The sun has spat out two clouds of plasma in the past two days, which might trigger beautiful aurora displays observable much farther south than usual.
The twocoronal mass ejections(CMEs), eruptions of charged particles from thesun’s upper atmosphereknown as the corona, burst from the sun on Aug. 14 and 15 respectively, according to the U.K. forecasterMet Office(opens in new tab). As the CMEs cross the 900,000-mile (150 million kilometers) distance between the star and our planet, they might cannibalize each other, according toSpaceWeather.com(opens in…
Water may have been brought to Earth by asteroids from the outer edges of the solar system, scientists said after analyzing rare samples collected on a six-year Japanese space mission.
In a quest to shed light on the origins of life and the formation of the universe, researchers are scrutinizingmaterial brought back to earth in 2020from the asteroid Ryugu.
Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe, which is roughly the size of a refrigerator, launched in December 2014, landing on the diamond-shaped asteroid Ryugu, which means “dragon palace” in Japanese, located 185 million miles away. When it plummeted to Earth in 2020, the capsule provided a stunning show above the Australian outback, streaking across the sky as a dazzling fireball.
The toll of nuclear war would be instantly catastrophic for those who are within the immediate path of the weapons. But a new study shows just how deadly the scope of such a war would be.
A nuclear blast would cause worldwide famine, according to the study, published in Nature Food on Monday, as massive amounts of soot would block sunlight, disrupt climate systems and limit food production.
“[It] would be a global catastrophe for food security,” the authors said.
Even a relatively small nuclear conflict, such as one between India and Pakistan, would be devastating, researchers found. A week-long nuclear war involving about 100 weapons and the release of 5 Tg, about 11 billion pounds, of soot would kill 27 million people directly. The study said after two years, with international trade at a halt and a 34.7ºF temperature drop, the famine it creates would kill 255 million people, assuming that the rest of the population got the minimum food needed to survive, about 1,999 calories per capita per day.
The largest scenario examined, a week-long war involving 4,400 weapons and 150 Tg, or 330.6 billion pounds, of soot – such as one that would occur between the U.S., its allies and Russia – would kill 360 million people directly – and more than 5 billion from starvation, the study said. The density of the soot would reduce global temperatures by more than 58ºF. WATCH MOREU.N. asks for halt in fighting near Ukraine nuclear plant; bothsides blaming each other for attacks
“While amounts of soot injection into the stratosphere from the use of fewer nuclear weapons would have smaller global impacts,” researchers said in their article, “once a nuclear war starts, it may be very difficult to limit escalation.”
Using climate, crop and fishery models, researchers found that the climatic impacts of soot from nuclear war would peak in the first few years but last for about a decade.
In the worst-case scenario, when 150 Tg of soot is unleashed, the global average calorie production from crops would decline by about 90% just three to four years after the nuclear war, the study found.
“The changes would induce a catastrophic disruption of global food markets,” the study says, “as even a 7% global yield decline compared with the control simulation would exceed the largest anomaly ever recorded since the beginning of Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) observational records in 1961.”
Lead author Lili Xia, a climate scientist at Rutgers University, told Nature that the situation would be “really bad.”
“A large percentage of the people will be starving,” they said.
Food intake (kcal per capita per day) in Year 2 after different nuclear war soot injections.NATURE FOOD
The findings are the result of looking at a range of scenarios. The scientists considered whether people would continue to farm animals or use any remaining crops to feed people instead. They also assumed that people would repurpose biofuel crops for human consumption, that food waste would be limited and that global food trade would halt as nations tried to save their own.
But not all nations of the world would face the same fate under the scenarios studied. Under the smallest nuclear war situation studied, researchers found that the Middle East, parts of Central America and parts of Asia would see some food deprivation to starving while most of the rest of the world would continue to have a normal food intake.
In the most extreme situation studied, every country aside from Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, Oman, Brazil, Paraguay and few others, would starve.
“The first time I showed my son the map, the first reaction he had is, ‘let’s move to Australia,'” Xia said.
Earlier this year, CBS News conducted a study that found 70% of adults are worried that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could trigger nuclear conflict. Those findings emerged after Russia’s foreign minister said the risk of nuclear conflict “should not be underestimated.”
That fear has only been stoked throughout the year. In July, Iran said it has the technical capacity to build a nuclear weapon, though it said it hasn’t yet done so, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he would use nuclear weapons in potential military conflicts with the U.S. and South Korea.
Nuclear weapons haven’t been used in a conflict since 1945, but currently, the U.S. and Russia have more than 1,500 nuclear weapons deployed and ready to fire.
Alex Wellerstein, historian and professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, said that it’s not in the interests of U.S. enemies to get involved with such actions.
But, he said, it should still be a concern.
“Future problems are brewing,” he said. “I guarantee it.”
CBS Mornings’ Tony Dokoupil contributed to this story.
Last week, as the Oslo Fjord was basking in the sunshine and full of swimmers, boaters and children enjoying their last week of summer vacation, it had a visitor: a 1,300-pound walrus named Freya.
This week is different. Not only has school started up again and the weather turned, but the walrus, who had been a source of delight and had become something of an international celebrity, is dead.
On Sunday morning, the Norwegian authorities killed Freya, saying that she posed too big a threat to humans who failed to listen to repeated warnings to stay away from her. Moving her out of the area was “too high risk,” officials added.
Environmentalists and Freya’s fans on social media said that the decision to kill her, just three days after the warning that she might have to be put down, was hasty and unnecessary.
But the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries said in a statement that it was the only option after the public did not heed the warnings.
“I am firm that this was the right call,” the director general of the directorate, Frank Bakke-Jensen, said in the statement. “We have great regard for animal welfare, but human life and safety must take precedence.”
The Norwegian Institute of Marine Research had considered moving Freya out of the area, Mr. Bakke-Jensen added, but “the extensive complexity of such an operation made us conclude that this was not a viable option.”
Moving a 1,300-pound mammal isn’t easy. Freya would have needed sedation and then to be caught in a net to prevent her from drowning before being moved out of the area.
In Norway, Freya has dominated the news since she arrived in June, with trackers, Facebook groups and almost daily articles chronicling her plight. A Facebook page called “Freya the Walrus — Where is she now?” had been tracking her. Since Sunday, the group, which has more than 1,000 members, has been awash with sad comments and condolences.
The country’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, said he supported the conclusion that Freya should be put down, telling a broadcaster that it was “the right decision.” Freya’s body will now be examined, according to the Directorate of Fisheries. It’s unclear what will happen to it afterward.
Freya made appearances off the coasts of Britain and various other European countries, including the Netherlands and Denmark, for at least two years.
“Now she comes to this posh, overpopulated beach, and she is dead,” said Trine Tandberg, 62, who runs a children’s theater in Oslo. She said that she had been following the news reports about Freya closely.
Related video: Shock and fury as celebrity walrus Freya was killed by the authorities
“She hasn’t done anything to anyone,” Ms. Tandberg said. “That’s what’s making so many of us really, really angry about this whole thing.”
The Oslo Fjord, where Freya had been spending her time, is a densely populated area that includes Oslo, Norway’s capital. About two million people live in the region, in a country of just over five million.
Walruses are social animals and rarely venture somewhere alone, which may be why Freya seemed to like being around people and why she had sought out a busy area.
“I’m surprised by the speed of the decision” to kill her, said Fredrik Myhre, a marine biologist for the World Wide Fund for Nature in Norway. “They should have been more patient.”
One option would have been to control the crowds who went to see Freya, cordoning off the area or fining people who ventured too close, experts said. Other possibilities included making loud underwater noises or spreading the scent of predators to deter her from the area, according to Dan Jarvis, director of welfare and conservation at British Divers Marine Life Rescue, a charity based in England.
But those options were not simple: Deterrent sounds and smells could also disturb other animals in the fjord and scare them away, Mr. Myhre said.
Experts in other countries where Freya had visited over the past two years expressed disbelief at her fate.
“Norway very quickly chose for the very last option,” said Annemarie van den Berg, the director of SOS Dolfijn, a Dutch marine rescue organization that had been involved with Freya when she appeared in the Netherlands last year.
“Freya never stayed in the same place too long,” Ms. van den Berg said. When the Dutch authorities dealt with Freya in the fall of 2021, she said, they focused on keeping people away from the animal.
While Freya may seem cute when napping in the sunshine, Ms. van den Berg added, “She’s a mammal and therefore dangerous.”
The Norwegian fisheries directorate had repeatedly told people to stay away from Freya, but the advice had mostly been ignored, a spokesman said last week. The authorities warned that the walrus faced the prospect of being killed if they could not persuade onlookers to stay away.
Swimmers had approached very close to the animal in her final days, taking selfies and sometimes even throwing things at her, a spokesman for the directorate said. Despite the warnings, however, no human injuries were reported.
Mr. Myhre, the marine biologist, put the responsibility for Freya’s fate on those who would not listen to calls to keep their distance. People wouldn’t take a selfie next to a 1,300-pound bull, Mr. Myhre said, adding, “You shouldn’t do that with a walrus, either.”
The timing of the killing has also been questioned. Summer vacation in Norway was coming to an end, and rain has moved back into the area, so the crowds were likely to ebb.
There are roughly 225,000 walruses in the wild, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. They generally live in ice-covered waters in Canada, Norway and Russia, and in Greenland and Alaska. They are losing some of their usual habitat as ice sheets melt because of climate change.
Mr. Jarvis, the director at British Divers Marine Life Rescue, acknowledged the threat posed to humans by such wild animals, but, he said, that was not enough reason to kill Freya.
“We don’t go around killing all the great white sharks just because one of them at one point might attack someone,” Mr. Jarvis said.
Last year, Mr. Jarvis was part of the team that dealt with Wally, another walrus, who spent about six weeks off the coast of southwest England in an area crowded with boats. To try to stop Wally from causing damage to the vessels, the local authorities provided him with a platform to lie on.
Glenn Murphy, who runs a boating and fishing business in the Oslo Fjord, said that locals’ reaction to Freya’s fate had been mixed, mostly because of the risks that someone could have been hurt or killed, including children.
“To me, it looked like she was looking for companionship,” Mr. Murphy said. “That could’ve inadvertently turned into a horrible accident.”
A deer hunter crashed an ATV and plunged 80 to 100 feet off a cliff in Santa Barbara County, resulting in a serious leg injury.
The hunter crashed in the Upper Oso area of the Los Padres National Forest, according to the Santa Barbara County Fire Department. Sometime late Late Friday night or early Saturday morning, the injured hunter shot a gun to call for help.
Other hunters managed to locate the injured man. They used a lowering cable to secure the hunter on a ledge, prior to leaving to get help.
Emergency personnel received a call about the incident at 1:13 a.m. Saturday. Rescue crews then arrived with ropes and hoisted the victim up to a road.
An ambulance transported the injured hunter to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.
(NewsNation) — Utah is seeing a surge in child support payments over the past year, a change that state officials credit in part to a new state law that withholds hunting and fishing licenses to people who fall significantly behind on payments.
“I came up with the idea for the bill, actually, in talking with some of my constituents who had noncustodial partners that were overdue on child support and going out and spending lots and lots of money hunting and fishing,” said state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, who authored and passed the bill enacting the new law two years ago. It went into effect in 2021.
The law blocks anyone from obtaining a hunting or fishing license if they are past due more than $2,500 in child…
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JOLON, Calif. —
A hunter died on the first day of rifle deer-hunting season in the Fort Hunter Liggett area of southern Monterey county.
According to investigators, 28-year-old Ryan Bricker was in a Jeep when it rolled down an embankment in southern Monterey County Saturday morning around 8:40 a.m. while he was out hunting with friends.
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Cal Fire responded to the accident and after a lengthy recovery effort, Ryan was transported by helicopter to Mee Memorial hospital where he was pronounced dead at 1 p.m.
According to the sheriff’s department, his family has been notified of the death.
Sometimes (oftentimes, most of the time) I resent being called human. More specifically, I resent being blamed for and associated with the careless, destructive things people do that I know I, in my right mind, would never do. Examples are countless, but the instance that came up today that made me want to renounce my membership in the species Homo sapiens was the euthanizing (killing, murder, assassination) of Freya the walrus.
Yes, people were bothering and stressing the poor walrus, and sure, some human could have ended up getting hurt, but that doesn’t justify executing the beloved, gregarious animal. A self-fulfilling prophecy–somebody got hurt alright, thanks to the “authorities.” But it wasn’t a human–it was Freya! I’m getting tired of this “every sperm is sacred” attitude that human life outweighs all else, even if the other life form is 1,300 pounds. ‘We don’t want people to get too comfortable or friendly with mere animals….’
Borrowing a line from one of the few humans I’ve admired over the years, the Beatles own John Lennon, who was known for words of wisdom such as, “Give peace a chance,” “All you need is Love” and “Imagine,” I propose we use “I am the Walrus”—a sentiment comparable to “I am Cecil,” popularized after the impaling of the well-known lion by a demented trophy-bowhunting American dentist.
I’d like to see the slogan, “I am the Walrus” on billboards and signs held in street chants to protest the killing of the perhaps overly trusting marine mammal who made the common, fatal mistake of not quite realizing just how lousy some humans can be.
AKelowna, B.C.,man received a $7,001 penalty and six-yearhuntingprohibition for shooting a mule deer buck with a crossbow during the closed season while in a residential neighbourhood.
“Poaching of any kind, especially in urban areas, is completely unacceptable and in this case endangered the lives and safety of the public,” Kelowna Conservation Officer Ken Owens said in a press release.
“We hope this notable penalty will deter others from similar activities.”
0:49Black bear euthanized in the Shuswap after attacking man and his dogBlack bear euthanized in the Shuswap after attacking man and his…
UPPER MOUNT BETHEL, Pa. (KDKA) — The first case of avian flu in a non-commercial backyard flock was reported in Pennsylvania, the state Department of Agriculture announced Friday.
Chickens and a duck from a flock in Upper Mount Bethel Township in Northampton County were confirmed to be infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza after a dead turkey vulture was found on the property, the agriculture department said.
The department is reminding poultry owners — backyard flocks and commercial producers — to be vigilant, especially as wild bird migration season picks up again. The department said the newest infections come amid a weeks-long lull in avian flu detection.
The department has quarantined the farm and established a “control area” with a 10 km perimeter. It said eggs and poultry are still safe to eat and there’s no risk to human health…
0:49Black bear euthanized in the Shuswap after attacking man and his dogBlack bear euthanized in the Shuswap after attacking man and his…
