Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet (Jan. 23, 2015)

Danger Zones
An international team of 18 researchers warns that a potent combination of human activities has pushed four of the planet's nine ecological boundaries into "danger zones," threatening life on Earth.  The four boundaries that have been crossed are loss of biodiversity, improvident land use and an altered nitrogen cycle due in part to fertilizer use.  "For the first time in human history, we need to relate to the risk of destabilizing the entire planet," study author Johan Rockstrom of Stockholm University told the Thomson Reuters Foundation,  The five other boundaries not yet pushed into the danger zone are ozone depletion, ocean acidification, freshwater use, microscopic particles in the atmosphere and chemical pollution, the study concludes in a report published in the journal Science.  The findings should be a wake up call to policymakers that "we're running up to and beyond the biophysical boundaries that enable human civilization as we know it to exist," said University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Steve Carpenter.Tropical CyclonesAn area of disturbed weather that brought catastrophic flooding to parts of southeastern Africa strengthened into Cyclone Chedza over the Mozambique Channel.  The storm then triggered torrential rainfall over Madagascar that killed at least 49 people and left more than 50,000 others homeless.  Most of the victims died in landslides and collapsed buildings.*    Typhoon Mekkhala drenched a wide area of the eastern and northern Philippines.  The approaching storm forced Pope Francis to leave an area of the Philippines earlier than planned.*    Cyclone Niko churned the waters of French Polynesia to the north and east of Tahiti.Cross-Kill ClaimsNew Zealand conservation groups slammed the government's use of a pesticide, which the campaigners say may have virtually wiped out a group of endangered birds.  The Department of Conservation dropped more than 900 tons of toxic sodium fluoroacetate late last year across parts of the South Island, including Kahurangi National Park.  The pesticide, known commercially as 1080, was intended to wipe out invasive pests such as possums, stoats and rats, which threaten native species.  Anti-1080 campaigners say the drop "exteminated" part of a rare population of rock wrens----the country's only true alpine birds.  The Department of Conservation claims heavy snowfall could be behind the disappearance of the birds.  Environmentalists called that claim "ludicrous," pointing out the alpine birds often encounter such snowfall.Endangered ProtectionA plunge in the number of monarch butterflies across North America may lead to the insects being offered protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.  The population of the long-haul migrators has dropped as much as 90 percent during the past two decades, and conservationists say the destruction of milkweed is the main factor behind the decline.  Monarchs need the plant both to feed and to reproduce.  But the widespread use of the Monsanto herbicide Roundup in agriculture has nearly wiped out the once abundant plant.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it will begin a review of vulnerable species in response to a petition that calls for stronger protections for the monarchs.  Experts say nearly 1 billion monarchs migrated to Mexico in 1996 compared to slightly fewer than 35 million last year.EarthquakesTremors continued to rattle areas of Texas, Oklahoma and southern Kansas, where natural gas extraction has expanded in recent years.*    Earth movements were also felt in central California, the Hawaiian Islands and the northern Philippines.New IslandA volcano in the South Pacific nation of Tonga calmed down after several weeks of activity that caused a new island to form.  Volcanologists from New Zealand said ash emissions from Hunga Ha'apai were subsiding and no longer threatened regional aviation.  Nico Fournier of New Zealand's GNS Science predicted that the new island would disappear beneath the Pacific once the volcano quiets down.Ghost ParticleA tiny and mysterious object collected from Earth's stratosphere could be a "living balloon" from another world, which U.K. reseachers say may have once carried an alien organism inside.  The team from the University of Sheffield and the University of Buckingham say the "ghost particle" is biological in nature and is made of carbon and oxygen.  They also claim the particle contains no evidence of contaimination from the Earth's surface, like pollen, grass or pollution.  Looking like a deflated balloon or chiffon scarf, and measuring the width of only a human hair, the particle is unlike anything else ever observed on Earth, researcher Milton Wainwright told the Daily Express.  He says the discovery could help support the theory that life on Earth was seeded from elsewhere in the universe.