TOP O' THE MORNIN': The world has a greener sheen than usual today, as people from Dublin to Dubai celebrate Irish culture in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Green shirts, hats, beer and even rivers will be out in force, and some of the planet's biggest landmarks — including New York's Empire State Building, Toronto's CN Tower, the London Eye and the Sydney Opera House (pictured) — are bathed in green floodlights today as part of a global marketing effort by the Tourism Ireland agency (the lights may be colored green, but no word on how they're being powered). While rallying the world around St. Patrick's Day, however, Ireland itself is suffering a shortage this year in one of its most iconic symbols — the shamrock. Like the United States and the rest of Europe, Ireland has had a rough winter, which affected crops and a variety of native plants, including Trifolium dubium, considered Ireland's "official shamrock." Shamrocks have been "hit hard" by winter weather and "won't be easily found this week," says botanist Declan Doogue with the Royal Irish Academy, although he adds that the loss of traditional hay meadows and native grasslands has hurt the species more over the years than any winter storms could. Shamrocks are still common throughout northwest Europe and are expected to bounce back this spring, but in the meantime, you might want to ride out winter with another St. Patrick's Day tradition this year — corned beef and cabbage (with green beer, of course). (Sources: Associated Press, New York Times, National Geographic, Irish Times)

 

THERE WILL BE FLOOD: While harsh winter weather has dealt Ireland a shamrock shortage in 2010, it's set to unleash disastrous floods across much of the U.S. Midwest, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned on Tuesday. A barrage of snowstorms fueled by El Niño has piled up record snowpack across swaths of the country since early December, and as it begins to melt, "we are looking at potentially historic flooding in some parts of the country this spring," says NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. One area of particularly high concern is the Red River Valley in North Dakota and Minnesota, which flooded to record levels in 2009 and is now surging toward a repeat performance by the end of this week. While the spring floods will endanger countless people's lives, however, they may also have a silver lining for farmers in the Corn Belt — an earlier planting season. (Source: Reuters)

 

SHARK WEAK: China, Japan and Russia have helped shoot down a U.S.-backed proposal aimed at boosting shark conservation, stirring up yet more trouble at an already-contentious U.N. endangered species summit in Qatar. The nonbinding measure had called for more transparency in the shark trade and for more research into the threats facing sharks from illegal fishing, and was expected to be approved, but China, Japan, Russia and several developing nations argued it would harm poor fishermen. The surprise move came hours after the conservation group Oceana presented a report detailing how demand for shark-fin soup in China and other Asian countries has driven many shark species near extinction. The fight over sharks doesn't bode well for the rest of the U.N. conference, where Eastern and Western nations are expected to continue clashing over other issues, namely bluefin tuna and tigers. (Sources: AP, Agence France-Presse)

 

FREE-THINKING WILLY: Interest in killer whales, aka orcas, has swelled since one killed a trainer in Florida last month, and as the Los Angeles Times reports today, new research is revealing just how eerily smart these marine mammals can be. Neuroscientists recently used an MRI to study the 15-pound brain of a dead orca, and while it's unclear whether orcas' memory is as good as humans', they're certainly well-suited for life at sea. On top of the sonar communication used by many marine mammals, orcas have developed distinct local "dialects," and can use their sonar to not only find fish in murky water, but to identify their favorite kind, chinook salmon. They teach each other complex behaviors that are passed down among generations, and their different language groups have become so diverse that some experts say they're almost like separate species. But orcas' genes are still nearly identical, which suggests their success is all in their heads — perhaps one reason they don't always get along with their human captors. "I'm not trying to second-guess what was in this particular whale's mind," says neuroscientist Lori Marino of Tilikum, the SeaWorld orca that killed his trainer on Feb. 24. "But, certainly, if we are talking about whether killer whales have the wherewithal and the cognitive capacity to intentionally strike out at someone, or to be angry, or to really know what they are doing, I would have to say the answer is yes." (Source: Los Angeles Times)

 

— Russell McLendon