Environment

Got water? Keeping it flowing could get expensive

Mark Koba — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:40:30 GMT

America's water system—its treatment plants and pipes—is in need of very serious repair if the country is to have safe drinking water, experts say. And it won't come cheap. "This is serious, and if it's not fixed, we could see a breakout of diseases from unsafe water," said Shafiqul Islam, a professor and director of the Water Diplomacy Initiative at Tufts University. "Every two minutes there's...

Largest solar sail ever to launch in 2014

Science — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:29:36 GMT

By Mike WallSpace.comA huge solar sail designed to demonstrate the viability and value of propellant-free propulsion is slated to blast into space in November 2014, mission officials say.NASA's Sunjammer spacecraft — whose 13,000-square-foot (1,208 square meters) sail will allow it to cruise through the heavens like a boat through the ocean — is scheduled to lift off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rock...

Endangered California frogs let loose in wild

Science — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:29:36 GMT

By Megan GannonLiveScienceIn a boost to California's endangered amphibians, researchers released about 100 mountain yellow-legged froglets into the wild this week.The diminutive frogswere bred and raised in captivity for a year before they were released on Wednesday into a creek at the James San Jacinto Mountains Reserve. This is the first time frogs of this species have been reintroduced into the...

World's population could hit 11 billion by 2100

Science — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:29:36 GMT

By Tia GhoseLiveScienceThe world's population could reach 11 billion by the year 2100, according to a new statistical analysis.That represents 800 million more people than was forecast in 2011. Most of that increase comes because birth rates in Africa haven't dropped as fast as projected."The fertility decline in Africa has slowed down or stalled to a larger extent than we previously predicted, an...

Cost of 2012 natural disasters one for the record books

Science — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 22:05:14 GMT

By Megan GannonLiveScienceHurricane Sandy and an extensive drought made 2012 the United States' second-costliest year for natural disasters since 1980, federal officials said Thursday.Weather and climate disasters racked up $110 billion in damages across the country last year, according to a report released by the National Climate Data Center (NCDC).There were 11 events in 2012 that each incurred ...

'Bloodsucking vampire' mosquitoes set to haunt Florida

Tracy Jarrett, Staff Writer, NBC News — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:39:50 GMT

Brace yourself Florida, there is a “vampire” in your midst -- and this one is not afraid of the sun. The giant psorophora ciliata mosquito, which is colloquially known as the gallinipper and is 20 times the size of your average mosquito, is set to plague south and central Florida this summer as the rainy season begins. While these monsters don’t carry diseases, their intense bite can feel like a k...

Mammoth mosquitoes spotted in Florida

Tue, 11 Jun 2013 12:48:12 GMT

World 'off-track' in effort to limit warming, report says

John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:53:24 GMT

Global emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide notched up 1.4 percent to 31.6 gigatonnes in 2012, a move in the opposite direction of an international climate goal to limit global warming, the International Energy Agency said in a report released Monday. Instead of limiting warming to a long-term rise of no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), the report said the world is c...

Why deadly Oklahoma twister grew to a record width of 2.6 miles

Science — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 00:00:18 GMT

By Douglas MainLiveScienceThe tornado that struck near the Oklahoma City suburb of El Reno on Friday has been upgraded to an EF5 strength — the strongest rating on the Enhanced Fujita scale. National Weather Service (NWS) storm surveyors also put the tornado's path at a whopping 2.6 miles (4 kilometers) across at its widest point, making it the widest tornado on record. The tornado was part of an...

Tropical Storm Andrea lifts the curtain on Atlantic hurricane season

M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 23:54:46 GMT

Most of Florida's Gulf Coast was under the first tropical storm warning of the year Wednesday as a storm named Andrea debuted the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season.The warning extended all the way up the state, from Boca Grande off the southern tip of the Florida peninsula to the Ochlockonee River in the panhandle. A less urgent tropical storm watch was in effect up the rest of the East Coast from Fl...

'I keep telling myself it’s just stuff…'

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 23:32:48 GMT

Scientific review criticizes government roundups of wild horses

Lisa Myers — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 23:32:46 GMT

An independent scientific review of the U.S. government’s management of America’s iconic wild horses is highly critical of the current policy of rounding them up, removing them from the range and placing thousands of mustangs a year in captivity. The at times scathing report by a 14-member panel assembled by the National Academy of Sciences says “business as usual” is expensive and unproductive, a...

Massive wildfire rages in California, threatening 1,000 homes

Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:35:49 GMT

More than 2,000 firefighters battling the 25,000-acre Powerhouse blaze in California inched closer to gaining control over the monstrous inferno early Monday as temperatures cooled, according to officials.The Powerhouse fire was “not carrying well or growing as fast” as it was Sunday, allowing firefighters to gain an “upper hand” over it, said U.S. Forestry Service spokesman Matt Corelli. It was 4...

Wildfires rage in Calif., New Mexico, threatening 1,000 homes

Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:23:47 GMT

Drought-fueled wildfires raged in New Mexico and California early Monday, including a 25,000-acre blaze that threatened 1,000 homes and is predicted to burn for another week.Six homes were destroyed and nine other buildings damaged in the Powerhouse wildfire near the high-desert city of Lancaster, about 65 miles outside Los Angeles, U.S. Forest Service spokesman Lee Bentley told NBCLosAngeles.com...

Head of company overseeing leaking nuclear tanks at Hanford to step down

M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News — Thu, 30 May 2013 03:11:56 GMT

The head of the contracting company responsible for containment tanks found to be leaking radioactive liquid at the Hanford, Wash., Nuclear Reservation announced his retirement Wednesday.The head of the contractor overseeing cleanup operations at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina will replace Mike Johnson, president and project manager of Washington River Protection Solutions, or WRPS, Joh...

Rare plant in danger from logging at Boy Scout camp in California

Susanne Rust, The Center for Investigative Reporting — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:25:47 GMT

Expulsion from the Boy Scouts of America is a dishonor few Scouts endure. But that was the punishment imposed on Kim Kuska, a self-taught naturalist and former biology teacher who had been with the organization for more than 50 years.His crime: an obsession with the rare, and unfortunately named, Dudley’s lousewort.Since the 1970s, the Eagle Scout and adult Scout leader-turned-whistle-blower has w...

'Upsets': Chemical releases disrupt lives but rarely result in punishment

Kristen Lombardi and Andrea Fuller — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:36:58 GMT

BATON ROUGE, La. — Shirley Bowman noticed the smell after 8 a.m. on June 14, 2012, her 61st birthday. In Baton Rouge, where the petrochemical industry dominates the landscape, foul odors resembling burnt rubber or propane are perennial. But this odor, caustic and potent, seemed especially foul — “like some sort of chemical,” she recalls.Bowman found her daughter crying over a migraine. Her neighbo...

Fracking boom triggers water battle in North Dakota

Ernest Scheyder — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:44:56 GMT

WATFORD CITY, N.D. -- In towns across North Dakota, the wellhead of the North American energy boom, the locals have taken to quoting the adage: "Whiskey is for drinking, and water is for fighting."It's not that they lack water, like Texas and California. They are swimming in it, and it is free for the taking. Yet as the state's Bakken shale fields have grown, so has the fight over who has the righ...

Buggy hordes of cicadas sighted in Virginia ... but New York? Not yet

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Sat, 18 May 2013 21:30:19 GMT

There's been a groundswell of 17-year cicadas in Virginia and other southern states, as revealed by a fresh wave of photos and eyewitness reports. In some areas, the outbreak has been accompanied by the insects' loud chorus call. And that's music to the ears of University of Connecticut entomologist John Cooley."That's where I'm heading," Cooley told NBC News. The weather is still too cool in New ...

Cicadas ramping up for East Coast invasion

Science — Fri, 17 May 2013 09:54:49 GMT

By Megan GannonLiveScienceCicada nymphs have been starting to crawl out of the ground in droves across the East Coast, and the highly anticipated emergence of the 17-year-old insects has been ramping up in the Mid-Atlantic in recent days.Nymph sightings have been reported as far north as Connecticut, according to citizen science projects such as Radiolab's Cicada Tracker and Magicicada. But farthe...

Melting glaciers contribute to rising ocean levels

Fri, 17 May 2013 07:15:37 GMT

Food supply under assault as climate heats up

Bill Briggs — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:29:37 GMT

American eaters, let’s talk about the birds and the bees: The U.S. food supply – from chickens injected with arsenic to dying bee colonies – is under unprecedented siege from a blitz of man-made hazards, meaning some of your favorite treats someday may vanish from your plate, experts say. Warmer and moister air ringing much of the planet – punctuated by droughts in other locales – is threatening t...

Feds: 500 fewer firefighters to face West's heightened risk this summer

U.S. News — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:47:33 GMT

WASHINGTON - Shrinking budgets mean fewer firefighters will be available this summer even as unusually dry weather has increased the risk of fire in much of the West, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warned Monday."As a result of sequester and across-the-board cuts we will have about 500 fewer firefighters at the Forest Service than we would otherwise have," said Vilsack.Cuts known as sequest...

Florida's citrus industry battles potent foe: a disease with no cure

LIZETTE ALVAREZ — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:22:39 GMT

AVON PARK, Fla. — Florida’s citrus industry is grappling with the most serious threat in its history: a bacterial disease with no cure that has infected all 32 of the state’s citrus-growing counties. Although the disease, citrus greening, was first spotted in Florida in 2005, this year’s losses from it are by far the most extensive. While the bacteria, which causes fruit to turn bitter and dr...

Giant sheets of ice creep onto Minnesota shore, surge toward houses

Daniel Arkin, Staff Writer, NBC News — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:22:38 GMT

Minnesotans saw scenes reminiscent of a Hollywood sci-fi spectacle this weekend when massive waves of ice surged out of the water and crept onto the shore like some fast-moving glacier.Powerful gusts of wind drove giant sheets of ice toward townhouses hugging the southern lip of Lake Mille Lacs at the northwest end of the state.Amateur video footage captured at the scene shows 2-foot blocks of win...