Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet (March 15, 2013)

Antarctic Mixup
The mysterious organism allegedly discovered by Russian scientists while drilling deep into a buried Antarctic lake may have been nothing more than contamination.  That's according to the head of the laboratory where the bacterium was first "discovered."  Researchers from the St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute had announced that they had found evidence of an unfamiliar strain of bacteria in water samples pumped up from Lake Vostok, a massive freshwater lake buried beneath more than two miles of ice.  Initial testing of DNA from the microbial organism suggested that the species did not share more than 86 peercent of its genetic code with any other known life-form on the planet.  If validated, it would have been a landmark discovery.  But the head of the laboratory said further analysis found that the material was instead from drilling fluid or other material used in the extraction.
Climate Shifts
Climate change has caused some villages in northeastern India to become flooded, and in some cases, washed away entirely due to more extreme rainfall over the last few decades.  The trend has caused some rivers across the region to migrate from established channels that humans have used for thousands of years.  These roving waterways, pushed off course by intense bursts of rainfall and violent sediment discharge, have most severly affected the Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh.  A number of hamlets in that state have been severely flooded in recent years ----- many of them counted as among the oldest human settlements on Earth.  A study found some rivers shifted more than a mile, and some riverside villages simply vanished as a result.
Northern Greening
A dramatic greening is in progress in high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere as a warming climate allows vegetation to grow much farther north, researchers say.  A NASA-funded study of satellite and surface observations over the past 30 years shows that the environment in many sub-Arctic regions is now more like what areas 250 to 430 miles to the south experienced in 1982.   "Higher northern latitudes are getting warmer, Arctic sea ice and the duration of snow cover are diminishing, the growing season is getting longer and plants are growing more,"  said Ranga Myneni of Boiston University's Department of Earth and Environment.  The northern greening is most noticeable in the increased abundance of tall shurbs and trees now found in areas that were recently far too harsh in winter for them to survive.
Earthquakes
A wide swath of Southern California was jolted by a relatively moderate quake centered in the mountains of Riverside County.  The 4.7 magnitude temblor caused buildings to shake from San Diego and Los Angeles, eastward to Arizona.
* Earth movements were also felt in south-central Alaska, Russia's Kamchatka Peinsula, far western China's Xinjiang region and in Trinidad and adjacent parts of Venezuela.
South Seas Cyclone
Cyclone Sandra sent pounding surf into Australia's Queensland coast, as well as onto islands of Vanuatu and northern parts of New Caledonia.   Remnants of the storm later joined with another low pressure area to bring drought-breaking rains to northern New Zealand.
Volcanic Gas Alert
A shift in winds over the eastern Caribbean blew potentially harmful gas from Montserrat's Soufriere Hills volcano into the neighboring island of Antigua's National Office of Disaster Services warned those with sensitive eyes and respiratory problems to remain indoors.  Activity within Soufriere Hills was said to be relatively low, but the mountain was emitting an average of 368 tons of sulfur dioxide each day.  Prevailing winds typically cause the gas to blow harmlessly over the open waters of the region.  A catastrophic eruption in 1997 killed 19 people on Montserrat and buried much of the island's inhabitants moved elsewhere in the wake of the disaster.
Swine Dump
Residents of Shanghai became alarmed when more than 6,000 dead and bloated pigs littered a river that runs through the heart of the Chinese metropolis.  Officials say the dead pigs probably came from farms upstream in the Jiaxing area of neighboring Zhejiang province.  Farmers there are accused of dumping the animals into the Huangpu River because the swine were infected with porcine eircovirus, a common pig disease that does not affect humans.  It's believed the dump was in response to the recent conviction of 46 people who were jailed for producing unsafe pork from sick pigs.  The Shanghai government said water in the Huangpu was within "safe range" and that the carcassws were being collected for burial or incineration.   The waterway provides 22 percent of the city's water supply.