Environment

• Friday, August 10th 2012 - 07:16 UTC

  Volcanic pumice mass, size of Belgium floating off the coast of New Zealand

  

  A mass of small volcanic rocks nearly the size of Belgium has been discovered floating off the coast of New Zealand, reports the Auckland media. The stretch of golf-ball-size pumice rocks was first spotted this week by a New Zealand air force plane about 1,000 kilometres northwest of Auckland.

• Wednesday, August 8th 2012 - 06:57 UTC

  Black-browed Albatross success in Falklands not reflected in South Georgia

  

  The July edition of the South Georgia Newsletter has an interesting comment on the recent announcement that the Falklands’ population of black-browed Albatross has seen a healthy increase in the number of breeding birds, information that has been submitted to BirdLife International for use in the Red List assessment process

• Tuesday, August 7th 2012 - 15:19 UTC

  Professional fishermen to catch sharks that are attacking surfers in Reunion Islands

  

  France will hire professional fishermen to kill some 20 sharks off the Indian Ocean island of Reunion this week in an effort to understand the reasons for a series of attacks in the surfing hotspot.

• Wednesday, August 1st 2012 - 22:33 UTC

  Research shows Antarctica at one time had mild weather and palms and conifers

  

  Scientists drilling deep into the edge of modern Antarctica have pulled up proof that palm trees once grew there. Analyses of pollen and spores and the remains of tiny creatures have given a climatic picture of the early Eocene period, about 53 million years ago.

• Tuesday, July 31st 2012 - 00:54 UTC

  Uruguay and NOAA work in programs to track sharks and sea turtles

  

  Uruguay with the help of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is becoming a pioneer in the marking and tracking of sharks and turtles in the western South Atlantic, which allows to establish migrating routes and other valuable data for the protection of these species.

• Monday, July 30th 2012 - 07:04 UTC

  Soaring costs delay Barrick-Gold Andes mining project delayed a full year

  

  Barrick Gold, the world’s biggest gold miner, says its capital costs to develop a giant mine high in the Andes could reach 8 billion dollars and has delayed production until 2014.

• Friday, July 27th 2012 - 23:59 UTC

  “Veggie” diet blamed for poor performance of China’s women volleyball team

  

  Fearing tainted meat, China's women's volleyball team has stuck to a strict vegetarian diet for the last three weeks, which the team's coach is now blaming for his athletes' abysmal performance.

• Thursday, July 26th 2012 - 19:42 UTC

  FAO and OIE call on countries to comply with destruction of “rinderpest” virus samples

  

  The UN's food agency FAO and the OIE (Animal health organization) called on countries on to comply with a 2011 global moratorium and destroy potentially dangerous “rinderpest” virus samples or put them into safe storage.

• Thursday, July 26th 2012 - 18:38 UTC

  Sea Shepherd leader Watson skips bail fearing extradition to Japan

  

  Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson has skipped bail and fled from Germany, with his supporters claiming they fear he would have been extradited to Japan over Antarctic whaling protests.

• Wednesday, July 25th 2012 - 07:42 UTC

  Greenland’s massive ice sheet “unprecedented” melt puzzles Nasa scientists

  

  Greenland's massive ice sheet has melted this month over an usually large area, Nasa has said. Scientists said the “unprecedented” melting took place over a larger area that ever detected in three decades of satellite observation.