environment Archives - Science Connected Magazine

Craft beer aisles in a grocery store. Each aisle is labeled with the name of a different country.

Globalization and Its Environmental Impact

April 4, 2019March 27, 2019 Science Connectedclimate, ecology, environment, globalization, weather

By Megan Nichols (@nicholsrmegan) Broadly speaking, globalization refers to the increased interdependence of nations and the way people from different cultures and geographic locations can receive goods or communicate with each other thanks to free trade and information technology, among other things. But it’s a much more complex phenomenon than that, and it’s necessary to have an all-encompassing understanding of what it entails. Here, we’ll examine how globalization affects the environment in both positive and negative ways, and what changes could be made to ease its adverse effects in a…

Biota Project Blogs Environment

Living with Wildfires: Fighting Fire with Fire

February 25, 2019May 20, 2019 Science Connectedbiota project, environment, fire, fire management, land management, wildfire

By Nicholas Dove (@nicholascdove), for The Biota Project How do people live with the threat of wildfires, and what can be done to protect lives? That’s a question on a lot of people’s minds as wildfires get worse and worse each year. If you haven’t already, check out last month’s post by the Biota Project featuring Erin Dickman to learn about how she was evacuated from the Ferguson Fire. This month, however, we try to understand how people live with this risk. Fires Have Become More Severe Before we go…

Biology Botany Physics

How Do Plants Know Which Way to Grow?

October 10, 2018October 12, 2018 Science Connectedbiology, botany, environment, gravity, plants

By Shayna Keyles (@shaynakeyles) How do plants know which way is up and which way is down? No matter which way you put a seed in the soil, it will always send its roots down and its shoots up. (Unless you’re in space–we’ll get back to that later.) The answer lies in tropism: motion in response to external stimulus. This is pretty amazing, considering that in the traditional sense, plants can’t move. Specifically, plants are affected by geotropism, phototropism, and hydrotropism. In other words, plants move toward gravity, light, and water,…

Animals Environment

Honeybees Are Attracted to Fungicides and Herbicides

February 8, 2018February 9, 2018 Science Connectedagriculture, environment, food, glyphosate, honeybees, pesticides

By Neha Jain @lifesciexplore Whenever you eat fruits, vegetables, and nuts, take a moment to thank honeybees for their pollination services that contribute $17 billion to the US economy each year. In fact, almonds are almost solely dependent on honeybees for pollination. Populations of these much-needed pollinators have mysteriously plunged over the past decade, and many studies suggest a link to the use of neonicotinoid insecticides among other factors such as climate change and disease. Recently, scientists found that honeybees prefer sugar water laced with the fungicide chlorothalonil and the…

Environment Videos

Global Warming: What’s Really Warming the Earth?

October 10, 2016October 7, 2016 Science Connectedclimate change, earth, environment, global warming

Dr. Joe Hanson explores the possible causes of global warming in this episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart. References and Further Reading July 2016 is hottest on record NOAA’s State of the Climate July 2016 Bloomberg’s climate change data viz project Solar activity and temperature show opposite trend Milankovitch cycles (I left out eccentricity because it operates on scales so long that it doesn’t affect short-term climate change) Connecting climate models with actual temperature changes NASA Goddard’s Gavin Schmidt explains the history of the instrumental temperature record Last time…

Environment Health

Marshall Islands Radiation Still Too High Decades Later

June 22, 2016June 20, 2016 Science Connectedenvironment, health, nuclear radiation, nuclear testing

By Emily Rhode @riseandsci In the years immediately following the end of World War II, the United States government conducted large-scale testing of nuclear weapons on a small group of islands in the remote Pacific Ocean. On March 1, 1954, the largest nuclear device ever tested by the United States was detonated at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Castle Bravo, as the bomb was known, created a mushroom cloud of radiation almost four and one-half miles wide. This was more than 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on…

Environment Technology

Recycled Smartphones Hunt Down Illegal Loggers

June 15, 2016June 15, 2016 Science Connectedclimate change, environment, environmental protection

By Neha Jain @lifesciexplore In the summer of 2011 Topher White, founder of Rainforest Connection, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), visited the rain forests of Borneo as a tourist. He was shocked to learn that among the buzzing of insects, chirping of birds, and howling of gibbons, illegal loggers were sawing down a tree, just a few hundred meters away from a ranger station. The guards could not hear the noise of the chainsaw amid the cacophony of sounds. Deforestation accounts for the second-highest emission of greenhouse gases—even higher than that…

Environment

Hot Towns, Urban Heat Islands

June 14, 2016June 13, 2016 Science Connectedclimate change, environment, heat waves, urban climates

By Steven Spence It’s Hotter in the City Have you ever noticed on weather reports that cities seem to be hotter than the surrounding areas? That’s a result of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, urban areas with 1 million or more residents have a mean annual temperature 1°C to 3°C warmer than their surroundings. At night, the effect is even more pronounced, with city temperatures reaching up to 12°C hotter. With more than half (54 percent) of the world’s population living in urban…

Biology Environment Oceanography

Desert Dust Increases Harmful Marine Bacteria

June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 Science Connectedbacteria, environment, marine biology, marine microbes

By Emily Rhode, @riseandsci A new study out of the University of Georgia could help predict blooms of a common but deadly type of marine bacteria and change the way we view some the planet’s most important environmental processes. The genus Vibrio includes the bacteria that cause cholera. It can also cause gastroenteritis from shellfish consumption and wound infections from seawater in humans, as well as diseases in marine organisms. Dubbed “opportunitrophs,” the bacteria are known for their ability to reproduce and adapt to changes quickly. “Part of what makes these…

This image shows the surface oil slick from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Research, including this latest study, has identified which bacteria were most important in breaking down the oil. Andreas Teske, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Biology Environment

Oil Spill Cleanup Secrets of Gulf Coast Bacteria

June 6, 2016June 2, 2016 Science Connectedbacteria, environment, oil spill, polution

By Shayna Keyles @shaynakeyles Bacteria have played a large role in cleaning up the Gulf Coast after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, but it is just now becoming clear how helpful these microbes have been. Microbiologists sequenced DNA from native Gulf bacteria and discovered genetic properties that make some of these microbes so well suited to the job of cleaning up oil. The Smallest (and Largest) Clean-Up Crew Scientists noted the proliferation of native bacteria just weeks after the rig explosion began to leak 4.1 million barrels of…