science journalist & editor
Scientists are trying to protect seven marine areas before climate change worsens
The Arctic Ocean may look inhospitable, but it teems with life along its coasts and within the unexpected, ice-free oases brimming with seabirds gorging on plankton and krill. Despite the anchor these places provide for many of the planet’s … Read the rest
These are the people who stand apart when it comes to improving education, fighting climate change, boosting international collaboration and revitalizing Indigenous culture in the Arctic.… Read the rest
Atmospheric conditions and human actions combined to drive the 1930s megadrought
Farms failed and livestock starved in the central United States during the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s. The event was not just the region’s worst dry spell in modern memory — it was the worst in North America over the past millennium, researchers report in Geophysical Research Letters.… Read the rest
Model also links avian influenza strains to deadly horse flu.
The virus that caused the 1918 influenza pandemic probably sprang from North American domestic and wild birds, not from the mixing of human and swine viruses. A study published today in Nature reconstructs the origins of influenza A virus and … Read the rest
Ancient ice ages that shaped modern caribou populations may foretell animals’ fate in a warmer world.
When ice sheets marched across North America 20,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum, they devoured liveable areas for caribou and isolated them from their Eurasian relatives for thousands of years.