Blogging the End of the World™
By Tom Philpott10 Dec 2010 8:36 AM It’s not just the State and Defense departments that are reeling this month from leaked documents. The Environmental Protection Agency now has some explaining to do, too. In place of dodgy dealings with foreign leaders, this case involves the German agrichemical giant Bayer; a pesticide with an unpronounceable […]
Median arrival dates of (a) autumn-breeding urodeles, (b) winter-breeding anurans, (c) winter-breeding urodeles and (d) spring-breeding anurans. Closed symbols with solid trend lines indicate significant shifts in breeding phenology at α = 0.05 level. Note that data points were offset in panel (b) for clarity. Climate change has had a significant impact globally on the […]
People of a certain age remember 1986 and the Chernobyl disaster, the “worst technogenic accident in history.” Desdemona was playing tennis with a friend as the radionuclide cloud passed overhead. Maybe it was coincidence, but both of us had lymph nodes that were swollen for days; they were little hard nodules like Des hasn’t experienced […]
Here are 2010’s most-viewed stories on Desdemona. A few have had further developments since they were posted, and I’ve noted this where appropriate. Not surprisingly, the most popular event was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, with seven entries (that’s why this post is about the top twenty stories, instead of the top ten). Six of […]
Controversy in Kern County indicates problems for the oil industry’s future worldwide By Jeremy Miller, From the December 06, 2010 issue of High Country News KERN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA From the “Petroleum Highway” — a rutted, dusty stretch of California State Route 33 — you can see the jostling armies of two giant industries. To the […]
ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2010) — The consequences of the current high levels of socio-economic activity on the extent of biological invasions will probably not be completely realized until decades into the future, according to new research. A new study on biological invasions based on extensive data of alien species from 10 taxonomic groups and 28 […]
By Jennifer Hattam 19 December 2010 Istanbul, Turkey — About 100 years ago, my grandfather emigrated to the United States from a village near Lake Urmia, in what is now northwestern Iran. He died long before I was born, leaving me with little connection to my ancestors in the region, but a strong desire to […]
By Geoffrey YorkMao, Chad— From Saturday’s Globe and MailPublished Friday, Dec. 17, 2010 6:05PM ESTLast updated Sunday, Dec. 19, 2010 1:04AM EST Five-year-old Fatime moves in slow motion, barely able to lift her skeletal arms and legs. Flies land on her face, and she is too weak to brush them away. She struggles to drink […]
December 19, 2010, UNITED NATIONS (APP): Even as people displaced by the devastating floods in Pakistan continue streaming back to their destroyed homes, the UN and its partners warned on Friday that humanitarian needs remain enormous amid dwindling resources. “Under-funding remains a challenge,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in […]
Fears for future of gene pool as interbreeding between vulnerable species driven together by global warming gathers pace By Steve Connor, Science EditorThursday, 16 December 2010 The rapid loss of sea ice in the Arctic is encouraging the formation of hybrids between related species which could accelerate the decline of some of the region’s most […]
