Wikipedia: Hanabiko “Koko” (born July 4, 1971) is a female western lowland gorilla who is known for having learned a large number of hand signs from a modified version of American Sign Language (ASL). Her trainer, Francine “Penny” Patterson, reports that Koko is able to understand more than 1,000 signs of what Patterson calls “Gorilla…
A Breathing Planet, Off Balance NASA: Earth’s land and ocean currently absorb about half of all carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, but it’s uncertain whether the planet can keep this up in the future. NASA’s Earth science program works to improve our understanding of how carbon absorption and emission processes work…
Milkweed plants from the chambers were fed to hundreds of monarch caterpillars this summer. Milkweed is a monarch caterpillar’s only food, satisfying its nutritional needs while providing an invaluable medicinal boost. The plant’s leaves contain a bitter toxin that helps the insects ward off predators and parasites. But previous work at U-M’s northern Michigan biological…
The view of Earth from orbit was the focus of this What’s New in Aerospace? presentation televised on NASA Television from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The program featured Piers Sellers, a climate scientist and former NASA astronaut, taking viewers on a tour of our home planet as never seen before.…
A reservoir of abiotic methane has been discovered in the Arctic Ocean. This means that there is more of the greenhouse gas trapped under the seabed than previously thought. News: A reservoir of abiotic methane has been discovered in the Arctic Ocean https://cage.uit.no/news/new-source-methane-discovered-arctic-ocean/ Study: Abiotic methane from ultraslow-spreading ridges can charge Arctic gas hydrates http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/early/2015/03/27/G36440.1.full.pdf+html?ijkey=tNRcKxKHNcG5s&keytype=ref&siteid=gsgeology…
Sir David Attenborough and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg talking about coral reefs. Film by Tanya Dodgen / QLD, Australia. Nov 2014
Der SPIEGEL berichtet am 4 August über die potenzielle Gefahr durch die mit dem Klimawandel eingewanderte Sandmücke. SPIEGEL: Der Klimawandel verändert Lebensräume – und kann damit auch die Gesundheit von Deutschen bedrohen. Forscher haben jetzt Sandmücken, potenzielle Überträger der gefährlichen Leishmaniose, in Hessen gefunden – so weit nördlich wie nie zuvor. “Es handelt sich um…
A contamination with the hepatotoxic microcystin, of the water supply in Toledo, Ohio, resulted in warnings for approx. 500,000 residents not to drink or use tap water. NBC: Sewage from treatment plants and fertilizer from farms streamed into the lake, triggering an algae bloom near an intake valve that sends water to Toledo and more than a dozen surrounding communities. The…
The study New constraints on atmospheric CO2 concentration for the Phanerozoic (DOI: 10.1002/2014GL060457), by Peter J. Franks, Dana L. Royer, David J. Beerling , Peter K. Van de Water, David J. Cantrill, Margaret M. Barbour, and Joseph A. Berry, estimates CO2 in Earth history based on a new climate proxy. Estimates are in particular based…
Recently a mysterious Siberian crater has been discovered, which subsequently raised questions about the circumstances surrounding the crater formation. Theories include Pingo formation and connections to the thawing of permafrost (ClimateState reported). Robert Scribbler, summed it up: One theory on the feature is that it might be a pingo — a melting of a permafrost water pocket…
Wikipedia: The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40 AU) from Earth, as part of the solar system Family Portrait series of images. In the photograph, Earth is shown as a fraction of a pixel (0.12 pixel in size) against the vastness of space. The Voyager 1 spacecraft,…
What are the true cost of living in the Anthropocene? Wikipedia: The Anthropocene is an informal geologic chronological term that serves to mark the evidence and extent of human activities that have had a significant global impact on the Earth‘s ecosystems. The term was coined recently by ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer and has been widely popularized by the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist, Paul Crutzen, who regards the…