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Environmental News Network -- Know Your Environment
The number of major floods in natural rivers across Europe and North America has not increased overall during the past 80 years, a recent study has concluded. Instead researchers found that the occurrence of major flooding in North America and Europe often varies with North Atlantic Ocean temperature patterns.
A team of scientists has identified a small marine predator that once patrolled the ocean floor and grabbed its prey with 50 spines deployed from its head.
Named Capinatator praetermissus, this ancient creature is roughly 10 centimetres long and represents a new species within the group of animals known as chaetognaths – small, swimming marine carnivores also known as arrow worms.
Famously, the use of caged birds to alert miners to the invisible dangers of gases such as carbon monoxide gave rise to the cautionary metaphor “canary in a coal mine.”
But other than the fact that exposure to toxic gases in a confined space kills caged birds before affecting humans — providing a timely warning to miners — what do we know about the effects of air pollution on birds?
Not as much as you’d think, according to researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The Montreal Protocol, the international treaty adopted to restore Earth’s protective ozone layer in 1989, has significantly reduced emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals from the United States. In a twist, a new study shows the 30-year old treaty has had a major side benefit of reducing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions from the U.S.
That’s because the ozone-depleting substances controlled by the treaty are also potent greenhouse gases, with heat-trapping abilities up to 10,000 times greater than carbon dioxide over 100 years.
The fourteenth tropical cyclone of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean hurricane season formed about 200 miles away from Wake Island and a NASA-NOAA satellite saw it take on a comma-shape.
NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite passed over Tropical Storm 14W on August 11 at 0118 UTC (Aug. 10 at 9:18 p.m. EDT) shortly after it formed. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard took a visible light picture of the storm that showed thunderstorms around the low-level center and a thick band wrapping from the east to south to west, forming a comma-shape.
Pressure to feel upbeat can make you feel downbeat, while embracing your darker moods can actually make you feel better in the long run, according to new UC Berkeley research.
“We found that people who habitually accept their negative emotions experience fewer negative emotions, which adds up to better psychological health,” said study senior author Iris Mauss, an associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.
