The Clearest Ocean Waters on Earth

French scientists say they have found the clearest and most lifeless of stretch of ocean on the planet. 

The water is as clear as the cleanest freshwater lake and is the least productive marine region known to man.  The patch of water is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and is “almost violet,” Marc Tedetti, a researcher at the University of the Mediterranean and a member of the expedition that explored the area, told New Scientist.

At its clearest, UV rays are able to penetrate more than 300 feet below the surface of the water.  Info from satellite images that track the amount of chlorophyll in the water also suggest that it has ten times less chlorophyll than is found in most ocean waters.

Researches said the patch of water was isolated from ocean currents, which helps explain its clarity and lifelessness. 

      

Err On Chair

Add to the world's list of punny kitsch—Souper Salad, flower bed, Jump to Conclusions, etc.—Fung + Blatt's steel, aluminum, and concrete Lawnchair. It ships without sod, but once upholstered, it feels just like sitting on, well, the ground. Water and keep weeded. Thistlechair just doesn't have the same ring or summery connotations.

Deserts Encroach on Fertile Land

Deserts around the world encroaching on fertile land are triggering large-scale migrations and political instability in regions of Africa and Central Asia.

A new United Nations report states that, if the continuous degradation of land goes unchanged, the results could be disastrous. Millions are already on the move and wars like the one ongoing in Darfur are only the start.

Rising temperatures are the main contributors to desertification and places on the fringes of such deserts, while considered safe now, may soon become widely inhabitable as well. The report concludes that individual nations and international groups must collaborate to solve this widely unrecognized global crisis. More...

iPhone to Hit Apple Stores Friday Night

Get your running shoes on because it's going to be a Rat Race to snag an iPhone (from $499) Friday, June 29, when they are released nationwide at 6PM (local time) at all 164 Apple retail stores and AT&T's select retail stores.

Combining three products into one, the iPhone can be used as a cell phone, a widescreen iPod, and an internet browser with a multi-touch display that is easily used with a "tap, flick, or pinch of the fingers," a press release from Apple stated Thursday night.

Sound like a Friday night with an instruction manual? Don't cancel your poker game just yet. Apple is offering free instructional sessions throughout the day starting in the morning on Saturday, June 30th.

With all stores staying open until midnight, you should be able to get your share, although, you're gonna have to play it fair--the limit is two iPhones per customer based on a first come, first served basis.

Gear: Unbreakable Eyewear

If it's good enough for the Swiss Swat Team, it's good enough for us. Numa Tactical, a new Swiss-made eyewear (that draws inspiration from Israeli military and American product development) calls themselves "the toughest eyewear out there." They're made from impact-resistant polycarbonate lenses and an ultra-light memory-fiber frame technology—which means they should bounce back to their original shape even if a Hummer rolls over them. In addition to swat teams, these trusty shades have been praised by hunters, fishermen, and extreme sports enthusiasts. So, of course we had to try them for ourselves. Thanks to interchangeable polarized lenses, Numa's Extreme System SWAT model ($219) fared well on an evening mountain bike ride. Rubber temple pads means the glasses stayed put and at .92 ounces, they were featherweights in comparison to bulkier shades. As for that unbreakability? I cut the test short when an editor suggested driving over them with his Suburban.

Update: Smashed Wrists on the Middle Kings

Here's an update on our recent post on the one-day descent of the Middle Fork of California's Kings River Gorge. Lunch Video Magazine has posted an entertaining phone interview with kayakers Tommy Hilleke and Robin Betz to talk about their six-day Middle Kings expedition, which they did with 13 kayakers—plus the one-day descent completed by Hilleke and John Grace.

Betz describes the Class V approach just to get to the river. "Before you even start the 12 mile hike to the put-in, you have to run shuttle—and that's about an eight hour drive one way on curvy roads," she says. "The hike is intense. Right off the bat you're going straight uphill. It's five miles to the top of the pass. You go through snow fields, switchbacks. Not to mention, you've got 80 pounds of gear on your back."

And then, you've actually got to paddle the gorge. Hilleke talks about what happens when things go wrong:

"It started to get interesting on day three. You wake up and you're faced with two of the steepest miles of whitewater right out of camp. On the last gorge of the day, we had one of the grizzliest injuries I've ever seen," he says. "Dave Simmonite went off a drop into a wall on his right side, broke his wrist—radius and ulna, massive deformity. It was really scary. Our team nurses set it back in place, and we did some rope work to ferry him in his kayak across the river and helped him hike up out of the canyon and back to the trail. He and Ryan Casey hiked back to the put-in—about 23 miles—to be evacuated."

Listen to the interview here.

American Bald Eagle Removed From Endangered Species Act

After a near 40-year recovery process, the Bald Eagle population has increased "25-fold" Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne today upon their removal from the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In 1963, there were merely 400 nesting couples as opposed to the current number of around 10,000 pairs.

Although the eagles will no longer be protected under the ESA, their well-being will be maintained by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act--both of which will protect the iconic eagles from being killed, sold, and harmed (including their nest and eggs).

Tooth Solves The Mystery of The Lost Mummy of Hatshepsut

The mystery of the lost mummy of Hatshepsut, one of the great queens of ancient Egypt, may have been solved by the DNA of a single tooth.

The infamous queen, who ruled over Egypt in the 15th century B.C., is the first mummy of an Egyptian ruler to be found and identified since King Tutankhamun's tomb was opened in 1922, archaeologists announced in Cairo today.

The mummy was found in 1903 in an obscure tomb in the Valley of the Kings and was only identified a few weeks ago when a CT scan of a wooden box associated with the mummy revealed a tooth that perfectly fit into the queen's jaw socket. More...

Chasing Glaciers in Pakistan

Shortly before boarding a flight bound for Pakistan, world champion freeskier Alison Gannett, a Green All-Star from our April 2007 issue sent us an e-mail. "I’m now getting ready for Pakistan! Whew," she wrote. "Lots of global cooling to be done! But it's very exciting, as Hollywood is coming along on this trip." The trip? Gannett, along with AMGA-certified mountain guide Zoe Hart, filmmaker Curt Dowdy, and adventure photographer Bill Stevenson, are visiting Pakistan's Biafo and Hispar Glaciers to record—and transmit via live video blogs on their Web site Chasing Glaciers—the rapid pace of global warming. They'll traverse the glaciers and compare historical photographs to current conditions. The resulting documentary will be directed by five-time Emmy winning producer Lew Wells (of West Wing fame). While they're there, they plan to knock off a first ski descent of 21,000-foot Mount Koser Gunge in the Karakoram Mountain region, a sister range to the Himalaya. They'll also be retracing the steps of Fanny Bullock Workman, an American who set a women's altitude record on the same peak back in 1906.

The latest news is the team has arrived in Islamabad. Alison's first blog post reads, "We are now camped indefinitely at the office in Islamabad for British Airways to find Curt and Bill's lost bags which have been missing for a week. One bag missing contains our satellite phone for the video v-blogs (irreplaceable) so we are in a bit of a bind and cannot head for the mountains." Stay tuned or check out Chasing Glaciers for more updates.

Clean Power from Rotting Garbage?

Forget wind power and solar energy, garbage could be the new wave of the future in clean energy.

Waste Management Inc., the country’s largest landfill operator, said Wednesday that it will speed up installation of turbines in its landfills to tap methane gas produced by rotting garbage to produce electricity.

The company said the new turbines, 60 in all, will boost its energy production to 700 megawatts, enough energy to power 700,000 homes.

“Unlike wind power, which doesn’t always blow, or solar power, which doesn’t always shine, landfills produce gas constantly,” Paul Pabor, Waste Management’s vice president of renewable energy, told Reuters.

British Adventurer Detained as a Spy

British adventurer Jason Lewis, who is nearing completion of 40,000-mile round-the-world journey, nearly had his trip cut short after officials in Egypt mistook him for a spy.

Lewis was apprehended while kayaking on Nasser Lake, near the militarized border with Syria, by local fishermen who promptly turned him over to military officials.

He had been waiting weeks in Sudan for an Egyptian visa to travel into the country, but when his Sudanese visa expired and he found himself in Sudan illegally, he decided to “give it a go regardless,” he told BBC News.

After being “overpowered” by the fisherman, Lewis was taken to a detention center and interrogated by army intelligence, who asked him to explain all the satellite communications he was carrying. 

“They did not buy my story of being on an expedition,” he said.

While being interrogated, though, the fax machine in the detention center began churning and whirring and spat out a two-page letterhead in Arabic that turned out to be his visa.  He was free to continue on his journey.

Lewis started his journey in London in 1994 and is still pedaling the same bike he began his journey with 13 years ago.  He is expecting to finish his tour of the world this October when he navigates his pedal boat up the Thames River to the Greenwich Meridian line in London.   

   

 

Lake in Andes Is Missing

A 100-foot deep lake in Chile's southern Andes has gone missing. Only an empty crater sits where the five-acre lake was located as recently as March.

Scientists came upon the disappearance in late May and cannot figure out where the water went.

Juan Jose Romero, the head of Chile's National Forest Service, told the Associated Press on Wednesday, "The lake has simply disappeared. No one knows what happened."

One theory is that the water slipped through the cracks in the lake bottom, however no earthquakes have been reported which would cause cracks.

Tahoe Up in Flames

When pro skier Jamie Burge, winner of the women's division at the 2007 Squaw Valley Freeskiing Open, went to work last night at Christie Hill, a restaurant in Tahoe City, California, she could see smoke billowing across Lake Tahoe and far-away flames leaping into the night's sky. "At night, you could see the flames from the other side of the lake, and the air quality is incredibly bad," she told us. "It's really sad." The culprit? A 2,500-acre blaze in South Lake Tahoe, on the border of California and Nevada, that has destroyed some 220 homes, according to CNN. The fire started this weekend and upwards of 600 firefighters were called to the scene. Lt. Kevin House, an El Dorado County sheriff's spokesman, told CNN it is "the biggest disaster that's happened to this community in, I don't know, probably forever." Officials say the cause of the fire was likely human error, but they're not sure if it was intentional or not. No injures or deaths have been reported.

A Kid with a Bouldering Problem

This week, 17-year-old Longmont, Colorado native Daniel Woods, a North Face-sponsored climber, made a first ascent on an oft-attempted V15 (read: hard-as-hell) bouldering problem named Jade in Rocky Mountain National Park's Upper Chaos Canyon. Woods spent five days working on the project, a considerably long time for the North American Bouldering champ who typically sends V14s in an hour. Previously called the Green 45 Project, the route was discovered in 2001 by climber Dave Graham, but has never been completed. Daniel's dad and climbing partner, Steve Woods, who was on-hand shooting images (see photos here), describes the victory: "Daniel felt the crux move would be a matter of "luck" to stick. Once the hold was controlled, he still had to climb another section of V11, then it was just a victory sprint to the top of what he referred to as 5.11 climbing. The climb could only be attempted a few times a day before the crux hold punctured the fingertip. The night DW sent the problem, he was on his sixth try. The sun had gone down and he climbed by lantern light.  When he stuck the crux (only the fourth time it had ever been stuck), the small crowd of eight or so people erupted into cheers and continued cheering him to the top of the boulder." See more images by Steve Woods here.

Robots To Explore Arctic Ocean Ridge

Scientists will use newly developed robots to explore the mysterious Gakkel Ridge, a ridge hidden beneath the frozen Arctic Ocean, in an effort to discover whether this remote location is home to undiscovered life.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod will begin its 40-day expedition on July 1 and plans to use three robots to map the ridge's terrain and to collect samples of any life found in the 1,100-mile long ridge that reaches from north of Greenland toward Siberia. More...

Book claiming Lance Armstrong cheated to hit shelves

A new book by David Walsh—the award-winning Irish sportswriter whose 2005 book, L.A. Confidentiel, laid out a circumstantial case against Lance Armstrong’s claims that he never used performance-enhancing drugs—will hit stands next week. And unlike his previous book, From Lance to Landis: Inside the American Doping Controversy at the Tour de France will be released in the U.S. (L.A. Confidentiel was available only in French.)

In a statement, Walsh’s publisher, Ballantine Books, calls the book, “The first comprehensive account of the doping scandal that has destroyed the credibility of the Tour de France and torn at the heart of a once proud sport,” with on-the-record testimony from former Armstrong teammates and associates and cycling insiders who incriminate not only Armstrong but also U.S. cycling authorities, who they claim helped cover up a history of cheating by American pros.

Armstrong was quick to lash out at the book, issuing a statement on his Web site lancearmstrong.com (login required), that said, in part:

“Predictably, on the eve of the Tour de France, I will be the subject of a repeated, baseless attack in yet another unobjective book by David Walsh…This latest attack will be no different than the first two - a sensationalized attempt to cash in on my name and sully my reputation by people who have demonstrated a consistent failure to adhere to the most basic journalistic standards or ethics…I raced clean. I won clean. I am the most tested athlete in the history of sports. I have defended myself and my reputation and won every court case to prove I was clean. Yet another Walsh book with baseless, sensational and rejected allegations will not overcome the truth.”

Also hitting shelves next week will be Positively False: The Real Story of How I Won the Tour de France, Floyd Landis’ autobiography/defense of his cycling career. Publisher Simon Spotlight Entertainment claims that the book “will clear his name once and for all, as he lays bare the inner workings of the cycling world—a place where athletes are subject to the antiquated science, flawed interpretive protocols, and draconian legal processes of the anti-doping agencies—and finally lays to rest the scandal that threatened to destroy everything he's worked so hard to achieve.”

At the very least, the books will offer a supplement to—or diversion from—next month’s Tour de France, which will most likely have an official winner before we know the final outcome of the 2006 race. Though the decision from Landis’ arbitration hearing is expected during the Tour, there’s every indication that the losing side will appeal, which should stretch things into autumn.

Savage Rower: Brit takes on the Pacific

Roz Savage is driving her yellow pickup truck—one of her two possessions—across the Golden Gate bridge in one final burst of errands. Yellow rubber duckies line the dashboard, a reminder that she has her ducks in a row no matter how nuts the rest of the world may think she is. In a few weeks Savage will swap living out of her truck for living out of her 24-foot carbon fiber Sedna, the vessel she rowed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to Antigua in 103 days in the winter of 2005/2006.
    One successful solo ocean crossing would be plenty for most people, but in July, Savage is setting out from San Francisco Bay to attempt a three-part crossing of the Pacific, stopping first in Hawaii, then on to Tuvalu, and finally landing in Australia. If her voyage is successful, Savage will have become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific.
    Not that it really matters to Savage. The 39-year-old Brit, who left her house, husband, red sports car, and corporate management consultant job behind in London, is far more excited about the freedom and opportunity the expedition gives her to spread the word about the environment and life as a vagabond ocean rower.                                                                                                                                      —Stephanie Pearson

When are you going to launch?
I’m really hoping that I’ll be able to get away between the 11th and 13th of July. I need to get out on a good ebb tide. It depends on the wind. If it’s against me, I’m not going anywhere. The weather conditions are really tricky. I have to look at wind, currents, tides, hurricane season, a sudden rush on shipping…it’s a bit hair raising.

You’ve already rowed the Atlantic. Why the Pacific? What do you have left to prove?
Well, I certainly didn’t enjoy the Atlantic and there is something I need to prove. When I was on the Atlantic I had a lot of aha moments, things like the weather does what it does regardless of me. I couldn’t just wish my way to Antigua. I want to prove to myself that I’ve taken those life lessons on board. I suppose I could learn those lessons on dry land...

What else will you be doing out there?
I’ll be sending back really cool data. I’ll be using electrodes to get my physiological data, taking part in a psychological case study, and sending environmental data. It’s part of a project of the San Francisco and D.C.-based Blue Frontier Campaign, National Environmental Trust, and NOAA. I’m really just trying to get the environmental message out there about all the marine garbage that’s finding its way into the world’s oceans.

What happens if you run into the infamous garbage patch?
I’m hoping to not run into it, but I’m in a pretty unique situation to actually see what I see. I find it hard to imagine the scale of the problem. I’m torn between wanting to see lots of garbage to goad people into action to, of course, not wanting to find it.

On your website you say “inspiration struck” to row solo across the Atlantic. Was it slowly cooked or was it an a-ha moment?
It literally was a light bulb moment. I thought, ‘Hey this materialistic lifestyle isn’t really making me happy,’ I was trying to figure out what life was all about. I had already quit my job, left my husband, and my Miata had been stolen, so luckily fate intervened and I didn’t have to sell it. I was like a carpenter with no tools or wood. I needed a big project, something to work on. The project needed to have no environmental impact and it needed to be sufficiently unusual so that people would be willing to pay me money so that I wouldn’t have to go back to the office.

Did you design your boat?
Somebody else designed the hull, another person put the cabins on, then I fit it out, and put on the rowing system, rudder, and electrical system, and turned it into a perfectly self-contained life-support capsule. I’m certainly not a boat designer, but I was pretty pleased with how I did. I had never done anything remotely like that before. So it was a pretty big learning curve.

You had rowed before, right?
Yes, I took up rowing when I went to University College, Oxford, because I wanted to be able to eat more without getting fat.

So did you get buff on the Atlantic?
I lost about 30 pounds. At the moment, I’m feeling a bit heavy, nothing that the Pacfic can’t sort out. Physical side effects like the sores on my bum were pretty unpleasant, also my fingernails lifted off, maybe the pressure from the oars or bacteria and fungus. It was all very revolting.

What was your worst moment?
People might expect the worst to be when the oars broke, but in fact, I didn’t really mind because it gave me an opportunity to focus on something I could fix. For me it was much more psychological. The little personal failures got me down. I got off to a really bad start. I was seasick the first two days, in the first three days I developed tendonitis, and there was really bad weather. I was looking at 3,000 miles and feeling utterly overwhelmed. But I was already past the point of no return because you can’t row these boats into a headwind. The only way to go ahead was forward.

Did you have a mantra or anything you’d repeat when the going got really rough?
“Tougher than Most” was one I used quite a lot. That was probably the best one.

What was your best moment?
Two days after my satellite phone was broken, 22 days before the end of the row. At the time I was secretly pleased. For me, I was like ‘Yes! Peace and Quiet!’ I had just washed my hair, which was always a great morale restorer, and I feel so totally at peace, calm, efficient, and self-reliant.

What’s next? 
I’ve got a friend planning to row the Indian Ocean in 2009. It would be pretty cool to do that. I don’t want to declare publicly that I’m going to do x,y,and z. I’ve spent a lot of my life doing stuff I didn’t want to do. I’m not going to fall into that trap again.

For more on Savage and her expedition, visit her Web site.

Speed Demons on the Middle Kings

To paddle the Middle Fork of California's Kings River Gorge it usually takes five solid days—and it's no easy task. It starts with an 11-mile hike over a 12,000 foot pass (with an 80-pound, gear-laden kayak strapped to your back), followed by 30 miles of Class V rapids that descend 6,400 vertical feet. Completing all this in less than 24 hours is like pulling off a Tommy Caldwell-style one-day freeclimb of El Cap's Nose. In other words, it's practically impossible. Unless you're pro kayakers Tommy Hilleke and John Grace, who just this week conquered the Middle Kings in a whopping 19 hours, 53 minutes. "Never in my life have I had such a euphoric mad bombing experience," Grace told us afterward. The duo started hiking at 9 p.m., arrived at the river just after 3 a.m., put on at 6:30 a.m., and got to the take out before 5—right about the time you were getting off work. Look for a podcast and video updates at Lunch Video Magazine

 

Green Issues: China Surpasses US for Deepest Carbon Footprint

China has surpassed the United States in carbon emissions to become the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (NEAA) reported Tuesday. NEAA said China’s output surpassed the US’s by about 7.5 percent in 2006 making it the largest man-made contributor to global warming. Although China sat 2 percent below the US in 2005, their upped cement production and large coal consumption has pushed them ahead. The NEAA reported that cement production makes up about 4 percent of the world’s global warming contributions via fuel use and industrial action. It’s no surprise then, that China has overtaken the US for first place. They produce 44 percent of the world’s cement—an industry so large in China that it makes up 9 percent of the nation’s emissions. As for fossil fuel emissions, in 2006 China’s output increased by 9 percent while the US’s decreased by 1.4 percent, the NEAA also reported. Unfortunately, this is all happening before expected. The United Nations (U.N.) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration told the Associated Press (AP) Wednesday, that China’s emission overhaul was predicted to happen in 2009 or 2010, although it was expected. “The Dutch agency referred to BP PLC’s Review of Energy 2007 statistics, which is the standard reference tool,” John Christensen, in charge of the , told the A P, “We have no reason to doubt that the numbers are right. We have no reason to doubt the methodology.” Chief economist of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, Faith Birol, sharpened a prior forecast in November to predict China would overtake the US in 2007 or 2008. Although China may be emitting more carbon, global warming is more closely related to how many carbon dioxide atoms linger in the air. Jay Apt, a professor of engineering, business and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, told the A P that the US is responsible for 27 percent, Europe for 20 percent, and China is only responsible for 8 percent. China has unveiled its first national program to combat global warming. One of the steps the nation has taken is to up the ante on an earlier promise to improve energy efficiency in 2010 by 20 percent over 2005’s level.

Summer Solstice Brings Thousands to Stonehenge

As the sun slowly rose this morning above Stonehenge, some 20,000 modern-day druids, pagans and party goers converged below to welcome the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.

Attendees showed up clad in black cloaks, oak leaves and antlers and many of them danced to drums during the annual gathering near the prehistoric stone circle in Wiltshire, England.

Solstice celebrations were a mainstay of pre-Christian times and people around the world still celebrate with various rituals. In recent years, however, police have also become a staple of such celebrations as they are often deployed now to make sure such rituals don't get too out of hand. More...

NEWS: Karnazes Runs for Another Record

Dean Karnazes, the ultra-marathoner who recently ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days, is currently attempting to break another record for the most miles run on a treadmill in a 24-hour span.   

His record-breaking attempt is part of a national marketing campaign to launch Accelerade, a sports-energy drink, and Karnazes’ run will be broadcast live over the internet. 

Adding to the stunt appeal, Karnazes will be running atop a platform on the Reuters building in New York City’s Times Square.  The current record is set at 153.76 miles.

Karnazes began running at midnight Thursday morning.    

For more on Karnazes, read our complete January 2007 interview.

NEWS: Google Offers Millions to Develop New Hybrid Automobile Technology

Google announced Tuesday that they will be granting millions of dollars to deserving bidders for the development of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that can get 70-100 miles per gallon.

They have already awarded $1 million dollars in Google grants to plug-in educational outlets such as The Brookings Institution, CalCars, Plug-In America, Electrical Power Research Intitute, and Dr. Willett Kempton from the University of Delaware. Bids are already being accepted for an additional $10 million.

The philanthropic project, known as RechargeIT, is run by Google.org which hopes the cars or trucks will have both gas engines (back-up) and advanced batteries that charge via the nation's electric grid.

NEWS: New Orleans Still Vulnerable to Flooding

The Army Corps of Engineers released today a list of which New Orleans neighborhoods were most vulnerable to flooding—and those that are still likely to be inundated by water in the next major storm.

While the number of vulnerable neighborhoods is substantially less due to the Corps’ improvements to the 350-mile levee system, the floodwalls, pumps and gates, Gentilly and Lakeview neighborhoods, for example, would still take on at least 8 feet of water if hit by a 100-year storm.

Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) developed the comprehensive risk analysis as part of their charge to study the effects of Hurricane Katrina. The Corps have made available a Web site that will enable New Orleans residents the ability to study the vulnerability of the city on a block-by-block basis.

Any future risk analysis will utilize these new modeling tools to determine what improvements need to be made to the protection system in the coming years.

Samples of the risk products, interactive map links, and other information can be accessed at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Web site.

Books: Green Tips from Hollywood?

Environmental advice from the likes of Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Justin Timberlake?  That’s pretty much the gist of the book that hit  stands Tuesday, “The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time” featuring a hefty helping of advice from celebrities and written by slew of co-authors including Cameron Diaz who, to her credit, is also one of the organizers of the Live Earth concert, going global on July 7. The book also has contributions by tested enviro-celebs like Robert Redford who recently launched The Green, on the Sundance Channel the first regularly scheduled show devoted to the environment, which includes a 13-part original series title “Big Ideas for a Small Planet” (watch a clip from the first episode below).   —Anthony Cerretani

NEWS: Amazon Is 'New' Longest River in the World

Compiled by Outside Online

June 19, 2007 Textbooks around the globe may have to be revised after scientists in Brazil claim to have found a new source for the Amazon River, making it longer than the Nile in Africa and the new longest river in the world.

Scientists from an expedition sponsored by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) have found a new source for the river in the southern mountains of Peru, not in the north of the country as was previously thought. 

Calculations based on the new discovery will add about 176 miles to the river, bringing the total length to roughly 4,225 miles, 65 miles longer than the Nile, according to the IBGE.   

“Today we can consider the river Amazon the longest river in the world,” Guido Gelli, the IBGE’s director of geosciences, told the London Telegraph.

The claim will likely heighten the debate between Egypt and Brazil over which country is home to the world’s longest river and is sure to confuse a generation of elementary students still reeling from the decision to demote Pluto from its status as a full planet. 



       

Skiing: Powderwhore Preview

Powderwhore, a Utah-based telemark film production company, just released a preview of their newest film, PW07. From Canada's Baffin Island to Alaska's Chugach Range, these freeheelers do more than just drop a knee: They carve big lines, ski steep couloirs, and huck air that rivals their alpine counterparts. The best part? They don't use helicoptors to reach the top of 14,000-foot peaks—just manpower. And womanpower, thanks to the one female skier who graces the screen in this year's film, 29-year-old Misha Zitkova, a pro tele-skier from the Czech Republic. "Mish Mish, as we call her, skis fast, racer style, and we've had comments that she has the best form of all the guys from our films," says Powderwhore's producer Noah Howel.

NEWS: Spring comes early in the Arctic

Danish researchers are reporting that spring is coming weeks earlier in the Arctic than it was a decade ago. The findings, which have been published in the journal Current Biology , show that ice in northeastern Greenland is melting nearly 15 days earlier than it was in the mid-1990s. Twenty-one species: 12 arthropods, three birds, and six plants, are