Source : Sun Sentinel

With every telephone call, swipe of a card and click of a mouse, information is being recorded, compiled and stored about Britain's citizens.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has now uncovered just how much personal data is being collected about individuals by the Government, law enforcement agencies and private companies each day.

In one week, the average person living in Britain has 3,254 pieces of personal information stored about him or her, most of which is kept in databases for years and in some cases indefinitely.

The data include details about shopping habits, mobile phone use, emails, locations during the day, journeys and internet searches.

 Source : Telegraph UK

Like a chronic disease spreading through the body, "dead zones" with too little oxygen for life are expanding in the world's oceans. "We have to realize that hypoxia is not a local problem," said Robert J. Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "It is a global problem and it has severe consequences for ecosystems."

"It's getting to be a problem of such a magnitude that it is starting to affect the resources that we pull out of the sea to feed ourselves," he added.

 Source : Yahoo News

Such is the prognosis of Jeremy Jackson, a professor of oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in a bold new assessment of the oceans and their ecological health. Jackson believes that human impacts are laying the groundwork for mass extinctions in the oceans on par with vast ecological upheavals of the past.

He cites the synergistic effects of habitat destruction, overfishing, ocean warming, increased acidification and massive nutrient runoff as culprits in a grand transformation of once complex ocean ecosystems. Areas that had featured intricate marine food webs with large animals are being converted into simplistic ecosystems dominated by microbes, toxic algal blooms, jellyfish and disease.

 Source : Science Daily

Thousands of troops, police and emergency services rushed to flooded towns in the poor and heavily deforested region to deliver drinking water, food and medicines to people stranded on the roofs of their houses.

By early Sunday, two days after the rains first hit the area, 92 people were confirmed dead and 45 listed as missing, according to reports compiled by AFP from central and provincial emergency relief agencies. About 300 homes were destroyed and 3,500 damaged by the floods, which had wiped out about 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) of crops, authorities said.

 Source : Yahoo News

We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Gurdian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction.

The collapse of the polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term sea level rises of 70-80 metres. All the world's coastal plains would be lost, complete with ports, cities, transport and industrial infrastructure, and much of the world's most productive farmland. The world's geography would be transformed much as it was at the end of the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel, the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. Weather would become extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and severe droughts, floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity would be hugely reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die.

 Source : Guardian UK

China is set to overtake the US next year as the world’s largest producer of manufactured goods, four years earlier than expected, as a result of the rapidly weakening US economy.

The great leap is revealed in forecasts for the Financial Times by Global Insight, a US economics consultancy. According to the estimates, next year China will account for 17 per cent of manufacturing value-added output of $11,783bn and the US will make 16 per cent.

 Source : FT.com

NOAA now projects an 85 percent probability of an above-normal season – up from 65 percent in May. The updated outlook includes a 67 percent chance of 14 to 18 named storms, of which seven to 10 are expected to become hurricanes, including three to six major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. These ranges encompass the entire season, which ends November 30, and include the five storms that have formed thus far.

In May, the outlook called for 12 to 16 named storms, including six to nine hurricanes and two to five major hurricanes. An average Atlantic hurricane season has 11 named storms, including six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.

 Source  : Science Daily

Georgia launched a major military offensive today to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Rebel leaders said about 1,400 had been killed.

The offensive prompted Moscow to send tanks into the region in a furious response that threatens to engulf Georgia, a staunch US ally, and Russia in all-out war.

It was by far the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won de-facto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992. Witnesses said the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali was devastated.

 Source : Independent UK

An update announced today to the 2008 hurricane forecast calls for two more storms than previously predicted - a total of 17 named storms for the entire season, which officially started June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

Philip Klotzbach and William Gray of Colorado State University now expect nine of the named storms to become hurricanes and five to grow into major hurricanes , meaning a category 3 through 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Overall, the researchers predict a much more active season than the typical season between 1950 and 2000.

The announcement comes as Tropical Storm Edouard, the fifth tropical cyclone of the 2008 season, carried heavy rains and strong winds onto the upper Texas coast today. The tropical storm was just shy of hurricane strength when it came ashore.

 Source : Yahoo Science

The research, which appears in the journal Nature Geoscience, was conducted by geoscientists Achim Brauer, Peter Dulski and Jörg Negendank (emeritus Professor) from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Gerald Haug from the DFG-Leibniz Center for Surface Processes and Climate Studies at the University of Potsdam and the ETH in Zurich, and Daniel Sigman from Princeton University.

The proof of an extreme cooling within a short number of years 12,700 years ago was attained in sediments of the volcanic lake Meerfelder Maar in the Eifel region of Germany. The seasonally layered deposits allow to precisely determine the rate of climate change. With a novel combination of microscopic research studies and modern geochemical scanner procedures, the scientists were able to successfully reconstruct the climatic conditions even for individual seasons. In particular, the changes in the wind force and direction during the winter half-year caused the climate to topple over into a completely different mode within one year after a short instable phase of a few decades.

 Source : Science Daily

Jones is the prime mover behind November's Great Southern California ShakeOut, described as the nation's biggest ever earthquake drill. If all goes to plan, millions of southern Californians will declaim the mantra of "Drop, cover and hold on" as they simulate their response to a 7.8-magnitude earthquake on the San Andreas fault, south-east of Los Angeles.

The earthquake model devised for the ShakeOut is, to put it mildly, alarming. Every 150 years, the southern San Andreas fault experiences an earthquake of the magnitude envisaged by the study. The last one was 151 years ago. As one seismologist noted last year, the fault "is 10 months pregnant".

"It's absolutely inevitable," said Jones. "The only question is whether it is in our lifetime." One recent study by the US Geological Survey put the likelihood of such an event happening in the next 30 years at 46%. The probability of a 6.7 magnitude quake was estimated at 99%.

 Source :  Guardian UK

Understanding how such monstrous waves form could lead to ways to predict when they might emerge or, potentially, even drive them at enemy vessels, scientists added.

For centuries these killer waves had been dismissed as myths — towering walls of water blamed for mysterious disappearances of ships. But on New Year's Day on 1995, a wave that reached more than 80 feet high was detected with scientific instruments at an oil platform in the North Sea, confirming the existence of these legends. Since then, the European Union initiated Project MaxWave, which relied on imagery from European Space Agency radar satellites to spot what appeared to be rogue waves around the world. Now scientists are trying to uncover what causes these monsters.

 Source : Live Science

One computer model indicated the weather system could reach hurricane strength before making landfall, but the Miami-based hurricane center's official prediction called for it to top out as a tropical storm with maximum winds of 55 knots, or 63 miles per hour (102 km per hour).

It would be called Tropical Storm Edouard once its top winds reach 39 mph (63 kph). Tropical storms become hurricanes when their top sustained winds reach 74 mph (119 kph).

 Source :  Reuters AP

Thousands of panicked pilgrims stampeded Sunday at a remote mountaintop temple in northern India during celebrations to honor a Hindu goddess, sending dozens of people plummeting to their deaths and trampling scores more. Police said 145 people were killed.

Rumors of a landslide apparently started the panic at the shrine in the foothills of the Himalayas, said C.P. Verma, a senior government official in the Bilaspur district.

Pilgrims already at the Naina Devi Temple began running down the narrow path leading from the peak. There, they collided with devotees winding their way up.

With a concrete wall on one side and a precipice on the other, there was nowhere to escape and they were crushed. At one point a guard rail broke and dozens of people fell to their deaths.

 Source : AP / Myway News

"Tornado alley" states from TX to NE, IA, SD, and CO began to pick up their tornado pace in late May, and may have also pushed KS and IA above their annual average, though most of these preliminary tornado reports were not confirmed as of this writing. Record tornado pace Tornadoes caused 111 deaths through the end of May, the second highest death toll for any year in the Doppler radar era, eclipsed only by the 130 deaths for the year in 1998 (120 of them by May 31). While tornado counts are still preliminary, it seems almost certain that the number of tornadoes has set a new five-month record, possibly 900 or more, while the previous record for the period was 778 in 1999. Unusually deadlyThe death toll is no doubt high, in part, because of the number of strong and violent, wide and long-track tornadoes. These pack the combination of destructive winds that demolish mobile homes and frame homes alike and a massive area placed at risk by virtue of their size and longevity. Numerous tornadoes have been rated EF3 or stronger and have had paths exceeding 30 miles. 51% of the deaths have been in mobile homes, 43% in other "permanent" buildings, 14% in vehicles, and 2% outdoors. 96% of the tornado deaths were from tornadoes rated EF2 or stronger; 38 of the deaths from EF4 or EF5 tornadoes.

 Source : Yahoo News

Some Southern Californians are said to have stampeded yesterday as they tried to evacuate a high-rise during the 5.4-magnitude quake outside Los Angeles. That is exactly what Margaret Vinci didn't want them to do, yesterday or during future earthquakes, especially "The Big One" that scientists predict will come any time in the next 30 years. "People really didn't know what to do. A lot of people evacuated buildings," said the manager of the Office of Earthquake Programs at Caltech.

And so it's time to rehearse.

Vinci's office along with dozens, possibly hundreds, of other organizations and millions of Californians will be part of a mega-earthquake drill — the largest in U.S. history — set for Nov. 13 and aimed at preventing this and other potentially catastrophic behaviors and results during the disastrous quake predicted along the San Andreas Fault. The fault has snapped in big and cyclical ways historically, but it's been relatively quiet in modern times and scientists know the respite simply can't last forever.

"Earthquakes don't kill anybody. It's buildings that fall down and things that are unsecured that hurt people," Vinci said. Overpasses and bridges are risky, "but it's usually not the earthquake itself. They don't open up and swallow people up. It's man-made objects that kill." People need not fear buildings, she said. "What happens is they all run out of buildings instead of ducking, covering and holding on. When the shaking has stopped, then people can evacuate and follow other instructions."

 Source : Live Science

 Source : CBS News