Drought drains South Carolina lake

A decaying highway, plunged deep underwater after Lake Hartwell was dammed in the 1950s, sits exposed once again across what remains of the bay outside Big Water Marina.

It's a depressing reminder of the toll from a stubborn Southern drought that only recently began to abate with replenishing rains this fall. Much of the region has recovered, but a ring stretching from northeast Georgia to the western Carolinas remains stuck in "extreme" drought.

And Hartwell, a massive 56,000-acre lake straddling Georgia-South Carolina state line, is near the epicenter. Even after a spate of recent downpours, its water line is nearly 18 feet below normal levels.

"We never thought we'd see it. We never thought the lake would go this far down," said Jane Davis, who built the marina from the ground up with her husband. "Everyone needs water, but Hartwell has finally given more water than it can take."

Forecasters say there's no telling when the drought will end.

"When you start looking at an area like that that's been under duress so long, even one or two rain events aren't going to completely wipe away the long-term problems," said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center...

--Deseret News

Explorers find 1780 British warship in Lake Ontario

A 22-gun British warship that sank during the American Revolution and has long been regarded as one of the "Holy Grail" shipwrecks in the Great Lakes has been discovered at the bottom of Lake Ontario, astonishingly well-preserved in the cold, deep water, explorers announced Friday.

Shipwreck enthusiasts Jim Kennard and Dan Scoville used side-scanning sonar and an unmanned submersible to locate the HMS Ontario, which was lost with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard during a gale in 1780.

The 80-foot sloop of war is the oldest shipwreck and the only fully intact British warship ever found in the Great Lakes, Scoville and Kennard said.

"To have a Revolutionary War vessel that's practically intact is unbelievable. It's an archaeological miracle," said Canadian author Arthur Britton Smith, who chronicled the history of the HMS Ontario in a 1997 book, "The Legend of the Lake"...

Yahoo! News

Giant marine life found in antarctic waters

Scientists who conducted the most comprehensive survey to date of New Zealand's Antarctic waters were surprised by the size of some specimens found, including jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles and 2-foot-wide starfish.

A 2,000-mile journey through the Ross Sea that ended Thursday has also potentially turned up several new species, including as many as eight new mollusks.

It's "exciting when you come across a new species," said Chris Jones, a fisheries scientist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "All the fish people go nuts about that — but you have to take it with a grain of salt"...

--MSNBC

3-year-old boy finds woolly mammoth tooth

Gary Kidd had a pretty good idea that what his 3-year-old grandson had found was no rock, but the tooth of a woolly mammoth. That's because he had found one himself nine years ago.

Kaleb Kidd was chasing squirrels Monday at a family friend's property near La Crosse when he spotted what looked like an unusual rock.

"Grandpa, what's that?" Kaleb asked.

He told his grandson it looked like the tooth of the extinct woolly mammoth.

Next stop was the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, which confirmed that it was, indeed, the tooth of a mammoth...

--USA Today

New 'super-Earth' found in space

Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface.

The planet orbits the faint star Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra.

Scientists made the discovery using the Eso 3.6m Telescope in Chile.

They say the benign temperatures on the planet mean any water there could exist in liquid form, and this raises the chances it could also harbour life...

--BBC News