-
Indian Air Pollution Reaches Dangerous Levels, Doctors Warn
Air pollution in the Indian capital of Delhi has reached extraordinarily high levels, equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, the nation’s doctors and public health experts warned this week.
-
Urban Refuge: How Cities Can Help Rebuild Declining Bee Populations
The billowing stainless steel forms of Frank Gehry’s Pritzker bandshell seem to float up from behind the 3.5-acre Lurie Garden in Millennium Park, backed by Chicago’s celebrated skyline. Another landmark in a city long a laboratory for innovation in architecture and landscaping, the garden has been called a “model of responsible horticulture.” Masses of flowering perennials and…
-
Why the Post-Paris Climate Challenge Is Even Harder Than We Thought
Climate negotiators gathering in Germany this week are still flush with the success of the Paris Agreement two years ago. But as they begin assembling a rule book for ensuring that the national pledges made in Paris are fulfilled, there comes a hard dose of reality. Those pledges, which constrain greenhouse gas emissions from now…
-
Urban-Based Evolution: Species Are Rapidly Adapting to City Habitats
Cities around the globe are fueling evolution among microbes, plants, and animals, driving physical mutations and altering gene flow, according to a new analysis in the journal Science. The projected spread of urbanization in coming decades will continue to reshape and create new species in unexpected ways, the study found.
-
How Aquaculture Is Threatening the Native Fish Species of Africa
In 1995, Adrian Piers, a veteran aquaculture consultant, imported a batch of Australian red claw crayfish to the tiny southern African monarchy of Swaziland. He began raising the attractive blue-green crustaceans — the males of which have red stripes on their claws and can weigh a little more than a pound — in ponds rented…
-
Swarms of Monarch Butterflies Stuck Up North
Tens of thousands of monarch butterflies that should be in Texas by now, en route to their wintering grounds in Mexico, are still in the northern U.S. and Canada, their migrations delayed due to above-average temperatures and strong winds this fall.
-
Regreening the Planet Could Account for One-Third of Climate Mitigation
Planting trees, restoring peatlands, and better land management could provide 37 percent of the greenhouse gas mitigation needed between now and 2030 to keep global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, according to a new study published in the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences.
-
Hundreds of Species Hitched a Ride Across the Pacific Aboard 2011 Tsunami Debris
When a magnitude 9 earthquake shook the western Pacific Ocean floor and sent a tsunami crashing into Japan in 2011, millions of pieces of debris — from docks and fishing boats to plastic pollution — were swept out to sea. Now, a new studyfinds that nearly 300 species hitchhiked aboard that debris across the Pacific and…
-
India Aims to Electrify All Households by End of 2018
India has launched a new $2.5 billion initiative to provide power to the 40 million households in the country that still don’t have electricity. The project aims to electrify the homes — which represent about a quarter of India’s households — by the end of 2018, Reuters reported.
-
Flint Residents Experienced Decline in Fertility During Lead Water Crisis
In the year after Flint, Michigan changed its water supply to the lead-tainted Flint River, there was decrease in fertility and an increase in fetal deaths among residents, according to an analysis of health statistics by a team of U.S. economists.