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...million years ago, in which 70% of all terrestrial species were wiped out, probably because of an asteroid impact or a similar natural disaster - this time human beings are the cause. Hard numbers are difficult to find, but many scientists believe Earth's species are going extinct at a rate that is up to 1,000 times higher than before human beings came on the scene. (See how animals are under siege...
Meanwhile, human beings have also been working to counteract the effects of their development and growth as well as man-made climate change. Measures like the U.S. Endangered Species Act, habitat-protecting nature reserves and hunting prohibitions are all designed to slow the rate of extinction and preserve dwindling species. But a new paper in the journal Biological Conservation says we may not be trying hard enough. A team of Australian researchers led by environmental scientist Lochran Traill finds that current conservation policy tends to underestimate the number of individuals needed in a population of endangered species to keep...
...Novasti, a Russian state-run news agency, reported that a Russian criminal group was just arrested for selling forged degrees from Harvard and other colleges. The going rate for a fake Harvard diploma ($40,000) was just a little less than the the official cost of one year's tuition, room, and board ($48,868 for 2009-10, according to FAS). But Alexander Khazin, deputy chief of a Russian Interior Ministry investigative department, told RIA Novasti that “a large group of fraudsters are involved in the [diploma forgery] business, and much time is required to discover them...
...Flint's new mayor, Dayne Walling, says the city is proud of its historical connection to GM. But it is looking for ways to diversify its economic base, revive the downtown areas and bring down the crime rate, which also has blighted the community's reputation. "We have some major challenges," he says...
...which locate quakes and determine their intensity. Today, there are more than 200, which allow seismologists to more immediately pin down the size and strength of an earthquake as it happens. Many of those sensors have also been equipped with global-positioning system add-ons, which can determine the rate at which a quake has caused a fault to slip. Scientists in the Bay Area have also dug several deep trenches that expose rock layers that have been deformed by quakes - that helps give them a better sense of how often earthquakes hit and when the next one may come...