Some serious snow in Japan:

Antarctic striped icebergs

One of them looks like a giant mint humbug, with its clear blue, green and brown stripes.

The other looks as if it has been shot through with a streak of spearmint.

These stunning banded icebergs - formed over hundreds, if not thousands, of years - were pictured floating in the waters of the Antarctic. Some of the stripes formed when layers of the iceberg melted and refroze.

Others were created from the dust and soil picked up when the ice sheet that gave birth to the iceberg was sliding down an Antarctic hillside.

The sailors thought that the icebergs looked like mint humbugs

They were photographed by Norwegian sailor Oyvind Tangen, on board a research ship around 1,700miles south of Cape Town and 660miles north of the Antarctic.

"It reminds me of striped candy I bought as a child," said 62-year-old Mr Tangen.

The first iceberg was about 150ft long and 30ft high. The second was about 100ft tall.

Most of those in the Antarctic were formed from snow falling on the giant ice sheet that covers the continent.

Over time, the snow is compressed to form more ice, which slides slowly towards the sea.

There it either breaks off into the water, or forms an ice shelf.

Most appear white as a result of the tiny bubbles trapped within them which scatter light in every direction.

However, if the bubbles are squeezed out, or if part of the iceberg melts and quickly refreezes, it can appear blue. lue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with meltwater and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form.

When an iceberg falls into the sea, a layer of salty seawater can freeze to the underside. If this is rich in algae, it can form a green stripe.

Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the sea.

Only one-tenth of an iceberg lies above the water.

The biggest known iceberg towered 551ft above sea level - the height of a 55-storey building.

7 Things you really ought to know about Camel Anatomy

1. The Hump: Contrary to popular belief, the hump does not store water. Instead, it’s filled with fat, like a gravity-defying beer belly, which allows the camel to go for a month without food.
If the hump becomes depleted, it will shrink, flop over, and hang at the camel’s side.

2. The Nipples: Camel milk, the Bedouin beverage of choice, is more nutritious than cow milk, with more potassium, more iron, and three times as much vitamin C. In fact, Camel milk will soon become available in grocery stores across Europe. In the meantime, candy makers from Vienna are developing a chocolate camel milk for the kids.

3. The Nostrils: Camels can open and close their muscular nostrils at will, which prevents them from inhaling sand in the event of a sandstorm.

4. The Body Heat: When the outside temperature is higher than body temperature, most mammals sweat to cool off. But not the camel. To avoid sweating, its body temperature will rise up to 11 degrees, which is the primary way that camels conserve water in the desert. In fact, camels often huddle together to stay cool because their body temperature is often less than the outside air.

5. The Excretions: Camels also conserve water by producing concentrated urine and dry dung.

6. The Feet: When the thick, leathery pads of a camel’s foot hit the ground, they spread wide, preventing the camel from sinking into the sand.

7. Those Long Legs: When a camel walks, it moves both legs on one side and the both legs on the other, rocking side-to-side. This is why camels are nicknamed “The ships of the desert.” Camel legs are incredibly strong, which allows them to carry up to 1000 pounds. They also can walk 100 miles per day and sprint at 12 miles per hour.

Teeny Tiny Prehistoric Insects Found in Amber

Examples of virtual 3D extraction of organisms embedded in opaque amber: a) Gastropod Ellobiidae; b) Myriapod Polyxenidae; c) Arachnid; d) Conifer branch (Glenrosa); e) Isopod crustacean Ligia; f) Insect hymenopteran Falciformicidae. Credits: M. Lak, P. Tafforeau, D. Néraudeau
(ESRF Grenoble and UMR CNRS 6118 Rennes).

Scientists from the University of Rennes, France, and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility used X-rays to reveal the structure of prehistoric insects trapped in amber:

Malvina Lak and her colleagues from the University of Rennes and Paul Tafforeau of the ESRF, together with the National Museum of Natural History of Paris, have applied a synchrotron X-ray imaging technique known as propagation phase contrast microradiography to the investigation of opaque amber. This technique permits light to reach the interior of this dark amber, which resembles a stone to the human eye. “Researchers have tried to study this kind of amber for many years with little or no success. This is the first time that we can actually discover and study the fossils contained within”, says Paul Tafforeau.

The scientists imaged 640 pieces of amber from the Charentes region in south-western France. They discovered 356 fossil animals, ranging from wasps and flies, to ants and even spiders and acarians. The team was able to identify the family for 53% of the inclusions.

The Diesel Tree

With the price of diesel skyrocketing (prompting independent truckers to strike yesterday), it’s interesting to note that Mother Nature has actually made a tree that produce natural diesel!

Treehugger has the story:

Australian farmers in the wet tropical region of North Queensland have bought over 20,000 of these so-called diesel trees. The intention is that in 15 or so years they’ll have their very own oil mine growing on their farmland.

Because, the Brazilian Copaifera langsdorfii, to use its botanical name, can be tapped not unlike a rubber tree, but instead of yielding rubbery latex it gives up a natural diesel. According to the nurseryman selling the trees, one hectare will yield about 12,000 litres annually.

Once filtered—no complex refining required, apparently—it can be placed straight into a diesel tractor or truck. We read that a single Copaifera langsdorfii will continue to produce fuel oil for an impressive 70 years, with the only negative being that its particular form of diesel needs to be used within three months of extraction.

Spectacular pictures of nature at its wildest, captured by the storm chasers who risk their lives to follow twisters

The violent winds howl, announcing the arrival of the twister.

Grapefruit-sized hailstones rain down and the huge funnel of the tornado swings menacingly on the horizon.

These are the most violent storms on earth, wreaking havoc wherever they whirl.

For most, the sight of an approaching "twister" is a vision of hell on earth.

But for a few, experiencing a tornado in full flow is their idea of heaven.



Independence Day II: A cloud over Sioux City, Iowa, is whipped into a massive, spaceship-like doughnut a mile in diameter
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Tornado

Bolts from the blue: A violent swirling mass darkens the skies over Grand Island, Nebraska and creates a mini electrical storm
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They are the storm chasers, a rare breed of adventurers who delight in tracking tornados and watching them unfold.

And as these pictures taken by storm chasers Mike Hollingshead and Eric Nguyen show, tornados can be both deadly - and hypnotically beautiful.

Storm chasers, who think nothing of driving 500 miles a day in the hope of finding a "big one", are a motley bunch of research scientists, local TV journalists competing to be first with the tornado warnings (not only saving lives but boosting viewer ratings, too) and adrenaline junkies.

Up to 800 twisters are reported in the U.S. every year and most of them are to be found in the Mid-West prairieland or, as the chasers have named it, "Tornado Alley".

The storms there are triggered by the unique weather of the Mid-West.

It has a constant low pressure system that draws moist, warm air from the southern Gulf of Mexico towards the cool dry air of the Northern Rockies and the warm dry air of the Western deserts.


Touchdown: A funnel of rotating air leaps from the cloud to the ground and a twister is born over the fields of Attica, Kansas
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Tornado

Heaven's Hammer: A monster tornado unleashes its wrath across Alvo, Nebraska, travelling at over 70mph
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These conflicting air systems produce large, violently rotating masses of air, called supercells.

In some, especially in the sultry heat of mid-afternoon, huge updraughts are created and begin to spin.

The distinctive dark snout of cloud is formed, and when it touches the ground a tornado is born, with winds that can reach up to 300mph.

Chasers soon learn to read the signs. Towering cumulus - or fluffy clouds - usually mean something is brewing. But the most hopeful sight is a "gust front", an angry black wall of indigo cloud.

Lucky strike: A house in Mulvane, Kansas, misses the path of terror
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Tornados can uproot trees, fling cars through the air like confetti and reduce whole towns to rubble.

But the thrill of the chase, and the prospect of seeing nature at its wildest and most beautiful, will always draw the chasers in.

Top 10 Bizarre Genetically Modified Organisms

Genetic modification of plants and animals has caused a lot of debate in recent years as the technology becomes much more accessible to scientists. Despite the potential dangers of some modifications, science has continued to test and produce some striking new organisms. This is a list of the top 10 most bizarre.
10
GloFish

The GloFish was the first genetically modified animal to become available as a pet. It is a natural Zebrafish which has had genetic information from bioluminescent jellyfish added to its DNA. It was originally produced to provide a warning system for pollution but with the addition of further colors its viability for the pet market became clear. It was introduced to the US market in December 2003 by Yorktown Technologies of Austin, Texas.
9
Grapple

The grapple is a relatively new fruit which is a genetic cross between an apple and a grape. The fruit combines the size of the apple with the texture of an grape and the flavor of both parent fruits. The grapple was originally designed to provide a much higher vitamin-c dose per fruit for third world aid. The majority of the funding for the fruit came from UNICEF.
8
Graisin

The graisin [giant raisin] is a variety of raisin which has been modified to grow to enormous proportions. The graisin was produced by the National Institute of Genetics in Japan due to the Japanese love of large fruit and the recent popularity of western foods such as raisins. The texture and taste is identical to that of its genetically normal parent and it is served raw or thinly sliced in a stir fry.
7
Rubber Cork Tree

Cork trees have long been used for producing cork-stoppers for wine though some wine producers have also begun using plastic corks. Wine enthusiasts have not taken to the rubber corks and so, in order to appease the traditionalists and the cost-cutting wine makers, SABIC innovative plastics have developed a tree which is a cross between a rubber tree and a cork tree. The corks taken from the bark of this new tree look like real cork and have the same porous qualities, but has the permanence and flavorlessness of rubber. Ghislain de Mongolfier, current manager and great grandson of the founder of champagne producer Bollinger, said: “This new cork is the greatest thing to happen to wine since the invention of bubbles”.
6
Umbuku Lizard

This creature is the only one on the list which was not designed for a practical reason, but merely to prove that it could be done. Genetic Engineers in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) managed to unlock a dormant “flying” strand in the DNA of the Umbuku lizard, a very small and rare lizard native to Africa. It is believed that the lizard is a descendent of the Pterodactyl, which lost its ability to fly some millions of years ago. To date only 6 of these flying Umbuku have been produced and they are kept seperate from the natural Umbuku due the risk of cross breeding.

5
Paper Tree

The paper tree has been developed to reduce production costs and loss of tree life in the paper manufacturing industry. The recent explosion in popularity of recycled paper products lead a Swiss based company to develop a tree which grows square leaves that, when dried, are already usable as writing paper. In the image above we see a company employee holding a dried leaf beside the trunk of one of the many Paper Trees now grown by the company.
4
Dolion

This is probably the most remarkable example of how far science is able to go with modern DNA and cross fertilization techniques; the dolion is a cross between a lion and a dog. In order to produce this incredible rare animal (only 3 dolions exist in laboratories - the photo above is of Rex, the first ever produced), individual strands of DNA from each creature must be combined and re-inserted in to a host egg. This is similar to the liger (lion/tiger crossbreed) with the exception that the liger is able to be produced without prior manipulation of the DNA of either breed of animal.
3
Tiny Piney

The Tiny Piney is a miniature pine tree which is a mere 2cm tall when fully grown. It was originally developed to provide a fast growing source for pine-tree smell to be used in the fragrance industry but in very little time its usefulness in other areas became obvious. This tiny pine tree is now hugely popular as an edible plant in Papua New Guinea where it is dipped in a batter made from coconut milk and shellac beetle shells and deep fried. The Tiny Piney (official trademark) has a very subtle pine flavor which is enhanced by the coconut milk. The Tiny Piney is usually eaten as a dessert.
2
Fern Spider

The fern spider is unique on this list as it is the only combined plant and animal. At the time of writing this is the only animal that has successfully been crossed with a plant. The spider is a cross between a common Italian Wolf spider (Lycosa tarantula) and the ponga fern (Cyathea dealbata). The purpose of this bizarre crossbreed was to study the survival rates of spiders with built in camouflage versus those without in a series of studies on Natural Selection at Massey University in New Zealand. The results of the study have not been published yet.
1
Lemurat

With the growing wealth of China, many rich Chinese women are seeking alternative and exotic pets to show off their money. This has lead to a number of Chinese medical and scientific research companies to compete for this new income source by producing cross breed animals. The most successful (financially) so far has been the Lemur Cat. It is (as the name suggests) a cross between a lemur and a cat. It retains the soft fur of the cat and the coloring, but has the striped tail and yellow eyes commonly found on a lemur. It is more ferocious than the average cat but it is generally no more dangerous than a Chihuahua dog. The scientific name for this new breed is Prolos Fira.