http://www.terradaily.com/index.html Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST en-us Temperatures plunged to new lows in Europe where a week-long cold snap has now claimed more than 220 lives and forecasters warned Friday that the big freeze would tighten its grip over the weekend. A total of 223 people have died from the cold weather in the last seven days according to an AFP tally, with Ukraine suffering the heaviest toll. People have been found dead on the streets in ]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST Predicting the future is always a tricky business - just watch a TV weather report. Weather forecasts have come a long way, but almost every season there's a snowstorm that seems to come out of nowhere, or one that's forecast as 'the big one' that turns out to be a total bust. In the last ten years, scientists have shown that it is possible to detect falling snow and measure surface snowpa]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST A week of ferociously cold temperatures in Ukraine has now claimed 101 lives, the Ukrainian emergencies ministry said Friday as the prime minister admitted the country was enduring "difficult times". Substantially raising the previous toll of 63, it said that 11 people had died in hospital as a result of hypothermia sustained in the cold snap, 26 in their homes and 64 in the streets. Alm]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST Even if the current weather situation may seem to speak against it, the probability of cold winters with much snow in Central Europe rises when the Arctic is covered by less sea ice in summer. Scientists of the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association have decrypted a mechanism in which a shrinking summertime sea ice c]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST India has the worst air quality in the world, beating even its neighbour China, according to an annual survey based at Yale and Columbia universities in the United States. Of all the countries surveyed in the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), which measures the effects of polluted air on human health, India ranked the lowest at 132. The study used satellite data to measure air pollu]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST Stanislaw clutches a soup pot as he sticks his head up above the rim of a manhole just long enough for police to fill it with steaming stew before he ducks back into the heating duct he calls home on the outskirts of Warsaw. Night-time temperatures have plunged to a bone-chilling minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) here this week. But five metres underground, in this huge concrete ]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST Wildlife health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society have published evidence which supports the conclusion that Mongolian gazelles-one of the most populous large land mammals on the planet-are not a reservoir of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), a highly contagious viral disease that threatens both wildlife and livestock in Asia. Outbreaks of FMD in Mongolia affect domestic sheep, go]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST Major flooding hit parts of Australia's east Friday, stranding thousands of residents, prompting a military airlift and leaving some communities only accessible by helicopter. The deluge, which has sparked dozens of rescues and left about 7,275 people isolated in various parts of New South Wales state has also impacted Queensland to the north where some regions have been declared a natural d]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST A new study comparing the carbon-holding power of freshwater wetlands has produced measurements suggesting that wetlands in temperate regions are more valuable as carbon sinks than current policies imply, according to researchers. The study compared several wetlands at two Ohio wetland sites: one composed of mostly stagnant water and one characterized by water regularly flowing through it.]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST Hardy fans of swimming in the frozen lakes of northern Poland have decided to call off a mass outing this weekend due to vicious cold snap gripping the country, organisers said Friday. "In the interests of our participants' security, we've decided to call off this year's Bath of the Brave," Ireneusz Dzienisiewicz told Poland's PAP news agency. This year's edition of the annual swim in a ]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST A rare mantle of snow blanketed the historic centre of Rome Friday, forcing the closure of schools and tourist sites such as the Colosseum as Pope Benedict XVI took a peek at the snowflakes. The snow covered palm trees, ancient Roman ruins and Baroque churches across the normally mild-weather Italian capital which has only seen one snowfall in the past 15 years in which the snow stayed on th]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST A photograph of a polar bear in captivity, no matter how sharp the resolution, can never reveal as much about behavior as footage of that polar bear in its natural habitat. The behavior of cells and molecules can prove even more elusive. Limitations in biomedical imaging technologies have hampered attempts to understand cellular and molecular behavior, with biologists trying to envision dynamic ]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST About 30,000 people have fled recent fighting in Sudan's South Kordofan state, the UN said on Friday after rebels captured 29 Chinese workers in the same area. The United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA) said tension remains high in the state's northwest around El Abbasiya. "Humanitarian organisations have reported that displacement is continuing following the build-up of SAF (governme]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST Alexander Kumar, the next ESA-sponsored crewmember to stay in Concordia, has arrived safely at the research base in Antarctica. The voyage to one of the remotest places on Earth takes even longer than the voyage to the International Space Station. The international outpost's programme of research includes glaciology, human biology and the atmosphere. ESA uses the base to prepare for future]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST The stampede by wealthy states for arable land across Africa and other developing regions could trigger a series of conflicts if governments fail to protect the rights of their people, two recent studies on land grabs warn. "Controversial land acquisitions were key a factor triggering the civil wars in Sudan, Liberia and Sierra Leone and there is every reason to be concerned that condit]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 07:51:04 AEST