Science News writers and editors looked back at the past year's stories and selected a handful as the year's most interesting and important in the interface of Science & Society. Follow hotlinks to the full, original stories.
The polar bear made it onto the US endangered species list as
Polar bears listed as threatened
Climate disruption cited as main threat to Arctic creature
The polar bear made it onto the U.S. endangered species list in the “threatened” category in May after several years of legal and scientific drama (SN Online: 5/14/08). Listings for corals mention climate change as a contributing peril, but the bear became the first species listed with climate change as the main threat. Polar bears are adapted to life on sea ice, and in 2007, the U.S. Geological Survey calculated that current climate models predict that by midcentury melting in the Arctic will reduce the current polar bear population by two-thirds.