By Grant Parpan24 August 2016 (Riverhead News Review) – David Gruner has been visiting the same private beach on the Long Island Sound in Jamesport for more than 50 years. On Wednesday afternoon, he witnessed something he’d never seen before. When Mr. Gruner walked down to the beach he found the shoreline covered in mussels […]
By Andrew H. MacDougall22 August 2016 (Nature Geoscience) – Between 17,500 and 14,500 years ago, a period sometimes referred to as the Mystery Interval1, atmospheric CO2 concentrations began their post-glacial rise from about 190 ppm in glacial times to approximately 270 ppm by the beginning of the Holocene. The rise in CO2 during the Mystery […]
By Nika Knight10 August 2016 (Countercurrents.org) – It’s no secret that we have trashed, poisoned, and warmed oceans at an unprecedented rate via human-caused climate change and pollution. It seems that oceans may be paying us back in kind, according to a new study that found levels of bacteria responsible for life-threatening illnesses spiking in […]
By Rebecca Lindsey2 August 2016 (NOAA) – A record-smashing hurricane season in the central North Pacific. Water rationing in Puerto Rico. The biggest one-year jump in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations on record. Severe drought in Ethiopia. The hottest global surface temperature—by one of the largest margins—on record. Those are just a few of 2015’s major […]
By Nika Knight1 August 2016 (Common Dreams) – A biology professor has simple advice for athletes and tourists descending on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the Olympics’ start on Friday: “Don’t put your head underwater.” The wire service adds that superbugs—bacteria resistant to most forms of antibiotics—were not the only cause for great concern. Shockingly […]
By Linda Koffmar2 June 2016 (Uppsala University) – In a new study, published in Science, researchers from Uppsala University found that larval fish exposed to microplastic particles during development displayed changed behaviors and stunted growth which lead to greatly increased mortality rates. The researchers discovered that larval perch that had access to microplastic particles only […]
By Jenny Barchfield, with additional writing by Peter Prengaman, Stephen Wade and Diarlei Rodrigues1 August 2016 RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Just days ahead of the Olympic Games the waterways of Rio de Janeiro are as filthy as ever, contaminated with raw human sewage teeming with dangerous viruses and bacteria, according to a 16-month-long study […]
Dr. Barnaby Smith27 July 2016 (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology) – Current levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations already commit the planet to air temperatures over many land regions being eventually warmed by greater than 1.5°C, according to new research published today (27 July 2016) in the journal Scientific Reports. The results of the new […]
By Dominique Mosbergen25 July 2016 (Huffington Post) – It’s been a wretched year for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the largest living structure and one of the most complex natural ecosystems on Earth. The area suffered the worst bleaching event ever, one that impacted over 90 percent of the reef and killed more than a third […]
6 July 2016 (Society for Experimental Biology) – Scientists from the University of Washington have found evidence that ocean acidification caused by carbon emissions can prevent mussels attaching themselves to rocks and other substrates, making them easy targets for predators and threatening the mussel farming industry. “A strong attachment is literally a mussel’s lifeline,” said […]
