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Tag: earth sciences

Happy National Clean Beaches Week – Don’t Forget to Wear Your Mask!

Americans nationwide are flocking to beaches in droves as states ease their way into the green phase of the coronavirus pandemic.

While some may feel life is slowly “returning to normal,” other states have just begun to feel the full wrath of COVID-19.

In addition to raising our environmental awareness for National Clean Beaches Week, let’s not forget that we’re still amidst a global pandemic. We encourage you to spread information about making your day trips to the coast as safe as possible.

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Is Greenland Okay?

Last year saw record-breaking ice melt events in Greenland, with the largest island on Earth yielding a net ice loss of over 300gt, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center.

To put this into perspective, a gigatonne is 1,000,000,000 metric tons, and a metric ton is equal to 1.10231 US tons. 300gt is roughly 330.7 billion US tons. Here, try out the conversion for yourself. We’ll wait.

However, last year was only the seventh-worst year for ice melt in Greenland. Data from the NSIDC shows 2012 had the highest ice melt, but melt had significantly decreased by 2013 – that isn’t to say conditions weren’t a cause for concern, but they had “chilled out” in comparison to 2012.

So, is there a chance 2020 might spare a little mercy towards Greenland? Well…

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Climate Change: Do You Need to See it to Believe It?

Bodies of water dry up before our eyes. Temperatures rise and the heat grazes our skin. We hear the calls of stray wildlife forced out of their natural homes by land development in our backyards. We can smell toxic pollutants and have learned to idolize “fresh air.” Contaminants slither into our rivers and we ingest them through dishes of fish delicacies.

Climate change is happening all around us, and yet, many individuals surveyed during the 2012 to 2016 California droughts felt the situation and climate change were a “distant” problem that didn’t directly affect them.

“Even in more directly affected places, there was often reference to the drought having a greater impact ‘elsewhere’ in the State,” the study explains.

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The Science Behind Blue Flowers

Blue is all around us, from the oceans to their reflection in the sky, but it’s very rare that you’ll see blue anywhere else in nature – unless you’re flipping through a Dr. Seuss book.

Wildflowers sporting a bluish-hue, which includes purple and violet flowers, only account for about 15 to 20 percent of all flower colors, says a 2018 Breeding Science journal review.

“Many ornamental plants with a high production volume, such as rose and chrysanthemum, lack the key genes for producing the blue delphinidin pigment or do not have an intracellular environment suitable for developing blue color,” the review explains.

While recent advancements in genetic engineering have allowed scientists to synthesize blue roses, chrysanthemums, orchids, and dahlias, the process isn’t as simple as “editing a few genes” (granted, gene editing isn’t such a simple process, either).

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Litter is Not a Suitable Home for Ants, Study Says

The world is your oyster, not your dumpster – although it’s often mistreated as such.

The non-profit organization Keep America Beautiful reports the United States spends approximately $11.5 billion to clean up litter annually. However, crumbled up plastics and abandoned glass bottles still find their way into the natural world, invading forests, lakes, rivers, and oceans.

Recently, researchers investigated the impact of discarded bottles and containers on ants, questioning whether these discarded byproducts of human activity are a “deadly trap or sweet home.”

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Experts Say Deforestation Increases Risks of Future Pandemics

Deforestation doesn’t just jeopardize the environment and the animals we cohabitate this planet with; it also increases the risk of humans contracting zoonotic diseases, which have been at the heat at recent pandemics.

Zoonotic diseases are those that spread from animals to humans – salmonellosis, West Nile virus, rabies, Lyme disease, and coronaviruses being among the “top zoonotic diseases of most concern in the US,” according to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.

“Sixty percent of novel infectious diseases originate in animals and can be highly contagious and dangerous,” says a recent article by Sustainable Brands. “Despite advancements in medical technology that improve disease treatment outcomes, the incidence of zoonotic emerging infectious diseases and their potential for pandemic have increased.”

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What if a Natural Disaster Strikes During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

The coronavirus pandemic has rattled life as we once knew it, like an earthquake trembling society’s foundation… But if an actual earthquake, a hurricane, a tornado, or a tsunami were to hit right now, what would happen?

Last week, we reached out to various organizations including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, World Health Organization, and American Red Cross to find out what emergency response would look like during a pandemic.

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BYOBottle: The Future of Sustainable Concerts and Festivals

Nothing looks more like a music festival than rubber bracelets, band t-shirts, flower crowns, and countless water bottles littering the ground.

…What, can you blame the attendees? Staying hydrated is vital to survival, and it’s all the more important when you’re dancing your heart out or drinking your face off at a festival, as stressed by the data in a 2018 Addiction Science and Clinical Practice study.

But we don’t have to dehydrate the audience in order to help save the planet, nor do we have to put an end to festivals altogether.

There’s a middle ground that allows us to have the best of both worlds: water and music. Meet BYOBottle.

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How Plants Think: The Controversy of Consciousness

Unencumbered by words and semantics, plants express themselves through their luscious leaves and abundant blooms, which are the result of carefully calculated survival tactics that almost seem “thought out.”

These physical characteristics can tell human observers a lot about how the plant is doing; whether it needs more water or sunlight, warmth or humidity, and so forth – but, plants don’t have eyes like we do. They don’t have brains like ours, yet research shows they possess intelligence.

How far does that intelligence go? Do plants “think?”

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