EARTHWEEK
Earthquakes
An undersea quake was felt in central New Zealand.
• Tremors also were felt in south-central Alaska and southeastern Missouri.
Chilean firestorms
Massive wildfires that destroyed more than a million acres in seven regions of central and southern Chile and killed at least 11 people are being blamed in part on 43 suspects accused of stoking some of the blazes.
The town of Las Corrientes was entirely destroyed by one of the wildfires.
Thousands of people, including troops, firefighters and volunteers, worked to douse the flames.
Some of the conflagrations over the past two weeks also are said to have been sparked by a severe drought that some Chilean environmental advocates blame on climate change.
Human heaters
People have been found to be the cause of a noticeable warmup of big cities during the workweek as commuters flock into the urban landscape from the suburbs.
Researchers from the University of Melbourne, Australia, found that the heat generated by human bodies, cars and public transport vehicles, along with the operation of office buildings, causes a slow warmup from Monday through Friday.
The effect is broken and temperatures drop over the weekend as most people stay home and activity in the central business districts is relatively calm.
The pattern was observed in the Australian state capitals of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide.
“Nothing in nature occurs on a weekly cycle, so it must be due to human activity,” researcher Nick Earl said.
Yellow fever
Brazilian health authorities urged residents in nine of the country’s 26 states to get inoculated for yellow fever after at least 40 people died from the tropical disease.
More than 100 people are reported to have become infected so far, and the supply of the vaccine ran out in many clinics after long lines formed with people rushing to get inoculated.
The virus responsible for yellow fever also can infect monkeys. Wildlife experts say that up to 90 percent of the brown howler monkeys in Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais states have become infected, with many having died of the disease.
Candy cane crab
A bright red-andwhite crab found in the Caribbean has been identified as a new species with a striking appearance described by some as an undersea Christmas tree ornament.
The “candy-striped hermit crab,” or Pylopaguropsis mollymullerae, was found near the island of Bonaire.
The scientific name is in honor of Ellen Muller, who found and photographed it.
Only a few millimeters across, the tiny crab was found crawling around moray eels and even seen on one, leading some to believe it has a fish-cleaning role in the ocean environment.
Shark fin fast
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Indonesia cautions that there is an urgent need for shark fin soup enthusiasts to refrain from serving or eating the dish as some of the shark species in the archipelago are nearing extinction.
WWF says about 110,000 tons of shark fins are taken from Indonesian waters each year, leading to the sharp decline in shark populations.
“Indonesia largely depends on fisheries, so this is about food security too — if all the sharks are gone, we would have to start eating plankton soup,” WWF leader Imam Musthofa Zainudin said.
Indian Ocean storm
Tropical Cyclone Three formed between northwestern Australia and Indonesia, but was only a minor threat to shipping in the far eastern Indian Ocean.