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☆ Explainer: What are the health risks from wildfire smoke?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Nancy Lapid | Thomson Reuters | Nancy Has Been A Health News Editor At Reuters For More Than A Decade. Previously She Was A Writer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

More toxic than normal air pollution, wildfire smoke can linger in the air for weeks and travel hundreds of miles. Along with particles of soil and biological materials, wildfire smoke often contains traces of chemicals, metals, plastics and other synthetic materials. New data from California also show an increase in fungal infections in the months following wildfire smoke exposure, likely due to fungal spores in the smoke. But the health effects of wildfire smoke exposure over multiple seasons are not yet clear. Doug Brugge, who chairs the Department of Public Health Sciences at UConn School of Medicine, said wildfire smoke can be deadly.

Persons: Kent Pinkerton, Davis, Keith Bein, Doug Brugge, Nancy Lapid, Bill Berkrot Organizations: Center for Health, University of California, UC, Davis . Studies, Environment, UC Davis, U.S . Environmental Protection Agency, of Public Health Sciences, UConn School of Medicine, Thomson Locations: United States, Canada, New York City, California, U.S

☆ Xi Jinping says China's national security is faces a 'complex and grave' situation
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Nectar Gan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

“The complexity and difficulty of the national security issues we now face have increased significantly,” Xi said Tuesday at a meeting of the party’s National Security Commission, state news agency Xinhua reported. Since coming to power a decade ago, Xi has made national security a key paradigm that permeates all aspects of China’s governance, experts say. He has expanded the concept of national security to cover everything from politics, economy, defense, culture and ecology to cyberspace. Under Xi’s notion of “comprehensive national security,” China has introduced a raft of legislation to protect itself against perceived threats, including laws on counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, cybersecurity, foreign non-government organizations, national intelligence and data security. In Hong Kong, a sweeping national security law was imposed by Beijing to stamp out dissent after huge democracy protests roiled the city.

Persons: Xi Jinping, ” Xi, “, Xi, Bill Bishop, Mintz, ” Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, party’s National Security Commission, Xinhua, Bain & Company, Mintz Group, Astellas Pharma Locations: Hong Kong, Communist, Beijing, China, People’s Republic of China, American

☆ This Summer We’re Helping Scientists Track Birds. Join In.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( The New York Times | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +21 min

This Summer We’re Helping Scientists Track Birds. This data will help scientists understand better how birds are affected by forces like climate change and habitat loss. We’re obviously a little bit biased here, so I’m going to recommend the Merlin Bird ID app. Nearly half of all bird species worldwide are known or suspected to be in decline, and climate change could accelerate this trend. Look up past reports of that species on the eBird Species Map and zoom in on your city.

Persons: Mike McQuade, We’ll, Michelle Mildenberg Daryln Brewer Hoffstot, phoebe, Hoffstot, Indigo Goodson, “, Kirsten Luce, Alli Smith, Merlin, —, It’s, That’s, Andrew Spear, ”, Tom Auer, Mr, Auer, birders, James T, Tanner, Steven C, Latta, Chris Elphick, . Latta, Michaels, et, Christine Schuldheisz, Richard O ., Ivory, they’d, Mark, Elphick, there’s, ” Dr, eBird, I’m Organizations: Birds, Cornell, of Ornithology, The New York Times, New York Times, University of Connecticut, Credit, United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Yale, Times, Cornell Lab, Walmart Locations: Pennsylvania, North America, Virginia, South America, Canada, Alaska, Louisiana, Pittsburgh, United States, Cuba, Arkansas, eBird

☆ A Vanished Bird Might Live On, or Not. The Video Is Grainy.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Catrin Einhorn | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If there’s new hope, it’s blurry. What’s certain: the roller coaster tale of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a majestic bird whose presumed extinction has been punctuated by a series of contested rediscoveries, is going strong. The latest twist is a peer-reviewed study Thursday in the journal Ecology and Evolution presenting sighting reports, audio recordings, trail camera images and drone video. Collected over the last decade in a Louisiana swamp forest, the precise location omitted for the birds’ protection, the authors write that the evidence suggests the “intermittent but repeated presence” of birds that look and behave like ivory-billed woodpeckers. But Dr. Latta acknowledges that no single piece of evidence is definitive, and the study is carefully tempered with words like “putative” and “possible.”

☆ Fossils reveal butterfly 'tree of life' and origins
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

CNN —The world’s largest butterfly tree of life is helping researchers determine where the winged insects originated when they first appeared on Earth about 100 million years ago. Scientists first uncovered in 2019 how this single shift to daytime activity served as the evolutionary turning point for all butterfly species. Together, the researchers collected DNA from nearly 2,300 species from 90 countries that represent all butterfly families. “We used multiple fossils for the study in order to calibrate particular parts of the tree,” Kawahara said. “Europe doesn’t have many butterfly species compared to other parts of the world, and the ones it does have can often be found elsewhere,” Kawahara said.

☆ A 26-year-old started living on sailboats because apartments were 'crazy expensive.' Now she and her husband see the most beautiful sights in the world from their 250-square-foot home — and are prepar
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Maya, a 26-year-old from Canada's West Coast, fell in love with sailing around where she grew up. Maya, on Magic Carpet I, a boat she refitted with her husband, Aladino, a Swiss and Italian sailor and boat builder. Courtesy of Maya and Aladino"We have a massive housing crisis here, it's crazy expensive," she told Insider, of Canada's housing market. I was like, 'Well, I love sailing. Maya and her husband, Aladino, asked to be identified only by their first names to retain some anonymity in public-facing jobs.

☆ How Reuters pinpointed bat-virus risk zones worldwide
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +12 min

Areas where conditions are similar are more prone to spillover, scientists say. The Reuters analysis, which assessed spillover risk through 2020, has proven to have some predictive power. Similar statistical models are used widely to analyze data in ecology, and researchers use them to understand spillover risk. More than one of every five people on the planet is living in areas where the risk is highest for spillover. Using epidemic modeling software called GLEAMviz, the news agency simulated a worldwide pandemic originating from the spillover of a theoretical novel virus.

☆ Human DNA can now be pulled from thin air and sequenced
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Scientists have been able to collect and analyze detailed genetic data from human DNA from all these places, raising thorny ethical questions about consent, privacy and security when it comes to our biological information. Environmental DNA has been obtained from air, soil, sediment, water, permafrost, snow and ice cores and the techniques are primarily being used to help track and protect endangered animals. However, the ability to capture human DNA from the environment could have a range of unintended consequences — both inadvertent and malicious, they added. They termed this information “human genetic bycatch” and decided to study the phenomenon in greater depth. We cannot avoid shedding DNA in the public space,” Moreau, who was not involved in this study, said via email.

☆ Your DNA Can Now Be Pulled From Thin Air. Privacy Experts Are Worried.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Elizabeth Anne Brown | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

That could pose dilemmas for the preservation of privacy and civil liberties, especially as technological advancement allows more information to be gathered from ever smaller eDNA samples. The results of their research, published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, demonstrate that scientists can recover medical and ancestry information from minute fragments of human DNA lingering in the environment. Forensic ethicists and legal scholars say the Florida team’s findings increase the urgency for comprehensive genetic privacy regulations. Genetic trash to genetic treasureIt has been clear for decades that fragments of our DNA cover the planet like litter. Wildlife researchers embraced environmental DNA anyway because they’re only looking for very small segments of DNA — scanning for what they call bar codes that will identify the creatures in a sample to a species level.

☆ Opinion | Let the Post-Pandemic City Grow Wild
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Ben Wilson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Every city has acres of in-between land that, if managed well, could become oases of greenery harboring insect, bird and other animal life. The rubble-strewn cities of the Second World War, to the astonishment of their inhabitants, very quickly brimmed with plant and animal life. In central Münster, Germany, piles of rubble were veiled with spontaneously growing pussy willow, mountain maple, birches, yellow mulleins and wild strawberry. Neglected sites were profuse in biodiversity, often containing many more species of plants and insects than nearby parks or even the countryside. Like the Great Trinity Forest, first it was abandoned and then hundreds of species took over, many of them endangered.

☆ Floating sea life thrive in Great Pacific Garbage Patch
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Mindy Weisberger | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —Translucent, fragile marine creatures that drift through the sea are riding the motion of the ocean to a destination that’s infamous as a home for trash: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. A surprising number of delicate, floating invertebrates, called neustons, are making the Great Pacific Garbage Patch home, according to data from a new study. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the Sargasso Sea are both oceanic gyres — marine zones where multiple ocean currents converge to form a vortex (though the Sargasso Sea is known for its floating algae rather than drifting garbage). There are five main oceanic gyres, and the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre is where the best-known garbage patch lies. But when long-distance swimmer and environmental activist Benoît Lecomte swam through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2019, he and his crew gathered data on floating life as well as drifting litter.

☆ Harnessing Earth and Fire to Create Natural Vessels
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Stephen Treffinger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This article is part of our Design special section about making the environment a creative partner in the design of beautiful homes. Mitch Iburg, who lives in St. Paul, Minn., makes ancient-looking tableware, vessels and sculptures primarily out of clay that he digs from the earth with his own hands (and some tools). Driving his truck two and half hours to an open valley near the Minnesota River, he comes away with 1,000 or so pounds — a quantity that will last him roughly a year. Born in Wisconsin across the river from Minnesota and raised partly in Iowa City, Iowa, Mr. Iburg, 33, studied painting at Coe College in Iowa. In 2015, he applied for a residency at the Cobb Mountain Art and Ecology Project in California partly because the studio sat on top of a clay bed.

☆ Unique fossil site discovered in Wales reveals early life
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Exceptionally well-preserved fossils of tiny worms, starfish, sponges, barnacles and other creatures with no modern parallel discovered at a quarry in Wales are painting a picture of life on Earth 462 million years ago. The fossils come from a period of time known as the Ordovician when life was becoming more complex. Most of the 170 animals discovered so far from the fossil site were tiny (1-5 millimeters) and many were either completely soft-bodied when alive or had a tough skin or exoskeleton. It’s a completely unique site,” said Lucy Muir, study coauthor and also an honorary research fellow at Amgueddfa Cymru Museum Wales. A crowdfunding project to buy microscopy equipment helped them identify the animals and understand the importance of the site.

☆ China may have to bail out one of its poorest provinces
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Laura He | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Hong Kong CNN —One of China’s poorest and most indebted provinces has admitted defeat in trying to sort out its finances and is appealing to Beijing for help to avert default. Guizhou, located in a mountainous region of southwest China, has hired a top state-owned distressed debt fund, China Cinda Asset Management, to resolve its “urgent” problems. China’s local governments are struggling with trillions of dollars of debt, after three years of strict pandemic controls and a real estate crash drained their coffers. The Pingtang Bridge links two cities in southwest China's Guizhou province. In China, most local government liabilities are composed of “hidden debt” issued by their financing arms.

☆ Vietnam opposes China's unilateral South China Sea fishing ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HANOI, April 20 (Reuters) - Vietnam took aim at China on Thursday for imposing an annual ban on fishing in a vast area of the South China Sea, calling it a violation of its sovereignty and urging Beijing not to complicate matters. China has imposed the ban each year since 1999 and Vietnam routinely opposes it. China says the ban, which will apply from May 1 to Aug. 16, is to promote sustainable fishing and improve marine ecology. "China's so-called fishing ban violates Vietnam's sovereignty over Hoang Sa and the sovereign rights and jurisdiction in Vietnamese waters and its exclusive economic zone," Doan Khac Viet, a Vietnam's foreign ministry spokesperson told a regular news briefing. Viet called on China to respect Vietnam's sovereignty and "not to complicate the situation".

☆ Elephant seals enter 'sleep spiral' during ocean dives
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The researchers refer to this as a “sleep spiral.”The research marked the first time scientists recorded brain activity in free-ranging wild marine mammals, capturing data from 104 sleep dives. Then she attached them to 13 juvenile female elephant seals that are part of a colony at Año Nuevo State Park in Pescadero, California. In shallow waters, the elephant seals even reached the seafloor, where they would rest. During REM sleep, elephant seals enter a "sleep spiral." Elephant seals sleep the most along the coast and near their foraging grounds, and that data could be used to see how shipping traffic could affect the seals.

CNN —China is making “significant progress” building the country’s fifth research facility in Antarctica after a several years-long lull in construction, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The site – a research station China has hailed as a means to expand its scientific investigation in the Antarctic – could also be used to enhance the country’s intelligence collection, according to CSIS. In February 2020, a team of US inspectors visited the station, where they were hosted by station leader Wang Zhechao of the Polar Research Institute of China. China has established four scientific research bases in Antarctica since 1984, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Under the 1959 treaty Antarctic Treaty, to which China is party, activities on the continent are restricted to “peaceful purposes.”Military personnel are allowed to conduct scientific research, but may not set up bases, test weapons of carry out maneuvers.

☆ The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is actually a unique ocean ecosystem teeming with sea creatures that cling to the plastic trash
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-18 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Great Pacific Ocean Patch refers to a big swirling soup of plastic in the ocean. The findings challenged the assumption that coastal species couldn't survive in the open ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch typically refers to an area of the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii in which floating trash concentrates due to factors like wind and currents. The findings also contradicted the assumption that coastal species could not survive in areas of open ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch refers to areas of marine debris concentration in the North Pacific Ocean.

☆ Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch Is Bursting With Life
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Nidhi Subbaraman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

An 80,000-ton cloud of plastic and trash floating in the Pacific Ocean is an environmental disaster. It is also teeming with life. Biologists who fished toothbrushes, rope and broken bottle shards from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch found them studded with gooseneck barnacles and jet-black sea anemones glistening like buttons. All told, they found 484 marine invertebrates from 46 species clinging to the detritus, they reported Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

☆ The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now so huge and permanent that a coastal ecosystem is thriving on it
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Ivana Kottasová | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Haram and her colleagues examined 105 items of plastic fished out of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between November 2018 and January 2019. Courtesy Linsey Haram/Smithsonian InstitutionCoastal aggregating anemones found on a black floating plastic fragment collected in the garbage patch. Oceans of plasticThe Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is twice the size of Texas, is the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world. If you look up at night, you see all those white dots, that’s essentially what you see in the garbage patch. A bag of plastics and debris collected in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is unloaded in Sausalito, California in July 2022.

☆ Hippo attacks: How to avoid one of Africa's most dangerous animals
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Forrest Brown | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +22 min

“Hippos attack not to eat people, but to get them the hell away from them,” Lewison said. Larger vessels can offer more protection from a sudden hippo attack. photocech/Adobe StockGet to know the signs of disturbed hippos, Muruthi advised, in case you wander too closely. … If you slap the water, the percussion 99.9 times out of 100 will turn the hippo,” Templer said. Remember to suck in air if on the surface.”Another hippo attack survivor in this National Geographic video also was able to conserve her breath.

☆ Sandstorms, dangerous pollution return to Beijing
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] A woman poses for pictures near the Forbidden City, as the city is shrouded in smog amid a sandstorm, in Beijing, China March 10, 2023. The capital Beijing has seen regular air pollution and an unseasonal number of sandstorms over the past few weeks. On Tuesday morning, smog and misty grey clouds could be seen enveloping Beijing and the city's real-time air quality index was at a serious pollution level, according to the website of the Beijing Municipal Ecological and Environmental Monitoring Center. The concentration of fine particulates in the air in Beijing is currently 46.2 times the World Health Organization's annual air quality guideline value, according to IQAir, a website that issues air quality data and information. Beijing has regular sandstorms in March and April as it is near the large Gobi desert.

☆ Is global warming helping loggerhead turtles colonise the Med?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Borja Suarez | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Borja SuarezTALIARTE, Spain, April 5 (Reuters) - Growing numbers of loggerhead sea turtles are nesting and laying eggs on western Mediterranean beaches in what some scientists suggest could be a case of climate change causing habitat expansion of a threatened species. Along with the warming sea water, another factor probably benefiting the world's largest hard-shelled turtle, which is considered a vulnerable species, are protection programmes in countries like Spain and Cape Verde. The group rescues injured turtles in Spain's Canary Islands and studies their population in Cape Verde, the eastern Atlantic's main reproduction area. Their size and hard shell generally protect them from predators, but fishnets, ship rotors and pollution have become significant threats. Reporting by Borja Suarez, writing by Inti Landauro, editing by Andrei Khalip and Andrew CawthorneOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Spain's Asturias ravaged by fires as authorities blame 'terrorist' arsonists
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Vincent West | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Dozens of fires have already been put off by emergency services in Asturias and the neighboring region of Cantabria over the past two days. [1/6] Firefighters use a controlled burn to tackle a wildfire in Setienes, Asturias, Spain, March 31, 2023. In the past, intentional fires have often been linked to pastoralists seeking to gain more grazing land for their cattle. The densely-forested mountainous region is one of Spain's rainiest areas, though fires are common in March, according to the regional government. A combination of scarce rainfall, high temperatures and winds has placed most of northern Spain at a high wildfire risk.

☆ Fact Check-Alkaline hydrolysis, or liquid cremation, does not mean human remains are ‘fed to the living'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Alkaline hydrolysis is a form of flameless cremation where a human body can be liquified and turned into wastewater after death. An alkaline hydrolysis machine is used to perform a “bio-cremation,” (also known as aquamation or water cremation) (here). The video shows Fisher explaining how the alkaline hydrolysis machine called the Resomator works. The NFDA’s model guidelines for states to base laws governing alkaline hydrolysis can be seen (here). Experts say liquid from alkaline hydrolysis is sterilized with no trace of human DNA and is then treated at water treatment facilities before entering common households.

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