A study by University of Central Florida researchers of decades of weather data and the flowering dates of 70 native and non-native plants found "significant" temperature increases in more than a fourth of the state's counties in the summer and more than a third of them in the fall.

"The weather in Florida has been getting wacky," said Betsy Von Holle, the assistant biology professor who led the study. "And that's definitely having an impact beyond simple temperature changes.

"If the trend continues," she added, "it may affect everything from when we start seeing flowers and birds migrating to what foods we can grow."

Read more at Orlando Sentinel

A volcano in western Indonesia spewed hot lava and sand high into the sky early Sunday in its first eruption in 400 years.

Read more at Fox News

Astronomers are predicting that a massive solar storm, much bigger in potential than the one that caused spectacular light shows on Earth earlier this month, is to strike our planet in 2012 with a force of 100 million hydrogen bombs.

Several US media outlets have reported that NASA was warning the massive flare this month was just a precursor to a massive solar storm building that had the potential to wipe out the entire planet's power grid.

Read more at Yahoo News

With high Andean peaks and a humid tropical forest, Bolivia is a country of ecological extremes. But during the Southern Hemisphere's recent winter, unusually low temperatures in part of the country's tropical region hit freshwater species hard, killing an estimated 6 million fish and thousands of alligators, turtles and river dolphins.

Read more at Nature News