Scientists see storm brewing over Titan’s tropical desert

October 12th, 2009 SYDNEY - Reports indicate that the red dust storm that dumped thousands of tons of soil across eastern Australia two weeks ago has caused an explosion in microscopic life in Sydney Harbor and beyond. According to a report in ABC News, the findings are a result of an analysis of the impact on the sea of the September 23 dust storm that swept across New South Wales and southeast Queensland, by Ian Jones, director of the Ocean Technology Group at University of Sydney.

September 10th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Thunderstorms kept the space shuttle Discovery from landing late Thursday at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. The landing was originally set for 7.05 p.m.

September 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Brewing engineers from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) in Germany are trying to literally make a 'green' beer, which during brewing, would allow energy savings of up to 20 percent. The engineers are working hard to improve the energy balance of the amber beverage.

September 1st, 2009 MELBOURNE - Weather forecasters may now use a mysterious weather pattern, called the Madden Julian Oscillation, to predict cyclones up to three weeks ahead of time. Forecasters have previously used the above phenomenon to predict how active each cyclone season might be, and to forecast their behaviour about five days into the future once they form.

August 27th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A scientist of Indian origin from Purdue University, in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, has determined in a new research that tropical storms endure over wet land, and fizzle when conditions are dry. More than 30 years of monsoon data from India showed that ground moisture where the storms make landfall is a major indicator of what the storm will do from there.

August 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Heavy storms and rain lashed the US' northern Atlantic Coast as Hurricane Bill rolled toward Canada after sweeping across Bermuda. Three people were rescued from the Atlantic by the US Coast Goard after being surprised by a large wave and washed into the ocean in the northeastern state of Maine, media reports said.

August 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Hurricane Bill in the Atlantic Ocean was continuing to strengthen into a category one storm and could develop into a major hurricane by Wednesday, weather forecasters said Monday. The National Hurricane Centre in Miami said the storm had winds of 150 km per hour and was slowly moving westward.

August 16th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Three small tropical storms were moving across the Caribbean Sunday including one threatening Florida, the first storms of the Atlantic season after two months of total quiet. The storms claimed the first letters of the alphabet - Ana, Bill and Claudette - and one of them, Ana, was found to be so "poorly organised" that it was "barely a tropical storm," the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, reported.

July 20th, 2009 LONDON - Contrary to the assumption that global warming would cause an expansion of the world's deserts, some scientists are predicting that water and life may slowly reclaim these arid places. According to a report by BBC News, the evidence is limited and definitive conclusions are impossible to reach, but recent satellite pictures of North Africa seem to show areas of the Sahara in retreat.

July 6th, 2009 SYDNEY - The tropical zone is expanding into what have been humid temperate climate zones, according to a review of scientific data. The authors of a recent study concluded that the effects of a pole-ward expansion of the tropical and subtropical zones were immense, manifesting a variety of social, political, economic and environmental outcomes.

July 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers from the University of Haifa-Oranim in Israel have managed to make out the "self-irrigating" mechanism of the desert rhubarb, which enables it to harvest 16 times the amount of water than otherwise expected for a plant in this region. This is the first example of a self-irrigating plant worldwide.

May 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has determined that it's now possible to hear the rise of global warming, in the form of more larger and more intense storms, which are signs of climate change. For decades, seismologists have been filtering out the sounds of massive, storm-driven ocean waves crashing into coastlines.

May 6th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have discovered the oldest patch of ground on Earth in Israel's Negev desert, which remains virtually the same as it was 1.8 million years ago. According to a report in Live Science, the patch of ground is an expanse of "desert pavement" in Israel's Negev Desert, and is claimed by scientists as the oldest continuous surface on earth.

April 21st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists at Harvard University, US, have found that tropical cyclones readily inject ice far into the stratosphere, possibly feeding global warming. The finding provides more evidence of the intertwining of severe weather and global warming by demonstrating a mechanism by which storms could drive climate change.

March 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - An international team of scientists is studying cyclones on Earth to help them better understand 'superrotating' vortices on the planet Venus. At cloud top level, the entire atmosphere of Venus circles the planet in just about four Earth days, much faster than the solid planet does.