EARTHWEEK
Madagascar plague
The World Health Organization is warning of a troublesome outbreak of plague that has emerged on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar during the past month. The U.N. agency said 50 of the approximately 500 people who became infected since September have died.
While about 400 cases of pneumonic plague are reported on the island each year, mainly in the remote highlands, the recent outbreak has infected many in the capital of Antananarivo and other densely populated communities.
Early symptoms are similar to the flu or a common cold, but quickly advance to pneumonia.
Tropical storms
Hurricane Nate was only a tropical storm when it left at least 16 people dead in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador. Nate later reached Category 1 force before bringing storm-surge tides and heavy rain to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
• Category 1 Hurricane Ophelia was predicted to pass between the Azores and Canary Islands.
Eruption
Guatemala’s Fuego volcano produced up to 12 explosions per hour as it spewed columns of ash and vapor into the sky 30 miles from Guatemala City. Ash fell downwind in the former colonial capital of Antigua and in other nearby villages.
Earthquakes
A wide area of northeastern Japan was jolted by a magnitude 5.9 temblor centered just off the Fukushima coast.
• Earth movements also were felt in far northern Chile and southern parts of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Tainted honey
A new study has found that most of the honey sampled from every continent except Antarctica during a recent five-year period was contaminated with a common class of bee-harming insecticides.
Researchers from the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland found that 75 percent of the samples had “quantifiable amounts” of at least one of the neonicotinoids, which also have been linked to reduced colony growthin bumblebees.and queen production The scientists say 86 percent of the samples collected in North America were contaminated, followed by 80 percent in Asia, 79 percent in Europe and 57 percent in South America.
Monkey island
Scientists are scrambling in the wake of Hurricane Maria to save the more than 1,500 rhesus macaques that live on a small island off Puerto Rico.
The monkeys have been studied there since the 1930s, when they were imported from Southeast Asia.
Maria wiped out Cayo Santiago’s lush vegetation and wrecked the structures that provided fresh water.
Scientists from several universities have launched a relief effort to rebuild the research infrastructure and assure there is ample food for the monkeys until the island’s natural vegetation grows back.
Wayward seabird
The first masked booby ever spotted in Massachusetts probably was blown far north of its usual habitat by high winds swirling around Hurricane Jose last month.
The seabird typically breeds on tropical islands, except in the eastern Atlantic. It was found on a beach in Cape Cod and taken to Wild Care Cape Cod.
Despite intensive care efforts, it soon died due to its weakened state and exposure to a cooler climate.