Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet (May 23, 2014)

Ill Winds Blow Disease
Scientists say wind currents blowing out of northeastern China could be the main carriers of a mysterious childhood disease that was first identified in 1961 and can eventually lead to a fatal heart condition.  Research Center at the University of California suggests an airborne toxin in seasonal winds could be infecting children in Japan and as far away as Hawaii and California.  Kawasaki disease cases have been found to peak only when winds originate from a vast cereal-growing region in northeastern China.  Air samples collected down-wind around Japan found a fungus called Candida was in the wind.  That member of the yeast family is known to cause a wide range of human fungal infections worldwide.  Researchers believe something has changed in agriculture or culture since World War II, causing the new illness.  Kawasaki disease causes a rash and uncontrollable fever in the young, who usually fully recover.  But about 25 percent of them eventually develop a coronary aneurysm, a life-threatening ballooning of the arteries that supply the heart.
Antarctic Vortex
Powerful winds blowing around Antarctica are the strongest in 1,000 years and are being made even speedier by climate change, scientists say.  They also point out that the Antarctic vortex is insulating the icy continent from the global warming that is heating up other parts of the planet.  Earlier research indicated that the ozone hole above Antarctica was causing the circumpolar winds to get stronger.  However, Nerilie Abram and colleagues from the Australian National University found that global warming has been a big factor in strengthening the winds since the 1940s.
Fairy Circles
The force responsible for creating mysterious "fairy circles" across the arid southwest African landscape is once again in question after a 2013 study that claimed they were caused by sand termites is challenged.  No termites have ever been seen creating the formations.  Fairy circles are barren patches of dirt, usually surrounded by a dense ring of vegetation.  They can reach 50 feet in diameter, can last for up to 75 years and are most common in Namibia.  The indigenous Himba people have long thought a higher power created them.  Researchers from Germany's Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research now say the uniform distribution of the circles on such a large scale couldn't possibly be the work of a typically erratic and frenzied species like the termite.  Writing in the journal Ecography, Stephan Getzin says that natural competition for water on the edge of an arid ecosystem causes the circles.
A Foggy Dilemma
The thick blanket of wintertime fog that is the bane of Northern California motorists but crucial for the state's Central Valley agriculture has thinned dramatically over the past three decades, according to new research.  Scientists at the University of California, Berkley say that winter tule fog helps crops like almonds, pistachios, cherries and peaches enter a dormant period over the winter months.  Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the researchers say that they found a 46 percent drop in the number of days with tule fog over the past 32 years.  The low-level blanket of cloudiness also keeps the sun from sending the trees into premature budding.  It's believed that a warming climate is likely responsible for the increase in fog-free winter days.
Eruption Alert
Rumblings from El Salvador's Chaparrastique volcano prompted officials to evacuate almost 1,000 people from danger zones around the mountain.  The 7,025-foot Chaparrastique, which is also known as San Miguel, is located about 90 miles east of the capital, San Salvador.  The country's civil protection department said the greatest risk posed by the mountain is from landslides of volcanic material dislodged from Chaparrastique's slopes by heavy rain.
Earthquakes
A moderate quake centered near the Albanian capital of Tirana cracked buildings and caused other scattered damage.  No injuries were reported from the shaking.
*       Earth movements were also felt in western Germany, the Bay of Bengal region, northwestern Sumatra, Taiwan, south-central Mexico and central Oklahoma.
Creeps From the Deep
An evil-looking, fanged fish that is known to eat its own kind startled visitors at a pier in Nags Head, North Carolina, after the deep-sea creature washed up still alive.  The long-snouted lancetfish is rarely seen unless it is accidentally hauled up by deep-sea tuna fishermen.  But its large, round eyes, oversized mouth and long, sharp fangs can make quite an unnerving impression on anyone who does come across it.  Lancetfish can grow to over six feet in length and have pores rather than scales.  The one found in the Outer Banks washed ashore again after being returned to the deep Atlantic, presumably because it was ill.