of the Baja region of Mexico and part of central California near the Sierra Nevada mountains sit upon slabs of Farallon plate.

The finding solves a mystery of California geology. Earth scientists use seismic waves (either recorded from earthquakes or created with dynamic charges or other methods) to map out the region beneath the Earth's surface. Softer and hotter materials slow seismic waves down. The waves move faster through stiffer, cooler material.

In California, these seismic surveys revealed a large mass of cool, dry material 62 miles to 124 miles (100 to 200 kilometers) below the surface. This strange spot was dubbed the "Isabella anomaly."

Despite many theories, no one had nailed down exactly what caused the Isabella anomaly. Then researchers discovered another anomaly (where the researchers saw a change in seismic wave speed where one wasn't expected) under the Baja Peninsula, directly east of some of the known remains of the Farallon plate. The proximity led Brown University geophysicists Donald Forsyth and Yun Wang (now at the University of Alaska) to suspect they might be related.

Near the eastern edge of the anomaly, the researchers found volcanic rock deposits called high-magnesium andesites. These are usually linked to the melting of oceanic crust, suggesting that this is the spot where the Farallon plate broke off and subducted, melting into the mantle.

A re-examination of the Isabella anomaly found that it, too, lined up with known Farallon fragments.

"This work has radically changed our understanding of the make-up of the west coast of North America," study co-author Brian Savage of the University of Rhode Island said in a statement. "It will cause a thorough rethinking of the geological history of North America and undoubtedly many other continental margins." ( LiveScience.com )

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Drug Executive Faces Manslaughter Charges

Drug Executive Faces Manslaughter Charges - A French court brought manslaughter and injury charges on Tuesday against a drug executive and six companies in a case involving a diabetes and weight-loss drug that caused cardiovascular damage, the Paris public prosecutor’s office said.

The executive, Jacques Servier, 90, and six companies of the Servier group are accused of having known the risks associated with the drug, Mediator, which they produced and marketed until French authorities ordered it withdrawn in 2009, the spokeswoman, Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, said.

Mr. Servier has been ordered to pay almost $100,000 in bail, while the companies have each been ordered to pay about $520,000. Investigators believe Mediator may have caused as many as 2,000 deaths in France. Two related weight-loss products made by the Servier pharmaceutical group were at the center of the fen-phen scandal of the late-1990s in the United States.( nytimes.com)

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Brain Storm to start adult stem cell trial for ALS

Brain Storm to start adult stem cell trial for ALS - BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc received approval from Israel's Health Ministry for a clinical trial of its adult stem cell therapy for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

"The trial represents a significant step forward in our goal of using stem cells with neuro restoration capabilities to treat ALS," Adrian Harel, acting CEO of BrainStorm, said on Tuesday.

BrainStorm expects to begin treating patients in the coming weeks and will work with Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February granted orphan drug designation to the company's NurOwn adult stem cell product for the treatment of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

The initial phase of the study is designed to establish the safety of NurOwn and will later be expanded to assess efficacy.

Patients will be transplanted with stem cells derived from their own bone marrow and treated with the NurOwn stem cell technology. The trial will include 24 patients, 12 in an advanced stage of the disease and 12 in an early stage.

The patients will be examined at regular intervals and followed for six months post transplantation.

ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. According to the ALS Association, 5,600 people in the United States are diagnosed with ALS each year and it is estimated that as many as 30,000 Americans may have the disease at any given time. ( Reuters )

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US ranks 17 as clean tech producer, China is No. 2

US ranks 17 as clean tech producer, China is No. 2 – Denmark earns the biggest share of its national revenue from producing windmills and other clean technologies, the United States is rapidly expanding its clean-tech sector, but no country can match China's pace of growth, according to a new report obtained by The Associated Press.

China's production of green technologies has grown by a remarkable 77 per cent a year, according to the report, which was commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and which will be unveiled on Monday at an industry conference in Amsterdam.

"The Chinese have made, on the political level, a conscious decision to capture this market and to develop this market aggressively," said Donald Pols, an economist with the WWF.

Denmark, a longtime leader in wind energy, derives 3.1 percent of its gross domestic product from renewable energy technology and energy efficiency, or about euro6.5 billion ($9.4 billion), the report said.

China is the largest producer in money terms, earning more than euro44 billion ($64 billion), or 1.4 percent of its gross domestic product.

The U.S. ranks 17 in the production of clean technologies with 0.3 percent of GDP, or euro31.5 billion ($45 billion), but those industries have been expanding at a rate of 28 percent per year since 2008.

"The U.S. is growing substantially, so it seems the policy of (President Barack) Obama is working," Pols said. But the U.S. cannot compare with China, he said.

"When you speak to the Chinese, climate change is not an ideological issue. It's just a fact of life. While we debate climate change and the transition to a low carbon economy, the debate is passed in China," Pols said. "For them it's implementation. It's a growth sector, and they want to capture this sector."

The report was prepared by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, a global firm based in Germany. It gathered data on 38 countries from energy associations, bank and brokerage reports, investor presentations, the International Energy Agency and a score of other sources. It measured the earnings from producing renewables like biofuels, wind turbines and thermal equipment, and energy efficiency technology such as low-energy lighting and insulation.

"Clean technologies are really growing fast, but China is responsible for the majority of that growth," said Ward van den Berg, who compiled and analyzed the data for the consultancy firm.

Until recently, Chinese massive production of solar cells was aimed at the export market, but they are now making solar systems for the home market, as they have been doing for several years in wind energy, Van den Berg said.

Following Denmark and China, other countries in the top five clean-tech producers, in terms of percentage of GDP, are Germany, Brazil and Lithuania, the report said. ( Associated Press )

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Radioactive water at 5 million times limit found at Japan plant

Radioactive water at 5 million times limit found at Japan plant – The operator of Japan's crippled nuclear power plant said on Tuesday it had found water with 5 million times the legal limit of radioactivity as it struggles for a fourth week to contain the world's biggest nuclear disaster in quarter of a century.

Underlining the concern over spreading radiation, the government said it was considering imposing radioactivity restrictions on seafood for the first time in the crisis after contaminated fish were found in seas well south of the damaged nuclear reactors.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant No - Radioactive contaminated water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant No. 2 reactor leaks through a crack in a concrete pit and drains into the ocean in Fukushima prefecture, April 2, 2011

The plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) offered token "condolence" money to those affected in the Fukushima region where the plant is based, the local mayors who came to Tokyo to meet Prime Minister Naoto Kan made clear they expected far more help.

"We have borne the risks, co-existed and flourished with TEPCO for more than 40 years, and all these years, we have fully trusted the myth that nuclear plants are absolutely safe," said Katsuya Endo, the mayor of Tomioka town.

He was one of eight Fukushima prefecture mayors who went to Kan to demand compensation and support for employment, housing and education for the tens of thousands of people evacuated as a result of the radiation crisis.

In desperation, engineers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant have turned to what are little more than home remedies to stem the flow of contaminated water. On Tuesday, they used "liquid glass" in the hope of plugging cracks in a leaking concrete pit.

"We tried pouring sawdust, newspaper and concrete mixtures into the side of the pit (leading to tunnels outside reactor No.2), but the mixture does not seem to be entering the cracks," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA).

"We also still do not know how the highly contaminated water is seeping out of reactor No.2," said Nishiyama.

TEPCO said it suspected that a stone layer beneath the trench feeding into the pit at reactor No. 2 might be the source of the contaminated water, but added they were still investigating the exact causes and were prepared for the possibility that there were other sources of radioactive water.

Engineers also plan to build two giant polyester "silt curtains" in the sea to block the spread of more contamination from the plant.

Workers are still struggling to restart cooling pumps -- which recycle the water -- in four reactors damaged by last month's 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami.

Until those are fixed, they must pump in water from outside to prevent overheating and meltdowns. In the process, that creates more contaminated water that has to be pumped out and stored somewhere else or released into the sea.

There is a total of 60,000 tons of highly contaminated water in the plant after workers frantically poured in seawater when fuel rods experienced partial meltdown after the tsunami hit northeast Japan on March 11.

TEPCO on Monday had to start releasing 11,500 tons of low-level radioactive seawater after it ran out of storage capacity for more highly contaminated water. The release will continue until Friday.

FIVE MILLION TIMES LEGAL LIMIT

Radioactive iodine of up to 4,800 times the legal limit has been recorded in the sea near the plant. Cesium was found at levels above safety limits in tiny "kounago" fish in waters Ibaraki Prefecture, south of Fukushima, local media reported.

Iodine-131 in the water near the sluice gate of reactor No. 2 hit a high on April 2 of 7.5 million times the legal limit. The water, which was not released into the ocean, fell to 5 million times the legal limit on Monday.

TEPCO said it had started paying token "condolence money" to local governments to aid people evacuated from around its stricken plant or affected by the radiation crisis.

It faces a huge bill for the damage caused by its crippled reactors, but said it must first assess the extent of damage before paying actual compensation.

"We are still in discussion as to what extent we will pay on our own and to what extent we will have assistance from the government," TEPCO executive vice-president Takashi Fujimotohe told a news conference.

TEPCO offered just 20 million yen ($238,000) in condolence money each to towns near the reactors whose residents were forced to evacuate. A second TEPCO official said they offered that sum to 10 towns but one refused to take the money.

FISH PRICES TUMBLE

Fishermen from neighboring Ibaraki prefecture saw prices for flounder and sea bream tumble as buyers shunned their catch.

"Unless problems at the plant end soon, fishermen won't be able to go on living without compensation. We want compensation from TEPCO, the government and the prefecture," said Hikaru Sugiyama a fishing cooperative official in Ibaraki.

The company's shares plunged to a record low of 363 yen on Tuesday on uncertainty over the nuclear crisis, and are now over 80 percent of their value before the quake struck.

The quake and tsunami have left nearly 28,000 people dead or missing, thousands homeless and Japan's northeast coast a wreck.

The world's costliest natural disaster has caused power blackouts and cuts to supply chains, threatening Japan's economic growth and the operations of global firms from semiconductor makers to shipbuilders.

Fujimoto said TEPCO wants to avoid having to impose rolling power blackouts in summer, when demand surges due to heavy use of air-conditioning. Analysts say blackouts could cause the biggest economic damage to Japan. ( Reuters )

($1 = 84.040 Japanese Yen)

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'Super' salmon resist climate change better

'Super' salmon resist climate change better – Toughened by a punishing annual migration in western Canada, a special breed of sockeye salmon has proved better able to survive environmental change than other members of the species, a study said Thursday.

The Fraser River in British Columbia has more than 100 distinct populations of sockeye salmon, many of them so fine-tuned to their environment that even slight changes in water temperature, river flow or elevation change could spell disaster.

Sockeye salmon - This undated photo courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service shows sockeye salmon. According to new research at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Sockeye salmon in the Fraser River are facing such critically warm water in the summer that populations will either have to adapt or die as climate change pushes temperatures even higher

"As climate change alters the conditions of the Fraser River watershed, our concern is that some populations may not be able to adapt to these changes quickly enough to survive," said Erika Eliason, the study's lead author.

But the Chilko salmon, named after a region of the river where they spawn, are proving more resilient than others, and Eliason and her colleagues at University of British Columbia believe it could be due to their harsher migration conditions.

"I like to call the Chilko population of sockeye 'Superfish,'" said Eliason, who explained they are conditioned by a migratory route that is extraordinarily difficult.

Eliason and colleagues studied eight sockeye populations for the study, which was published in the journal Science.

"This is the first large study examining how different populations of fish of the same species adapt to different environmental conditions during their annual migration," she said.

Scientists say the Fraser River, which runs some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles), has already warmed by almost two degrees Celsius since the 1950s, with the last 20 years among the warmest on record.

Millions of sockeye migrate up the Fraser to spawn each year, but the species has been in decline since the 1990s. There have been mass mortalities during migrations, when between 40 and 95 percent of some populations have died, according to UBC.

The sockeye populations follow exact migration routes that vary by distance, elevation, temperature and current strength. Some have it easy, but not the Chilko.

The Chilko must swim more than 650 kilometers (400 miles) upstream, gain a kilometer (0.6 miles) in elevation, and pass through an area known as Hell's Gate, where the river shoots through a passage just 35 meters (115 feet) wide.

They do all this at the height of summer in a heroic effort to reach a glacial lake, where they spawn.

To assess the salmon's abilities to cope with changing environmental conditions, the UBC team had fish from the eight population groups swim through a large tube designed to simulate Fraser river currents and water temperatures.

The scientists measured the heart rates and metabolism of the adult salmon as they did so.

They found that when water temperatures rose above an optimal level, the salmon's ability swim declined, probably as a result of a weakening of their cardiovascular systems.

But they also observed that the Chilko sockeye seemed physiologically less sensitive to the difference in temperature and other environmental change. The most sensitive was the Weaver sockeye.

Eliason said the Chilko were able to "swim at higher and a broader range of temperatures" compared to other sockeye in the river.

"We believe it has to do with how they've adapted to cope with their difficult migration." ( Agence France Presse )

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Bat deaths could cost US economy billions

Bat deaths could cost US economy billions – Call them creepy little creatures if you like, but insect-munching bats are so valuable to US agriculture that their deaths could cost the economy billions of dollars per year, experts said Thursday.

A fungal disease known as white nose syndrome, combined with the rise in wind turbines which can ensnare the dark fliers, have killed off more than a million of the bug predators in North America since 2006.

Little brown bat hanging at Greely Mine - This undated photo courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service shows the little brown bat hanging at Greely Mine in Stockbridge, Vermont affected by white-nose syndrome. Call them creepy little creatures if you like, but insect-munching bats are so valuable to US agriculture that their deaths could cost the economy billions of dollars per year, experts said Thursday

Their deaths mean the elimination of an important natural pesticide which is worth at least 3.7 billion dollars per year to farmers, said the study by US and South African researchers in the journal Science.

"Without bats, crop yields are affected. Pesticide applications go up," said Gary McCracken, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

"Even if our estimates were quartered, they clearly show how bats have enormous potential to influence the economics of agriculture and forestry."

The analysis was based on "published estimates of the value of pest suppression services provided by bats," the study said.

The cost ranges "from about $12 to $173/acre (with a most likely scenario of $74/acre) in a cotton-dominated agricultural landscape in south-central Texas."

Extending those estimates across the United States as a whole, they found "the value of bats may be as low as $3.7 billion/year and as high as $53 billion/year."

McCracken's co-authors were Justin Boyles of the University of Pretoria in South Africa, Paul Cryan of the US Geological Survey and Thomas Kunz of Boston University.

The study says that more than a million bats in North America have died due to fungal diseases in the past five years, and that some projections show that "by 2020, wind turbines will have killed 33,000 to 111,000 annually in the Mid-Atlantic Highlands alone."

The cost analysis focused on the expense of pesticides but did not include the effects of pesticides on the environment or human and animal health.

"Not acting is not an option because the life histories of these flying, nocturnal mammals -- characterized by long generation times and low reproductive rates -- mean that population recovery is unlikely for decades or even centuries, if at all," said McCracken. ( Agence France Presse )

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USGS finds 2,000-year-old coral near BP Gulf well

USGS finds 2,000-year-old coral near BP Gulf well – Federal scientists say they have dated coral living near the site of the busted BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico at 2,000 years old.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Wednesday it had determined the age of the black coral in the Gulf for the first time. Scientists had been studying the ancient slow-growing corals before BP's well blew out on April 20, 2010. The corals were found about 21 miles northeast of the BP well living 1,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf.

2010 photo provided by U.S. Geological Survey - A 2010 photo provided by the U.S. Geological Survey shows 2- to-3-meter-tall orange colored, black coral trees (Leiopathes cf. glabberima) growing near Viosca Knoll in the Gulf of Mexico, which are among the oldest living organisms on Earth. For the first time, scientists have been able to validate the age of deep-sea black corals in the Gulf of Mexico. They found the Gulf is home to 2,000 year-old deep-sea black corals, many of which are only a few feet tall. These slow-growing, long-living animals thrive in very deep waters—300 meters (984 feet) and deeper—yet scientists say they are sensitive to what is happening in the surface ocean as well as on the sea floor.

"They're extremely old and extremely slow-growing," said Nancy Prouty, a USGS scientist. "And there are big questions about their vulnerability and their ability for recovery."

Black corals feed on organic matter sinking to the sea floor and it could take decades, or even centuries, to recover from "a disturbance to these ecosystems," Prouty said.

She said scientists were looking at whether the ancient coral had been damaged by the BP oil spill, but the damage assessment had not been completed.

The location of the black coral is important because computer models and research cruises have mapped much of the deepwater oil moving to the southwest of the BP well, away from the black coral colony. Scientists have found dead coral southwest of the well.

However, Prouty said the surface oil slick was over the black coral colony during the spill.

BP's well leaked more than 200 million gallons of oil after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.

Black corals, which resemble deep-sea bushes or trees, are found throughout the world and are an important marine habitat for fish and other forms of marine life. They grow very slowly — a human fingernail grows 2,000 times faster than black coral, USGS said.

Most of the Gulf's bottom is muddy and the coral colonies that pop up every once in a while are vital oases for marine life in the chilly ocean depths.

The USGS study was part of a larger federal survey of fragile reef ecosystems. ( Associated Press )

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Japan nuclear crisis mixed message for climate change

Japan nuclear crisis mixed message for climate change – Japan's nuclear crisis will boost interest in clean renewables such as solar and wind power but may also sharpen demand for coal, oil and gas, whose carbon pollution drives climate change, experts said Monday.

Nuclear energy provides around 14 percent of the world's electricity mix, although this is overwhelmingly concentrated in six countries, and is not going to disappear off the map any time soon, they said.

"The accident in Japan is not a death sentence for nuclear power," stressed Jean-Marie Chevalier, an economist and energy expert at the Universite Paris Dauphine, pointing to the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in existing reactors and plants under construction.

But the scare surrounding the crippled reactors at the earthquake-struck Fukushima plant means nuclear's renaissance after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster will be crimped, at least in the short term.

Governments in India, the United States and Europe are under pressure to review safety standards or slap a moratorium on new projects, and Germany and Switzerland have already said they will be on hold plans to extend the operational life of existing plants, pending safety reviews.

"At the very least, we would expect significant investments in nuclear to be delayed, or deferred, for a period of one to two years," said Rupesh Madlani, renewables analysts at Barclays Capital in London.

In the short run, any energy shortfall in Japan, and elsewhere, will be filled by fossil fuels, said other experts.

"Disruption to the Japanese nuclear industry means that they are going to be relying increasingly on oil and gas for power generation," said Julian Lee, an analyst at the Centre for Global Energy Studies, a London think tank backed by the oil industry.

Jacques Percebois, head of the Centre for Research on Energy Economy and Law at Monpellier University, agreed the fossil fuel industry would be early beneficiaries as it could provide gigawatts of quick power.

"Those who declare a moratorium on new nuclear energy should understand that the available solution for meeting large-scale energy demands today is not solar panels, it's gas," he told AFP.

Burning natural gas contributes to global warming, but less so than oil, and far less than coal.

"The major risk is that, facing an energy shortage, coal-fired reactors with coal imported from Australia are built," said Cedric Philibert, an analyst in the renewable energy division of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris.

"Japan's greenhouse gas emissions would skyrocket."

At the same time, though, a slowdown in nuclear investment would also steer money into renewable energies, which since the 2008 financial crisis have been struggling to expand their share of the world's power market, several experts said.

"This should lead to an incremental upside in terms of demand for wind and solar projects," said Madlani of Barclays.

"It could mean 10 percent more wind and solar being demanded each year for the next couple of years," he told AFP.

Madlani also pointed to current high oil prices and the increasing cost of oil extraction, especially after the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

For Christiana Figueres, the United Nations' top climate change official, the meltdown will probably push up the costs of nuclear energy, making renewables more competitive.

"Japan will change mid-term world energy scenarios," she said in a Twitter message on Sunday from a meeting of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Berlin. ( Agence France Presse )

READ MORE - Japan nuclear crisis mixed message for climate change