Attention to the Unseen

University of Florida: Climate change is reshaping forests differently across the United States, according to a new analysis of U.S. Forest Service data. With rising temperatures, escalating droughts, wildfires, and disease outbreaks taking a toll on trees, researchers warn that forests across the American West are bearing the brunt of the consequences. The study, led by UF Biology researchers J. AARON HOGAN and JEREMY W. LICHSTEIN was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study reveals…

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NPR reports: When JJ Apodaca was starting graduate school for biology in 2004, a first-of-its-kind study had just been released assessing the status of the world’s least understood vertebrates. The first Global Amphibian Assessment, which looked at more than 5,700 species of frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and other amphibians became “pretty much the guiding light of my career,” said Apodaca, who now heads the nonprofit group Amphibian and Reptile Conservancy. Nineteen years later, a second global assessment of the world’s…

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Wired reports: Every year between September and December, Lubna Dada makes clouds. Dada, an atmospheric scientist, convenes with dozens of her colleagues to run experiments in a 7,000-gallon stainless steel chamber at CERN in Switzerland. “It’s like science camp,” says Dada, who studies how natural emissions react with ozone to create aerosols that affect the climate. Clouds are the largest source of uncertainty in climate predictions. Depending on location, cloud cover can reflect sunlight away from land and ocean that would otherwise absorb its…

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