The flu can jump from animals to humans. A new strain of flu has emerged four times in the past 100 years. The one that emerged in 1918 killed 50 million people, which is why scientists watch these new flu strains so carefully.

Last fall, over 150 harbor seal pups washed up on the shores of New England beaches. Researchers discovered that they were killed by a new strain of flu, that evolved from bird flu. It had obviously gained the ability to spread from seal to seal.

In the July 31st edition of the New York Times, Carl Zimmer quotes biologist Katie Pugliares as saying, "Surfers were surfing into seals floating in the water."
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When oceanographer listened to the audio picked up by a recording device that spent a year in the icy waters off the east coast of Greenland, she was stunned at what she heard: whales singing a remarkable variety of songs nearly constantly for five wintertime months.

Only around 40 sightings of these whales, which were hunted almost to extinction, have been reported there since the 1970s. The fact that they’re singing again shows that, despite many horrible incidents, they’re happy again.
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It’s not just your furniture that effects your beliefs–when it comes to climate change, it’s the weather where YOU are, so people who live in places where the climate is good tend to deny this reality, while those living in places experiencing warmer-than-normal temperatures are significantly more likely than others to say there is evidence for global warming. Maybe this is also because so little about climate change is published in your local press.
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