My Climate Change News

1I’ve always wanted to write a poem that endsat the ocean. How the poem gets theredoesn’t much matter, just so at lastit arrives. The manatee will be therewe saw all those years ago,almost motionless under the waterlike a pendant swaying at an invisible throat,the one my mother used to wearon the most special of occasions. My Godis still there, the one I prayed to as a boy:he never answered, but that didn’t keep mefrom calling out to him.

2I turn off the notification app for good,no longer needing to know exactly how many gone.After all, clinging to lifeis what we have always done best.We are still trying to hidefrom the truth of things and whocan blame us.Lists don’t make sense anymore,unless toilet paper and peanut butter head them.Last-stage patients are not being toldhow crowded the ferry will bethat will take them across the river.

3We are forbidden cafés, churches, even cemeteries.Fishing by ourselves, however, is still permitted. As longas we keep nothing at ...

The US space agency NASA on Monday released the first audio from Mars, a faint crackling recording of a gust of wind captured by the Perseverance rover. NASA also released the first video of last week's landing of the rover, which is on a mission to search for signs of past life on the Red Planet.

A microphone did not work during the rover's descent to the surface, but it was able to capture audio once it landed on Mars.

NASA engineers played a 60-second recording.

"What you hear there 10 seconds in is an actual wind gust on the surface of Mars picked up by the microphone and sent back to us here on Earth," said Dave Gruel, lead engineer for the camera and microphone system on Perseverance.

The high-definition video clip, lasting three minutes and 25 seconds, shows the deployment of a red-and-white parachute with a 70.5-foot-wide (21.5-meter-wide) canopy.

It shows the heat shield dropping away after protecting Perseverance during its entry into ...

The US space agency NASA on Monday released the first audio from Mars, a faint crackling recording of a gust of wind captured by the Perseverance rover. NASA also released the first video of last week's landing of the rover, which is on a mission to search for signs of past life on the Red Planet.

A microphone did not work during the rover's descent to the surface, but it was able to capture audio once it landed on Mars.

NASA engineers played a 60-second recording.

"What you hear there 10 seconds in is an actual wind gust on the surface of Mars picked up by the microphone and sent back to us here on Earth," said Dave Gruel, lead engineer for the camera and microphone system on Perseverance.

The high-definition video clip, lasting three minutes and 25 seconds, shows the deployment of a red-and-white parachute with a 70.5-foot-wide (21.5-meter-wide) canopy.

It shows the heat shield dropping away after protecting Perseverance during its entry into ...

Almost 80 years after its discovery, a large shell from the ornate Marsoulas Cave in the Pyrenees has been studied by a multidisciplinary team from the CNRS, the Muséum de Toulouse, the Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès and the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques-Chirac. They believe it is the oldest wind instrument of its type. The scientists have revealed how it sounds in a study published in the journal Science Advances on 10 February 2021. The Marsoulas Cave between Haute-Garonne and Ariège was the first decorated cave to be found in the Pyrenees. Discovered in 1897, the cave bears witness to the beginning of the Magdalenian culture in this region at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. During an inventory of the material from the archaeological excavations, most of which is kept in the Muséum de Toulouse, the scientists examined a large Charonia lampas (sea snail) shell, which had been largely overlooked when discovered in 1931.

The tip of the shell is broken, forming a ...

One morning when the weather was strangeand haunted following a rain - I believe a fog had settled likea thought over the field and the sunthat peered through it troubled the thought - I remember saying to myself,for no one was around, it’s likewe’re living in a Turner painting,a haunted cave of melodyso indistinct, almost unseen.As if a painting could conveyits time and also imagine a timeafter, but keep the original timeto let it heavily hang in the present.The point is, something in the worldis timeless, beyond the measure of time,yet we perceive the timeless in time,aware of its weight and of its passinglightly like a song through a voice.It isn’t always beautiful,the voice, the time, the foggy scene.I said the fog had settled likea thought over the field, but the thoughtwas mine. I wasn’t sure if the scenewas beautiful. Something was ghostly,the spirit of something not alivewas there. But maybe it was alive,a spirit passing through the nightnow lingering over the ...

Rain falls lightly on the ocean's surface. Marine mammals chirp and squeal as they swim along. The pounding of surf along a distant shoreline heaves and thumps with metronomic regularity. These are the sounds that most of us associate with the marine environment. But the soundtrack of the healthy ocean no longer reflects the acoustic environment of today's ocean, plagued with human-created noise. A global team of researchers set out to understand how human-made noise affects wildlife, from invertebrates to whales, in the oceans, and found overwhelming evidence that marine fauna, and their ecosystems, are negatively impacted by noise. This noise disrupts their behavior, physiology, reproduction and, in extreme cases, causes mortality. The researchers call for human-induced noise to be considered a prevalent stressor at the global scale and for policy to be developed to mitigate its effects.

"The landscape of sound - or soundscape - is such a powerful indicator of the ...

The headlines are bleak: Regions of our planet becoming uninhabitably hot (1), crippling droughts, wildfires, and floods, collapsing ecosystems. Extreme climate change, models suggest, is likely if nations continue to increase emissions at close to their current rate, with global average temperature rises of at least 1.1 to 3.1 °C by 2100.

Integrated assessment models have long made dire predictions about climate change and its myriad impacts. Some researchers would like to see more transparency in how these models are devised. Image credit: (Clockwise from Top Left) Shutterstock/ccpixx photography, Zenobillis, Witsawat.S, and Christian Roberts-Olsen.

Such warming is probably enough to trigger planetary tipping points, says Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, NY. “We may hit a threshold even with [low emissions],” Schmidt says. “We are at the top of the [ski] mountain and there’s only black runs. And we've got to ...

The United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030, henceforth the Ocean Decade) aims to galvanize the international community to acquire and apply scientific knowledge of the ocean. The Ocean Decade is specifically intended to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including its promise to “leave no one behind,” which includes coastal Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States, and will undoubtedly influence research agendas and financing well beyond 2030. This focus is captured in the phrase “the science we need for the ocean we want” (1). This first-of-its-kind UN Decade will require ambition and commitment, especially during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis.

The current draft of the Ocean Decade Implementation Plan establishes a framework of outcomes, actions, and objectives, acknowledging the need for interdisciplinary approaches to design and deliver solution-oriented research alongside ...

I don’t want to die in a poemthe words burning in eulogythe sun howling whythe moon sighing why not

I don’t want to die in bedwhich is a poem gone wronga world turned in on itselfa floating navel of dreams

I won’t meet death in a fieldlike a dot punctuating a pageit’s too vast yet too tinyeveryone will say it’s a bit cinematic

I don’t want to pass away in your armsthose gentle parenthesesnor expire outside of their swoonself-propelled determined shouting

Let the end comeas the best parts of living have comeunsought and undeservedinconvenient

now that’s a good death

what nonsense you saythat’s not even worthwriting down

For scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, the night of January 3, 2004 entailed six minutes of nerve-wracking terror. Around 8:30 PM Pacific Time, the Spirit rover began its plunge to the Martian surface, as an audience of engineers and others - temporarily unable to receive any communication from the craft - waited anxiously to get confirmation of its success. Aided by a heat shield, a giant parachute, airbags, and reverse-firing rockets, the rolling robotic laboratory had to decelerate from 12,000 miles per hour to zero miles per hour, with no input from its human designers, who were nervously drumming on their desks in Pasadena. Spirit’s successful landing was a defining moment in the human exploration of Mars.

As part of projects he calls science-driven art, José Francisco Salgado created a mini-movie for each of the seven parts of Holst’s suite, which Holst had based on astrological characteristics of each world. Image credit: José ...

unforgettable though then hardly noticed greentiled ledgejust up to my right in the glistening shower stall, slightly above my openeyes, square window in it, & slender citrinelip onto which I place, gently, this first handful of hair - always I see it - the window-pane up there letting anything in and out thatwishes to passthru - so freely - drops from the steam of the showeron it, the slipping of forever & for-ever all down thepane, where, beyond the still-wet clump, all seems to shine andmurmur it’s just day, just this day, another day, filled with the onlyof this minute, this split minute, in which if Ireach now I can feelthe years, the fissure in them,these fractions here inside theinstant - oh mine - how mine - moving now sodifferently, as if entering a room with frozen fingers and they sayno you cannot warm them hereat the fire,there is no fire, there is noroom, actually there is nothing, though you canstart carving the nothing, you can test your strengthagainst the ...

Very little is known about the diversity and ecology of tree hyraxes because these animals, which look like large guinea pigs but are distant relatives of elephants, are mainly active at night in the tree canopies in Africa's tropical forests. These animals are known to be able to scream with the strength of more than one hundred decibels, but the 'strangled thwack' calls that have been recorded in Taita's forests have not been described anywhere else.

The recordings reveal that the Taita tree hyraxes sing

The tree hyrax song may continue for more than twelve minutes, and it consists of different syllables that are combined and repeated in various ways.

"The singing animals are probably males attempting to attract females that are willing to mate," postulates Hanna Rosti, who spent three months in Taita's forests, following the nocturnal mammals and recording their vocalizations.

The results suggest that the two populations of dwarf galago in the Taita ...

Very little is known about the diversity and ecology of tree hyraxes because these animals, which look like large guinea pigs but are distant relatives of elephants, are mainly active at night in the tree canopies in Africa's tropical forests. These animals are known to be able to scream with the strength of more than one hundred decibels, but the 'strangled thwack' calls that have been recorded in Taita's forests have not been described anywhere else.

The recordings reveal that the Taita tree hyraxes sing

The tree hyrax song may continue for more than twelve minutes, and it consists of different syllables that are combined and repeated in various ways.

"The singing animals are probably males attempting to attract females that are willing to mate," postulates Hanna Rosti, who spent three months in Taita's forests, following the nocturnal mammals and recording their vocalizations.

The results suggest that the two populations of dwarf galago in the Taita ...

Right now, we’re getting about eight and a half hours of daylight in the Northwoods. That’s about seven hours less than we we’re getting six months ago.It’s also eight and half more hours of light than Svalbard sees right now.Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago and where Sarah Strand has lived for the last six years.“We’re about, approximately 2,500 living on Svalbard. Most of those are in Longyearbyen where I live. It’s the main town,” said Strand.

Strand and I met when we were both interns at Denali National Park in the summer of 2014.

She’s completed her graduate program on Svalbard and is currently working on her PhD studying permafrost.“Most of my fieldwork is in the late summer/early fall,” said Strand. “Basically, it’s the most convenient time to check our equipment. I work with temperature data that’s coming from bore holes in the ground.”While great for studying permafrost, Svalbard’s weather and climate can be harsh on humans.The average temperature in ...

Right now, we’re getting about eight and a half hours of daylight in the Northwoods. That’s about seven hours less than we we’re getting six months ago.It’s also eight and half more hours of light than Svalbard sees right now.Svalbard is a Norwegian archipelago and where Sarah Strand has lived for the last six years.“We’re about, approximately 2,500 living on Svalbard. Most of those are in Longyearbyen where I live. It’s the main town,” said Strand.

Strand and I met when we were both interns at Denali National Park in the summer of 2014.

She’s completed her graduate program on Svalbard and is currently working on her PhD studying permafrost.“Most of my fieldwork is in the late summer/early fall,” said Strand. “Basically, it’s the most convenient time to check our equipment. I work with temperature data that’s coming from bore holes in the ground.”While great for studying permafrost, Svalbard’s weather and climate can be harsh on humans.The average temperature in ...

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to sweep across the globe, the media and the general public are turning to biomedical scientists in hopes of quick remedies. And while terms such as “contact tracing,” “convalescent plasma,” and “PCR testing” become part of our daily vocabulary, a new spotlight has been shone on the importance of academic scientists in the fight for human healthcare and well-being. Yet, for years, few have acknowledged the lack of appreciation experienced by science’s primary workforce: graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Many scientist trainees in academia strive in vain for a sustainable career path. Their plight is well known, and yet trainees still struggle with poor living and working conditions. It's a plight made worse by the pandemic and recently implemented immigration restrictions. Image credit: Dave Cutler (artist).

Indeed, to anticipate and prevent the next pandemic, biomedical science must provide its labor force with the ...

Like many other animals, including humans, insects frequently move through densely cluttered environments to perform activities critical for their survival, such as foraging. Vertebrates avoid collisions by perceiving their surroundings in relation to their body size and form, but it is unknown whether insects, with much smaller brains, possess such skills. We discovered that flying bumblebees judge the gap between obstacles relative to their wingspan and reorient themselves to fly sideways through tight spaces. Our findings suggest that bees too evaluate the affordance of their surroundings and account for their own size and form to safely navigate through complex environments. This facet of insect flight poses questions about the neural requisites for perception of self-size in animals.

Animals that move through complex habitats must frequently contend with obstacles in their path. Humans and other highly cognitive vertebrates avoid collisions by perceiving the ...

When European settlers began arriving to eastern North America in the 16th century, they were met by staggering numbers of seabirds. One of the world's most abundant is the Leach's storm petrel, which forages at sea during the day. At night, after the birds had returned to the breeding colony en masse, the settlers would likely have heard a cacophony of witch-like cackling.

In the French archipelago of St. Pierre and Miquelon, just off the southern coast of what is now known as Newfoundland, these sailors noted an enormous colony of storm petrels. They described the vast flocks as "colombiers," the French term for the pigeon houses common in Europe at the time, and named the island Grand Colombier.

Seabird colonies like these are especially vulnerable to human activities, and are thought to be in rapid decline today. But the scientists who are trying to conserve species at risk of being lost are often left asking, "How have these populations been changing?" and ...

Since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, US science leaders and others have expressed frustration with the lack of an informed and coherent federal response, a sentiment that echoes objections to the handling of other pressing issues, such as climate change. Writing in BioScience, an assemblage of the past presidents of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) have issued an appeal for the reinvigoration of sound policy and governance through the careful consideration of sound science. This effort represents the culmination of decades of service on behalf of informed policymaking. "AIBS has long stood for the use of science to promote informed decision-making based on the best available evidence. We have helped secure new resources for science and education, defeated antiscience initiatives, and promoted integrity in the use of scientific information to make research funding decisions," write the authors. In addition, they highlight the importance of ...

Parent–offspring conflict has explained a variety of ecological phenomena across animal taxa, but its role in mediating when songbirds fledge remains controversial. Our analysis of nesting and postfledging survival rates within 18 songbird species found that offspring commonly leave safer nesting environments for riskier postfledging ones - known as postfledging bottlenecks. This timing of fledging incurs a cost for offspring survival, but benefits adults by increasing their likelihood of raising at least one offspring to independence. Parents therefore appear to manipulate offspring into fledging earlier than expected based on the offspring’s ensuing survival prospects. Our results suggest that parent–offspring conflict and associated variation in parental benefits explain variation in fledging age among songbird species and why postfledging bottlenecks occur.

Parent–offspring conflict has explained a variety of ecological phenomena across animal taxa, but its role in ...