Humans causing erosion comparable to world’s largest rivers and glaciers

October 5th, 2009 LONDON - In a new research, scientists in India and China have determined that glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau that feed the river systems of almost half the world's people are melting faster because of the effects of clouds of soot from diesel fumes and wood fires. According to a report in the Guardian, the results of the research, to be announced this month in Kashmir, show for the first time that clouds of soot - made up of tiny particles of "black carbon" emitted from old diesel engines and from cooking with wood, crop waste or cow dung - are "unequivocally having an impact on glacial melting" in the Himalayas.

September 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - In a new study, scientists have found evidence that climate swings in the northern hemisphere over the past 12,000 years have been tightly linked to changes in the tropics. The scientists found that a prolonged cold spell that caused glaciers in Europe and North America to creep forward several hundred years ago may have affected climate patterns as far south as Peru, causing tropical glaciers there to expand as well.

September 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Using satellite lasers, scientists have made the most comprehensive picture of the rapidly thinning glaciers along the coastline of both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Researchers from British Antarctic Survey and the University of Bristol describe how analysis of millions of NASA satellite measurements from both of these vast ice sheets shows that the most profound ice loss is a result of glaciers speeding up where they flow into the sea.

September 15th, 2009 LONDON - The first complete map of the lakes beneath Antarctica's ice sheets reveals the continent's secret water network is far more dynamic than we thought, and could be acting as a powerful lubricant beneath glaciers, contributing to sea level rise. According to a report in New Scientist, Ian Joughin at the University of Washington in Seattle and colleagues developed the map.

September 6th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Reports indicate that most glaciers in Washington and Alaska in the US are dramatically shrinking in response to a warming climate. During the past 50 years, USGS (US Geological Survey) scientists have measured changes in the mass (length and thickness) of three glaciers: Alaska's Gulkana and Wolverine Glaciers and Washington's South Cascade Glacier.

September 4th, 2009 TORONTO - Mammoth farming projects can erode the earth's surface at rates comparable to those of the world's largest rivers and glaciers. A new University of British Columbia (UBC) study offers stark evidence of how humans are reshaping the planet.

August 14th, 2009 WASHINGTON - With the help of GPS measurements, scientists have located soil erosion pathways and thereby identify placement of grassed waterways to reduce soil erosion. Grassed waterways are placed in agricultural fields where runoff water tends to concentrate because they can substantially reduce soil erosion.

June 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - In times when most glaciers in the world are shrinking due to global warming, two mysterious South American glaciers are displaying strange behavior in the sense that they are growing. "Most of the 50 massive glaciers draped over the spine of the Patagonian Andes are shrinking in response to a global warming," said Andres Rivera, a glaciologist at the Center for Scientific Studies in Valdivia, Chile.

June 5th, 2009 LONDON - Making long space voyage might sound thrilling and macho, but it will do no good to your appearance, claim scientists who believe space travel will leave astronauts looking short, fat and bald. Astrobiologist Dr Lewis Dartnell believes that near zero gravity would leave humans stunted and cause their bones and muscles to be underdeveloped.

May 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has suggested that sediments deposited in the ocean by major Arctic rivers may hold clues to understand how Earth's climate will change in the next few decades. The study was carried out by geoscientists at The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A and M University, US.

May 5th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Reports indicate that constant face-offs between humans and tigers in India's Sundarbans region are on the rise, with tiger populations dwindling and rising seas pushing humans into the territory of the big cats. The 2,700-square-mile mangrove forest in the Sundarbans is the world's largest, and the region is one of the few remaining natural tiger habitats in India.

May 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has found that for the last 7,000 years, glaciers south of the equator in South America and New Zealand have often moved out of step with glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere, pointing to strong regional variations in climate. "This research should provide much more accurate reconstructions of glacial advances worldwide, allowing us in turn to make climate models more accurate," said Paul Filmer, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research.

April 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Joan Rivers will be the next comic to go through the hit 'Comedy Central Roast' session. Comedy Central is planning to comically assault Rivers during a July 26 taping on the Warner lot in Burbank.

April 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has suggested that Neanderthals may have acted in much the same way as early modern humans, and were much savvier than previously thought. According to a report in the Scientific American, to compare the behavior of Neanderthals and early moderns, paleoanthropologist Bruce Hardy of Kenyon College studied artifacts from a site in southwestern Germany called Hohle Fels.

February 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A three-year study shows that glaciers in the Yangtze source area, central to the Qinghai-Tibet plateau in south-western China, have receded 196 square kilometres over the past 40 years. Glaciers at the headwaters of the Yangtze, China's longest river, now cover 1,051 square km compared to 1,247 square km in 1971, a loss of nearly a billion cubic metres of water.