Credit: Shutterstock
I grew up in the ‘80s in awe of my dad who was a talented general surgeon. As a kid, I used to make rounds with him at the local hospitals in Los Angeles and had the opportunity to witness the overwhelming appreciation his patients had for his work. Our home was inundated with dozens of homemade baked goods, knitted scarves, gift baskets, and colorful “thank you” cards carefully prepared by his patients. He never complained about his job. Even if he had to leave a family event or wake up in the middle of the night to do a trauma case ― he was never resentful. He felt invigorated by saving thousands of lives. He was grateful to be well compensated for his sacrifices. He worked extremely hard (sometimes putting in over one hundred twenty hours a week), but he was able to do his work the way he felt was best since he ran his own private practice. He was beloved, respected, and couldn’t imagine pursuing any other profession that […]
Heim and Kagtilerscorpia Glaciers and Johan Petersen Fjords
Credit: Martin Bailey
Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said.
Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of exploration of deep space, with the president-elect having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century.
2016 is ending up being the hottest year on record
This would mean the elimination of Nasa’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. Nasa’s network of satellites provide a wealth of information on climate change, with the Earth science division’s budget set to grow to $2bn next year. By comparison, space exploration has been scaled back […]
Credit: Mother Earth News
A study of GMO cotton varieties shows they disrupt an important beneficial soil fungus, writes Eva Sirinathsinghji, apparently due to the Bt insecticide they are engineered to express. Disruption caused by the transgenic cotton to mycorrhizal fungi, and the wider soil ecosystem, may underlie the low yields and poor pest resistance now endemic among Bt GM crops.
A new study finds that transgenic cotton genetically modified to express a Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) insect toxin inhibits the development of the beneficial soil organism Rhizophagus irregularis, a common arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungus.
The study, which examined three separate genetically modified (GM) cotton lines and three non-GM lines, also found that the GM varieties disrupt the ability of the fungus to form a symbiotic association with the GM crop.
The fungus, when […]
Dead and dying trees on forest lands in California, August 2016.
Credit: USFS Region 5 Flickr
California’s six years of drought has left 102 million dead trees across 7.7 million acres of forest in its wake, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) announced following an aerial survey. If that is not horrendous enough, 62 million trees died in the year 2016 alone—an increase of more than 100 percent compared to 2015.
“The scale of die-off in California is unprecedented in our modern history,” Randy Moore, a forester for the U.S. Forest Service, told the Los Angeles Times, adding that trees are dying “at a rate much quicker than we thought.”
“You look across the hillside on a side of the road, and you see a vast landscape of dead trees,” added Adrian Das, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist whose office is located in Sequoia National Park. “It’s pretty startling.”
Most of the dead trees are located in 10 […]
Waves crashing over an experimental sea wall built to protect homes during high tide in Isle of Palms, S.C., last year.
Credit Mic Smith/Associated Press
MIAMI — Real estate agents looking to sell coastal properties usually focus on one thing: how close the home is to the water’s edge. But buyers are increasingly asking instead how far back it is from the waterline. How many feet above sea level? Is it fortified against storm surges? Does it have emergency power and sump pumps?
Rising sea levels are changing the way people think about waterfront real estate. Though demand remains strong and developers continue to build near the water in many coastal cities, homeowners across the nation are slowly growing wary of buying property in areas most vulnerable to the effects of
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
