UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Study: Daily climate becoming more erratic

PRINCETON, N.J., Nov. 15 (UPI) -- A U.S. study shows day-to-day weather has grown increasingly erratic and extreme, with significant fluctuations in sunshine and rainfall around the planet.

Princeton University researchers say extremely sunny or cloudy days are more common than in the early 1980s, and swings from thunderstorms to dry days rose considerably since the late 1990s.

These swings could have consequences for industries such as agriculture and solar-energy production, which are vulnerable to inconsistent and extreme weather, the researchers said in a release issued by the Ivy League school in New Jersey Tuesday.

Existing climate-change models have historically been based on monthly averages, an approach that hides variability, David Medvigy, an assistant professor in the Department of Geosciences, said.

"Monthly averages reflect a misty world that is a little rainy and cloudy every day. That is very different from the weather of our actual world, where some days are very sunny and dry," Medvigy said.

"Nobody has looked for these daily changes on a global scale. We usually think of climate change as an increase in mean global temperature and potentially more extreme conditions -- there's practically no discussion of day-to-day variability."

Analysis of erratic daily conditions such as frequent thunderstorms may be crucial to understanding factors shaping the climate and affecting the atmosphere, the researchers said.

Protection may be too late for butterfly

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Efforts to save an endangered butterfly that was once a common sight in Iowa may be too little, too late, conservationists say.

The tiny Poweshiek skipper, which makes its home in native prairie remnants in Iowa and a few nearby states, is a candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act following sharp declines across most of the its range, but experts say it may have come too late, The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette reported Monday.

"They waited too long," Dennis Schlicht, co-author of "The Butterflies of Iowa," said.

"They're gone now," said Schlicht, who sounded the alarm about the skipper years ago.

Skippers, or skipperlings, are a type of butterfly sometimes mistaken for moths, and the Poweshiek skipper, a small brown and orange butterfly with distinctive white veins on its wings, is one of several species of skippers that have been disappearing in the past 10 years, Schlicht said.

In 2007, Schlicht searched 26 locations where an Iowa State University student had documented as many as 150 skippers per site in 1993 and 1994.

"To my horror, I only found this skipperling at one site," Olsen said. "The population had just plummeted."

Harlan Ratcliff, 55, of Granger, who has studied the skipper for almost 10 years, said populations declined as Iowa's prairies began disappearing.

"It's really the only true species of butterfly discovered in Iowa," he said. "It's kind of a shame to lose it from Iowa."

Separated Calif. twins ready to go home

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Twins Angelica and Angelina Sabuco, conjoined twins separated just two weeks ago, are well enough to return to their San Jose, Calif., home, doctors said.

The twins, separated at Stanford University in a complex and risky procedure, have recovered faster than expected and will go home in a day or two, ahead of schedule, the San Jose Mercury News reported Tuesday.

Joined from navel to breastbone, the twins had fused livers, separated in the surgery and now working autonomously, doctors said.

About one in 200,000 live births is a set of conjoined twins.

Just one week after the Nov. 1 surgery the twins were out of intensive care and moved to a regular hospital room.

Angelica and Angelina have physical therapy and occupational therapy daily to build their strength, endurance, gross and fine-motor skills and will continue to make visits to Stanford for medical checkups, doctors said.

Giant T. rex tooth in Calif. auction

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- A fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex tooth among the largest ever found is going up for sale in California, estimated to bring $25,000 and $30,000, auctioneers say.

Discovered only weeks ago in Garfield County, Mont., the tooth will be offered by Bonhams auction house at its Dec. 11 Natural History auction in Los Angeles, a Bonhams release reported Tuesday.

The tooth is from the upper left portion of the mouth, the area in the T. rex's mouth with the largest teeth, a Bonhams director said.

"The tooth is one of the largest individual T. rex teeth to be offered at public auction," Thomas Lindgren, co-consulting director of the Natural History Department at Bonhams, said. "It measures 5 1/8 inches [linear measurement] from base to tip.

"The tooth is more massive than any of the teeth of the well-known T. rex Stan, and is possibly larger than those of Sue, the famous T. rex residing in the Field Museum, Chicago."

The December sale also includes one of the larger saber-toothed cat skulls ever offered at auction, a gigantic Machairodus giganteus skull measuring almost 18 inches long, Bonhams said.