This from BBC News: “More than 2,800 people have been killed and thousands more injured by a strong earthquake that struck the Indonesian island of Java, officials have said. The quake, measuring 6.2, flattened buildings in a densely-populated area south of the city of Yogyakarta, near the southern coast of Java. Witnesses said people fled [...]

“This year’s Atlantic hurricane season will be “above normal”, according to the US climate agency. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts there will be 13-16 named storms, four of which will be “major storms”.” BBC News The best quote from this article is this one: “Remember, it only takes one hurricane in your [...]

The risk to the Earth from an asteroid called Apophis has been cut dramatically.  The odds of the 320 meter asteroid hitting the Earth in 2036 have gone from 1 in 5,500 to 1 in 24,000.  This change is based on new orbital measurements which changed the orbital speed by 6 millimeters per second.  Apophis now [...]

The fight against the bird flu virus should focus on preventing infection in animals to prevent transmission of the disease to humans, a senior Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) official said on Thursday. The H5N1 virus remains essentially an animal disease, but it has killed 115 people worldwide, the majority in east Asia since 2003. [...]

Researchers at the University of California become the first to calculate the likelihood and effect from an asteroid striking the world’s oceans. Tsunamis triggered by asteroid impacts cause a disaster similar to the 2004 Asian tsunami once every 6000 years on average, according to the first detailed analysis of their effects. Researchers have assumed that [...]