Archive - May 4, 2008

"Records stretching back to 1960 prove what climate models had predicted: warmer oceans contain less oxygen. Oceanographer Lothar Stramma of the University of Kiel in Germany and his colleagues report in Science that an analysis of historical records and recent samples show that as the globe has warmed, waters with low oxygen content have expanded in the tropical Atlantic and equatorial Pacific oceans.

"The oxygen concentrations in these oxygen-minimum zones have decreased with time," says oceanographer and study coauthor Gregory C. Johnson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Wash. "The regions of low oxygen have also expanded vertically by both extending deeper into the ocean and closer to the surface."

Fish and other sea life cannot survive in such waters—and this expansion reduces the area where fish can thrive, says oceanographer Janet Sprintall of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., who also coauthored the study. She notes that fisheries may be affected as well."

Image courtesy of Scientific American

Original Source

A police officer in a small town stopped a motorist who was speeding down Main Street. "Officer," the man began, "I can explain."
"No explanation needed!" snapped the Officer. "I'm going to let you cool your heels in jail until the chief gets back."
The man tried again. "But Officer, I have to tell you something."
"Just keep quiet! You're going to jail and I'm not interested in what you have to say!" the Officer barked.
A few hours later the Officer looked in on his prisoner and said, "Lucky for you the chief is at his daughter's wedding. He'll be in a good mood when he gets back."
"Don't count on it," answered the fellow in the cell. "I'm the groom."

Original Source

Microsoft has decided to withdraw its three-month-old offer to buy Yahoo, as expressed in a formal letter from Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer to Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang.

"The companies had finally engaged in merger talks this week and appeared closer than ever to a deal Friday, but they still remained billions of dollars apart in their assessment of Yahoo's worth. Ballmer said today that the company had raised its buyout price to $33 a share from the initial $31 offered, which added $5 billion to the deal that was initially worth $44.6 billion.

That would have represented a 70% premium over Yahoo's closing stock price on Jan. 31, the night that Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft made its unsolicited offer.

But in recent talks Yahoo had insisted on receiving at least $5 billion more than that, or at least $37 a share, which Microsoft was unwilling to pay, Ballmer wrote in a letter to Yang.

Ballmer said he had decided against launching a hostile bid for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, including trying to take control of the company's board and offering the deal directly to shareholders. He said Yahoo had signaled that it would take action that could prolong such a proxy fight and make the company less valuable to Microsoft, including striking a partnership with Google Inc. in which the search giant would deliver ads alongside many of Yahoo's search results."

Image courtesy of The Los Angeles Times

Original Source