The formation of a mysterious and massive crater in a remote Siberian peninsula triggered an explosion that was heard more than 100km (62 miles) away and caused the sky to glow. First discovered in 2013 by reindeer herders, its formation has become one of the biggest enigmas in the region. When it first formed, locals dubbed it the "end of the world" crater.
In the list of the world's great companies, Unaoil is nowhere to be seen. But for the best part of the past two decades, the family business from Monaco has systematically corrupted the global oil industry, distributing many millions of dollars worth of bribes on behalf of corporate behemoths including Samsung, Rolls-Royce, Halliburton and Australia's own Leighton Holdings.When in doubt, move to Finland.
The iconic cuckoo is in danger of vanishing from Britain after the population dropped by a fifth in one year, experts have warned.Curry will save the world!Numbers of the migrant bird fell by a shocking 21 per cent between 2008 and 2009, according to the Breeding Birds Survey (BBS).Cuckoos have been designated a 'red-list' species by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) - meaning that more than half of the population has disappeared in the past 25 years.Damage to the bird's winter habitat in West Africa and a decline in the large insect species it eats while on British soil are being blamed for the downturn, although experts still maintain there could be other reasons.
Curry spices could hold the key to reducing the enormous greenhouse gas emissions given off by grazing animals such as sheep, cows and goats, scientists have claimed.
Research carried out at Newcastle University has found that coriander and turmeric – spices traditionally used to flavour curries – can reduce by up to 40 per cent the amount of methane that is produced by bacteria in a sheep's stomach and then emitted into the atmosphere when the animal burps.
Working rather like an anti-biotic, the spices were found to kill the methane-producing "bad" bacteria in the animal's gut while allowing the "good" bacteria to flourish. The findings are part of an ongoing study led by Dr Abdul Shakoor Chaudhry at Newcastle University.
Fossil hunters in Australia have discovered a cave filled with the 15-million-year-old remains of prehistoric marsupials.
The rare haul of fossils includes 26 skulls from an extinct, sheep-sized marsupial with giant claws.
The finds come from the Riversleigh World Heritage fossil field in north-west Queensland.
Coventry Valley Farm is one of 15 Vermont farms working with Stonyfield Farm Inc., whose yogurt is made with their organic milk, to reduce the cows' intestinal methane by feeding them flaxseed, alfalfa, and grasses high in Omega 3 fatty acids. The gas cows belch is the dairy industry's biggest greenhouse gas contributor, research shows, most of it emitted from the front and not the back end of the cow.
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To satisfy consumers' demands for sustainable production, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy in Rosemont, Ill., is looking at everything from growing feed crops to trucking milk to reduce the industry's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. That would be the equivalent of removing about 1.25 million cars from U.S. roads every year, said Naczi, who manages the program.
One way is by feeding cows alfalfa, flax and grasses, all high in Omega 3s, instead of corn or soy, said Nancy Hirschberg, head of Stonyfield's Greener Cow Project. The feed rebalances the cows' rumen, the first stomach of ruminants, and cuts down on gas, she said. Another way is to change the bacteria in a cow's rumen, Naczi said.
When Stonyfield first analyzed its contribution to global warming in the late 1990s, the company thought its factory in Londonderry, N.H., produced the most greenhouse gases.
"And when we got the report and our number one impact on climate change was the milk production, we were completely stunned," she said.
A study showed that the single biggest source was the cow's enteric emissions: gas.
The company funded energy audits on farms and research on small manure digesters so farmers could produce energy from methane gas.
But Hirschberg said she had no idea what to do about enteric emissions. Then she learned what Group Danone of France, majority owner of Stonyfield and best known in the U.S. for its Dannon products, was doing about its methane.
By feeding their cows alfalfa, flax and grasses, they were cutting down on the gas passed.
The milk is tested at a lab at the University of Vermont to determine its fat content, a process patented by French nutrition company Valorex SAS, through which the enteric emissions are calculated.
Since January, Coventry Valley Farm has reduced its cows' belches by 13 percent. At another farm, they've gone down 18 percent.
Maikshilo and Dellert have also noticed a difference in Hester, Rosebud, Pristine and their other cows. The coats of the black and white Holsteins and brown Jerseys are shinier and they've had fewer foot problems and no stomach ailments, they say.
So far, it hasn't cost them any more for their custom-made grain, which the cows only get in the winter. Now they're out grazing on grass in the pasture, getting as many Omega 3s. And the farm's vet bills have gone down.
It's a win-win for farmers, said Naczi.
"It's just the right thing to do," he said.
Take that, ethanol!Scandinavian Biogas is investing about 10 million euros to upgrade a wastewater treatment plant in Ulsan and will soon start accepting food and other waste for processing into biogas, said Scandinavian Biogas President and CEO Thomas Davidsson.
"Producing biogas is a very effective way of taking care of the waste" as it can be used for heat, electricity and vehicle fuel, Davidsson said in an interview Wednesday. He was in Seoul to participate in the Seoul Climate Change Expo held in conjunction with the third C40 Large Cities Climate Summit.
Turning food waste into biogas can also contribute to efforts to stop global warming.
"If you dump it into the sea, methane will be produced," he said. "And methane released into the air is 21 times more aggressive than carbon dioxide. So it has a great impact on the greenhouse effect."
Ulsan is not alone in looking to Sweden for help. Seoul, South Korea's largest city with a population of over 10 million people, also sees potential in biogas and has teamed up with Swedish Biogas International AB on a pilot project.
"There is a lot of potential," Kjell Enstrom, who heads the company's operations in South Korea, said Thursday in an interview.
South Korea has the ability to produce biogas, Enstrom said, though not of a clean enough level to be used as fuel. That gives companies from Sweden, which has championed the technology, an advantage.
"Within 10 years I think it will be the main fuel in Sweden," he said.
Davidsson, of Scandinavian Biogas, said his company plans to initially sell the biogas to an industrial user in Ulsan for internal heating. The company has an agreement to run the facility for at least 15 years, he said.
Ulsan's Park said that as a long-term goal, the city wants to adopt the biogas system to all its public buses.
Davidsson said that among the advantages of biogas is that is a technology that, unlike ethanol, does not draw resources away from food production.
Methane being released in the north in huge amounts because of melting ice:So. If we don't get washed out of our homes by the rising sea levels, blown out of them by more category 5 hurricanes, tossed out of them by foreclosures and another Great Depression... we can be gassed to death in them by methane...
The U.K.'s Independent reported today some pretty shocking news in "Exclusive: The methane time bomb":
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists ...
The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.
Assuming these findings are published in a peer-reviewed publication, as is planned, they should be taken quite seriously for four reasons. First, many fear that a huge methane release is what happened during the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Second, releasing even a small fraction of the sub-sea methane would make a stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions at non-catastrophic concentrations all but impossible.
Third, as NOAA reported earlier this year, levels of methane rose sharply last year for the first time since 1998..[snip]
Fourth, the findings are apparently based on very new and credible in situ measurements:
Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane -- sometimes at up to 100 times background levels -- over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.
