Earth

Ecosystems

Greening Christmas

I love the smell of balsam and firs and decorating holiday cookies – preferably with the sound of popular holiday standards in the background. I even enjoy shopping for and wrapping carefully chosen presents in seasonal papers festooned with huge bows. So when my hosts, this week, asked what I wanted to see during my visit, the answer was simple. Take me to one of Germany’s famed Christmas markets. And literally within a couple hours of my plane’s landing, they were already ushering me into the first of what would be a handful of such seasonal fairs. But as I also quickly learned, this first was an unusual one: a "green" bazaar.

Humans

Another livestock drug endangers vultures

After one veterinary NSAID almost wiped out vultures in South Asia, one of the possible replacements turns out to be toxic too.

Climate

EPA: Greenhouse gases still endanger health

In April, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that based on its reading of the science, greenhouse gases threaten public health. Since then, the public and legions of interest groups have weighed in on the subject, shooting EPA some 380,000 separate comments. “After a thorough examination of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments on the ruling,” EPA today reiterated its so-called “endangerment” assessment of greenhouse gases

Life

Bacteria seen swimming the electron shuffle

Researchers have captured the bacterium Shewanella’s behavior on film, and the microbes didn’t behave as expected

Climate

Newspapers issue strong warning on climate

SN senior editor Janet Raloff blogs from Hamburg, Germany, before going to Copenhagen to attend the climate talks.

Earth

Countering Copenhagen’s Carbon Footprint

The United Nations’ Climate Change Conference, beginning Monday (Dec. 7), will draw legions of people to Copenhagen from 192 countries. Traveling to Denmark — sometimes from the far corners of the Earth — will expend huge amounts of energy. And spew plenty of the very carbon dioxide that the meeting negotiators are trying to rein in. So several bodies will be offsetting the carbon footprint of this gathering — with bricks. Or brick ovens, anyway.

Planetary Science

Pluto’s cloud components verified

Newly analyzed observations suggest that particles are tiny spherules of frozen nitrogen and carbon monoxide.

Earth

Ocean’s carbon dioxide uptake varies year to year

Data taken hourly by cargo ships show that how much of the greenhouse gas North Atlantic waters absorb varies more than thought.

Chemistry

Pollutants: Up in flames

Forest fires have the potential to release toxic industrial and agricultural pollutants previously trapped on soil. After glomming onto smoke particles, these chemicals can hitch long-distance rides — sometimes across oceans — before they’re grounded and contaminate some new region, scientists report.

Paleontology

Major eruption cooled the climate but went unnoticed

Ice-core records suggest that a major 1809 eruption cooled Earth even before the Tambora eruption and ‘the year without a summer’.

Ecosystems

Dining: Bugged on Thanksgiving

Earlier this week, I met with Zack Lemann at the Insectarium, a roughly 18-month-old Audubon museum. He gave me a behind-the-scenes tour of its dozens of living exhibits hosting insects and more -- including tarantulas and, arriving that day for their Tuesday debut, white (non-albino) alligators. But the purpose of my noon-hour visit was to sample the local cuisine and learn details of preparations for a holiday menu that would be offered through tomorrow at the facility’s experiential cafe: Bug Appetit. There’s Thanksgiving turkey with a cornbread and wax worm stuffing, cranberry sauce with meal worms, and Cricket Pumpkin Pie. It’s cuisine most Americans would never pay for. But at the Insectarium, they don’t have to. It’s offered free as part of an educational adventure.

Humans

Beefy hormones: New routes of exposure

On any given day, some 750,000 U.S feedlots are beefing up between 11 million and 14 million head of cattle. The vast majority of these animals will receive muscle-building steroids — hormones they will eventually excrete into the environment. But traditional notions about where those biologically active pollutants end up may need substantial revising, several new studies find.