As Offshore Wind Ramps Up, Scientists Flag Potential Impacts
WEBAug 21, 2023 · L ast year, the Biden administration announced an ambitious goal: enough offshore wind to power 10 million homes by 2030. The move would reduce carbon emissions, create jobs, and strengthen energy security. It would also help the United States — which was responsible for just 0.1 percent of the world’s offshore wind capacity last year — catch up with renewable energy leaders like China ...
Maybe She’s Just Tired, Maybe It’s Undiagnosed Iron Deficiency
WEBAug 26, 2024 · Iron deficiency is rare in men — estimated to affect about 2 percent of U.S. men — but when it develops, similarly to menopausal women, it can signal an underlying condition such as an ulcer or cancer. As Weyand put it: “It’s more of a red flag in terms of figuring out why they’re iron deficient.”.
Down on the Body Farm: The Forensics of Decaying Corpses
WEBNov 11, 2019 · As decomposition gets rolling, forensic anthropologists mark five physical stages of decay: “fresh,” during which a person still looks relatively normal; “bloat,” when the body fills with gases; “active decay,” when a corpse’s soft tissue decomposes; “advanced decay,” and finally, “dry skeletal remains.”.
Saving America's Broken and Vanishing Prairie Lands - Undark …
WEBApr 26, 2017 · By 2013, it looked like “the apocalypse,” he recalls. “It was just like somebody dropped a nuke,” Shook says. “Just ‘boom.’”. It’s called “breaking” prairie when farmers turn grassland into cropland. And once broken, the prairie is hard to fix. North America was forged in a crucible of water, wind, sun, and Earth’s ...
For Some Survivors, Polio Casts a Long Shadow - Undark Magazine
WEB01.02.2023. 5 Comments. Brad Fuller was a toddler when he contracted polio in 1952 and was sent to a hospital miles from his northeast Pennsylvania home. He stayed there for nine months, enduring long stints in an iron lung, a large metallic ventilator that helped him breathe. Fuller’s parents were allowed only rare visits.
The Scramble to Defuse the ‘Feral Swine Bomb’ - Undark Magazine
WEBSep 14, 2020 · Canada doesn’t have comparable data, but Ryan Brook, a University of Saskatchewan biologist who researches wild pigs, predicts that they will occupy 386,000 square miles across the country by the end of 2020, and they’re currently expanding at about 35,000 square miles a year. “I’ve heard it referred to as a feral swine bomb,” says ...
If Insects Feel Pain, Should They Be Protected in Research?
WEBJul 25, 2022 · T he rationale to legally protect animals in scientific research typically rests on their presumed ability to feel pain and suffer — one facet of consciousness, or sentience. Nearly all animals are capable of physically detecting injuries and displaying reflexes to avoid a threat. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they experience pain, which is not just a sensory experience, but a ...
Long Division: The Persistence of Race Science
WEBDec 12, 2022 · LONG DIVISION is an ongoing journalistic project by Undark Magazine, published by the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, that examines the fraught legacy of race science.The multipart series, supported in part by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, grew out of a workshop held in June 2022 at Harvard University, which brought together journalists, science historians, and other ...
The Deep Toll of Tar Sands On Canada's Indigenous People
WEBNov 22, 2021 · Over the course of only a decade the mines began to multiply. Eight active tar sands mines now form a 40-mile chain along the Athabasca River, their giant shovels gobbling up the earth like an invasion of mechanical caterpillars. The town of Fort McKay, population 765, sits in the middle of all this.
For Forest Blazes Grown Wilder, an Alternative: The ‘Good Fire’
WEBOct 25, 2021 · Desautel and his community have been especially skilled fire-tree matchmakers, deliberately lighting the kind of a fire a pine forest craves through a practice called prescribed burning, also known as “good fire.”. And good fire actually helps protect forests, by giving trees like Ponderosas a sort of healthy pruning that allows them to ...