Sep 3, 2024 | Salon.com
Days after Brazilians sweltered under scorching heat, panted through a parching drought and choked from wildfire smoke, scientists anticipate temperatures in Brazil to linger between 35º C and 40º C all week — equivalent to 95º F to 104º F.
The temperatures are expected to reach these blistering heights primarily in the Central West region, which includes large cities like Brasília, Manaus and Belo Horizonte....
Originally posted on salon.com
Sep 3, 2024 | Salon.com
Arizona’s Santa Cruz River is currently imperiled. Stretching for 180 miles through major cities like Tucson and into the Sonoran desert, the Santa Cruz River is in danger of drying up because of human factors like climate change and irresponsible wastewater disposal. Yet even though sewage is not the stuff of romance and legend, the same gross stuff that has helped imperil the Santa Cruz River may help save it....
Originally posted on salon.com
Sep 1, 2024 | Salon.com
At first glance, the microscopic creatures known as tardigrades don’t appear that hardy. Also known as water bears and moss piglets, tardigrades sport blobby physiques, lumbering gaits and perfectly circular mouths stuck in the middle of their otherwise-featureless faces. Sort of like an alien teddy bear.
Yet scientists have long marveled at the resilience of these microscopic animals....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 30, 2024 | Salon.com
Steve Silberman was one of the greatest writers to ever put pen to paper about the subject of neurodiversity. Yet Silberman was not autistic; I learned this because, on the one occasion we had a conversation that made it to print, I accidentally claimed he was.
I erroneously believed that to be the case because, when Silberman wrote about neurodiversity for Wired, he wrote with a passion and authority that could not be denied....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 30, 2024 | Salon.com
During the recent Democratic National Convention in Chicago, half a dozen doctors assembled to protest the public health crisis caused by Israel’s ongoing military onslaught in Gaza. While the physicians spoke in large part of bombs, gunfire and the other direct consequences of armed conflict, the region faces another serious threat: poliovirus, which has been detected in Gaza wastewater since July....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 30, 2024 | Salon.com
As climate change continues to worsen the droughts afflicting Africa, millions of people face starvation as a result. In the southeastern nation of Namibia, nearly half of the 2.5 million citizens are grappling with food insecurity, with 84 percent of its food reserves being exhausted.
Now the government is paying hunters to slaughter hippos and elephants to help feed them....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 29, 2024 | Salon.com
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres issued a dire warning to the world on Monday — climate change is causing sea levels to rise to dangerous levels.
“Rising seas are a crisis entirely of humanity’s making,” Guterres said in the report. “The world must act, and answer the SOS before it is too late.”...
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 27, 2024 | Salon.com
An environmentalist non-profit is calling for an investigation of former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is accused of breaking endangered species laws by chainsawing the head off of a beached whale.
Kennedy, who is known for his role as an environmental attorney and for being the nephew of former President John F....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 27, 2024 | Salon.com
The Bering Sea was once full of snow crabs (Chionoecetes opilio), providing an abundant food source worth more than a quarter-billion dollars. But a few years ago, the crab populations crashed, with more than 90% disappearing, an estimated 47 billion animals vanishing. In 2022, crab fishing season was cancelled. Scientists hypothesized at the time that climate change was the culprit; now a recent study in the journal Nature Climate Change has confirmed it....
Originally posted on salon.com
Aug 27, 2024 | Conspiracy Theories, Salon.com
Fluorine is perhaps one of the most controversial elements on the periodic table. Its fluoride form is commonly added to drinking water as a way to prevent tooth decay, yet has become the source of numerous conspiracy theories, spread by people who question the government’s true motives behind a public health initiative....
Originally posted on salon.com