Sahara

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Next Up: Saharan Dust Clouds
Next Menace: Dust Clouds

Next Menace: Dust Clouds

Plumes from Sahara Desert reach Florida, with more to come

(Newser) - The southeastern US dodged the dangerously unhealthy smoke from wildfires in Canada, but a similar menace is moving in: dust clouds. Plumes moving from the Sahara Desert have been spotted by satellite over the eastern Caribbean Sea, southern Gulf of Mexico, and off the western coast of Africa, Accuweather reports....

Huge Dust Cloud Heads for America
Huge Dust Cloud
Heads for America

Huge Dust Cloud Heads for America

The Saharan dust is expected to hit the Gulf Coast this week

(Newser) - Gulf Coast residents, get ready for brilliant sunsets—and a few possible health hazards. A massive dust cloud is heading west across the Atlantic and could affect the lives of people from Florida to Texas, AccuWeather reports. "According to scientists ... this is an abnormally large dust cloud," says...

Meet the Fastest Ant in the World
Meet the Fastest
Ant in the World
new study

Meet the Fastest Ant in the World

Saharan desert ant moves at the equivalent of more than 400mph for humans

(Newser) - National Geographic compares it to a "tiny, glinting missile." The Guardian notes that the rate of its stride is more than 10 times faster than that of the fastest human, Usain Bolt. The hubbub is in honor of the Saharan silver ant, which researchers have just discovered...

Some of the Biggest Catfish Ever Lived in Surprising Place

Archaeologists uncover fossils of unusually large sea creatures in Sahara Desert

(Newser) - Picture a catfish. Now try to picture a catfish that's 5 feet long. Once you have that, try to picture a catfish that's 5 feet long and lives in the Sahara Desert. Such a creature did exist there, though it was 50 million to 100 million years ago...

Report: Trump Urged Spain to Build Wall Across Sahara

Spanish minister says president offered advice on migrants

(Newser) - Spain's foreign minister says President Trump offered the Spanish government some very Trumpian advice on dealing with an influx of cross-Mediterranean migrants. Josep Borrell says the president suggested building a wall across the Sahara desert, even though only two small enclaves in the region are Spanish territory, the Telegraph...

Walk or Die: Algeria Shoved 13K Migrants Into Sahara

Mass expulsions pick up in last 14 months; 'there were people who couldn't take it,' says survivor

(Newser) - Algeria has abandoned more than 13,000 people in the Sahara Desert over the past 14 months, including pregnant women and children, expelling them without food or water and forcing them to walk, at times at gunpoint, under blistering temperatures of up to 118 degrees. In Niger, where the majority...

'Orange Snow' Is Truly Falling in Eastern Europe

It's all because of a ... desert

(Newser) - Had the Brothers Grimm traveled further east, we could have ended up with "Snow Orange." That's the hue of the flakes falling over eastern Europe, reports the BBC , and it's something that happens twice every decade or so, though it's a little more extreme this...

Sahara Desert Reveals 'Holy Grail' of Dino Discoveries

African dinosaur suggests link to Europe in late Cretaceous Period

(Newser) - Researcher Matt Lamanna calls it "the Holy Grail" of dinosaur discoveries. After decades of digging had left a 44-million-year gap in the fossil record for dinos in Africa, Lamanna says his jaw "hit the floor" when he saw photos of skull fragments, a lower jaw, neck and back...

His Plan: Ride Across Africa. He Was Captured in Timbuktu

The story of Johan Gustafsson's nearly 6 years with al-Qaeda

(Newser) - Johan Gustafsson spent more than five years learning Arabic, French, and local African languages. The alternative might have been going mad. Gustafsson was abducted from his hotel terrace in Timbuktu, Mali, on Nov. 25, 2011, reports the Local . The then-36-year-old had been in the city just 24 hours, as part...

Stunning Sight in Sahara: Snow
Stunning Sight
in Sahara: Snow

Stunning Sight in Sahara: Snow

Algerian town just got its first major snowfall in 37 years

(Newser) - Perhaps Mother Nature drank a bit too much eggnog on Monday because she delivered a blanket of snow on one of the hottest and driest spots on the planet. The town of Ain Sefra, Algeria, on the northern tip of the Sahara desert—where temperatures can reach 122 degrees—was...

20 Children Ditched by Smugglers Perish in Sahara

They were part of a group of 34 migrants

(Newser) - A group of nearly three dozen migrants, most of them kids, paid smugglers to whisk them out of Niger and Nigeria and to a new life to the north—but instead paid the ultimate price. The five men, nine women, and 20 minors were found dead Sunday in the Sahara,...

Water Once Flowed Across the Sahara—and Might Again

New images reveal an ancient river system running through the desert

(Newser) - The Sahara wasn't much of a desert a while back. Satellite images have confirmed the existence of a river network that spanned hundreds of miles and made the region habitable for plants, animals, and humans as recently as 5,000 years ago, according to a French study in Nature...

Amazon Jungle's Nutrient Source: Dead African Fish

Researchers: Powdered bones, scales are feeding Amazon—for now

(Newser) - Researchers have made one of the strangest-sounding discoveries in a while: Long-dead African fish are helping feed the Amazon. How, you ask? Well, millions of tons of dust blow west from the Sahara Desert across the Atlantic Ocean each year. The dust, which acts as a natural fertilizer where it...

72 Women, Kids Rescued in Sahara

Group was stranded when truck broke down

(Newser) - A delegation on its way to visit the burial place of 92 migrants who died of thirst in northern Niger saved 72 women and children from dying in the same unforgiving part of the Sahara. The group, 20 women and 52 children, were on their way back from Algeria when...

Desert Yields Bodies of 92 Thirst Victims

Thousands try cross-Sahara journey seeking work

(Newser) - Earlier reports suggested that about 35 people , apparently migrants seeking work, had died of thirst in a Niger desert—but the remains of more than double that number have been discovered by rescue teams, reports the AP . The 92 highly decomposed bodies appeared to have been scavenged by jackals, rescue...

Dozens Die of Thirst After Desert Stranding

5 bodies discovered following vehicle's breakdown near Sahara

(Newser) - Statements don't get much bleaker than this: "About 40 Niger people, including numerous children and women, who were attempting to emigrate to Algeria, died of thirst in mid-October." That's what the mayor of Agadez, Niger, tells the AFP , which reports that one of two vehicles carrying...

How Dust From the Sahara Ends up in S. America

A giant dust cloud currently headed across the Atlantic

(Newser) - Once or twice a week in late spring and summer, gusts of wind send dust from the Sahara Desert flying across the Atlantic Ocean, in what's known as the Saharan Air Layer. But a particularly concentrated dust cloud is currently midair, en route to land in Central and South...

Once-Green Sahara Turned to Dust Quickly

Change occurred 5K years ago, over a century or two

(Newser) - You wouldn't know it from looking around today, but the Sahara desert was once a lush, green wonderland of lakes, vegetation, and animals. And then poof, relatively speaking, it turned into the desert we know today. Researchers studying 30,000 years of dust sediment off the coast of Africa...

Niger (Yes, Next to Mali) to Host US Drones

Deal opens possibility of US military presence

(Newser) - Niger's president has agreed to let the US use the country—which borders Mali—as a base for surveillance drones, a source tells Reuters . The drones would be used to spy on militants with al-Qaeda ties in Mali and the Sahara as a whole, according to the insider, who...

Algeria Vows al-Qaeda Crackdown

Says Canadians masterminded raid

(Newser) - Algeria's prime minister yesterday promised that his country would dedicate itself to fighting al-Qaeda in the wake of a disastrous hostage rescue that left 38 workers dead , including three Americans. "There is clear political will" to fight terrorism, Abdelmalek Sellal told reporters. He also said that a Canadian...

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