Author: Hannah
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US polar bears mark their territory
More than two years after Alaskan polar bears were given a protection status of “threatened species” by the US Endangered Species Act, the Obama administration set aside on Wednesday 24 November 484,330 sq kilometres — twice the size of the UK — in Alaska as “critical habitat”. Almost all of the area is offshore sea ice…
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Taxonomy in Trouble in Canada
Canada is at risk of losing its taxonomic expertise, according to a report released today. The report details stagnant research funding, greying experts, a lag in digitization and a lack of support for national collections. This is threatening Canada’s understanding of its biodiversity, and the ecosystem services it provides, the report concludes. “Canadian contributions to describing…
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Cold cash for cold science
The recent funding wrap-up from the international polar year (IPY) has left many Canadian researchers scratching their heads, trying to find a way to continue their arctic science projects. A new grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada may help close that research-funding gap. In its announcement yesterday, NSERC opened a…
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Free Radicals Radio: Bring on the bugs!
Babes in the woods Get outside Can a walk in the woods really change us? Scientists are beginning to think so. There’s evidence to suggest that being in a busy city environment can reduce the brain’s capacity to remember things and lower self-control. Kids are driven to school and back, and off to soccer practice,…
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Collapse of the ice titans
Nature Monitoring Greenland’s melting glaciers from a 15-metre long sailboat. In early August, a 260-kilometre-square chunk of ice broke off the Petermann Glacier — the largest iceberg to calve in the Arctic Ocean since 1962. The collapse didn’t surprise Richard Bates, a geophysicist from the University of St Andrews, UK. During a visit to Petermann…