Mind Soup

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has broken off from a glacier in Antarctica after being rammed by another giant iceberg, scientists said on Friday, in an event that could affect ocean circulation patterns. The 2,500 sq km (965 sq mile) iceberg broke off earlier this month from the Mertz Glacier's 160 km (100 miles) floating tongue of ice that sticks out into the Southern Ocean. The collision has since halved the size of the tongue that drains ice from the vast East Antarctic ice sheet. "The calving itself hasn't been directly linked to climate change but it is related to the natural processes occurring on the ice sheet," said Rob Massom, a senior scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center in Hobart, Tasmania. Both organizations, along with French scientists, have been studying existing giant cracks in the ice tongue and monitored the bumper-car-like collision by the...

With the media heating up for the December Climate Change Summit in Denmark, it is time to for some reflection. Does the name "Severn Cullis-Suzuki" mean anything to you? Severn was 12 when in 1992, she raised money to attend the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. She spoke to the summit members in a speech which became famous. A speech which -sadly enough- could have been given today. It makes one wonder what progress really happened in the past 17 year. Do we actually make progress on protecting our planet for the sake of our children, and their children? In an age where Green Goes Commercial, where corrupt companies like Monsanto and Cargill start dominating our food chain, and chase the food prices up so the poor no longer have access to food. A world where Western companies buy up fertile land in Africa to grow biofuel crops so less land becomes available for food agriculture? Did we make progress, or are we still sliding downhill?

Deck the pools: Festive divers work at an aquarium in Manila As the lights were switched on in Trafalgar Square last night – and we all start thinking of getting ours in this weekend – other countries were creating their eye-catching variations. The smallest would be pretty tricky to decorate – because it measures less than half the width of a human hair. Little bit of fun: This silicon tree is 0.04mm wide It is made from silicon with an ion beam, normally used on silicon chips, at Britain’s National Physical Laboratory. Meanwhile, Mexico City has gone to the other extreme, hoping to enter the record books with a tree that towers 90m (295ft) over shoppers – beating Rio de Janeiro’s 82m (270ft) effort. Dizzying: Mexico City’s 90m tree dwarfs the traffic passing by Big in another sense is the effort standing in New York’s Rockefeller Center. It has been bedecked with a dazzling 30,000 lights. But lights would be a fairly risky decoration for the tree ...