WEIRD WORLD PT14/February 2012

The events noted in this blog does not include massive animal deaths because I have a series covering this. It does not include the most weather or earthquake events due to the massive numbers involved. I also don’t include the sinkholes due to the series covering this on the blog as well….unless it is a massive event!

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:49 CST

A pack of wolves terrorized locals in the streets of a Karelian town, not returning to the woods until police opened fire, killing two. The incident took place on Monday in Pitkyaranta, a town of 12,000 located near the Finnish border, some 670 kilometers northeast of Moscow, local police reported. “A frightened man called police to report he had just been attacked by wolves…not in the woods, but on the city’s Parkovaya Ulitsa,” a police spokesman said. A police patrol dispatched to Parkovaya Ulitsa discovered several wolves waiting outside the door of an apartment building. The animals ignored the police car, but one of them charged when the officers left the vehicle. They shot the wolf and then another who also tried to attack, prompting the pack to trudge back toward the forest where it came from. The thermometer stood at moderate minus 12 degrees Celsius in Pitkyaranta on Monday, down some six degrees from last week’s average, according to Gismeteo.ru weather forecaster.

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00 CST

Check out these rare photographs of the Black Sea being frozen. It does happen sometimes but is still considered a natural phenomenon.

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:05 CST

BIZARRE WHITE COBWEB-The top of the uranium fuel assembly where a white cobweb like material has been found. Scientists are investigating a bizarre white cobweb found on nuclear waste – amid fears it could have been made by a ‘mutant’ spider. In a freakish echo of the Spider-Man comic strip, workers at a U.S nuclear waste facility discovered the growth on uranium last month. The white ‘string-like’ material – never seen before on nuclear waste – was found among thousands of spent fuel assemblies submerged in deep pools. Experts from Savannah River National Laboratory collected a small sample of the mystery material to run tests. A report filed by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board – a federal oversight panel – concluded: ‘The growth, which resembles a spider web, has yet to be characterized, but may be biological in nature.’

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:19 CST

FOG? SERIOUSLY?-At first glance, it may appear as though tsunami is poised to crash over the Florida coastline. But much to the relief of Panama City residents, this breath-taking series of photographs shows a natural phenomenon far less destructive – waves of clouds.
Helicopter pilot JR Hott captured these breathtaking images, which show the low-lying haze swooping over high-rise buildings down the coast. KATU reports Mr Hott captured the images hovering over the Gulf of Mexico after one of his pilots came in from a flight on Sunday. Before his chopper could be engulfed by the heavy fog, Mr Hott flew up to capture the wave-like formations. ‘We jumped into helicopter and took off,’ he said. But he didn’t have long to descend. ‘Within a few minutes after we landed, it covered up the helipad,’ the seasoned pilot said.

10, Feb 2012 14:52 CST

Over 200 dead dolphins washed ashore in Peru-Residents of Chiclayo, on the northern coast of Peru, have found hundreds of dead dolphins over an area 66 miles long in the last week. The region known as Lambayeque is located nearly 500 miles north of Lima, the Peruvian capital. The authorities are still investigating the cause of the deaths and have not yet ruled out the possibility of hunting killings.

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:06 CST

DOUBLE SUN?-The following photograph taken this morning in Crimea:

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:40 CST

OCEAN CURRENT SLOWDOWN MAKES EARTH SPIN FASTER-It sometimes feels as though some months go by faster than others, but November 2009 really did. Events in the Southern Ocean conspired to make the Earth spin ever-so-slightly faster, shortening half of the days in the month by 0.1 milliseconds each. Different factors affect how fast the Earth spins. For instance, if the winds that whip around the planet slow down, the Earth spins faster to conserve angular momentum. There was a more down-to-earth cause in November 2009, however. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is a powerful ocean current that rings the continent. Stephen Marcus and his colleagues at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California and at the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris in France noticed that it slowed abruptly on 8 November 2009, only to speed up two weeks later. Precise day-length data revealed that the changes immediately caused the Earth to spin faster, shortening each day by 0.1 milliseconds. Like the currents, day length returned to normal on 20 November (Geophysical Research Letters,). This is the first time we have seen a rapid change in the oceans that is large enough to affect the Earth’s rotation, says Marcus. The event is worth noting as the Antarctic currents directly impact the health of the ice sheets.

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00 CST

SNOW 12 METERS HIGH-We’ve dodged much of winter’s wrath in Canada with higher than normal temperatures and smaller amounts of snow this year. The same can’t be said for other parts of the world. A cold snap returned to Japan this week bringing blizzards and creating record snow piles in some areas. The city of Niigata in central Japan has already seen 13 feet of snow and the weather agency is predicting up to 25 additional inches over the next few days, reports WFMY News. The village of Okura has received more than 10 feet of the white stuff and the Hokuriku area received three feet in less than 24 hours. It is no wonder this road in Japan has massive snow walls on both sides. The video below shows footage from a bus travelling up the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route. Snow is as high as 10 metres above the road in some spots.

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 08:51 CST

Images produced by the National Center for science Literacy, Education and Technology (NCSLET) showed a rare from of interaction in the wild between two species. Bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales were captured playing in Hawaiian waters. According to a paper published in the Aquatic Mammals Journal, based on what is known about the behaviour of both species, play was the most plausible explanation of the observed interaction. The paper observed that humpback whales are known to engage in “object play,” and “social play” is a common occurrence among dolphins, but never has the behaviour been observed in the wild to extend across species boundaries. According to the paper, given the “apparent initiation and cooperation of each dolphin being lifted, object (i.e., the dolphin) play by the whale and social play by the dolphin seem to be the most plausible explanations for the interaction.”

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:24 CST

On Feb. 6, 2012, Venice’s famed canals were choked with ice. This winter has been an odd one so far in Italy. Earlier in February, Rome saw a surprisingly heavily snowfall. Later in the month, Venice’s famous canals froze, as seen in the above picture. Until this past weekend, much of North America — except for Alaska — has enjoyed a mild winter. The return of La Niña, a naturally occurring climate phenomenon featuring cooler-than-average Pacific Ocean temperatures that influences global weather patterns, has pushed the jet stream north, which is partly to blame for Alaska’s snowy winter. But in the European region, the effects of La Niña are relatively weak and variable, according to the Met Office, the UK’s weather service. Regardless, cold air pouring southward into southern and eastern Europe has created a brutal winter. The cold has been blamed for tens to hundreds of deaths, according to news reports.

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:27 CST

Hundreds of birds just dropped from the sky and landed onto I-95 Wednesday, bringing afternoon rush hour traffic to a crawl.
They were common Starlings, and while there were a few in the grass and on the shoulders of the highway, the vast majority landed right on the northbound travel lanes in Laurel. “We were just kind of curious about running them over and getting them stuck in your tires and all that nastiness,” says Tammy Johnson. “I travel this all the time and have never seen anything like that before,” says Ray Wheltle. Traffic backed up as drivers slowed down out of concern for the birds and their cars.

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:30 CST

There was a spike in my magnetometer data at about 21:00UT on the 14th. Possible impact of that CME?For reasons not fully understood by forecasters, a disturbance rippled through Earth’s magnetic field on Feb. 14th. Perhaps it was Cupid’s arrow. The impact sparked some sweet lights around the Arctic Circle:

Image Taken: Feb. 14, 2012 Location: Aurora Sky Station, Abisko National Park, Sweden”On several occasions the sky was full of auroras from horizon to horizon,” says photographer and aurora tour guide Chad Blakley of Abisko National Park, Sweden. “We had many happy couples celebrating with us tonight. Most of our guests agreed that it was the best Valentine’s day that they had ever shared together.” There has been some speculation that the display was caused by a CME, launched from the sun on Feb. 10th and reaching Earth on Feb. 14th. However, there is no clear signature of a CME impact in local solar wind data.

Thu, 16 Feb, 2012

WELLFLEET, Massachusetts – There’s no good spot on Cape Cod for dolphins to continue this winter’s massive and unexplained beachings, but a group of 11 has chosen one of the worst.

Thu, 16 Feb, 2012

LAUREL, Md. — Maryland state officials say hundreds of birds were killed on Interstate 95 near Laurel, bringing traffic to a crawl.

Thu, 16 Feb, 2012

The environment ministry was on Thursday investigating the mysterious blood red color that tainted the Beirut River a day earlier, urging the Hazmiyeh and Baabda municipalities to cooperate with it. Beirut police went in vain up and down the stream on Wednesday to locate the source of the red liquid. As Safir daily said that the ministry’s team of experts headed by Bassam Sabbagh made an initial finding that the pollutant has no odor and that the red color could come from blood, a chemical, or a dye. “The source of the pollution hasn’t been identified yet because it comes from a closed sewage,” Environment Minister Nazem al-Khoury said. “But it could probably be from the Hazmiyeh or Baabda municipalities. “He urged the municipalities to cooperate as soon as possible to determine the source and type of pollution. “There is a possibility that a factory threw pollutants or a slaughterhouse” threw the remains of animals, al-Khoury said.An unlicensed farm could also be behind the pollution, he added.

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:00 CST

Residents of Barangay Cambuang, Dumanjug gather near a sinkhole in a farm few meters from the national road. They said the sinkhole is growing and has already swallowed an electric post and a small mango tree.Residents of a village here expressed alarm over a sinkhole that formed after an explosion, reviving tension in a community that is still nervous following an intensity 6.9 earthquake recently. The hole was first discovered by a farm caretaker in Barangay Cambuang on Friday. It was initially the size of a frying pan, said Walter Pesablon, 36, who was watching over a 3-hectare farm in the village. Pesablon said he didn’t pay much attention to the hole at first, but when he returned to look at it after having breakfast, he noticed the soil moving and cracks forming around the hole. An hour later, an explosion shattered the early morning silence of the village. Pesablon said he checked again and saw a hole with a diameter of about 10 meters. By noon, it grew to 12 meters, the farm caretaker said. The next day, the hole had grown to about 20 meters in diameter and it appeared to be further increasing in size.

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:31 CST

Otherworldly: A volcanic erupts on the Fimmvvrpuhals mountain pass in Iceland as Aurora Borealis lights up the sky in lurid greens and yellows behind With their vivid colours and alien landscapes, these pictures look like they could be of another world. They capture two of nature’s most spectacular sights – the northern lights and an erupting volcano in Iceland – in a single shot. Photographer James Appleton from Cambridge braved the mighty flames of the Fimmvvrpuhals volcano and the frozen bite of the harsh Icelandic winter – and was rewarded with these incredibly rare shots.

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:38 CST

Belgrade – Ice floes up to one metre (three feet) thick smashed into hundreds of boats on the River Danube near Belgrade as a thaw set in, sinking a floating restaurant, officials and witnesses said Monday. Barges also broke adrift under the pressure of the ice as it melted and broke up following a rise in temperature at the end of a two-week cold snap that killed hundreds of people across Europe. People try to salvage their boats among big chunks of ice on the Danube River in Zemun near Belgrade on February 20, 2012.”Hundreds of small boats were damaged or sunk, while almost 90 percent of rafts were moved up to 20 metres (yards) downstream,” Zoran Matic of the Belgrade water company told AFP.

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:25 CST

90 MILE WIDE UNDERWATER STORM-A Nasa satellite has provided jaw-dropping pictures of a huge ‘storm’ brewing under the sea. The swirling mass of water – which measures a whopping 93 miles wide – has been spotted off the coast of South Africa by the Terra satellite on December 26. But there’s no need to alert international shipping, or worry about the poor fish that might find themselves in an endless washing cycle – the body of water poses no threat.
Stunning image: The 90-mile-wide whirlpool, spotted off the coast of South Africa by Nasa’s Terra satellite, looks deadly but it more likely to create life by lifting nutrients from the ocean floor. Indeed, it is more likely to create life by sucking nutrients from the bed and bringing them to the surface. The sea storms – which are better known as eddies – form bizarre whirl shaped shapes deep beneath the ocean’s surface. This counter-clockwise eddy is thought to have peeled off from the Agulhas Current, which flows along the southeastern coast of Africa and around the tip of South Africa.

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:47 CST
BATHERS ATTACK BY CARNIVOROUS FISH-At least 20 people suffered slight injuries on their toes and fingers when they were attacked by carnivorous fish as they were bathing in a river in southern Brazil, authorities reported Monday. The attack occurred Sunday afternoon at two different spots on the Toropi river, which runs through the central part of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. The bathers were attacked by a school of “palometas”, a species of carnivorous fish native to South America’s Southern Cone.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:58 CST

A photographer from Britain, James Appleton, has captured breath-taking pictures from Iceland, reports The Huffington Post. He captured both magma and northern lights in one shot. He stood just a few yards from an erupting volcano in order to take the pictures and they just might be one of nature’s most amazing sights. James was willing to go within a few hundred feet of an erupting volcano after working alongside vulcanologists in Iceland, and found out about Fimmvörðuháls who from his Icelandic friend. He explained, “She informed me of the eruption, and I knew immediately I had to try and get out to see it.” Not only did James have to deal with the harsh flames of the volcano, but he also had to face the frozen temperatures of a harsh Icelandic winter in order to take his remarkable pictures. “The closest I got was probably only a few hundred meters away,” said James.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:21 CST

This image of clouds over the southern Indian Ocean was acquired on July 23, 2007 by one of the backward (northward)-viewing cameras of the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA’s polar-orbiting Terra spacecraft. Earth’s clouds got a little lower — about one percent on average — during the first decade of this century, finds a new NASA-funded university study based on NASA satellite data. The results have potential implications for future global climate.
Scientists at the University of Auckland in New Zealand analyzed the first 10 years of global cloud-top height measurements (from March 2000 to February 2010) from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on NASA’s Terra spacecraft. The study, published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, revealed an overall trend of decreasing cloud height. Global average cloud height declined by around one percent over the decade, or by around 100 to 130 feet (30 to 40 meters). Most of the reduction was due to fewer clouds occurring at very high altitudes. Lead researcher Roger Davies said that while the record is too short to be definitive, it provides a hint that something quite important might be going on. Longer-term monitoring will be required to determine the significance of the observation for global temperatures.

Wed, 22 Feb 2012

Real or illusion? In late February, the Horsetail Fall in Yosemite National Park is lit by the sunlight near dusk and displays a rich color like fire.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103408/Yosemite-waterfall-turns-flowing-lava-rare-February-spectacle-caught-camera.html#ixzz1mwvRPQXF

Wed, 22 Feb 2012

Big Island Mystery Booms Amid Earthquake Swarm + Police Scanner Audio

Thu, 23 Feb 2012

Stampeding Dolphins!

Thu, 23 Feb 2012

China has 693 SINKHOLES APPEAR

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:28 CST

Visitors at the mud volcano in Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Lahad Datu, where its pool has overflowed to about the size of a football field, three times bigger than its normal size.A rare phenomenon is attracting a beeline of “visitors” at the mud volcano in the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Lahad Datu. Volcanic mud has been spewing at least twice to three times more actively than normal since last week. This has created an overflow of the sulphuric substance that has spread over an area as big as a football field. Apart from excited guests at the nearby Tabin Wildlife Resort, the number of wild animals, too, appears to have increased at the mud pool. (Volcanic mud is believed to contain curative properties with iodine, bromine, calcium and magnesium. According to Wikipedia, since the mud solution has no significant toxic substance, it is used as a curative agent for mud baths at spas. Mud baths have existed for thousands of years and can now be found in high-end spas in many countries of the world.) The mineral-rich pool serves as a salt lick for animals at the Tabin Wildlife Reserve, including endangered species such as the Sumatran rhino and the pygmy elephants.

Fri, 24 Feb 2012

NASA Admits Strange Fireballs This Month… Compilation Video

Sun, 26 Feb 2012

Strange Garlic Odor Sickens Phoenix Residents

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:14 CST

I’m not a scientist –But even with my limited knowledge of the scientific world, I know enough to say without fear of reprisal that two-headed fish are not generally an indicator of a healthy watershed. The two-headed fish in question is a trout and was just one of many abnormal fish that were regulated to an appendix of a scientific study commissioned by the J.R. Simplot Company. Despite the presence of fish with two heads and fish with facial, fin, and egg deformities, the mining company’s report concluded that the waters it is accused of polluting in southern Idaho are fairly safe. So safe in fact that the company feels it would be just peachy to allow the water’s high selenium (a metal byproduct of mining that is toxic to wildlife) levels to remain as is, even though they are higher than are permitted under regulatory guidelines. In a move that’s stranger than a multi-headed fish, the EPA actually described the mining company’s report as “comprehensive.” This led many scientists to shake their single head in disbelief and call for further investigation. Among those that found the EPA’s assessment fishy was Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who heads the chamber’s Environment and Public Works Committee. According to the New York Times, she requested the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to go over the initial report. The agency did and concluded that the study was “biased” and “highly questionable.”

Tue, 28 Feb 2012

Mysterious Loud ‘Booms’ Strike Cape Fear, N.C. (Again) – Sonic or Other?

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:41 CST

A mysterious cloudy substance is emptying into Kewalo Basin from a storm drain at an alarming rate. The mystery plume started pouring into Kewalo Basin before sunrise. “It was like 5:30 in the morning and I was standing here and then all of a sudden it came all at one time,” said Robert St. Romain of Sashimi Fishing Tours. At first light he and other boat owners were stunned by the free flowing plume that turned the water white. “Just was coming out here like crazy just like you see it right now and it muddied the whole harbor in a matter of five minutes.”