Environment

• Tuesday, April 26th 2011 - 14:12 UTC

  Migrating humpback whales have jetliners’ navigational precision

  

  Researchers based at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand have found that migrating humpback whales achieve navigational precision usually associated with jetliners or arrows.

• Tuesday, April 26th 2011 - 03:28 UTC

  Japan begins discussion of rebuilding budget; damages cost over 300 billion USD

  

  Japan's cabinet approved almost US$50 billion of spending for post-earthquake rebuilding, the country's biggest public works effort in six decades. The emergency budget of 4 trillion Yen, which is likely be followed by more reconstruction spending packages, is still dwarfed by the overall cost of damages caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, estimated at US$300 billion.

• Monday, April 25th 2011 - 06:18 UTC

  Scientific studies reveal Chile’s most active fault lines and warning for major projects

  

  New studies undertaken by Universidad Católica and Universidad de Chile have identified the five most active fault lines in Chile in the hopes of protecting people from future earthquake damage.

• Sunday, April 24th 2011 - 01:05 UTC

  Antarctica ozone hole linked to Australia’s recent series of droughts

  

  The Antarctic ozone hole is about one-third to blame for Australia's recent series of droughts, scientists say. Writing in in the journal Science, they conclude that the hole has shifted wind and rainfall patterns right across the Southern Hemisphere, even the tropics.

• Friday, April 22nd 2011 - 04:59 UTC

  Humpback whales return to Chilean waters; Punta Arenas planning watch-posts

  

  Humpback whales, once hunted nearly to extinction, started returning to Chilean seas in the 1990s. By 2003 so many had appeared that Chile created a protected coastal area, Francisco Coloane with marine park in it to assure the whales would have the nutrients they need to thrive.

• Thursday, April 21st 2011 - 21:33 UTC

  Turbulence from speeding motor boats kills zooplankton, reveals study

  

  Turbulence generated by speeding motor boats kills significant numbers of zooplankton, a study has revealed for the first time. Experiments on copepods, tiny crustaceans that live and float in water, show that a third die in waters frequented by propeller-driven boats. That is significantly more than in bodies of water not used by boats.

• Wednesday, April 20th 2011 - 01:07 UTC

  Google invests in the world’s largest wind farm in the state of Oregon

  

  Google Inc. said announced this week that together with two Japanese partners they will pay General Electric Co. about 500 million US dollars for a majority equity stake in the world's largest wind farm, under construction in Oregon.

• Monday, April 18th 2011 - 09:57 UTC

  Pacific male humpback whales change their mating songs over a two year period

  

  Male humpback whales have their own version of the hit parade, researchers say. Within regional populations of the whales, males all sing the same mating song. But the pattern of the song changes over time, with new versions spreading across the ocean and nearly always from west to east, according to the study published online this month in the journal Current Biology.

• Monday, April 18th 2011 - 06:38 UTC

  Arctic coastline crumbling due to effects of climate change, says German study

  

  Arctic coastlines are crumbling away and retreating at the rate of two metres or more a year due to the effects of climate change, it has been claimed. In some locations, up to 30 metres of the shore has been vanishing every year.

• Wednesday, April 13th 2011 - 00:30 UTC

  Paraguay admits that the dengue epidemic is the most severe in a decade

  

  Paraguay’s Minister of Public Health Esperanza Martinez acknowledged on Tuesday that the current mosquito transmitted dengue epidemic is far more severe than that of 2007, considered the worst in recent times, and claimed she has had limited support from city councils