Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet

Longer Longevity

The human population is now living longer in both rich and poor countries but a new United Nations report says there is a major rich-poor divide.

Based on global averages, a girl who was born in 2012 can expect to live about 73 years while a boy should reach the age of 68.

The newly released World Health Statistics 2014 report says this is six years longer than for children born in 1990.

“An important reason why global life expectancy has improved so much is that fewer children are dying before their fifth birthday,” says Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization.

But she adds that people in rich, developed countries have a much better chance of living longer than those in poorer countries.

For instance, a boy born in 2012 in a high-income country can expect to live to about 76 years of age while one in a low-income country can expect to live to only 60.

The difference for females is even wider, with those living in wealthy nations likely to live 16 years longer.

Worldwide, women of all socio-economic groups live longer than their male counterparts.

Females in Japan have the longest life expectancy in the world at 87 years, followed by Spain, Switzerland and Singapore.

Men, on average, live longest in Iceland, Switzerland and Australia with a life expectancy of about 80 years.

Indonesia’s Mount Sangiang exploded with such force on May 30 that it sent an ash cloud soaring 12 miles into the sky to the east of Bali.

The blast occurred on the uninhabited island of Sangean, about 200 miles from the popular resort.

Ash continued to billow from the volcano for more than 24 hours, disrupting aviation across the heart of Indonesia and in nearby countries.

All commercial flights to and from Darwin, Australia, were suspended for a full day as a plume of ash blew across the Banda Sea toward the Northern Territory capital.

Flights from other Australian cities to Bali were also cancelled due to the ash.

Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority said fine particles of pulverized rock in volcanic ash clouds can be highly abrasive and damage aircraft engines, fuselages and windows.

Many farmers who work on the slopes of Sangiang but do not live on the roughly 8-mile-wide island were ordered to evacuate until the eruption ended.

Also known as Mount Sangiang Api, or “Mountain of Spirits” in Balinese, Sanglang has been on high alert due to mounting signs of a violent eruption.

Since its first recorded eruption in 1512, Sangiang is believed to have erupted 20 times.

Scientists are sounding the alarm over the threat of invasive species reaching the Arctic due to the recent record melt of the polar ice cap.

Channels of open water now appear nearly each summer across Arctic Canada and north of Alaska, as well as along the coasts of Scandinavia and Russia.

Climate scientists predict the sea ice around the North Pole will disappear entirely each summer later in the 21st century.

Biologists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, say that shipping through the newly opened passages could inadvertently bring in organisms on the hulls and in the ballast water of vessels.

The first commercial cargo to pass through the newly opened Northwest Passage was a load of coal during September 2013.

There has also been a rush to find the estimated 13 percent of the world’s untapped oil that lies beneath the Arctic.

Maritime excursions for tourists into the newly opened Arctic are also increasing.

“If unchecked, these activities will vastly alter the exchange of invasive species, especially across the Arctic, north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans,” said lead author Whitman Miller.

Another of Africa’s iconic animals has unseated the wildebeest as the greatest land-based migrators on the continent.

GPS tracking of eight adult plains zebras revealed that the striped relatives of the horse make a seasonal migration of more than 300 miles.

This means that the species undertakes the longest terrestrial migration anywhere in Africa.

While wildebeest do meander longer distances and in greater numbers during their Serengeti migration, the southern African zebra trek generally takes the species pretty much in a straight line about 6 to 12 miles farther from their departure point than that of the blue wildebeest.

The findings were detailed in a new study published in the journal, Oryx.

The world’s longest documented migrations are in the caribou populations of North America and Russia, as well as in Tibetan antelope and Mongolian gazelles.

Tropical Storm Boris became the first named storm of either the Atlantic or eastern Pacific hurricane seasons to make landfall when it struck far southern Mexico as a minimal storm.

With maximum sustained winds of about 40 mph at landfall, Boris quickly weakened to a tropical depression.

It still managed to drench the country’s Chiapas state with more than 10 inches of rainfall.

Boris was the second tropical storm of the eastern Pacific hurricane season, which began May 15.

Due to its very weak and disorganized condition, Boris was only able to maintain tropical storm status for less than a day.

A moderate earthquake centered along China’s Yunnan province border with Myanmar (Burma) injured at least 45 people and sent hundreds of others into emergency shelters on May 30.

The 5.9 magnitude quake hit Yunnan’s Yingjiang County at 9:20 a.m local time, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center.

Officials said the shaking also knocked out power to the region, although communications were reportedly not affected.

Yunnan lies where the Eurasian tectonic plate meets the Indian plate.

The province is frequently hit by powerful earthquakes, including one in March 2011 that killed 26 people and injured 300 others.

Geologists noted that seismic activity had been building over the past two weeks near where the latest quake struck.

Volunteers across the frog-friendly Baltic nation of Estonia saved thousands of the amphibians from likely being killed on highways after emerging from winter hibernation.

The frogs typically begin hopping en masse each May.

“This is when the trouble starts, and we humans need to help them because they often cross busy roads, and many of them get crushed under cars,” biologist Piret Pappel with the group Tallinn’s Frog told Agence France Presse.

Mariliis Tago, from the Estonian Fund for Nature, said volunteers with her group used buckets to carry 15,677 amorous frogs across roads before releasing them closer to where the females typically lay their eggs.

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