Tropical depression Ana was the first storm of the season, and it didn’t live up to much.  It was torn apart by various weather patterns that made any sort of strengthening a long shot at best, and instead broke up the storm to have it dissipate into a mere depression and eventually back into a tropical wave.

Hurricane Bill, however, met a much different set of circumstances and beefed up to a Hurricane over the weekend.

The storm even looks to intensify as the week progresses.  Bill’s projected path could see it making landfall in the Virgin Islands and Bermuda by the end of the week, becoming the first real storm of 2009 to have any substantial effect on human lives.  We may even see Bill upgraded to a major hurricane.

There is still a good chance no landfall will be made because of the distance Bill has between itself and any civilization.  The Atlantic is a rather large body of water with plenty of possible factors that could sprout up and change the course of the storm, but as the week progresses and the path becomes more clear, we will know whether to be worried or not.

This Microsoft founder wants to become a…wait for it…“hurricane slayer.”

For anyone who has experienced a hurricane, the devastation caused by one is fully known. So, Bill Gates The Hurricane Slayer could prove to become pretty handy.

According to USA Today, a patent application was made public by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, and it belonged to Mr. Gates.

Gates’s idea for calming the storms is to put huge tubs into the ocean, with pipes that will drain warm surface water deeper into the ocean while sucking cool water to the surface. For those of you who don’t know, hurricanes are made stronger by warm surface waters.

(One positive thing that could come of this is the creation of more jobs to put this ridiculous idea into motion.)

The Tampa Bay Times reported that hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said, “If enough pumps are deployed, it is reasonable to expect some diminution of hurricane power.”

If the application is accepted, Gates and co-creators will receive the patent for 18 years. They plan to sell insurance to coastal residents to offset the cost.

Thanks Mr. Gates. Just because you have plenty of money doesn’t mean that everyone living on the coast wants to pay for your idea.

Pamela Anderson would like to be one of them.

Forty-one-year-old Anderson has been in the spotlight for years. For those of you who thought her only recent claim to fame was in Borat, then you are sorely incorrect. Pammie is a large sponsor of PETA and also works with the Make a Wish Foundation. Apparently, she’s also really interested in environmentally friendly hotels. She already has one in the United Arab Emirates and also one in her homeland of Canada.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, last week Anderson and boyfriend Jamie Padgett made their way to Montenegro (a European country bordering Croatia, Serbia and Albania) to discuss eco-friendly developments.

“I’ve been trying to find appropriate partners and location to realize my dream – to build a hotel and spa based on ecological principles along with healthy food, good music, modern design and great fun,” Anderson said.

Anderson must know,more than anyone else why a place like Montengro or the United Arab Emirates needs an eco-friendly hotel full of “great fun,” but there are many worse things that she could be doing. Take, for example, acting.

See, she is all natural.

Admittedly, the weather isn’t as unbearable as the remainder of the year, which is probably why NASA decided to base itself at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Kennedy Space Center has successfully shot off many space ships. The only thing NASA usually has to master is making sure the ship itself is ready. For its past attempt, with space shuttle Endeavor, something even NASA couldn’t control got in the way.

That little something is the Florida summer weather.

According to the Associated Press, thunderstorms caused the fifth delay for Endeavor. It was the third day (in a row) that it couldn’t lift off.

Space shuttle Endeavor is attempting to get to up there to finish Japan’s $1 billion space station lab, Kibo. There are 13 astronauts headed up with it. They’ll be taking the third and final piece of the project, as long as they can get up there.

It’s been grounded for a month now, according to the AP. First it was leaks and now it’s, well, more leaks. These just can’t be controlled.

Launch director Mark Polansky, upon realizing there couldn’t be any takeoff informed the crew saying, “The weather has just bitten us again. So sorry about that.”

Yeah, welcome to Florida.

Apparently, just a couple years ago, the Everglades National Park was removed the United Nation’s list of endangered world sites. The park hadn’t even met the requirements to be removed from the list when it was. And you better believe that made some people mad. Now, people might be happy again.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, Obama’s administration officials are on the road to getting it put back on the list.

The Everglades has been on the endangered world sites list since 1993 when facing pollution, over-development and damage from hurricane Andrew. When scientists from the World Heritage Committee visited in 2006, they saw there was still much to be done, so they kept it on the list.

That same year, the committee came up with ideas on how to fix the Everglades. When they met in 2007, the head of the U.S. delegation suggested that it be taken off the list. “And the committee went along with that.” David Sheppard, the committee’s stop science adviser, said.

Also in 2007, a report was released noting that the billion-dollar project to restore the Everglades was way behind schedule anyway.

Sure, the place is ugly and an alligator (or two or three) could eat you there, but it should stay on the endangered list, if only just to finish the restoration process.

According to the Associated Press in an article on Yahoo News, Coventry Valley Farm uses a yogurt made from organic milk that reduces the amount of methane produced by the cows’ intestines. The diet consists of flaxseed, alfalfa and grasses high in Omega 3 fatty acids. The amount of gas cows burp is the dairy industry’s biggest greenhouse gas contributor, according to various studies, with the industry contributing about 2 percent of the country’s total greenhouse output.

The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy in Rosemont, Ill., is checking out every possible way to sustain consumers’ demands for sustainable production. It will be looking at everything from growing crops to feed the cows to trucking the milk produced by the cows in an effort to reduce the dairy industry’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020, which would be the equivalent of trashing just about 1.25 million cars from U.S. roads every single year, say experts.

Who knew plugging up the burping power of moo cows could help reduce total greenhouse gas emissions and help get us on our way to combating global warming successfully? Gas-X for cows anyone?

Apparently, PETA is so angry by Obama’s actions on Tuesday, in smacking down a fly (and yes, he killed it) mid-interview that it’s sending him a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, according to the Associated Press in an article posted on Yahoo News, which is a device that allows users to capture a housefly peaceably, and then peaceably release it outside.

“We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals,” PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said on Wednesday. “We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals.”

Last time I checked, the housefly was in no danger of becoming extinct, or was it in any danger of halting natural habits like visiting dung heaps, decaying flesh and then grandma’s home baked pies, the latter after those first two stops, of course.

In case you were wondering how the exhibition fight, er, moment, went down, here’s what the Commander in Chief said:

“Get out of here.” (Ah the catalyst for setting off PETA.)

Apparently the bug, excuse me, insect (don’t want to forget my political correctness here in case PETA wants to send me some kind of weird bug catcher or who knows what else) didn’t listen, because it just continued to fly around the president’s head. So the president waited patiently for the fly to settle and BAM, he smacked the bugger, ahem, housefly, dead.

“Now, where were we?” Obama asked the interviewer, and then added, “That was pretty impressive, wasn’t it? I got the sucker.”

I don’t know about you, but I think there are a lot more important things for people to be concerned about today than little houseflies, but I’ve been known to be wrong before.

A group of investigators called VORTEX2 (Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2) plan to study the films from this storm as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Principle investigator of VORTEX2 and president of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Colorado, Josh Wurman, said there were 12 “tornado pods” able to document the storm.

From this, researchers hope to find a way to know when a tornado is approaching. The main goal is to be able to give citizens a window of 30 minutes to an hour as a warning a tornado may be headed their way.

The study will consist of looking at radar images to see if any parallels exist among all the tornadoes there are records of.

According to the federal Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., there are about 100 tornadoes each year that kill about 60 people. While the death toll may seem small, the devastation can’t be put into numbers.

USA Today reports that VORTEX2 plans to gather more documentation in the Great Plains next year from May 1 to June 15.

Apparently, this is the first time ever that a person has been able to prove that bird songs can evolve in correlation with rapidly changing habitats.

It was a tedious venture, one that only the most devoted bird-lover could endure, that began with tracking down the recordings of the same and similar bird species in the areas from as far back as the 1970s. Once those were dusted off and played back, they were compared to recordings taken in recent years.

I’m sure you’ve heard many a tweeting or a twittering bird song in your lifetime, but could you distinguish between two different birds? What about two of the same species of birds? I don’t know about you, but it all sounds the same to me.

The woman and dedicated bird-lover responsible for this ground breaking news event is biologist Elizabeth Derryberry. She compared recordings of individual birds in 15 different areas with the older recordings and discovered – through what can only be speculated as super-tuned bird song sound abilities – that the musical pitch and speed of the trill portion of the sparrows’ short songs had dropped significantly.

That’s when Derryberry thought to check out some aerial pictures of the areas to see what had changed. She soon realized it was the dramatic increase in vegetation, and then discovered that areas that had remained mostly clear did not experience the same change in bird songs.

I know you’re at the end of your seat with this story at this point, but what does all this really mean for you and me? Well, this new research goes to show that acoustic and visual communications of animals change with their habitat. With the growing changes happening to our planet today – damaging deforestation, global warming, etc. – we might be seeing more of these changes happening soon.

The possible concern is presented in whether or not these potential changes would be for better or worse.

All through the evolution of bird songs…. It’s certainly something to ponder.

(Gist of article – facts and pertinent information – provided by Science Daily.)

In total, it’s a 300 megawatt project that will mean solar plants for each region and will cost around 1.5 billion Euros, or around $2 billion. Overall, it’s a plan designed to reduce total carbon emissions and essentially provide for a greener France.

As far as solar power plants in Europe go, France is ranked fourth in terms of the solar energy produced, falling just behind Germany, Spain and Italy.

Okay, so just by looking at these facts, as taken from an article in Business Week, this plan comes off sounding all well and good. Everyone’s for a greener planet these days, sure. I am too. But why is no one bringing up the fact that solar energy is hardly an efficient or effective means at producing energy? Specifically, that solar power cannot, with current technology, provide enough energy to even scratch the current level of carbon emissions on this planet.

So before you jump on the bandwagon to support France’s solar venture, take a look a few more facts.

The average amount of sunlight that reaches the surface of the earth is about 300 watts per 10 square feet. It takes a solar collector with an area roughly equivalent to 10 percent of the floor area of whatever building it is meant to power in order for it to collect enough energy to power that building. So, for a 2,000-square-foot house, a collector with an area of 200 square feet would be required to collect enough energy to power that structure.

Okay, that doesn’t sound that bad, right? Just clip some solar panels to the roof, no big deal. Well, according to TrumpOnline.com, just 100 square feet of those solar panels will set you back a down payment on a brand new home, or about $25,000. The expense of solar power is its strongest deterrent.

Why else would solar power account for less than 1 percent of United States electricity use? Simply put, the technology just isn’t there yet.

Sure, it’s a lovely gesture for France to make and is certainly making a statement the world over. Just wake me up when solar power can start competing with the energy we produce from fossil fuels currently. On second thought, I’d like to maintain the hope of being alive in the event that this will actually happen, so set that alarm clock for when it can start competing with even the whopping 7 percent of our nation’s total energy output from…wait for it…water.