La humanidad no puede sobrevivir sin la naturaleza. Sin embargo, estamos tratando al planeta como si no fuéramos conscientes de esto. Al ritmo que van las cosas, la biodiversidad se enfrenta a un colapso inminente. Debemos respetar el mundo natural del que formamos parte. Debemos poner fin a la destrucción de nuestros ecosistemas y debemos invertir el ciclo ahora. Únete a nosotros para decir alto y claro: ¡necesitamos hacer las paces con la naturaleza!

Fuente consultada | UNSCO | Facebook

Poisons killed beloved owls in Tampa Bay. Can their defenders save others?
The birds died one by one in a local park. Admirers blame rat poison. Now they’re trying to get chemicals off the street.

SAFETY HARBOR — Mark Schocken took thousands of pictures of the great horned owls in Philippe Park, but he didn’t often capture them eating.

Then one clear afternoon, binoculars slung over his shoulder and camera in hand, he watched the mother bird plop a rat in front of her baby. The light was perfect, the owls positioned just right.

Click.

It was March 2, 4:25 p.m. Only days before the first death.

Schocken and his wife, Linda, spent many winter hours in the park, a sliver of oaks dripping with Spanish moss at the edge of Tampa Bay. They were part of a collective of photographers who surrounded the “Owl Tree,” a knobby clutch of branches next to a parking lot where the birds nested.

Admirers knew the owls like celebrities, learning their patterns — how they were most active around dawn and dusk, how the mother clacked her beak at squirrels that scurried too close, how their deep calls pulsed through the park’s canopy. Some gave them names, Oliver and Emily, this year with three babies: Huey, Louie and Daisy (née Dewey, before they figured out the owl was female).

Schocken, semi-retired at 74, felt a mysticism in their presence. He liked when the father owl turned searchlight yellow eyes onto him.

On this afternoon, not long before spring, he lingered under a branch where Emily sat with two owlets. He watched Huey touch the rat’s limp back. The mother gazed at her fuzzy-headed baby.

Suddenly, Emily snatched the rat in her talons and flew away. Schocken can’t be sure whether she returned to finish the meal. But he knows what happened next.

All but one owl was dead within a month and a half. Each had poison in its body — highly toxic rodenticides that businesses, homeowners and local governments use to kill rats and mice.

Two experts who reviewed necropsy reports for the Tampa Bay Times said the poisons likely caused or contributed to the owls’ deaths, adding them to an ever-growing list of unintended victims harmed by the chemicals.

RELATED: Think you have a rodent problem, Tampa Bay? Here’s what to do.
Such poisons routinely sicken other animals, including pets and people, that eat contaminated rodents or come into contact with the baits directly. Yet the strongest substances remain popular and widely available because they quickly erase an expensive problem: uncontrolled rodent populations.

While the federal government and certain industries have maintained that poisons are essential tools, animal advocates question whether they create more problems than they solve. The chemicals interrupt a fragile food chain, killing predators that naturally feed on rodents like raptors, foxes and mountain lions.

Keep reading Poisons killed beloved owls in Tampa Bay. Can their defenders save others?

Source consulted / tampabay.com

Indonesia earthquake: Many schoolchildren killed as toll soars to 268

Many of those killed and injured in a major earthquake on the Indonesian island of Java were children, rescuers say, as the death toll soars to 268.

Aprizal Mulyadi, 14, was at school when the quake hit, saying he was trapped after "the room collapsed and my legs were buried under the rubble".

He said he was pulled to safety by his friend Zulfikar, who later died after himself becoming trapped.

More than 1,000 people were wounded, officials say.

In its latest announcements on Tuesday, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) added that 151 people were still missing.

It also said that 22,000 houses had been damaged, and that more than 58,000 people had taken shelter in several locations in the region.

Source consulted https://www.bbc.com

By Richard Hollingham (20th November 2022)

When Nasa sent twin rovers to Mars, they landed on a barren red landscape, but a new documentary looks how these remarkable missions brought a life of their own to the Red Planet and their effect on the people working with them back Earth.

It's January 2004 and Nasa is about to land on Mars, twice. The twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are scheduled to arrive on opposite sides of the Red Planet within weeks of each other, and a lot can go wrong. The descent involves each lander plunging through the Martian atmosphere, deploying parachutes and bouncing across the rocky landscape encased in giant airbags.

In mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, the pressure is on. Some two-thirds of previous Mars missions have ended in failure. Five years earlier, Nasa's Mars Climate Orbiter had disintegrated after engineers muddled-up imperial (English) and metric units. And, in a pre-launch test for the rover landing system, the parachutes ripped apart leaving a lander smashed to pieces on the ground.

"It absolutely could have gone wrong," says Abigail Fraeman, a JPL research scientist who worked on the missions. Their worst fears appeared to have be realised when, within just 18 Martian days – or sols – of a successful landing, Spirit went quiet. It sent back to Earth only meaningless code, rather than useful data or images. Although engineers managed to coax the rover back to life, by the time Opportunity lands on 25 January, everyone involved is on edge.

Source consulted "https://www.bbc.com - keep reading

Cuando la NASA envió rovers gemelos a Marte, aterrizaron en un paisaje rojo estéril, pero un nuevo documental analiza cómo estas misiones extraordinarias dieron vida propia al Planeta Rojo y su efecto en las personas que trabajan con ellos en la Tierra.

Es enero de 2004 y la NASA está a punto de aterrizar en Marte dos veces. Los rovers gemelos Spirit y Opportunity de Marte están programados para llegar a lados opuestos del Planeta Rojo con una diferencia de semanas, y muchas cosas pueden salir mal. El descenso implica que cada módulo de aterrizaje se sumerja en la atmósfera marciana, despliegue paracaídas y rebote por el paisaje rocoso encerrado en bolsas de aire gigantes.

En el control de la misión en el Laboratorio de Propulsión a Chorro (JPL) en Pasadena, California, hay presión. Alrededor de dos tercios de las misiones anteriores a Marte han terminado en fracaso. Cinco años antes, el Mars Climate Orbiter de la NASA se había desintegrado después de que los ingenieros confundieran las unidades imperiales (inglesas) y métricas. Y, en una prueba previa al lanzamiento del sistema de aterrizaje del rover, los paracaídas se rompieron dejando un módulo de aterrizaje hecho pedazos en el suelo.

"Absolutamente podría haber salido mal", dice Abigail Fraeman, científica investigadora del JPL que trabajó en las misiones. Sus peores temores parecían haberse hecho realidad cuando, en solo 18 días marcianos, o soles, de un aterrizaje exitoso, Spirit se quedó en silencio. Envió a la Tierra solo código sin sentido, en lugar de datos o imágenes útiles. Aunque los ingenieros lograron que el rover volviera a la vida, para cuando el Opportunity aterrice el 25 de enero, todos los involucrados estaban nerviosos.

Fuente consultada "https://www.bbc.com - sigue leyendo

Con una estrella de Hollywood y el recuerdo de anteriores Copas del Mundo: así fue la impactante ceremonia inaugural del Mundial Qatar 2022

El actor Morgan Freeman encabezó una ceremonia en la que cantó Jungkook, de BTS, ante 60 mil espectadores. Las mascotas y la música de las ediciones anteriores sorprendieron a los fanáticos en el estadio Al Bayt en la previa al partido entre Qatar y Ecuador

Fuente https://www.infobae.com/ /

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — An NYPD detective who was shot in the leg while executing a narcotics search warrant in New Springville back in January is suing the owners of the house where the shooting occurred.

Det. Dominick Libretti is alleging in a lawsuit that homeowners Elad and Karen Factor should have been aware of the criminal activity going at the house, and states they did nothing to stop it.

The officer, a decorated 10-year veteran of the department, was entering the home — 82 Rockne St. — around 6 a.m. on Jan. 20 as part of a long-term investigation when authorities allege shots were fired through a bedroom door by suspect Nelson Pizarro, 39.

Consulted Source https://www.silive.com/

The snow has started.

AccuWeather forecasters say a blockbuster lake-effect snowstorm will bury some locations in western New York with feet of snow, grind travel to a halt and possibly stamp new marks in the weatherw history books.

"Bands of heavy lake-effect snow began to pour off Lake Erie and Lake Ontario late Wednesday night, and meteorologists say that snow is only one phase of what is shaping up to be a historic and multi-day snowfall event," said AccuWeather meteorologist Renee Duff.

The National Weather Service said the snow could paralyze the hardest-hit communities, including Buffalo, with periods of near-zero visibility.

consulted source

Consulted Source https://www.usatoday.com/