Final Padlet Project by Jessica Pollock https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n Jessica Pollock en-us 2017-05-04 14:20:32 UTC 2017-05-10 13:51:11 UTC hello@padlet.com Could Climate Change Build Big Business in Kenya? 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945039 As a result of climate change, the agricultural industries in Africa have taken a hard hit. Increasing surface temperatures and reduced rainfall proves to be a challenging feat to these farmers. Many farming communities still lack basic tools that would help ease the process such as fertilizer and irrigation. Fertilizer is usually imported to these regions and it's very expensive so most people have to go without it. However, Sam Rigu, a former Maize harvester, discovered a way to use corn husks to create fertilizer. Corn husks are typically thrown away as garbage after the corn is separated from them. Now, Rigu collects these scraps from local farms and sells them fertilizer. In turn, not only does Rigu make a profit, but the small business farms are now able to produce more crops and make more money too. There are many other rising entrepreneurs like Rigu popping up all over Kenya. The small business farmers are finding new ways to adapt to the climate change happening around them.]]> 2017-05-04 14:21:46 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945039 Agricultural Fires in Brazil 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945390 Pollution from the controlled fires that burn across Brazil's São Paulo state during the sugarcane-harvesting season have had a negative impact on infant health nearby, but the health of those same infants likely benefits from the economic opportunities the fires bring to their parent. This, in turn, creates a very interesting dynamic regarding the fires. The pollution from the fires has led to earlier birth and smaller babies, and fetal mortality has also increased. In Brazil, and worldwide, more attention should be paid to the impact of pollution from fires. Usually, all the focus is centered around big cities and polluting emissions. ]]> 2017-05-04 14:22:49 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945390 A Rare Look at the Disappearing World of Antartica's Whales 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945423 Antartica is one of the fastest warming regions on the planet. With the icecaps melting at unprecedented rates and shortening winters, Antartica's whale populations are being affected. Although humpback whales favor open water to feed, Minke whales are suffering since they rely on the presence of ice for survival. Unlike humpbacks, they use the ice as protection from orcas. The smaller, sleek bodies of the Minke whales are an adaptation which allows them to navigate icy fjords where they can access food sources that other larger whales cannot reach. Now, the minke whales are forced to compete with many other whales for krill. As a result, the Minke whale population is rapidly declining while the humpback population is increasing. Although the humpbacks are thriving now, the krill population will eventually begin to decrease since they depend on the ice to reproduce. Once the krill population begins to decline, this could have devastating effects on the entire Antarctic food chain, not just the whales. ]]> 2017-05-04 14:22:55 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945423 Cornell Discovering Way to Test Water 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945457 Engineers at Cornell University have recently come up with a new technique to test for micropollutants in lakes, rivers, and other potable water sources. This technique is vastly outperforming conventional methods. Conventional methods narrowly investigate one or two contaminants at a time, but the new method developed by Cornell is an analytical method that is designed to measure as broad of a range of contaminants as possible. The new technique assessed 18 water samples collected from New York state waterways. A total of 112 micropollutants were found in at least one of the samples, including pharmaceuticals, pesticides and personal care products. This new technique represents a broad range of chemical micropollutants that are unlikely to be found using conventional water testing means. 

]]> 2017-05-04 14:23:01 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945457 Huge Puffin Die-off May Be Linked to Hotter Seas 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945491 Scientists have recently observed mass deaths in the Tufted Puffin populations. They attribute this catastrophe to warming ocean water. The stretch of ocean in the Bering sea has experienced record high water temperatures which has caused the ocean food web to shift. Puffins feed on pollock fish. However, due to the warming waters, pollock have been seen is smaller numbers. Therefore, the puffin are starving.]]> 2017-05-04 14:23:06 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945491 Salt Marsh Vulnerability 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945571 Scientists have been working on a rapid assessment technique for determining which US coastal salt marshes are most at risk of being affected by erosion and were surprised to find that all eight of the Atlantic and Pacific Coast marshes where they field-tested their method are losing ground, and half of them will be gone in 350 years. The only way that these marshes have a chance to recover is if water levels recede and more ground is recovered, but that is a very unlikely scenario. Most of New Jersey’s marshes had estimated lifespans of about 170-350 years until they will be completely gone. 

]]> 2017-05-04 14:23:19 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169945571 Ocean Plastic Emits Chemical that Tricks Seabirds into Eating Trash 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954130 Plastic smells good for some seabirds. When the common  material ends up in the ocean, it gives off a chemical that Antarctic prions, petrels and shearwaters often use to locate food, which leads the birds to ingest harmful junk instead of a real meal. Researchers let small beads of three common plastics linger off the coast of California. After a couple of weeks, the once-clean plastic accumulated grit, grime and bacteria that gave off an odiferous gas called dimethyl sulfide. Phytoplankton give off the same gas, and certain seabirds use its odor as a cue that dinner is nearby. Birds that rely more heavily on dimethyl sulfide as a beacon for a nearby meal are more likely to ingest plastic than birds that don’t, the team found. And other plankton-feeding marine animals could also be fooled.]]> 2017-05-04 14:45:45 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954130 Seagrasses Boost Ecosystem Health by Fighting Bad Bacteria 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954163 Meadows of underwater seagrass plants might lower levels of harmful bacteria in nearby ocean waters. That could make the whole ecosystem — from corals to fish to humans — healthier. Not actually a grass, seagrasses are flowering plants with long,  leaves. They grow in shallow ocean water, spreading into vast underwater lawns. Seagrasses are “a marine powerhouse, almost equal to the rainforest. They’re one of the largest stores of carbon in the ocean,” says study coauthor Joleah Lamb, an ecologist at Cornell University.  “It’s no secret that seagrasses improve water quality,” says James Fourqurean, a biologist at Florida International University in Miami. The plants are great at removing excess nitrogen and phosphorus from coastal waters. But now, it seems, they might take away harmful bacteria, too.]]> 2017-05-04 14:45:50 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954163 Why Is the Ozone Hole Shrinking? 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954192 In 1985, a trio of British researchers noticed a hole in the ozone layer, our protection against harmful UV rays, over the Antarctic. Almost ten years earlier in 1974, scientists had noted a link between possible damage to the ozone layer and the release of chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere. In the 1970s and 1980s, chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs were readily used in coolants for refrigeration systems and everyday propellants like hair sprays or other aerosols. CFCs are fairly stable molecules so, once released, they almost always make their way up into the stratosphere, the layer of the Earth’s atmosphere that starts about 10-20 kilometers up. ]]> 2017-05-04 14:45:55 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954192 Clean Power Worldwide Has Doubled in 10 Years 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954217 Renewable energy generation grew globally by 161 gigawatts in 2016, setting another record for capacity additions and pushing clean power capacity past 2,000 GW.
That’s roughly double the amount of renewable energy that was flowing across the world’s power grids a decade ago, and it reflects the unprecedented adoption of solar, wind, hydro and other emissions-free power by the world’s largest economies. China, Europe and the United States now account for 62 percent of the world’s total installed renewable capacity, with China and the United States supporting the largest clean power portfolios. Other leaders are Brazil, Germany, Canada and India.

]]> 2017-05-04 14:46:01 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954217 What's Behind the Arctic's Mysterious Green Ice 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954244 It should be dark under the ice cover of the Arctic, and yet in 2011, scientists were perplexed when they discovered phytoplankton blooming beneath it, giving the ice a greenish hue. Now they know why: The ice has thinned enough to let light through to fuel a thriving bunch of little plants. A large bloom of phytoplankton, which is algae, was first found growing under the Arctic sea ice in 2011. Researchers said they were shocked at the discovery, because conditions under the ice should have been too dark for the plants to photosynthesize (making sugars from light, water and carbon dioxide) to survive. As global temperatures rise and the Arctic ice melts and thins, the normally reflective surface has become darker, the researchers said. Melt ponds ― dark pools of water on the ice's surface ― have also lessened the ice's reflectivity of sunlight. And so now, some of the sunlight passes through the ice.]]> 2017-05-04 14:46:06 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954244 Gobi Desert Dust Helps Sustain California's Sierra Nevada 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954285 Phosphorus, along with nitrogen and carbon, is crucial to the survival of life on Earth. It is generally supplied to plants as bedrock is broken down into soil over the slow machinations of geologic time. Researchers have long considered the granite formations of the Sierra Nevada to be limited in phosphorus. "In recent years it has been a bit of mystery how all these big trees have been sustained in this ecosystem without a lot of phosphorus in the bedrock," Emma Aronson, an assistant professor of plant pathology and microbiology at UC Riverside, said in a statement. "This work begins to unravel that mystery and show that dust may be shaping this iconic California ecosystem." A research team found that dust from Asia accounted for an average of 20 percent of the dust at the lowest elevation and 45 percent of the total amount at the highest elevation. The greater amount of Asian dust in the higher locations, the researchers said, is because dust travels high in the atmosphere and only falls to the ground when it comes into contact with an object such as a mountain.]]> 2017-05-04 14:46:14 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/169954285 New technique Quickly Predicts Salt Marsh Vulnerability 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/171010206 Scientists have been working on a rapid assessment technique for determining which US coastal salt marshes are most at risk of being affected by erosion and were surprised to find that all eight of the Atlantic and Pacific Coast marshes where they field-tested their method are losing ground, and half of them will be gone in 350 years. The only way that these marshes have a chance to recover is if water levels recede and more ground is recovered, but that is a very unlikely scenario. Most of New Jersey’s marshes had estimated lifespans of about 170-350 years until they will be completely gone. ]]> 2017-05-10 13:50:55 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/171010206 Agricultural Fires in Brazil Harm Infant Health, a Warning for the Developing World 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/171010252 Pollution from the controlled fires that burn across Brazil's São Paulo state during the sugarcane-harvesting season have had a negative impact on infant health nearby, but the health of those same infants likely benefits from the economic opportunities the fires bring to their parent. This, in turn, creates a very interesting dynamic regarding the fires. The pollution from the fires has led to earlier birth and smaller babies, and fetal mortality has also increased. In Brazil, and worldwide, more attention should be paid to the impact of pollution from fires. Usually, all the focus is centered around big cities and polluting emissions. ]]> 2017-05-10 13:51:04 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/171010252 New Technique Identifies micropollutants in New York Waterways 17pollockj https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/171010298 Engineers at Cornell University have recently come up with a new technique to test for micropollutants in lakes, rivers, and other potable water sources. This technique is vastly outperforming conventional methods. Conventional methods narrowly investigate one or two contaminants at a time, but the new method developed by Cornell is an analytical method that is designed to measure as broad of a range of contaminants as possible. The new technique assessed 18 water samples collected from New York state waterways. A total of 112 micropollutants were found in at least one of the samples, including pharmaceuticals, pesticides and personal care products. This new technique represents a broad range of chemical micropollutants that are unlikely to be found using conventional water testing means. ]]> 2017-05-10 13:51:11 UTC https://padlet.com/17pollockj/n4mtfmpuel4n/wish/171010298