Earthweek: a diary of the planet
New virus death
A new SARS-like virus has killed at least one person in Saudi Arabia and left another from Qatar seriously ill, according to health officials. An outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, emerged in 2002 and eventually killed 800 people. The Qatari patient was admitted to a Doha hospital on Sept. 7 and later rushed by air ambulance to a specialized British clinic suffering from acute respiratory infection and kidney failure. While no link has been detected between the Qatar and Saudi cases, the coronaviruses responsible were found to be nearly identical and of a type never before seen in humans. There is so far no evidence of sustained human-tohuman transmission that could bring on a pandemic. Experts say that the low number of cases and distribution of the new virus could mean that this is some rare event that in past times, before genetic analysis was available, might have gone undiagnosed.
Radioactivity fades
Health officials say contamination from last year’s Fukushima tsunami and nuclear disasters appears to be waning, but some foods produced or collected in the disaster zone remain unsafe to eat. In late August, the seasonal fish delicacy known as ainame, caught within 15 miles of the crippled nuclear power plant, was found tainted with radioactive cesium beyond the government’s limit. But recent studies have found that the isotope has not been detected in most vegetables, even though many were declared unsafe after the March 2011 disaster. The greatest contamination remains in food from forests, rivers and lakes in the Tohoku and northern Kanto regions, including mushrooms, vegetables, wild game and freshwater fish.
Indonesian blasts
Week ending Sep. 28, 2012 Five active volcanoes in Indonesia are rumbling due to what the country’s volcano and disaster agency says is increased geophysical activity linked to recent earthquakes in the nearby Philippines. Mounts Soputan, Lokon and Karangetang are active in North Sulawesi province, while Mount Gamalama is showing signs of unrest on Ternate Island and Mount Marapi rumbles on Sumatra. All five volcanoes produced explosions within a week’s time that sent ash plumes soaring above the summits.
El Niño returns
The weather-altering El Niño ocean warming in the tropical Pacific is likely to strengthen over the next few weeks, according to the U.N. weather agency. World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis told a press briefing that most climate forecast models point to an El Niño warming that would persist into the first months of 2013. While the onset of the phenomenon appears to have eased somewhat during September, experts say this doesn’t diminish the chance that it will soon strengthen and begin to disrupt global weather patterns. The ocean warming is linked to drought in Australia, Southeast Asia and India, as well as flooding in parts of the Americas.
Tropical cyclones
Typhoon Jelawat briefly attained Category 5 force to the east of the Philippines, with its outer bands lashing parts of Luzon and Samar islands. The storm was weakening and taking aim on Okinawa and eastern Japan late in the week.
• Tropical Storm Ewiniar lost force after
drenching Iwo Jima.
• Hurricane Miriam churned the open waters
of the Pacific to the south of Baja California.
• The tropical cyclone that was briefly
Hurricane Nadine finally lost force after spinning over the northeastern Atlantic Ocean for more than two weeks.
Slave ant rebellions
Uprisings and sabotage by the enslaved against their oppressors appear to be common in at least one type of insect, German researchers say. Scientists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz say they have observed the “slave rebellion” phenomenon in ants on several occasions. Writing in the journal Evolutionary
Ecology, lead author Susanne Foitzik says enslaved ant populations were found in West Virginia, Ohio and New York engaged in the killing of their oppressors’ offspring. She says that while the slave ants probably don’t realize at first the ant larvae they are caring for aren’t of their own species, that soon changes when chemical clues, or smells, emerge after the young pupate. Research suggests the killing that follows of the slave-maker offspring lowers its population and gives nearby colonies that have not been enslaved a chance to survive fewer and less destructive slave raids.
Earthquakes
La Paz and other communities at the southern end of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula were jolted by a 6.2 magnitude temblor centered beneath the Gulf of California.
• Earth movements were also felt in southern Mexico, Costa Rica, southern New Zealand, northwestern California, eastern Ontario, the Aleutian Islands and northeastern Afghanistan.