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As Greenland’s glaciers melt, gigantic chunks of ice are breaking off. They are so large that they are causing powerful earthquakes as they tumble into the ocean.

A team of researchers from Swansea University in the UK, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, and a number of other institutions, studied GPS data from Greenland’s fast-moving Helheim Glacier, and the glacier’s calving front, where icebergs break off into the ocean, and correlated this with seismic data for earthquake timings. They found that large earthquakes, in the 4.6 to 5.2 range, are generated when billion-ton ice sheets break off from the glacier’s forward face.
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Researchers at the Companion Animal Research Lab at Azabu University in Japan have found that dogs have found a way to tap into a human bonding mechanism, specifically through the hormone ‘oxytocin’. Oxytocin is typically released when a parent gazes at a newborn infant, and with other child-rearing and group-related activities, strengthening bonds between parent and infant. In their study, the researchers also found that this hormone is also released when a human gazes into the eyes of a dog.
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Over the past few months, Arctic reporting stations have been reporting an unexpected increase in the outgassing of methane from thawing permafrost. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. In the past, the sudden release of methane from arctic tundras and methane hydrates under the Arctic Ocean have been connected to the spikes in heat that mark the end of interglacials. Methane readings from the station in Alert, Canada, are showing an increase in methane of 20 parts per billion over one year, an increase of 2-3 times over the global average from the past five years, and readings from Barrow (Alaska), Summit (Greenland), and Svalbard (Norway) all show similar trends.
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A renowned paleontologist and his team of pioneering geneticists are looking to genetically re-create a dinosaur, using DNA from a chicken. And no, we’re not lifting this story from a Steven Spielberg movie.

Paleontologist Jack Horner, of whom not only worked on the film "Jurassic Park" as a technical advisor, but also served as inspiration for one of the main characters, proposed his ‘chickenosaurus’ concept in his 2009 book, “How to Build a Dinosaur”. The idea is to use existing DNA found in modern chickens to regress features of the animal, so as to resemble a small dinosaur-like creature. Most birds still hold latent genes for the features previously exhibited by their reptilian ancestors.
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