Nature in the News

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Higher Temps Could Mean Power Outages

mymotherlode.com

by Tracey Petersen

June 15, 2012

PG & E says when the heat goes up so does the demand for electricity which can overload circuits causing the equipment to shut down to prevent damage to the entire system.

Rim Fire Leaves Lasting Impression at Yosemite

firehouse.com

by Tom Stienstra

March 18, 2014

Those who venture to Yosemite National Park for the arrival of spring are getting shocked on the drive to the park: The sight of the Rim Fire zone feels like getting punched in the gut.

Along Highway 120, east of Groveland as you approach the park's Big Oak Flat entrance station, nearly everybody stops at the Rim of the World lookout on the left. From there, you can see how the Rim Fire burned nearly everything in your view, 402 square miles or 257,314 acres from August to October, the third-largest fire verified in California history.

California deer face more challenges than ever

sfgate.com

by Tom Stienstra

September 21, 2013

The strange saga of California's deer herds is in the spotlight again this weekend as fall hunting season nears.

Deer numbers statewide are down 80 percent, a new invasive louse is causing deer baldness on the San Francisco Peninsula and in parts of the Sierra foothills, and predation of fawns by mountain lions and bears is taking out a higher percentage of the herds than ever. Yet the high numbers of small black-tailed deer near civilization can make it seem that there are more deer than ever, and in turn, create the illusion that there is no need for concern or steps to conserve the deer.

Industrial Infrastructure Security Flaws Pile Up

technologyreview.com

by Tom Simonite

August 1, 2013

New research from Black Hat shows it's possible to trick water and energy infrastructure to cause physical damage-and securing these systems remains painfully slow.

Three presentations scheduled to take place at the Black Hat computer security conference in Las Vegas today will reveal vulnerabilities in control systems used to manage energy infrastructure such as gas pipelines. These are just the latest sign that such systems remain dangerously susceptible to computer attacks that could have devastating consequences; and although the researchers proposed fixes for each flaw they've identified, they caution that, on the whole, industrial infrastructure remains woefully vulnerable. The vulnerabilities add to a growing list of problems identified due to a recent surge in research into the security of industrial systems. Progress to fix such security issues has been slow going, due partly to the poor design of existing systems, and partly to a lack of strong incentives to fix the flaws quickly.

Swiftmud Grants Enable Students to Learn All About Water

theledger.com

by Tom Palmer

December 24, 2010

LAKELAND -- Twenty-one public school teachers and four private school teachers in Polk County are among the educators who were awarded Splash! school grants through the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

The goal of the Splash! school grant program is to provide hands-on learning opportunities that teach students about their local watersheds and the freshwater resources within them. Splash! school grants provide up to $5,000 per school on a reimbursement basis only and are available to public, private and homeschool teachers.

GMO fail: Monsanto foiled by feds, Supreme Court, and science - Occupy Monsanto

occupymonsanto360.org

by Tom Laskawy

February 17, 2013

It's been a good week if you enjoy a little GMO schadenfreude.

The FDA has reportedly bowed to public pressure to extend the comment period on its approval of genetically engineered salmon, and Illinois, Maryland, and Iowa are the latest states to buck GMOs by introducing labeling bills into state legislature. Even the Supreme Court has an opportunity to take Monsanto down a peg. On Feb. 19, the court will hear arguments in a patent infringement case between an Indiana farmer and Monsanto (I covered it in detail here).

GMO sugar beets get the green light

grist.org

by Tom Laskawy

July 24, 2012

Last week, the USDA fully deregulated herbicide resistant sugar beets. And while the shift isn't a surprise to most advocates, it does hint at larger problems within the system.

This announcement puts an end to a long court battle to force the USDA to uphold the law - a battle that some anti-GMO advocates might call Pyrrhic. We covered the GMO sugar fracas extensively last month, but here's a quickie review: The USDA was forced to perform a court-ordered environmental review of the GMO sugar beet seed and to restrict planting by farmers until the review was finished. As it happens, this was a review that the USDA had failed to complete back in 2008 when it had allowed farmers to begin using the seed. This failure was in violation of law and was the grounds for the court's intervention after several consumer groups filed suit.

Sinkholes a risk, but Fla. shocker unlikely in Ohio

toledoblade.com

by Tom Henry

August 17, 2013

This month's dramatic collapse of a villa at the Summer Bay Resort in central Florida raises the question: Could a hole that big in the ground open up under a residential area here? Anything's possible, as Toledoans saw July 3.

Larger and more frequent sinkholes that occur naturally are most often a result of dissolved limestone or dolostone. Other types of dissolvable bedrock include gypsum and salt. Florida is the prime location for them, although that scenario also gets played out in other states with conducive geologic features - even scattered parts of Ohio, especially the Bellevue area. In eastern Ohio, sinkholes also can form when abandoned mines collapse.

Climate Change: Why Do the Facts Fail to Convince?

PJ Media

by Tom Harris

May 30, 2012

Social science research provides the key to finally ending the divisive global warming debate.

It has always been assumed that a lack of understanding of basic science and mathematics is the main reason the public can be so easily misled on controversial issues such as global warming. All that is needed, so science educators and campaigners believed, is a general increase in scientific literacy and people would come to more rational conclusions when presented with the facts. But new findings published on Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers taking part in the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School shows that this is not the case at all. When faced with having to support one side or the other in important science debates, most people are influenced far more by their cultural and social worldviews than by solid science, no matter how well that science is presented. The public, especially those well-versed in science and mathematics, will usually agree with the side that comes closest to the values of the "tribe" they most identify with. In many cases, the facts don't matter at all.

64,019 Searches: A Dark Journey Into My Google History

blogs.wsj.com

by Tom Gara

July 31, 2013

Let's run through a little thought experiment. Imagine there's a list somewhere that contains every single webpage you have visited in the last five years.

It also has everything you have ever searched for, every address you looked up on Google Maps, every email you sent, every chat message, every YouTube video you watched. Each entry is time-stamped, so it's clear exactly, down to the minute, when all of this was done. Now imagine that list is all searchable. And imagine it's on a clean, easy-to-use website. With all that imagined, can you think of a way a hacker, with access to this, could use it against you? And once you've imagined all that, go over to google.com/dashboard, and see it all become reality.

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