Re-Published from JPL.NASA.gov – 12/5/2019
A new NASA study shows that over the last 20 years, the atmosphere above the Amazon rainforest has been drying out, increasing the demand for water and leaving ecosystems vulnerable to fires and drought. It also shows that this increase in dryness is primarily the result of human activities.
This article is re-printed from an article on NASA.gov
Earth’s climate is changing, and the study of oceans is vital to understanding the effects of those changes on our future. For the first time, U.S and European agencies are preparing to launch a 10-year satellite mission to continue to study the clearest sign of global warming – rising sea levels. The Sentinel-6/Jason-CS mission (short for Jason-Continuity of Service), will be the longest-running mission dedicated to answering the question: How much will Earth’s oceans rise by 2030?
Anton Alexandrovich Toutov, Virginia Commonwealth University
If humans created an emissions hall of shame, which pollutants would you nominate?
Carbon dioxide and methane would probably be fan favorites. But take a moment and consider my dark horse candidate: sulfur dioxide. Unlike its carbon-based counterparts, sulfur dioxide is not considered a major greenhouse gas and doesn’t get as much attention in the media. Instead, it does its dirty work in other ways.
Daniel Apai, University of Arizona and Benjamin Rackham, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
NASA’s TESS spacecraft is finding hundreds of exoplanets – and is poised to find thousands more. Within just 50 light-years from Earth, there are about 1,560 stars, likely orbited by several thousand planets. About a thousand of these extrasolar planets – known as exoplanets – may be rocky and have a composition similar to Earth’s. Some may even harbor life. Over 99% of these alien worlds remain undiscovered — but this is about to change.
[MANILA] Climate change is already damaging the health of the world’s children and threatens a lifelong impact unless countries meet the Paris Agreement targets to limit warming to well below 2˚C, according to a new study published in The Lancet.
The study, which involves 35 global institutions, notes that children are more likely to develop respiratory diseases or asthma due to fine particulate air pollution that is principally driven by fossil fuels and “exacerbated by climate change”.
Suzana Herculano-Houzel, Vanderbilt University
Here’s something new to consider being thankful for at the dinner table: the long evolutionary journey that gave you your big brain and your long life. Your big brain makes you human – count your neurons when you count your blessings.
Courtesy of our primate ancestors that invented cooking over a million years ago, you are a member of the one species able to afford so many cortical neurons in its brain. With them come the extended childhood and the pushing century-long lifespan that together make human beings unique.
All these bequests of your bigger brain cortex mean you can gather four generations around a meal to exchange banter and gossip, turn information into knowledge and even practice the art of what-not-to-say-when.
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Louisiana health officials plan to knock on every door within 2.5 kilometers of the controversial Denka Performance Elastomer plant in St. John the Baptist Parish in hopes of determining exactly how many people in the neighborhood have developed cancer.
Neighbors say the inquiry, first announced in late August, is long overdue.
The Denka plant is the only one in the country that emits chloroprene, which was classified as a likely carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2010. The plant is in the heart of Louisiana’s industrial corridor, which already has some of the most toxic air pollution in the nation, and where a wave of new petrochemical plants is expected to worsen air quality in already overburdened areas, according to an analysis by ProPublica and The Times-Picayune and The Advocate.
David G. Armstrong, University of Southern California
What if someone told you that there’s a disease you could catch where you couldn’t feel any symptoms coming on? And that this occurs every 1.2 seconds somewhere in the world?
David Lindsay Roberts, Prince George’s Community College
The U.S. Constitution requires that a population count be conducted at the beginning of every decade. This census has always been charged with political significance, and continues to be. That’s clear from the controversy over the conduct of the upcoming 2020 census.
But it’s less widely known how important the census has been in developing the U.S. computer industry, a story that I tell in my new book, “Republic of Numbers: Unexpected Stories of Mathematical Americans through History.”
Venkat Viswanathan, Carnegie Mellon University and Shashank Sripad, Carnegie Mellon University
When it comes to electric cars, 2019 has been a big year. Tesla ramped up production of its Model 3 sedan, Audi launched its e-Tron all-electric SUV, Porsche unveiled the Taycan sports car, and perhaps the most significant of all, Daimler announced that it has no plans to develop next-generation combustion engines, but instead will focus on electrification.
Cars dominate personal transportation in developed countries, but in the developing world, two-wheelers – motorcycles and motor scooters – account for the majority of vehicles on the road. China and India are the two largest markets for two-wheelers, which contribute to their air pollution problems. About 20% of the CO₂ emissions and 30% of particulate emissions in India are due to two-wheelers.
