Australia drought = Antarctic snow

New Scientist reports that Australia's drought could be caused by the rainfall moving south to Antarctica.

Tas van Ommen and Vin Morgan of the Australian Antarctic Division studied snowfall records in ice cores from East Antarctica's Law Dome. They found that in the last few decades, its snowfall rates far exceeded anything in the past 750 years. The timing matches the Australian drought.

Read the full story: Australia's rain may have moved to Antarctica

Photo by istockphoto

Mapping out green ski developments

New Scientist reports on new geo-software that will help ski resort developers be eco-conscious.

Developers Jordan Silberman, a geographer at the University of Delaware in Newark and colleague Peter Rees created the geographical information system (GIS). Prospective developers need only to type in their business model plans:

The software then homes in on the preferred general region and seeks out those locations with the combinations of available land and humidity levels most likely to produce powder snow. Among many other factors, it also analyses accessibility by road, slope steepness - to work out the risk of avalanches - and the likely erosion from tree felling. A key factor is the ready availability of electricity to power the ski lifts.

Read the full story: Geo software aims to avoid ski eco-disasters

Photo by Ulli Seer / Getty

Madagascar lemurs and forests decimated by gangs

New Scientist reports on the rampant bush meat and illegal logging trades currently happening in Madagascar.

This African island's legendary lemurs and other animals as well as its forests are under threat by loggers and poachers after a March coup that ousted the former president reports the magazine.

In August, Conservation International reported that 15 bushmeat traders, contracted by a restaurant, were arrested carrying hundreds of endangered lemurs, which had been killed and roasted. "This happened in one of the country's best managed parks," says Edward Louis, a conservation biologist at the Omaha Zoo, who has been working in Madagascar for a decade. "If it's happening there, I can't begin to imagine what is happening elsewhere."

Read the full story: Madagascar biodiversity under threat as gangs run wild

Photo from Madagasikara Voakajy a capacity building project

Mayans ruined environment that led to demise

New Scientist reports on evidence that vast deforestation led to the downfall of the Mayan people, not war or disease as previously thought.

Mayan ruins such as in Tikal, Guatemala (pic left) and Mexico are visited by millions of people each year interested in learning more about this disappeared culture.

The builders of the ancient Mayan temples at Tikal in Guatemala switched to inferior wood a few decades before they suddenly abandoned the city in the 9th century AD. The shift is the strongest evidence yet that Mayan civilisation collapsed because they ran out of resources, rather than, say, disease or warfare.

Read the full story: Temple timbers trace collapse of Mayan culture

Blue whales return to old migration waters

New Scientist reports that the blue whale have been reappearing in Pacific Ocean waters off Alaska and Canada.

These whales have been slowly migrating and reappearing in the area since 1997; the most since a 1965 whaling ban.

Whalers formerly caught hundreds of blue whales in the northern zones, landing 1300 between 1908 and 1965. Yet despite the ban, they seemed not to recover there, suggesting to some researchers that the cultural knowledge of the area had been lost.

Read the full story: Migrating blue whales rediscover "forgotten" waters