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Once we learned that they can survive a nuclear war (while we won’t). Now it turns out they’re impervious to global warming as well. I guess we have to accept the fact that they will always be around (even if we are not).

Researchers have learned that cockroaches can hold their breath for as long as 40 minutes, which will help them survive the rise in sea levels. In fact, they actually change the way they breathe in response to changes in humidity, oxygen levels and CO2 levels.

New Scientist, Shanta Barley quotes researcher George McGavin as saying, “Two hundred and fifty million years of physiological fine tuning has produced a creature that will be around for a long time to come. Cockroaches, I’m afraid to say, will do well in the face of climate change.”read more

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Dolphins are dying from lots of different causes, and one of the strangest of these is soap.

Germ-killing antibacterial soaps, such as the kind often used to wash dishes, are being misused and can even lead to superbug infections in people. But they’re even worse for dolphins: As the suds flow into the oceans, the main substance in them, triclosan, is ingested by these mammals. Traces of it have been found in 25% of the dolphins tested in Florida, which is not surprising, since in the US, 76% of liquid soaps and 26% of bar soaps contain it.
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A huge system of caves, chambers and tunnels is hidden beneath the Pyramids of Giza, which could reveal the lost secrets of the pharaohs.

In Discovery News, Rossella Lorenzi quotes this week’s Dreamland guest Andrew Collins as saying, “Ancient funerary texts clearly allude to the existence of a subterranean world in the vicinity of the Giza pyramids. Indeed, Giza was known anciently as Rostau, meaning the “mouth of the passages. This is the same name as a region of the ancient Egyptian underworld known as the Duat. The ‘mouth of the passages’ is unquestionably a reference to the entrance to a subterranean cave world, one long rumored to exist beneath the plateau.”
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Don’t say we didn’t warn you: Powerful storms crossed the central and northeastern US as Hurricane Bill became an ‘extremely dangerous’ storm in the South Atlantic. So far this year, the US tornado season has been relatively mild, but it threatened to increase in intensity today as powerful storms struck from Colorado to New York.New York’s Central Park lost over a hundred trees to 80 MPH winds, one of the strongest storms to strike the park in years. Meanwhile, Hurricane Bill increased in strength to a Category 4 storm and was expected to strengthen further as it continues to move north and west toward the US East Coast.
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