Environment

by Bill Schlesinger Most studies predicting changes in species distribution with global warming focus on species that may move into areas that are presently too cold for them—for example, the northward expansion of the range of birds on continents and ...
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by Bill Schlesinger "Don’t it always seem to goThat you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone" Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi, 1970 Humans have occupied all continents of the Earth since the end of the last ice age, ...
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by Bill Schlesinger Normally, we think of a legacy as a financial contribution or a policy that has a lasting impact on an institution. Alternatively, we may hear that a youngster applying to a certain college is likely to be ...
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by Bill Schlesinger Late last month the National Academy of Sciences released a report recommending that the U.S. initiate a $200 million research program to understand the potential for and potential consequences of geoengineering to mitigate the effects of global ...
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by Bill Schlessinger When certain oxidized gases, such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), dissolve in water, they make it acid.  When these gases are emitted as air pollutants, they cause acid rain in the regions downwind of ...
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  by Bill Schlesinger While periodic shutdowns due to electric blackouts, athletic events, and governmental decrees against air travel have allowed us to ascertain the effect of certain activities on air pollution, the shutdown due to COVID is the first ...
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the belled beast by Bill Schlesinger I’ve blogged before on the impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife (https://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/citizenscientist/songbird-its-whats-for-dinner/ ). In China, a new study estimates annual bird mortality from cats at 2.7 to 5.5 billion birds each year. Recent ...
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by Bill Schlesinger It is a crowning manifestation of the dominance of Homo sapiens over nature that sometime in the past year, the total mass of materials produced (and in use) by humans—our collective stuff—exceeds the mass of all the ...
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A humpback whale leaping, or breaching, out of the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California) , Mexico, spraying water as it does so by Bill Schlesinger The Atlantic Northern Right Whale is an endangered species, with (at last count) only ...
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by Bill Schlesinger For years, doctors have used an analysis of urine, including its color, to help recognize and diagnose certain diseases in humans. Similarly, ecosystem scientists can recognize subtle changes in ecosystems by shifts in the chemical composition and ...
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