By Patricia Burke Weather Forecast: Clearing Ahead For many years, I worked in and around waterfronts and pools, at one point directing an multi-pool facility. As every summer camp director and aquatic manager knows, the phrase “chance of late afternoon thunder showers” is very stressful….
By Natural Activist with Patricia Burke How connected are you to the natural world? Try a little experiment. Draw a honeybee, and then go find one (or a photo of one) and see how closely what you drew resembles the real thing. Does a honeybee…
By Patricia Burke The beginning of August offers observance of the Harvest Festival. Yet most of those living in “modern” societies aren’t aware of the significance this time of year holds. Industrialization brought many innovations. But along the way, humans have lost their understanding of…
By Jennifer Wood and Patricia Burke What is the true meaning of Independence? For a nation, a people, a healthcare system, a doctor, a patient, or just a human being? At the dawn of India’s Independence from the British Empire in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru made…
By Michele Hertz, Diana Kordas, with Patricia Burke Habitat Loss Score: Amazon Fulfillment Centers 185; Nature 0 This month, my husband and I drove from NY to New Orleans and back. Along the way, I was beyond shocked at what we saw. Everywhere, there are…
By Michael Snyder Large numbers of birds are dropping dead from a “mystery disease” throughout much of the eastern half of the country, and scientists still have absolutely no idea why this is happening. They have tested the dead birds for a whole host of…
By Patricia Burke This is the second in a series of articles coinciding with Independence Day in the U.S. We are looking at themes related to industry vs. non-industry science, captured regulators, and other issues around the topics of independence and interdependence, regarding involuntary, ubiquitous…
By Andrea Germanos Beekeepers this year in the United States reported the second highest annual loss of managed honey bee colonies since records began in 2006, according to results of a nationwide survey released Wednesday. The non-profit Bee Informed Partnership (BIP) said in its preliminary…
By Neenah Payne The film SELAH: Water From Stone, shows how J. David Bamberger restored 5,500 barren acres in Texas starting in the 1960s by planting native grass. Soon abundant water returned to the area along with fish, birds, deer, and other animals. In fact,…
By Kate Kheel Unbeknownst to many, 5G/satellites/CubeSats/big data/AI/machine learning, and the internet of things are infiltrating and permeating the earth and skies and finding their way to the military as well. These new technologies weave together a network that profoundly alters our lives, homes, and…
By Alex Ford, University of Portsmouth and Gary Hutchison, Edinburgh Napier University Within just a few generations, human sperm counts may decline to levels below those considered adequate for fertility. That’s the alarming claim made in epidemiologist Shanna Swan’s new book, “Countdown”, which assembles a…
American Chemical Society Tomatoes are an important and popular crop, but the tasty ketchup, salsa and pasta sauce they yield comes at a price: overuse of chemical fertilizers. Now, researchers report in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry they have recruited a fungus to…
by Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Bald eagles, as well as other wildlife, have been succumbing to a mysterious neurodegenerative disease in the southern United States since the 1990s. New research by the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in Germany and the University of Georgia, U.S., identifies the…
By Michail Georgiou, Glasgow Caledonian University and Sebastien Chastin, Glasgow Caledonian University We know that people are more likely to experience mental health disorders in areas with greater population density. Overcrowding, pollution, urban violence and less social support may all be contributing factors, and this…
By Neenah Payne The documentary Man Spends 30 Years Turning Degraded Land into Massive Forest – Fools & Dreamers shows that when Hugh Wilson bought degraded land in New Zealand that no one wanted, neighbors called him a “Fool and Dreamer” to think he could…
By Patricia Burke *Words with multiple layers of meaning, when translated from Chinese, are capitalized, to distinguish them from common use. There is a Chinese proverb: Do not have each foot on a different boat. I remember the moment when a colleague of mine sat…
By Elias Marat The perplexing community of alien-like creatures wasn’t supposed to be there. Roughly a mile beneath the icy surface of Antarctica in a remote region 160 miles from sunlight, scientists have accidentally discovered an odd set of bizarre creatures, perplexing the researchers who…
By Elizabeth Claire Alberts Jana Winderen finds it hard to get away from human noise. As a sound artist, she’s traveled to some remote parts of the world — from the Barents Sea to the North Pole to a small fishing village in Thailand —…
By Mayukh Saha In the Andean mountains deep in the Zongo Valley of Bolivia, a week-long mission took place in 2017. It was organized and led by Conservation International, a not-for-profit organization of environmental groups. They found more than 1000 species in the mountain forests….
By Steve Lundeberg Researchers at Oregon State University have found that the blue orchard bee, an important native pollinator, produces female offspring at higher rates in the aftermath of wildfire in forests. The more severe the fire had been, the greater percentage of females—more than…
