What’s in a number? The goals of the 2021 United Nations’ climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, called for nations to keep a warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius “within reach.”…
Category: Earth
Africa’s ‘Great Green Wall’ could have far-reaching climate effects
Africa’s “Great Green Wall” initiative is a proposed 8,000-kilometer line of trees meant to hold back the Sahara from expanding southward. New climate simulations looking to both the region’s past…
Vikings may have fled Greenland to escape rising seas
In 1721, a Norwegian missionary set sail for Greenland in the hopes of converting the Viking descendants living there to Protestantism. When he arrived, the only traces he found of…
How electric vehicles offered hope as climate challenges grew
This was another year of bleak climate news. Record heat waves baked the Pacific Northwest. Wildfires raged in California, Oregon, Washington and neighboring states. Tropical cyclones rapidly intensified in the…
How Romanesco cauliflower forms its spiraling fractals
The swirling green cones that make up the head of Romanesco cauliflower also form a fractal pattern — one that repeats itself on multiple scales. Now, the genes that underlie…
How a warming climate may make winter tornadoes stronger
NEW ORLEANS — Warmer winters could make twisters more powerful. Though tornadoes can occur in any season, the United States logs the greatest number of powerful twisters in the warmer…
Focusing on Asian giant hornets distorts the view of invasive species
Fingers crossed for finding nothing: July marks the main trapping season to check for Asian giant hornets still infesting Washington state. The first of these invasive hornets found in North…
A tweaked yeast can make ethanol from cornstalks and a harvest’s other leftovers
When corn farmers harvest their crop, they often leave the stalks, leaves and spent cobs to rot in the fields. Now, engineers have fashioned a new strain of yeast that…
Nanoscale nutrients can protect plants from fungal diseases
Chances are, most — if not all — of the produce in your kitchen is threatened by fungal diseases. The threat looms large for food staples of the world such…
Modified genes can distort wild cotton’s interactions with insects
Cotton plants native to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula may all look the same — unkempt and untamed bushes with flowers that shift from pale yellow to violet as pollinators visit them.…
