Week of 4/28/13 - 5/4/13

April 28, 2013 – SPACE - Comet TENAGRA: Announces the discovery of an apparently asteroidal object (discovery magnitude ~19.6)  The new comet has been designated COMET C/2013 G9 (TENAGRA).  –Astro Watch

 

April 28, 2013 – SANTA MONICA, CA. — A minor earthquake shook the Santa Monica Bay area at approximately 7:52 p.m. Friday, April 27. With a preliminary magnitude of 3.2, the tremor occurred roughly two miles north of El Segundo and two miles south of Marina Del Rey.

 

April 28, 2013 - A 6.2 magnitude earthquake also struck the Kermadec Islands. It was the 13th major earthquake to strike the planet in the month of April

 

April 28, 2013 – NEW ENGLAND - Atlantic sea-surface temperatures off the U.S. Northeast coast during the second half of 2012 were the highest recorded in 150 years, according to a report released on April 25 by NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center.  It is also an amount of warming not seen in any other ocean. Warming ocean temperatures off the Northeast have meant changing distributions of some fish populations; black sea bass and summer flounder are among the species shifting northeastward. One NOAA scientist said while it’s not yet clear what these findings will mean for the Northeast Shelf ecosystem and its marine life, that ecosystem is changing. –Sports Fishing Mag

April 28, 2013 – CANADA - What may have been Saskatchewan's snowiest winter ever is being followed now by the coldest spring in more than a century.

 

April 29, 2013 – PRAGUE, CZ. – A powerful explosion has hit the center of Prague, injuring at least 40 people in what initial indications suggested was a gas explosion.

 

April 29, 2013 – GEOPHYSICS - Think it’s hot on the sun? Well it’s just as hot under your feet, according to new research suggesting the Earth’s core is a scorching mass of iron that’s roughly the same temperature as the sun. Scientists at France’s CEA research agency revealed their new findings Friday in a study published in the journal Science. The Earth is believed to have a solid core, consisting mainly of iron in a crystalline state. Surrounding that solid core is an outer core comprised of scorching-hot liquid. The temperature of the crystalline centre has been the subject of an enduring debate, with scientists unable to agree on how the iron might behave in the intense pressure and heat of that environment.

 

April 30, 2013 – AZORES - An earthquake of magnitude 6 struck in the Atlantic Ocean 38 miles east of Ponta Delgada in Portugal’s Azores archipelago on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but local authorities reported no immediate damage.

 

April 30, 2013 – ISRAEL - An Israeli aircraft attacked a motorcycle in Gaza on Tuesday, killing a man who the military said was a top militant in a shadowy al Qaeda-influenced group who had been involved in a recent rocket attack on southern Israel. It was the first deadly airstrike in Gaza since a truce was reached with Palestinian militants last November, and is the most serious test yet of the Egyptian-brokered agreement. The strike came alongside the fatal stabbing of an Israeli settler in the West Bank, the first killing by a Palestinian of an Israeli in the territory in over a year.

 

April 30, 2013 – BAGHDAD - Shiite-dominated areas in southern and central Iraq were rocked Monday by car bomb explosions that killed at least 22 people and fueled fears that the country is sliding into a civil war. The violence occurred as Iraqi security forces surrounded the Sunni cities of Ramadi and Fallouja demanding that the area’s tribes hand over those responsible for killing five Iraqi soldiers over the weekend.

 

April 30, 2013 – SYRIA – Two people were killed and 20 others were injured in northwestern Syrian province of Idlib Tuesday after warplanes dropped bags containing “strange substances,” Al-Jazeera reported, saying the suspicious material was apparently chemical weapons. Videos uploaded by the Qatari news network show casualties having difficulties breathing treated in makeshift hospitals.

 

April 30, 2013 - Jet Stream in chaos: Spring has gotten off to a colder- and snowier-than-average start in parts of the United States, particularly in the eastern Rockies and Upper Midwest. Duluth, Minn., for example, has seen 51 inches (130 centimeters) of snow this April. That’s not only the most snow the town has seen in any April — breaking the old mark of 31.6 inches (80 cm) — but the most snow the town has received in any month, ever, according to government records. As of Monday (April 22), a total of 995 snowfall records have also been broken so far this month, according to AccuWeather.

 

April 30, 2013 – NORTH KOREA – North Korea appears to increase its cyber-activity in step with its controversial nuclear program, while the United States boosts its own programs and Chinese espionage attacks continue. Nation-state attacks through the Internet continue to escalate, with a massive surge in cyber-reconnaissance activity appearing to come from North Korea at the same time the country ratcheted up its nuclear rhetoric, according to security experts.

 

May 1, 2013 – ICELAND - The famous Icelandic volcano is showing further signs that indicate an eruption could occur in a near future. Significant rapid inflation, concentrated in the northern part of the volcano, has been detected since early April and likely represents accumulation of rising magma underneath. Already in mid March this year, an earthquake swarm, volcanic tremor and deformation caused an alert, because it was believed that this was caused by rapid movement of magma under the volcano.

 

May 1, 2013 – KASHMIR – “The quake happened at 12.27 p.m. and measured 5.8 on the Richter scale. The epicenter was near Kishtwar town at the Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh border region,” R.S. Dattatreya, director, Department of Seismology, India Meteorological Department (IMD), said. “It is a moderate tremor in Delhi and other northern regions.

May 4, 2013 - Iran -Giant ‘mutant’ rats are being hunted down by a team of snipers.
Although Tehran has had a decades-long struggle with rats, the problem seems to have grown to epic proportions. Rodents – estimated to number millions – have been flushed out of their nests by melting snow and some reportedly weigh as much as 5kg. Authorities have imported 45tonnes of rat poison but have had to ramp up their efforts.
‘They are now bigger and look different,’ he said, according to the International Business Times. ‘These are changes that normally take millions of years of evolution. They have jumped from 60g to 5kilos, and cats are now smaller than them.’