Latest Articles
-
Linking up nature areas boosts species
In an effort to test the effectiveness of landscape corridors, scientists down in South Carolina have been surveying forest plots either connected by greenways or not. The result, reported in the current issue of Science as well as in today's Science Times, was a 20% increase in species biodiversity in the connected patches.
Not too astounding, except when you consider that the survey has been going for just six years. Said Dr. Ellen Damschen, lead author of the study:
It is surprising that we would see such a dramatic change over a short time scale ... plants can change relatively quickly through their interactions with the landscape and the animals that interact with them.
Biodiversity, it appears, thrives with connectivity. Just another reason for neighborhoods to have sidewalks. That is, unless your neighbors happen to be the human equivalent of praying mantises -- then you best watch your back, uh, head.
-
Steve Irwin dies in freak occurrence
Irony, from the Latin ironia: incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result; example: earning fame and fortune wrestling crocodiles and being killed by a basically inoffensive marine creature.
As David pointed out, beloved naturalist Steve Irwin, aka "the crocodile hunter," was killed by a stingray during a diving expedition off the Australian coast on Sunday. The stingray's barb had pierced the TV personality's heart and he died within moments.
-
Republican War on Science boasts new preface and expanded chapters
Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science has come out in paperback, with a lengthy new preface and lots of updated material. See the book's website for more details.
I interviewed Chris about a year ago, and the story ended up with one of my favorite headlines.
-
A new urban planning info-sharing service
About a week ago Planetizen, the unfortunately named but otherwise great urban planning, design, and development info-sharing service -- launched Planetizen Radar. It's a bloggy compilation of bits and pieces on those subjects from around the MSM and blogospheric worlds. Handy, if you're into that kind of thing, as I am.
-
-
Did you know …
... that the top source of lead poisoning among endangered California Condors is hunting ammunition? Now you do.
-
Abandoned mercury meters are contaminating Louisiana
Reader PM writes in to let us know that the media's missing a big story: mercury contamination from mercury meters in oil and gas fields across Louisiana (and probably other states with such fields).
Here's more on mercury meters. Here's a story from last year on the danger.
Anybody out there got any insight on this?
-
Connect the Plots
Land corridors encourage biodiversity, says research in Science Narrow strips of land that connect isolated natural areas encourage plant biodiversity, according to a new study in Science. The study confirms what ecologists have theorized for decades — that areas connected by land corridors “retain more native species than do isolated patches, that this difference increases […]
-
Aquaculture Shock
Farmed-fish supply rises, but still may not match demand Farmed fish have nearly caught up to wild-caught fish as a source of the world’s seafood, reported the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization yesterday. In 1980, just 9 percent of human-consumed fish came from aquaculture; now the number is 43 percent. “Catches in the wild are […]
-
Pulp Non-Fiction
Lax enforcement allows toxic sludge to overrun Chinese village Here’s China’s environmental situation in a nutshell: In 2004, after a toxic spill into the Yellow River, two Chinese paper mills were fined $300,000 and ordered to install water-recycling and treatment equipment. They didn’t. Instead, city officials built temporary wastewater containment pools beside the river. An […]
