Rain, Floods Killed 6,800 People in India in Last 3 yrs; Bengal Tops List
India has lost 6,811 people in the last three years to hydro-meteorological disasters such as heavy rain, lightning, flood and cyclones till March this year, according to government information to Parliament.
West Bengal topped the list of states with at least 964 such deaths, revealing the state's vulnerability to climate change. This means one in every seven such deaths were reported from the state between April 2018 and March 21, according to data placed in the Lok Sabha in August this year.
Madhya Pradesh came a close second with 917 deaths and Kerala was placed third with 708 deaths during the same period. Madhya Pradesh alone recorded 674 deaths in 2019-20, mostly due to floods. Data of some states like Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Bihar were missing for some years.
Sep 13, 2021
Scientists Unearth Prehistoric Winged Lizard in Chile
Chilean scientists have discovery the first-ever southern hemisphere remains of a type of Jurassic-era winged lizard known as a pterosaur.
Fossils of the dinosaur which lived some 160 million years ago were unearthed in what is today the Atacama Desert.
As per researcher Jhonatan Alarcon of the University of Chile, the creatures had a wingspan of up to two meters, a long tail, and pointed snout.
Sep 11, 2021
Iceland Creates Plant that Sucks Carbon Dioxide from Air and Turns it into Rock
The world's largest plant designed to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and turning it into rock started running in Iceland.
The plant, named Orca, after the Icelandic word "orka" meaning "energy", consists of four units, each made up of two metal boxes, similar in appearance to the containers used for maritime transport.
Constructed by Switzerland's Climeworks and Iceland's Carbfix, when operating at capacity the plant will draw 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air every year, according to the companies.
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that equates to the emissions from about 870 cars.
Sep 10, 2021
Paleontologists Find New Predatory Dinosaur in Brazil
Paleontologists in Brazil have found fossil fragments from a new species of abelisaurid theropod dinosaur that walked the Earth during the Cretaceous period.
The newly-discovered dinosaur lived in what is now southeastern Brazil some 70 million years ago (Late Cretaceous epoch).
Dubbed Kurupi itaata, the species was a type of abelisaurid, a group of bipedal predators that thrived on the ancient southern supercontinent Gondwana.
Its fossilsied remains were found in the municipality of Monte Alto in western São Paulo state.
Sep 09, 2021
Dinosaur Footprints Found in Rajasthan
In a major discovery, footprints of three species of dinosaurs have been found in the Thar Desert in Rajasthan's Jaisalmer district, proving the presence of the giant reptiles in the western part of the state. The footprints are 200 million years old.
The footprints, made in the sediment or silt of the seashore, later become permanently stone-like. They belong to three species of dinosaurs — Eubrontes cf. giganteus, Eubrontes glenrosensis and Grallator tenuis.