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Environment
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Fresh Oil Leaks From Damaged BP Well Spotted In Gulf Of Mexico
14 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
New oil leakage has been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico, near the BP well that burst 15 months ago; the oil currently covers an area about seven kilometres long and 50 metres wide. It’s not clear if the oil is coming from the reservoir itself, or if’s been trapped in last year’s damaged rigging.
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Ranger Killed By Colleagues In Anti-Poaching Shootout
13 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The utter tragedy that is rhino poaching hit hardest within South Africa’s wildlife conservation community over the weekend. A top Kwa-Zulu Natal game ranger was killed accidentally by colleagues during an anti-poaching operative on Saturday. The incident, which took place at the Umfolozi Game Reserve in Zululand, has been described as the most devastating event in the history of conservation.
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Risk Of Radioactive Leakage After Explosion At French Nuclear Plant
12 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
There are reports of a blast at the southern French nuclear plant of Marcoule, in the Gard region – with further claims that there is a risk of radioactive leakage. The explosion followed a fire in a radioactive waste storage sight, killing one person and injuring three more.
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Scientists Produce Glow-In-The-Dark Kittens For AIDS Research
12 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
This really has nothing to do with making your pet cat fluorescent so that you can see it in the dark and not stand on it when you get up to go the toilet at night. It has, however, everything to do with the similarities between human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV).
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Greenpeace Commissioned Giant Vitruvian Man On Arctic Iceberg [PICS]
09 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 4 Comments
Greenpeace! What a dumb idea. That giant recreation of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man is going to disappear as soon as that iceberg melts – OH. Oh gosh. You’re trying to put together some sort of heavy-handed metaphor about ‘mankind,’ ‘melting,’ like some sort of iceberg, because of ‘climate change.’
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‘Find My iPhone’ App Helps Locate Wreckage Of Chilean Plane Crash
08 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
In the aftermath of last Friday’s plane crash off the island of Robinson Crusoe, Chile, officials have stated that no effort would be spared in the rescue/recovery of the 17 passengers. This apparently includes using the Find My iPhone app to isolate the coordinates of one of the passenger’s last known whereabouts before the crash.
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Lab Chimps Laugh And Hug As They See Daylight For First Time In 30 Years [VIDEO]
07 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
OK, so, this is a pretty horrific story, but it has a happy ending. After a 14-year battle, these Chimpanzees have been set free from captivity after being taken from their mothers shortly after their births. They’d been kept in a research facility in Austria, undergone medical testing, been injected with HIV and hepatitis. But, at least they’re happy now.
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Watch The Wildfire Spread In Texas [VIDEO]
07 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
To demonstrate the lethal speed at which the Texan wildfires are spreading, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department have released footage of the wildfire consuming the 6 000 acre Bastrop State Park – 84% of which has been burnt down as of today, in spite of firefighters’ efforts to save a number of historic Civilian Conservation Corps cabins.
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One Tonne Mega-Croc Caught In Phillippines [PIC]
06 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Ain’t Mother Nature grand? Especially when one of her chunkier children gets loose near your village. One of her 6.5-meter long, one tonne, man-eating children…
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Blouberg Oil Spill Has Caused ‘Minimal’ Cost To Wildlife – But It’s Still A Mess
05 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
The cleanup of the oil spill at Bloubergstrand continues, and City of Cape Town Disaster teams are still assessing whether the beach can be re-opened this afternoon. The wreckage of the Seli One carrier, which was stranded off the Blouberg coast two years ago, leaked oil onto the beach over the weekend following rough seas.
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China’s Dog Population On The Increase As Nation’s Taste Changes
01 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
In other meat-related news today, animal lovers may be pleased to know that China seems to be losing its taste for dog meat. Stats show that more people than ever before now keep dogs as domestic pets in China. While dog meat is certainly still on the menu there, the way dogs are viewed generally is undergoing a major shift across the country.
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We’re Six Months From Vat-Grown Meat, Apparently
01 Sep 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Researchers in Gothenburg, Sweden, met this week to launch a new “meat without slaughter” initiative – with plans on being able to release bio-sausages in the next six months. Bio-sausages made from exotic animal cells, too, because vat-grown tiger meat isn’t any less ethical than vat-grown bacon.
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Florida Funeral Home Offers ‘Liquefaction’ Services
31 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
A Florida funeral home has unveiled an ‘alakaline hydrolysis’ unit, which dissolves dead bodies in heated alkaline water. Which is, apparently, something you might want to do; the process is being billed as a far greener alternative than cremation, producing far less greenhouse gas and requiring far less energy.
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Chinese Tycoon Offers To Buy 0.3% Of Iceland
30 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Huang Nubo, the sixteenth richest person in China, has offered $100 million to buy 300 square kilometres of Icelandic wilderness. He calls himself a “poet and adventurer,” so it would make sense that he’d want to buy the property to develop a golf course and tourist destination.
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Russia Is Building An Underwater Tunnel To Alaska
29 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
Recession reschmesssion. Russia has unveiled an ambitious (read: $65 billion) plan to build the world’s longest tunnel under the Bering Strait – as part of a railway corridor linking North America to Europe, via Siberia. Because ships and planes just weren’t cutting it. Also, this sucker’s going to be entirely fueled by green energy, apparently.
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Massive Underground River Discovered Beneath Amazon
26 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Scientists have made a unique discovery in the Brazilian rainforests of the Amazon: a subterranean river that flows underneath the Amazon River, some four thousand metres below the actual Amazon River. It’s also roughly the same length of the Amazon River, according to the scientists.
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1 000 Surfboard Graveyard installed in Australia
26 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Chris Anderson, graphic design student, is installing 1 000 broken surfboards in the sands of a Sydney beach to inform people of the unsustainable practices in surfboard manufacturing. I’m not sure how breaking a thousand surfboards helps this problem, but the installation looks pretty cool.
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New Yorkers Brace Themselves For Hurricane Irene
26 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Last night the people of New York were told they had better prepare themselves for a direct hit by Hurricane Irene over the weekend. In fact, it seems that being a victim of the hurricane, which has already caused devastation in the Bahamas, will not be acceptable if and when it hits NYC.
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Specialised Doggie Daycare Comes To Cape Town
25 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 3 Comments
We live in a progressive city here in Cape Town – we like to think out of the box. And that’s just what Kristin van der Hoven has done by launching Proud Hounds Doggie Daycare in the city. Sick of leaving your precious pup at home while you’re at work? Then bring it to Kristin and the crew for the day.
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This 13-Year-Old Designed A New Solar Array After Looking At Some Trees
22 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
What did you do today? New York elementary school student Aidan Dwyer has designed and constructed a solar array based on the Fibonacci sequence that stores and generates energy between 20% and 50% more effectively than existing setups. He got the idea after noticing growth patterns in oak trees.
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Google Street View Boats And Tricycles Start Mapping The Amazon Rainforest
19 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Google has begun to map parts of the Amazon and Rio Negro Rivers, as well as small areas of northwestern Brazil, in an attempt to capture panoramic images of the remote region and its communities for the world to see. Google enlisted the help of locals and will use camera-equipped tricycles as well as boats to capture the imagery.
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Fracking Critics Are Apparently “White, Rented Crowds”
18 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
The Karoo Shale Gas Community Forum said today that fracking critics are ignoring the needs of the Karoo’s poverty-stricken residents. Spokesperson Vuyisa Jantjies criticized those who oppose fracking by Shell, by saying: “If you have still the demonstrations that you have had, I will tell you that they’re purely white, rented crowds, that come and toyi-toyi in front of Parliament.”
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Bad Cellphone Reception? It Could Be The Sun’s Fault
16 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 1 Comment
Bad cellphone reception and weak signal strength might be caused by the sun, according to new research. Solar flares emanating from the sun could be to blame for telecommunications customers’ slow internet, signal reception issues and GPS problems, thus taking some the pressure off the network providers, for now.
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Durban Air Show Coordinator On Missing George’s Valley Plane
15 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
One of the passengers on the two light aircraft that went missing in George’s Valley, Limpopo, is a Durban air show coordinator, according to organisers. They won’t release a name however, out of respect for the person’s family.
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One Thousand Dogs Rescued From Being Eaten In Thailand [VIDEO]
15 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 7 Comments
About 1000 Thai dogs – destined to be cooked and eaten in Vietnam – escaped a gruesome fate when they were rescued by police before the weekend. As you’ll see from the video, they were stuffed into tiny cages, stacked high in scores of crates. Even though the story has a happy ending, please be warned that the visuals are very disturbing.
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Missing: Two Aircraft Carrying Up To 14 People In Limpopo Region
15 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
At around lunch time yesterday, two light aircraft travelling from Limpopo to Gauteng’s Rand Airport simply disappeared off the radar. Between 12 and 14 passengers, including some kids, were on board when the planes departed after an airshow in Tzaneen.
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That Amazonian Tribe That Was Contacted For The First Time This Year Has Been Attacked
10 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Earlier this year 2oceansVibe reported about a tribe in western Brazil, living some 50 kilometres from the Peruvian border, that had until then, not been contacted by modern man. Sadly the tribe has gone missing after drug traffickers overran Brazilian guards posted to protect the area around which the tribe was living.
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It’s Snowing On Table Mountain (No Spice)
05 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
“Boom.” Of course, there can only be one reason for this unusual meteorological blessing: The TBG is on the Mountain. Coincidence? I think not. Come on. Don’t be silly. [Headline image source:tablemountain]
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Artist To Live In Enclosure With Lions For Five Weeks
05 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / No Comments
Aleksandr Pylyshenko, a Ukrainian artist who owns a private zoo in the city of Vasilyevka, plans on living in an enclosure with Katya and Samson, his lions, for five weeks to raise money to improve the zoo’s living conditions and to increase awareness of underfunded private Ukrainian zoos. So that makes sense.
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Helicopter Crashes At UCT Middle Campus – Passenger Comments (Now With Audio)
03 Aug 2011 by Jasmine Stone / 2 Comments
Developing Story A light helicopter flipped on its roof on UCT’s Middle Campus early this morning. Injuries or deaths are as yet unknown. Confirmed reports are that a photographer and the pilot survived the crash unharmed. More pics, and audio after the jump!
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