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POPSPristine 14-million-year-old Valley Found in Antarctica
An abrupt and dramatic climate cooling of 8°C in 200,000 years forced the extinction of tundra plants and insects and brought interior Antarctica into a perpetual deep-freeze from which it has never emerged, though may do again as a result of climate change. The international team combined evidence from glaciers, from the preserved ecology, volcanic ashes and modeling to reveal the full extent of the big freeze in a part of Antarctica called the Dry Valleys. If we can understand how the Antarctic got into this relatively cold climate phase, then that can help predict how global warming might push us back out of this phase. For the vast majority of Earth history there was no permanent ice like is common today at the poles and even the tropics at high elevation. There's been a progressive cooling going on for 50 million years to get us into this permanent-ice mode; the formation of a permanent ice sheet on Antarctica plays a big role in that cooling.
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POPSSupercontinent Pangea Gets Climate Rethink From Discovery... Topic interested me as it has been some time since any rethinking of the Ancient Past stagnated after the Kahoutek Comet hit Earth and resulting global cooling killed off the dinosaurs. The Paleozoic Age is history's most diverse zoological period other than modern times. Learning more of this ancient past helps us understand the cycle of life and death that wipes out upwards of 92% of Earth species when the cycle occurs. The relative time-frame is every 50 million years o0r so.. The last one? The destruction caused by Kahoutek was roughly 65 million years ago. To Say the Least, We are Overdue...
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POPSDr. David Evans: Australian Greenhouse Office - 1999 to 2005
There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts: 1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever. If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again. When the signature was found to be missing in 2007 (after the latest IPCC report),
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POPSFlu comes fresh from Asia every year. The flu virus tends to die out every winter outside the tropics. It also seems to mutate in hot rainy weather, the conditions that can be found in the 'rainy seasons' that occur throughout the Asian tropics. Because of the movement of the rainy seasons, the virus can stay 'live' all year round.
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POPSForget global warming The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased. It's way too early to claim the same is about to happen again, but then it's way too early for the hysteria of the global warmers, too.
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POPSThe Light Side Of MS -Other environmental factors that may also increase the risk of MS include infection with the Epstein-Barr virus and cigarette smoking.-
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POPSTropical Virus Moves to Italy Aided by global warming and globalization, Castiglione di Cervia has the dubious distinction of playing host to the first outbreak in modern Europe of a disease that had previously been seen only in the tropics. Are we going to see more of this?
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POPSClimate models vs reality Lead author David Douglass elaborates: The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming.
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POPSGiant African Millipedes In South Africa these are called, "Songololo" (pronounced: songa-law-law). Although we don't have the giant ones, some of ours in the sub-tropics are also big. Measured one just now and it was six inches. These are one of the most common of insects in my area.
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POPSDANGER:Rampant Deforestation Of Species-Rich Tropical Forests SPIEGEL: Are you saying that the greenhouse effect could even help improve biodiversity in the long term? Reichholf: Exactly. And this can also be clearly inferred from the insights of evolutionary biology. Biodiversity reached its peak at the end of the tertiary age, a few million years ago, when it was much warmer than it is today. The development went in a completely different direction when the ice ages came and temperatures dropped, causing a massive extinction of species, especially in the north. This also explains why Europe has such a high capacity to absorb species from warmer regions. It just so happens that we have many unoccupied ecological niches in our less biodiverse part of the world. Biologically speaking, we are children of the tropics. Wherever man lives, he artificially creates tropical living conditions. We do this with warm clothing, and with heated offices and homes. A tropical temperature of about 27 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) prevails.
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POPSFree Speech Ain't Free "Everybody gets to say their piece. That's the deal. Even if half the world considers that "piece" total BS. Face it, half of what WE believe usually turns out to be total BS. Beliefs have this nagging tendency to mutate over time. It wasn't long ago they burned people as witches for not thinking the world was flat. Wasn't it Cardinal Richelieu who said treason is just a matter of dates?"
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POPSLeptospirosis leaves 9 dead in Nicaragua Leptospirosis, is a disease that occurs worldwide, but is more common in the tropics. It can have two phases. The second phase, also known as Weil's disease,which can occur if no treatment is received, and can result in kidney or liver failure, menangitis or respiratory ailments. It is often mistaken for other diseases, but can be confirmed with a blood or urine test, and treated with antibiotics. It is often caught through cuts and abrasions, while wading or swimming through water infected by animal or human urine
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