Tag: Environment

Blog, Science Policy

Climate is the Newest Gentrifying Force, and its Effects are Already Re-Shaping Cities

by Aparna Nathan Bright blue water, white sand beaches, and all within feet of your front door: these features make beachfront properties in Miami some of the most desirable (and expensive) real estate in the city. But in 2017, Hurricane Irma swept through the city, causing billions of dollars in damage to these sought-after properties. Meanwhile, lower-income inland neighborhoods like Little Haiti and Liberty City … Continue reading Climate is the Newest Gentrifying Force, and its Effects are Already Re-Shaping Cities

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How Kelp Naturally Combats Global Climate Change

by Sylvia Hurlimann figures by Hannah Zucker When we think of kelp, we conjure up images of magical underwater forests. Recent research, however, suggests that in addition to creating beautiful habitats, macroalgae such as kelp play a large role reducing the effects of global warming. Kelp has an incredibly fast growth rate (up to two feet per day) and exports a large portion of its … Continue reading How Kelp Naturally Combats Global Climate Change

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Blog, Science Policy

Is it Smoky in Here? The importance of the Clean Air Act in the 21st century

by Felix Barber figures by Hannah Zucker We live in exceptional times, with extreme weather events in recent memory including devastating wildfires in California, flooding and polar conditions in the Midwest USA, and extreme rainfall in the wake of hurricane Harvey. Such events are predicted to only become more common with global climate change. In the US, the Clean Air Act (CAA) is a major … Continue reading Is it Smoky in Here? The importance of the Clean Air Act in the 21st century

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Human endurance is not limitless

Imagine you’re running a race. But this is no normal race—this is a 140-day trek from Huntington Beach, CA to Washington, D.C. Welcome to Race Across the USA, a seemingly-superhuman feat that provides the perfect laboratory to study human endurance. After all, extreme athletes push their bodies to the proverbial “limit”—but what, exactly, is this limit? That’s what a new study published in Science Advances … Continue reading Human endurance is not limitless

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Can converting methane into CO2 help reduce climate change?

Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane, contribute to global warming by slowing the rate at which heat energy escapes into space. Although methane is less abundant than CO2, it is several times more potent, absorbing up to 36 times more energy than CO2 over a century. Last year marked the first time that global methane concentrations reached levels 2.5 times greater than … Continue reading Can converting methane into CO2 help reduce climate change?

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Exploring The Underground Network of Trees – The Nervous System of the Forest

by Valentina Lagomarsino figures by Hannah Zucker When scientists first studied the structure of nerve cells that comprise the human brain, they noted their strong resemblance to trees. In fact, dendrites, the term to describe projections from a nerve cell, comes from the Greek word Dendron, for “tree.” While the connection in the appearance of nerve cells was made to trees, the comparison may have been more … Continue reading Exploring The Underground Network of Trees – The Nervous System of the Forest

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When conservation isn’t enough: rewilding lost ecosystems

Last week, a new study reported that the Antarctic’s second largest colony of emperor penguins continues to decline, after warming weather and high winds led to the loss of over 15,000 eggs in 2016. With reports like these becoming depressingly commonplace, environmental biologists are thinking of out-of-the-box solutions to fight the destruction of ecosystems around the world. One popular solution: Rewilding. Rewilding involves active and … Continue reading When conservation isn’t enough: rewilding lost ecosystems

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Predicting the Next Big Earthquake

by Franklin Wolfe figures by Abagail Burrus Over the past half-century, earthquakes have been the leading cause of death from natural disasters and have imposed dramatic cultural, economic, and political impacts on society. Compounding their inherent physical hazard is how they strike suddenly without obvious warning, and how they possess a ‘fatal attraction‘ for humans—most of the world’s largest cities lie in areas of major … Continue reading Predicting the Next Big Earthquake

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Evidence of an Ancient Human Species Unearthed in the Philippines

In 2007, during an excavation on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, archeologist Armand Salvador Mijares discovered a 67,000-year-old foot bone that led scientists to rethink the history of human evolution.  The bone had features resembling hominins—a subfamily of primates comprised of modern Homo sapiens and others closely related human species.  The finding provided the earliest direct evidence of human presence in the Philippines, … Continue reading Evidence of an Ancient Human Species Unearthed in the Philippines

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