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The National Ice Center reports that another new iceberg has broken away from Antarctica. An iceberg the size of St. Lucia Island in the Caribbean Sea broke off from the Lazarev Ice Shelf, a large sheet of glacial ice and snow extending from the Antarctic mainland into the southeastern Weddell Sea.

The new iceberg, D-17, is 34.5 miles long and 6.9 miles wide. It was observed on an image collected by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. Icebergs are named for the area quadrant of Antarctica where they appear. D-17 is the 17th berg reported since record keeping began in 1976.
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Amanda Onion writes in abcnews.com that swimmers have little reason to worry about being bitten by a shark. George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Florida, says recent data that suggests people are 15 times more likely to be killed by falling coconuts than by a shark.
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Dawn Levy writes that since 1960, biologist Paul Ehrlich and his research group have been conducting a study of the population of Jasper Ridge’s Bay checkerspot butterflies. But now they won’t be able to continue their study, because the last two Jasper Ridge populations went extinct in 1991 and 1998. After examining 70 years of rainfall and population data, the researchers conclude that extreme swings in regional climate hastened the extinction of the butterflies.
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While India and Pakistan threaten to annihilate each other with nuclear bombs, both countries are rapidly losing a weather war caused by global warming. Sundeep Waslekar, director of the International Center for Peace Initiatives, says that even if the 2 countries make peace, it will only last a few years until water wars set off a full-scale conflict.
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