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Critics worry that military interest in Arctic creating massive junkyard |
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Written by Administrator
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By: JORGE BARRERA OTTAWA (CP) - Canada's increased military presence in the Arctic poses environmental dangers as bullets, shells, shell-casings and other war-game detritus winds up in ecologically sensitive waters and tundra, say critics. The Canadian Forces mounted four operations in the Arctic this year, one more than in 2006, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently promised to build a deep-sea port and military training centre to bolster Canada's claim over the region. Russia recently made its own move to assert its sovereignty over the top of the world by placing a flag beneath the North Pole. The federal government has carefully documented its stepped-up Arctic presence with official photographs on the National Defence website showing soldiers firing ammunition rounds.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 20 August 2007 )
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Cyclones ahead - Be prepared |
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Written by Administrator
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by K. R. Abhayasingha, Former Director of Meteorology It is not too long after the second inter-monsoon, 2006 which recorded tremendous amount of weather-related natural hazards in Sri Lanka. With the beginning of the second inter monsoon season in the second week of October, 2006 the country experienced the typical hazardous weather conditions. Torrential rain and lightning associated with thunderstorms ended up with a calamity; death and property damage. Weather-related natural hazards are recurrent yearly as the seasonal climate patterns repeat every year. We are reaching the last quarter of the year 2007. The rains fell so far (May-Mid August) during the Southwest Monsoon season seems to be lower than the average for the relevant period. But even with such weather situation natural hazards were reported from a number of places. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 20 August 2007 )
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Uncertainty of rainfall breeds cooperation in birds, study finds |
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Written by Administrator
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Rather than striking out to raise their family, members of some bird species cooperate to help raise their siblings, nephews, nieces, cousins -- or even unrelated young. Researchers have long noted which factors lead to these seemingly altruistic decisions, but now for the first time, Cornell researchers have linked a specific environmental factor to the evolution of cooperative family life in numerous bird species: unpredictable rainfall. In the Aug. 21 issue of Current Biology, authors Dustin Rubenstein and Irby Lovette report that among African starlings, cooperative breeding is most common among species that live in savannas, where the rainfall varies greatly from one year to the next. "When you don't know what conditions you will be facing in the next breeding season, it pays -- in an evolutionary sense -- to live and breed in family groups because more chicks survive over the long haul," said lead author Rubenstein, Cornell Ph.D. '06, now at the University of California-Berkeley, who started the study as a graduate student in the Fuller Evolutionary Biology Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 20 August 2007 )
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