| The Climate's Warm Future Is Now in the Arctic When the summer sea ice goes, the Arctic will lose the ivory gull, Pacific walrus, ringed seal, hooded seal, narwhal and polar bear--all animals that rely on the ice for foraging, reproduction or as refuge from predators. And the sea ice is going, faster and faster: In the past 30 years, minimum sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has declined by 45,000 square kilometers annually*--an area twice the size of New Jersey is lost each year. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Tree Ring Science and Tomorrow's Water Tree ring expert Kevin Anchukaitis, of the tree ring lab at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, talks about the information available in tree rings. And Colin Chartres, the director general of the International Water Management Institute, talks to Lynn Peeples about water issues. Plus, we test your knowledge of some recent science in the news, specifically the November issue of Scientific American magazine. Web sites related to this episode include http://snipurl.com/sciamwater ; http://snipurl.com/sciamnov The transcript of this podcast wil be posted in two to three weeks. [More] rss.sciam.com |
When Parks Must Rely on Private Money Though it has been in the works for 20 years, much of Brooklyn Bridge Park is not built and fund-raising has fallen short. nytimes.com |
Twister Mysteries Lure Scientists to Launch Massive Midwest Field Experiment More than 1,200 tornadoes rip through the U.S. Midwest in an average year, killing about 100 people and costing millions of dollars in damage. Currently the longest warning time meteorologists can give is a nerve-racking 13 minutes, with a 70 percent false alarm rate. [More] rss.sciam.com |
The Elusive Theory of Everything (preview) A few years ago the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved fishbowls. The sponsors of the measure explained that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl because the curved sides give the fish a distorted view of reality. Aside from the measure’s significance to the poor goldfish, the story raises an interesting philosophical question: How do we know that the reality we perceive is true?The goldfish is seeing a version of reality that is different from ours, but can we be sure it is any less real? For all we know, we, too, may spend our entire lives staring out at the world through a distorting lens. [More] Goldfish - Fish - Italy - Freshwater - Pet rss.sciam.com |