EARTHWEEK: DIARY OF A CHANGING WORLD

For the week ending March 17

Country buffets

Honeybees appear to prefer the tasty pollen of rural settings to that of city environments, according to a new Ohio State University study. A team of researchers placed honeybee colonies in an apiary along a border where urban development sharply transitions into farmland. By analyzing the “dances” of bees returning to the hive, they determined the direction and distance of the pollinators’ forages. Lead researcher Douglas Sponsler says the bees are attracted to large swaths of unmowed weeds along roadsides and the edges of crops.

Andean rumblings

Chile’s Chillan volcano, about 260 miles south of Santiago, was rocked by more than 700 tremors, many associated with the deep movement of magma. Other rumblings were associated with the superheating of groundwater by the resulting geothermal energy.

Climate conditions

A consortium of 11 U.S. medical societies launched a campaign to show how climate change is affecting people’s health. Its report says climate change is leading to more cardiorespiratory illness, the spread of infectious disease, and physical and mental health problems from more frequent episodes of extreme weather. The report was delivered to Congress before being more widely distributed.

Warming seas

The world’s oceans are heating up about 13 percent faster than previously believed, with the rate of warming since 1992 found to be twice as great as the warming rate measured since 1960. Researchers from leading U.S. and Chinese agencies made the discovery by correcting past data errors and by using more advanced climate computer models.

Natural melt

The recent record melting of Arctic sea ice is, to a large extent, the result of natural swings in climate along with the global warming brought on by greenhouse gas emissions, new research finds. UC Santa Barbara researcher Qinghua Ding says that natural variations may have caused 30 to 50 percent of the decline in September sea ice coverage since 1979.

Earthquakes

Two people were killed and a few buildings were damaged by a temblor that jolted Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon. Earth movements were also felt in Guam, New Zealand’s South Island, India’s Andaman Islands and western state of Gujarat, Montana and Southern California.