Harvey is an unprecedented disaster made worse by poor planning

Since Friday, Hurricane Harvey has dumped more than two feet of rain in Houston and parts of the Texas Gulf Coast, triggering unprecedented flooding and causing at least five deaths. The storm, which began as a tropical storm early last week and strengthened to a full-fledged major hurricane by the time it made landfall, has already produced a one-in-500-year flood event, with the National Weather Service calling it “unknown and beyond anything experienced.”

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First Armadillo Confirmed In Champaign County

Armadillos are native to the southern United States, but the animals have slowly been moving north. And, Champaign County recently saw its first armadillo. Armadillos have been in southern Illinois since the 1990s. But, Champaign County saw its first documented armadillo earlier this month at Urbana High School.

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Texas flood damage from Harvey may match Katrina

Flood damage in Texas from Hurricane Harvey may equal that from 2005's Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, said an insurance research group on Sunday. As heavy rain pounded Houston and Texas's coastal counties, the Insurance Information Institute said it was still

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Governments and companies to be hit with 'wave of legal action' over climate change

A "wave of legal action" over climate change has already begun and cases will become more likely to succeed as the scientists get better at attributing extreme weather events to global warming, activists have warned. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, lawyers from ClientEarth in London and Earth & Water Law in Washington DC said events previously regarded as “acts of God” could increasingly land humans with a bill for damages.

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Power company kills nuclear plant, plans $6 billion in solar, battery investment

On Tuesday, power provider Duke Energy Florida announced a settlement with the state’s public service commission (PSC) to cease plans to build a nuclear plant in western Florida. The utility instead intends to invest $6 billion in solar panels, grid-tied batteries, grid modernization projects, and electric vehicle charging areas. The new plan involves the installation of 700MW of solar capacity over four years in the western Florida area.

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Amazon study discovers 381 new species in two-year period

Conservation charity WWF warns that the species were found in areas at risk from human activity.

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Sunrise at Yellowstone Lake

Sunrise through steam from thermal features along the shore of Yellowstone Lake. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.

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Houston’s flooding shows what happens when you ignore science and let developers run rampant

The city's gung-ho approach to development has destroyed the area's natural ability to drain away hurricane floodwaters.

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Residents "fighting for their lives" after record rainfall in Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas

The Texas cities of Beaumont and Port Arthur were watery wastelands Wednesday after they felt the wrath of Harvey. The storm that inundated Houston swamped the cities with a record 30 inches of rainfall, unleashed flash flooding that police said claimed two lives in Beaumont and forced hundreds of residents to flee to local shelters.

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The real cause of natural disasters might surprise you.

Man-made disasters, the kinds that are caused by a lack of preparedness, willful ignorance, corruption, and normalcy bias, are very common. They happen every day. There’s nothing “natural” about corruption and mismanagement. That’s what’s really responsible for most disasters.

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Traces of 6,000-year-old wine discovered in Sicilian cave

Residue in terracotta jars suggests drink was being made and consumed on the island in the fourth millennium BC

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Aftermath of Harvey

A police officer wades through the Hurricane Harvey floodwaters in Alvin, Texas.

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Floods in India, Bangladesh and Nepal kill 1,200 and leave millions homeless

At least 1,200 people have been killed and millions have been left homeless following devastating floods that have hit India, Bangladesh and Nepal, in one of the worst flooding disasters to have affected the region in years. International aid agencies said thousands of villages have been cut off by flooding with people being deprived of food and clean water for days.

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How 12,000 Tonnes of Dumped Orange Peel Grew Into a Landscape Nobody Expected to Find

An experimental conservation project that was abandoned and almost forgotten about, has ended up producing an amazing ecological win nearly two decades after it was dreamt up.

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Why Those Floating Fire Ant Colonies In Texas Are Such Bad News

Ants didn't take over the world by being stupid and cowardly. Case in point: Rafts of fire ants have been spotted floating around floodwaters in Houston, Texas, colonies banding together to weather super-storm Harvey.

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South Asia Is Also Experiencing The Worst Flooding In Decades And The Photos Are Horrifying

Extreme rainfall has led to devastating floods across Nepal, India, and Bangladesh, killing nearly 1,200 people and displacing millions.

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First Armadillo Confirmed In Champaign County

Armadillos are native to the southern United States, but the animals have slowly been moving north. And, Champaign County recently saw its first armadillo. Armadillos have been in southern Illinois since the 1990s. But, Champaign County saw its first documented armadillo earlier this month at Urbana High School.

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Harvey Didn’t Come Out of the Blue. Now is the Time to Talk About Climate Change.

Now is exactly the time to talk about climate change — and all the other systemic injustices that turn disasters like Harvey into human catastrophes.

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A year-long observation reveals the secret life of a tree and its animal visitors | Aeon Videos

‘There are trees where to lay your eggs or where to find a safe cover; trees on which to look for food or, simply, to scratch your back and thus leave behind a trace of your passage’ – Bruno D’Amicis and Umberto Esposito

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Harvey is an unprecedented disaster made worse by poor planning

Since Friday, Hurricane Harvey has dumped more than two feet of rain in Houston and parts of the Texas Gulf Coast, triggering unprecedented flooding and causing at least five deaths. The storm, which began as a tropical storm early last week and strengthened to a full-fledged major hurricane by the time it made landfall, has already produced a one-in-500-year flood event, with the National Weather Service calling it “unknown and beyond anything experienced.”

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Birling Gap beach: 150 treated after chemical 'mist'

Police say the gas cloud which hit the Sussex coast on Sunday now appears to have cleared.

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Why Didn't Officials Order The Evacuation Of Houston?

The specter of Hurricane Rita loomed large. In 2005, millions of people tried to flee Houston — and spent hours trapped on hot, deadly roads.

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The ocean is a strange place after dark

Moonlight triggers the world’s biggest orgy, strange creatures emerge from the depths, and waves glow blue. Some phenomena in the ocean can only be witnessed after dark.

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Top diver’s death casts long shadow over deep beauty of the Blue Hole

The ‘underwater cathedral’ at the edge of the Red Sea is arguably the most perilous diving spot in the world – what lies behind its fearsome reputation?

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One of the 'worst droughts in living memory' - two years without rain in Baidoa, Somalia is affecting millions

Baidoa in Somalia has seen no rain in two years. Cattle are dead, wells are dry and fields are empty – certain diseases such as cholera have become endemic. The drought is the most severe in living memory. Aid agencies believe more than 6 million people in Somalia need assistance, of whom about half are threatened with famine. People are leaving rural areas to where they think they will find food and water supplies, which humanitarian funding cannot sustain.

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Teenager caught smuggling tiger cub into US from Mexico

A Californian teenager has been arrested after he tried to smuggle a male Bengal tiger cub across the US border from Mexico. Luis Eudoro Valencia, 18, was charged with smuggling the animal into the US after officials found it lying on the floor of his vehicle. He was caught at the Otay Mesa border crossing in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

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Switch to Renewables Would Save 7 Million Lives Per Year, Create 24 Million Jobs

Californian scientists said a fossil fuel phase-out is achievable that would contain climate change, deliver energy entirely from wind, water and sunlight to 139 nations, and save up to 7 million lives each year. They said it would also create a net gain of 24 million long-term jobs, all by 2050, and at the same time limit global warming to 1.5°C or less.

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Why Avocados Shouldn't Exist

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‘You will remember this storm for the rest of your life’

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requested Friday afternoon that President Donald Trump issue a major disaster declaration, which would trigger federal aid.

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How Fossil Fuel Money Made Climate Change Denial the Word of God

In 2005, at its annual meeting in Washington, D.C., the National Association of Evangelicals was on the verge of doing something novel: affirming science. Specifically, the 30-million-member group, which represents 51 Christian denominations, was debating how to advance a new platform called “For the Health of a Nation.”

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Carbon nanotubes worth their salt

Scientists have developed carbon nanotube pores that can exclude salt from seawater. The team also found that water permeability in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with diameters smaller than a nanometer (0.8 nm) exceeds that of wider carbon nanotubes by an order of magnitude.

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139 countries could be powered by entirely by wind, sunlight and water by 2050

More than 70 per cent of the countries in the world – including the UK, US, China and other major economies – could run entirely on energy created by wind, water and solar by 2050, according to a roadmap developed by scientists. And they pointed out that doing so would not only mean the world would avoid dangerous global warming, but also prevent millions of premature deaths a year and create about 24 million more jobs than were lost.

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Russian tanker sails through Arctic without icebreaker for first time

A Russian tanker has travelled through the northern sea route in record speed and without an icebreaker escort for the first time, highlighting how climate change is opening up the high Arctic. The $300m Christophe de Margerie carried a cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Hammerfest in Norway to Boryeong in South Korea in 22 days, about 30% quicker than the conventional southern shipping route through the Suez Canal.

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First Tanker Crosses Northern Sea Route without Ice Breaker

Rising Arctic temperatures are boosting commercial shipping in the region, worrying environmentalists.

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Typhoon batters Hong Kong and south China, three dead in Macau

Typhoon Hato, a maximum category 10 storm, slammed into Hong Kong on Wednesday lashing the Asian financial hub with wind and rain that uprooted trees and forced most businesses to close, while in some places big waves flooded seaside streets.

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The Last Wild Apple Forests

Granny Smiths, Fujis, and Pink Ladies can all be traced back to Kazakhstan, where apples still grow wild.

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Exclusive: Tesla's 'long-haul' electric truck aims for 200 to 300 miles on a charge

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) next month plans to unveil an electric big-rig truck with a working range of 200 to 300 miles, Reuters has learned, a sign that the electric car maker is targeting regional hauling for its entry into the commercial freight market.

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China launches 8,000 water clean-up projects worth $100 billion in first half of 2017

China launched nearly 8,000 water clean-up projects in the first half of 2017 with projected total investment of 667.4 billion yuan ($100 billion), the environment ministry said on Thursday. The projects were devised as part of a 2015 action plan to treat and prevent water pollution, and cover 325 contaminated groundwater sites across the country, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) said in a notice.

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Scientist Poop Will No Longer Be Pumped into the Antarctic Ocean

Living in Antarctica comes with many challenges, not the least of which is what to do with your poo. It's been a long-standing predicament for the scientists who spend extended periods on the continent, but a research station operated by Australia is now planning to change its poop-removal strategy. And its high-tech solution could help us as we prepare for human visits to other remote environments, like Mars.

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At a time of zealotry, Spinoza matters more than ever

At a time of religious zealotry, Spinoza’s fearless defence of intellectual freedom is more timely than ever

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Wasp by Martinus

Acrylic and spraypaint on canvas -- 80 cm * 60 cm

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Do Dogs Know Themselves?

The classic self-recognition test gets a makeover for dogs, using smell not sight

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A Thorium-Salt Reactor Has Fired Up for the First Time in Four Decades

The road to cleaner, meltdown-proof nuclear power has taken a big step forward.

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Thousands of Atlantic salmon escape fish farm near Victoria after nets rip

Thousands of Atlantic salmon have escaped into Pacific waters east of Victoria after nets containing an estimated 305,000 fish were damaged at a U.S. fish farm in the San Juan Islands on Saturday. The company, Cooke Aquaculture, blamed "exceptionally high tides and currents coinciding with this week's solar eclipse" for the failure of the net pen near Cypress Island.

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A black bear got punched after entering a Canadian home

A Canadian man had to punch a black bear in the nose to force it outside after it followed a toddler into a British Columbia family's home. Froude was home with her two sons when she heard her two-year-old yell: "Mom, look!" She turned and saw a black bear walking through her home's sliding glass doors. Ms Froude locked herself and her children in a bedroom while a family friend banged pots and chased it with a chair.

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DIY Powerwall Builders Are Using Recycled Laptop Batteries to Power Their Homes

Who needs Tesla?

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Dinosaur-killing Asteroid Could Have Caused 2 Years of Darkness

Tremendous amounts of soot, lofted into the air from global wildfires following a massive asteroid strike 66 million years ago, would have plunged Earth into darkness for nearly two years, new research finds.

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Orange is the new green: How orange peels revived a Costa Rican forest

In the mid-1990s, 1,000 truckloads of orange peels and orange pulp were purposefully unloaded onto a barren pasture in a Costa Rican national park. Today, that area is covered in lush, vine-laden forest.

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Endangered whales won't reach half of pre-hunting numbers by 2100, study says

Research finds endangered Antarctic blue, fin and southern right whales struggling to recover despite hunting bans

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Global Solar Capacity Set to Surpass Nuclear for the First Time

The global solar market has been downgraded for 2017. A worrying sign? Hardly. Even with a 4-gigawatt downward adjustment in projected installations, it's still going to be a record-breaking year for new solar capacity additions -- yet again. The 81 gigawatts expected this year are more than double the amount of solar capacity installed in 2014. And it's 32 times more solar deployed a decade ago. (In the year 2000, global installations totaled 150 megawatts.)

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