Environment

Brazil have announced plans to tackle the Zika virus outbreak by unleashing gamma rays on millions of male mosquitoes in order to sterilise them and stop the spread of the virus.  The radiation device, known as the ‘irradiator’, will be shipped by the Atomic Energy Agency as soon as Brazilian authorities issue an import permit for it. Telegraph.co.uk reports: “It’s a birth control method, the equivalent of family planning for humans,” said Kostas Bourtzis, a molecular biologist with the IAEA’s insect pest control laboratory.

The mystery of a ‘buzzing’ sound coming from deep in the Pacific Ocean has been solved by scientists. Large parts of the ocean are humming with the sound of fish flatulence as they migrate to different depths looking for food and shelter. The Mirror reports: Marine experts believe they may have discovered the noise is linked to something very natural but just a little bit rude – fish farts – that happen at dusk and dawn.

On Tuesday, multiple media outlets jumped at the opportunity to report that China has built radar facilities at Cuarteron Reef, Beijing’s southern-most South Pacific sandcastle.

“New radar facilities being developed in the Spratlys, on the other hand, could significantly change the operational landscape,”  Gregory Poling of CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said, explaining why the radar installations are actually a bigger deal than the deployment of HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island.

A ruptured pipeline has caused two oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon, threatening wildlife and local communities. Ruptures in Peru’s main oil pipeline have spilled 3,000 barrels of crude in an Amazonian region, polluting two rivers that native villages rely on for water. The Health Ministry has declared a water emergency in five districts near the spill A third spill has been reported by local media though the pipeline operator Petroperu has refuted the claim.

Thirteen bald eagles were found dead in Maryland this weekend in what officials are calling off the largest single die-off of bald eagles in 30 years.  The mysterious deaths were spotted near a farm on Maryland’s Eastern Shore by a man at 2:30pm on Saturday who was out looking for deer antlers. Washingtonpost.com reports: It was not immediately clear what had caused the birds to die, but there were “no obvious signs of trauma with these birds,” according to Candy Thomson, a natural resources police spokeswoman. “A working theory is poisoning,” Thomson said Monday night.