Articles in the Category: Environment
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Biotechnology, Consumer Safety, Diseases, Ecology, Engineering, Environment, Food and Nutrition, Health and Medicine, Plants, Video on 10 20th, 2011 | No Comments
Genetically Modified Foods Abound in U.S.
Jeffrey Smith has written the book on genetically modified foods (GMOs). Now he’s on a crusade to rid the U.S. of unhealthy food hybrids that not even animals choose to eat.
He tells the story of a farmer who was growing corn for his cows. The farmer grew non-GMO corn next to corn that had been...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Anthropology, Diseases, Economics, Engineering, Environment, Food and Nutrition, Health and Medicine, Math, Politics, Video on 10 17th, 2011 | No Comments
Earth Population: 7 Billion and Counting
Seven billion is a big number. It looks like this: 7,000,000,000. According to National Geographic magazine If you started counting out loud to 7 billion, it would take you 200 years. And, If you took 7 billion steps it would take you around the globe 133 times.
By the end of October, that’s...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Citizen science, Climate Change, Ecology, Environment, Marine Science, Oceanography, Video on 09 19th, 2011 | No Comments
Surfers Use Science to Protect the Ocean
Surfers are a group of ocean super users. They spend a great deal of time in the water and on top of the waves. They notice slight variations. And they depend on a clean, safe environment to catch a wave and hang ten. As a result they are first responders when it comes to anything encroaching on their...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Ecology, Environment, Horizon Oil Spill, Marine Science, Video on 09 7th, 2011 | No Comments
Tropical Storm Kicks up Gulf Tar Balls
Tropical Storm Lee pushed high surf into Gulf of Mexico beaches but not messy oil from the British Petroleum spill last year. And it also put predictions to the test. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year oil looming offshore has hardened and sunk to the seafloor where it has formed giant...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Animals, Backyard Science, Biology, Citizen science, Discoveries, Diseases, Endangered Species, Environment, Marine Science, Math, New Species, Video on 08 25th, 2011 | No Comments
Millions of Species Yet to be Discovered
According to a new study it could take 1,200 years, 300,000 researchers and $364 billion to identify and catalog all the species on Earth.
New research in the online journal PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science uses a new way of calculating just how many plants and animals inhabit...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Adaptation and Extinction, Animals, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environment, Evolution, Genetics, Plants, Video on 08 22nd, 2011 | No Comments
Climate Change Pushes Species Up and North
A meta-study in the journal Science says – changing global temperatures are pushing species towards the poles and higher altitudes.
A meta study is a study that rounds up all the other related studies (in this case 54) and analyzes them for trends or patterns that emerge. After looking at the...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Biochemistry, Discoveries, Diseases, Environment, Health and Medicine, New Species, Physics and Chemistry, Plants, Video on 08 18th, 2011 | No Comments
Yale Undergrads Find Plastic-Eating Fungus
The growing garbage problem may have a new solution–fungus that eats plastic. For years mounting mounds of plastic have been choking landfills and polluting the ocean. Now an annual undergraduate trip to the rain forest may have found a solution to the plastic problem.
Unleashing creativity in...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Biochemistry, Biology, Consumer Safety, Discoveries, Diseases, Environment, Food and Nutrition, Genetics, Health and Medicine, Math, Physics and Chemistry, Uncategorized, Video on 07 21st, 2011 | 1 Comment
Real Science and Girls Dominate Google Science Fair
Gender stereotypes about math and science abound. Boys are known for performing better in math and science while girls tend to excel in history and language arts. Though the U.S. still leads the world in scientific discovery and vision, another stereotype is that the U.S. education system is failing...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Climate Change, Consumer Safety, Diseases, Environment, Geology, Greenovation, Physics and Chemistry, Politics, Science Policy, Video on 06 28th, 2011 | No Comments
Nuclear Power Plants Under Threat
The record snow pack melt combined with cool, heavy spring rains forced reservoirs in northern states to release extra water into rivers, creating a big flood which is now surging south, from North Dakota to Nebraska where the Missouri River is over its banks and threatening two nuclear power plants.
The...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Adaptation and Extinction, Animals, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environment, Marine Science, New Species, Oceanography, Plants, Video on 06 27th, 2011 | 2 Comments
Northwest Passage Opens for Whales, Plankton Not Just People
This video from May 2010 tells the tale of a gray whale lost, half a world away from home. Biologists immediately thought it was a hoax but after studying the 43-foot whale more closely they discovered that it must have gotten off it’s north-south Pacific Ocean migration track thanks to an ice-free...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Adaptation and Extinction, Animals, Climate Change, Endangered Species, Environment, Marine Science, Oceanography, Video on 06 22nd, 2011 | No Comments
Ocean under Siege
For decades fishermen have been saying there’s no future in fishing. Environmentalists have been warning about overfishing and pollution harming the ocean’s delicate ecosystem. But so far the ocean has been able to absorb everything humans have thrown at it.
The summary of a new international...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Adaptation and Extinction, Climate Change, Environment, Video on 06 15th, 2011 | No Comments
Wildfires Tied to Climate Change
The U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Natural Resources committee held a hearing on wildfire management this week. Fires are burning in California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Florida and Oregon. The record-breaking Wala fire in Arizona may have been sparked by a campfire but made worse...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Consumer Safety, Diseases, Environment, Health and Medicine, The Brain, Video on 06 1st, 2011 | No Comments
Cell Phones Dial Up Fresh Radiation Concern
For years scientists have argued that cell phones could be harmful to our health. But it wasn’t until last year that the first long term study suggested a relationship between prolonged cell phone use and brain cancer. And even that preliminary finding didn’t get people to turn off their...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Animals, Ecology, Endangered Species, Environment, Food and Nutrition, Health and Medicine, Video on 05 25th, 2011 | No Comments
Girl Scouts Lobby Kellogg’s to get Palm Oil out of Cookies
Two feisty 15 year olds are pushing Girl Scouts of the USA to remove palm oil from their popular cookies. Rhiannon Tomitshen and Madison Vorva learned that palm oil plantations are used to grow a key ingredient in all girl scout cookies and that ingredient requires farmers to destroy rainforests to...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Consumer Safety, Diseases, Environment, Food and Nutrition, Health and Medicine, Marine Science, Video on 05 4th, 2011 | No Comments
How to Reduce Exposure to Mercury in Fish
Mary Ann Hitt, Beyond Coal Campaign Director with the Sierra Club with information on toxic mercury in fish. Emission from coal-fired power plants is the leading cause of mercury pollution and subsequent bio-accumulation in seafood. The heavy metals spew into the air and then settle in the...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Animals, Anthropology, Environment, Video on 04 22nd, 2011 | No Comments
Earth Day Celebrates People
For over 50 years, human audiences have been fascinated by natural history television shows and big screen movies. From Disney Nature to Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, we have explored every crack and crevice of the planet in search of weird, wonderful and unexpected creatures that share the...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Animals, Ecology, Environment, Horizon Oil Spill, Marine Science, Oceanography, Physics and Chemistry, Video on 04 21st, 2011 | No Comments
Fish Ear Bones Hear Chemical Secrets of Water
Fish ear bones are just like tree rings. The otolith bone inside a fish’s ear records the creature’s growth. Micro slices of sliver-sized ear bones can give scientists clues to the chemistry of the water in which fish swim. They can measure carbon dioxide levels and one year after the Deepwater...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Animals, Ecology, Endangered Species, Environment, Greenovation, Horizon Oil Spill, Marine Science, Oceanography, Video on 04 18th, 2011 | 1 Comment
BP Oil Spill: The Gulf of Mexico One Year Later
One year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill scientists believe the health of the Gulf of Mexico is back to where it was before the massive environmental disaster.
In a recent survey, most scientists agreed that the health of the Gulf is about 68 out of 100. That is almost in line with the pre-spill...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Computer Science, Consumer Safety, Earthquake, Engineering, Environment, Health and Medicine, Podcast, Video on 04 14th, 2011 | 1 Comment
Can Dancing Robots Help with Nuclear Clean Up?
Tokyo Electric Power is putting remote controlled machinery to use at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan. Helicopters mounted with cameras can safely survey the damaged reactors to give clean up crews a clear view of the mess without exposing them to dangerous radiation,...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Animals, Ecology, Endangered Species, Greenovation, Podcast, Video on 04 13th, 2011 | No Comments
Polar Bear Surprise
Imagine waking from a long nap — a little disoriented and still groggy — only to find the world you left when you went to sleep is totally different. A mother polar bear had that very Rip Van Winkle experience on a man-island off the coast of Alaska.
When she emerged from her den after hibernation,...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Earthquake, Environment, Geology, Podcast, Video on 04 11th, 2011 | No Comments
Japan Earthquake: One Month Later
One month after the deadly 9.0 Japanese earthquake, the rescue workers and government took a moment of silence to remember the disaster that leveled portions of northeastern Japan after the quake triggered a large tsunami.
But even after a month, the ground hasn’t stopped shaking. Last week a...
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Animals, Consumer Safety, Environment, Health and Medicine, Marine Science, Oceanography, Physics and Chemistry, Podcast, Video on 04 8th, 2011 | No Comments
Radioactive Water Poses No Seafood Risk to People
Workers in Japan have started dumping more than three million gallons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean. Tokyo Electric officials spent about two days dumping out all that water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in northeastern Japan, following the devastating March 11 earthquake....
Posted by Michael Bradbury in Animals, Ecology, Endangered Species, Environment, Podcast, Politics, Video on 03 29th, 2011 | No Comments
Tigers Creep Back from the Brink
India’s latest tiger census shows an increase in the numbers of the endangered big cat, but threats to their roaming territory could reverse those gains, officials said on Monday.
At a three-day tiger conference in New Delhi(PDF) Indian officials released the latest tiger census. The news appeared...
