environmental science research for everyone
Forecasts have been in the news a lot recently as people around the world are working to respond to the threat of coronavirus. To understand these forecasts (and all forecasts!) we need to wrap our minds around a notoriously difficult concept: forecast uncertainty. In this study, researchers from the University of Melbourne, Australia demonstrated how different visualizations of forecast uncertainty can affect how people respond to forest fire risks.
Read moreMayfly swarms used to be so large that snowplows had to take to the streets to clear the road of their carcasses. However, recent evidence demonstrates that mayfly populations are decreasing dramatically. This is bad news for surrounding ecosystems, especially for fish and birds that depend on these insects for food.
Read moreUnderstanding trends about how connected to nature different age groups typically feel is critical because it could potentially help target conservation efforts in the future. If certain groups are losing connection to nature, how can educators or policymakers intervene to counteract that? If there is an age where connection to nature tends to increase, how can conservationists reinforce that trend? A recent study surveyed over two thousand people in the United Kingdom and found that teenagers tended to show lower levels of connection to nature than both children and adults.
Read moreProtecting wild animals requires far more data than scientists could collect alone, so researchers often enlist the help of amateur “citizen scientists” to help identify animals in photos. However, with more and more large scale projects that need help from citizen scientists, it is taking an increasingly long time to process all of the photos from any individual study. Marco Willi from the University of Minnesota and his colleagues thought there might be a way to speed things up: by getting computers to identify most of the easy animals, and leaving humans to figure out the extra hard ones.
Read morePavement, smog, and lack of shade can increase temperatures in cities by up to 6ºF above the surrounding rural and suburban areas. We know the higher temperatures directly impact many species of animals, but is it possible that they could also affect the course of evolution and change the physiology of future generations? To answer this question, researchers from the Netherlands used a popular citizen science platform to gather data about the appearance of snails throughout a wide range of habitats.
Read moreHow did the Iberian ribbed newt become the world’s favorite amphibious astronaut? In this story from the 1990s, a team of three scientists from Russia and Germany set out to better understand how space affects the process of regenerating tissue in humans and other animals. With their ability to regenerate virtually every part of their body, Iberian ribbed newts were the perfect model organism.
Read moreIt’s easy to advocate for the value of beautiful landscapes. But what about when the plants are brown all summer? Here, a student-led team uses carbon calculations to demonstrate the importance of California Sage Scrub conservation on a global level.
Read moreWhen a British expedition reported seeing pink mountain snow in 1818, the London Times said: “Our credulity is put to an extreme test upon this occasion, but we cannot learn that there is any reason to doubt the fact as stated.” Two hundred years later, we now can confirm that pink snow (“watermelon snow”) is real and it is caused by certain types of algae. But why is it that snow algae take on such distinctive red and purple colors? And how does this connect to melting glaciers or global sea level rise?
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