Salvadoran Activist Killed After Protesting Mining Project
In El Salvador, an environmental activist has been killed after speaking out against a mining project in a northern region. Juan Francisco Duran Ayala is the latest in a string of activists to be killed after denouncing the Canadian gold mining company, Pacific Rim, in its efforts to mine the area of Cabañas. A community youth radio station, Radio Victoria, has also received repeated death threats for covering the story. Lisa Fuller represents the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.
Over 1000 new species found in New Guinea
A fanged frog, a bright yellow snail and a blue lizard are among more than 1,060 new species recently found on the Melanesian island of New Guinea, environment group World Wildlife Fund said. Among the new species discovered from 1998 to 2008 were 218 new kinds of plants (of which around 100 are orchids), 580 invertebrates, 134 amphibians, 2 birds, 71 fish (including an extremely rare 8-foot-long river shark), 43 reptiles and 12 mammals. The bad news is that nearly all are at risk due to human activities, such as logging and forest conversion to agriculture.
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Neutrino oscillation
Japanese T2K (Tokai to Kamioka) experiment announced the first evidence of a rare form of neutrino oscillation, whereby muon neutrinos turn into electron neutrinos. And this, in turn, gives physicist a potential clue to a critical mystery in cosmology: why there is something in the universe, rather than nothing.