lupu alexandra
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The "Big Science" Behind Climate Change
Big data”—the massive data sets that have become easier to create and interpret as computing power and storage have increased—has had a huge effect on the way the advertising, insurance, and finance industries do business. But can big data solve larger societal issues? Some scientists believe that it will be a valuable tool in climate change mitigation and adaptation, but the University of Minnesota’s Vipin Kumar, PhD, believes it can also help slow down climate change in the here and now.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Massive Milkweed Restoration Could Help Save the Monarch Butterfly
Common milkweed isn’t a particularly finicky plant—it has “weed” in its name for a reason and can be found growing on roadsides, empty lots, and old fields. But over the last two decades, Asclepias syriaca, which is primarily found in the Midwest and eastern United States, has disappeared from most agricultural landscapes. Along with it, the population of the iconic migratory monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus plexippus, which relies on the plant for reproduction, has also crashed, so much so that it is being considered for endangered status. Assuming the key to saving the monarch is bringing back milkweed, a new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters looks at exactly where conservationists need to plant Asclepias to revive the dwindling butterfly population.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
This Mysterious Fish Could Rescue East Coast Rivers
Just as rural Pennsylvania’s Amish farmland turns to coalfields, there's a wide stretch of the Swatara Creek—the Swatty, to locals—that's popular with anglers and kayakers. Although quiet now, a century ago it was home to one of the largest commercial fisheries in the east. Swatara is derived from a Susquehannock word that means "where we feed on eels." The creek used to teem with them—hundreds of thousands of American eels, making their way up the Swatty and other tributaries of the Susquehanna River.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
New Independent Study Confirms PFAS in Thinx, Other Products
You might know me as the person who reported in January 2020 that I mailed my Thinx leakproof, organic menstrual underwear to Professor Graham Peaslee, a nuclear physicist at Notre Dame University. He found toxic chemicals, including PFAS, in it. At the time, I was working on a response to a reader who wanted to know what the best ways were to minimize the environmental impact of their period, and I had been contacting companies like Thinx to find out which products were the least toxic for the environment and for human health. Peaslee and his team found that the inside of the crotch in my organic Thinx organic brief had 3,264 parts per million (ppm) of flourine, and their organic Shorty for teens had 2,053 ppm. That’s high enough to suggest they were intentionally manufactured with PFAS. All PFAS have fluorine. Since the world hasn’t found a way to test which of 9,000 PFAS are in products, the best current test methods look for fluorine.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Low-Carbon Diets Are Good for the Planet, and Your Health
For most of human history, sticking to a diet was pretty simple—you ate whatever you could get your hands on. But in this era of dietary excess, things have gotten extremely complicated. Conscious consumers need to consider the health implications of the foods they eat as well as the types of chemicals used in their production, the exploitation of farm labor, whether food animals are treated humanely, and just how much damage their afternoon snack is doing to the climate. Untangling the web of food choices is daunting, but a new study makes things a little bit easier. A paper in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that low-carbon diets that are good for the climate are, as a general rule, much better for human health as well.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Dig Into Food-Upcycling Apps
Around 40 percent of America’s food supply winds up unsold or uneaten each year. That’s roughly 219 pounds per person rotting in fields, swirling down drains, or being shunted to incinerators and landfills that contribute to climate change. Not to mention all the resources—the water, energy, fertilizers, pesticides, land, labor, and transport—that went into producing those squandered calories. But a new crop of food-upcycling apps intends to change all that.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Carry the Zero
EVERY DAY, the planet's natural systems move vast amounts of carbon dioxide. CO2 flows from the atmosphere into the biosphere through plants and into soil through decomposition. It flows into the ocean and moves into rocks, where most of Earth's carbon is stored. Burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests, and plowing up soils have disturbed these flows, and this has sent Earth's climate careening out of balance.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Who’s Afraid of a Carbon Capture Pipeline?
Last summer, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a barn burner of a report laying out an unpleasant reality: Cutting CO2 emissions is no longer enough—countries also need to capture CO2 and store it away. Historically, the United States has been late to the party when it comes to implementing IPCC recommendations, but when the report dropped, the United States was already in the early stages of a very specific boom in carbon capture infrastructure—specifically, new pipelines that would carry captured CO2.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth
Can the Save Our Sequoias Act Match Up to Its Name?
As the Washburn Fire last month threatened to scorch the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park, discussions about how to protect the iconic trees heated up. While most people agree that the trees are treasured monuments that need to be preserved, there is considerable disagreement about how best to do that. Conservation groups are now pushing back against proposed federal legislation that, they say, would do more harm than good.
By lupu alexandra2 years ago in Earth