Winners and Honorable Mentions. Mating, fighting, dive-bombing for food: This year’s prize-winning images and videos are packed with avian action—now, in even more categories. Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Climate Change
How Specialty Recycling Companies Reduce Plastic Waste
Civil Eats – “With the lack of a national recycling standard and a confusing patchwork of local rules, specialty recyclers are stepping in to take whatever traditional recyclers reject. We ask a lot of food packaging. It needs to look good and keep perishable food safe, intact, and unblemished as it travels from the producer… Continue Reading
A New Book About Plant Intelligence Highlights the Messiness of Scientific Change
The New Yorker [unpaywalled], In “The Light Eaters,” by Zoë Schlanger the field of botany itself functions as a character—one in the process of undergoing a potentially radical transformation: “During the nineteen-seventies and eighties, a researcher at the University of Washington started noticing something strange in the college’s experimental forest. For years, a blight of… Continue Reading
Check out these new ‘HeatRisk’ tools to stay up to date on US heatwaves
The Verge: “Extreme heat is in store for communities across the US this week, and the CDC and National Weather Service (NWS) have new tools to help people prepare for the health risks. Heat is the top weather-related killer in the US, a threat that’s growing worse with climate change. But even though heatwaves kill… Continue Reading
Climate Quick Reference Guides Now on Farmers.gov
“Even when data is at your fingertips it can sometimes still be hard to find what you’re looking for – especially when it comes to climate information. USDA’s Climate Hubs and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) are helping to meet that need by providing Climate Quick Reference Guides for agricultural producers and landowners seeking basic… Continue Reading
Build it and they will come? The effects of a new infrastructure on cycling practices and experiences
Patrick Rérat, Aurélie Schmassmann, Build it and they will come? The effects of a new infrastructure on cycling practices and experiences, Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Volume 25, 2024, 101121, ISSN 2590-1982, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip.2024.101121. Abstract: What are the effects of cycling infrastructure? This question is crucial as cities begin to give more space to cycling. In this… Continue Reading
All the place where you can now find microplastics
Washington Post [unpaywalled]: “Microplastics have popped up in rivers, oceans, soil, food, tea and even Antarctic snow — and now these tiny plastic particles are showing up in clouds. A group of researchers from Waseda University in Tokyo recently found microplastics in the clouds above Mount Fuji. In a paper published in Environmental Chemistry Letters,… Continue Reading
Meth-addict fish, aggro starlings, caffeinated minnows: animals radically changed by human drugs
The Guardian: “From brown trout becoming “addicted” to methamphetamine to European perch losing their fear of predators due to depression medication, scientists warn that modern pharmaceutical and illegal drug pollution is becoming a growing threat to wildlife. Drug exposure is causing significant, unexpected changes to some animals’ behaviour and anatomy. Female starlings dosed with antidepressants… Continue Reading
How climate change is making us sick
Grist: “These climate-driven impacts are taking a serious toll on human health. Cases of disease linked to mosquitos, ticks, and fleas tripled in the U.S. between 2004 and 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The threat extends beyond commonly recognized vector-borne diseases. Research shows more than half of all the pathogens… Continue Reading
Nationwide Heat and Health Tool to Protect Communities Most Impacted by Extreme Heat
“Today, on National Heat Awareness Day, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is launching a new tool to help communities prepare for extreme heat and prevent heat-related illness, especially among those most at risk. The Heat and Health Index (HHI) is the first nationwide tool to provide heat-health outcome information at the… Continue Reading
SUVs are setting new sales records each year so are their emissions
IEA: “The large, heavy passenger vehicles were responsible for over 20% of the growth in global energy-related CO2 emissions last year SUVs accounted for 48% of global car sales in 2023, reaching a new record and further strengthening the defining automobile trend of the early 21st century – the shift towards ever larger and heavier… Continue Reading
Satellite to probe mystery of clouds and climate
BBC: “A sophisticated joint European-Japanese satellite has launched to measure how clouds influence the climate. Some low-level clouds are known to cool the planet, others at high altitude will act as a blanket. The Earthcare mission will use a laser and a radar to probe the atmosphere to see precisely where the balance lies. It’s… Continue Reading
