COSMOS MAGAZINE - In 1980, Mount St Helens erupted in the western USA, killing 57 people and destroying 350km2 of forest. In 1983, scientists captured 2 wild gophers, and put each of them on a small, fenced enclosure on the ruined volcanic plain. They let the gophers dig for 24 hours, then removed them. According...
POPULAR SCIENCE - On May 18, 1980, the eruption of Mount St. Helens emitted 1.5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere while its pyroclastic lava flow incinerated virtually everything within a 230-square-mile radius. Three years later, wildlife experts enlisted a team of local helpers for just 24 hours to speed up the...
EARTH.COM - The day that Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980 is forever seared into the collective memory of the world. An unstoppable surge of lava effectively reduced surrounding life forms to ash within a matter of miles. In an unlikely twist of fate, an experiment involving some resilient gophers triggered a chain of events...
KNOWABLE MAGAZINE - ore than three decades ago, amphibian researchers from around the globe converged on Canterbury, England, for the first World Congress of Herpetology — and, over drinks, shared the same frightening tale. Frogs were disappearing in the wild, and no one could explain why. ... Researchers also have discovered a virus of fungi...
IFL SCIENCE - Complementary studies by separate teams have explored the interactions between melting ice in the North Atlantic and the flow of a crucial ocean current. One intensifies the alarm many oceanographers have already expressed: that more rapid melting will cause a crucial part of the Gulf Stream system to slow or even stop...
EARTH.COM - Under the unforgiving Arctic sun, the wintry landscape swarms with shivers and whispers that tell tales of an unrelenting rise in temperatures. This icy expanse, our last bastion of frost, is experiencing a warming spree that outpaces the global average by three to four times. But here’s a twist: new research suggests that...
LIVE SCIENCE - The earliest known animal to show evidence of an asymmetrical body lived over half a billion years ago in what is now the Australian outback, a new study reports. The 555 million-year-old creature, dubbed Quaestio simpsonorum in a study published Sept. 3 in the journal Evolution and Development, was able to move...
FORBES - Carbon Dioxide is often vilified as a bugaboo greenhouse gas. But its presence here on early earth is likely one of the reasons we are here to talk about it. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, was likely needed in large quantities in earth’s early atmosphere to raise temperatures sufficiently to enable the onset of...
BLOOMBERG - Many factors can affect how well a drug works: age, whether you’ve eaten, your weight and even drinking grapefruit juice. Recently, I learned skin color can also play a role. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, highlighted this last week in the journal Human Genomics and called for drugmakers to take steps...
THE NEW YORK TIMES - North-facing, sloping ground with loose, sandy soil — if you’re a bumblebee queen on the market for a winter home, these features will have you racing to make an offer. But scientists were recently stunned to find there’s something else these monarchs like in a place to hibernate: pesticides. In...
SCIENCE ALERT - We live in a world where it is virtually impossible to escape plastics and their associated chemicals. New evidence suggests that in southern California, the average urban resident's exposure to plasticizers – the substances used to soften plastics and make them more flexible – is "through the roof". "No matter who you...
KVCR - KVCR's Allison Wang interviews Director of the UCR Botanic Gardens, Jodie Holt. The UCR Botanic Gardens is a 40-acre living museum nestled in the foothills of the Box Springs Mountains. Allison Wang: With 91.9 KVCR News, I'm Allison Wang. As a UC Riverside student, I have the opportunity to live and study next...
LAIST - Chances are you’re inhaling the toxic chemicals used to make plastics more flexible, according to a new study by UC Riverside and Duke researchers. Plasticizers are used in a variety of everyday products like lunch boxes, shower curtains, and garden hoses. The chemicals in this study — known as phthalates — have been...
LOS ANGELES TIMES - In a windowless shack on the far outskirts of Fresno, an ominous red glow illuminates a lab filled with X-ray machines, shelves of glowing boxes, a quietly humming incubator and a miniature wind tunnel. While the scene looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, its actually part of an...
SCIENCE NEWS - As dust from the Sahara blows thousands of kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean, it becomes progressively more nutritious for marine microbes, a new study suggests. Chemical reactions in the atmosphere chew on iron minerals in the dust, making them more water soluble and creating a crucial nutrient source for the iron-starved seas...
THE NEW YORK TIMES - In 2020, the Netflix documentary series “Tiger King” introduced the world to America’s large population of captive tigers. Estimates by experts suggest there may be as many as 7,000 of the big cats in the United States today, while only around 5,500 tigers survive in the wild in other countries...
EARTH.COM - Every day, we are unknowingly exposed to a multitude of chemicals. Among these are a group of toxic airborne chemicals known as plasticizers. If you think these are limited to children’s toys, beauty products, or even plastic bags, think again. These robust substances are everywhere, from your lunchbox to your shower curtain, and...
NEWSWEEK - Toxic airborne chemicals known as plasticizers could be making their way into our nostrils on a daily basis, scientists have warned. Exposure to these chemicals has been associated with fertility issues and neurodevelopmental disorders as well as childhood asthma, despite their use in a wide variety of products. "The levels of these compounds...
SCIENCE ALERT - Dust swept from the Sahara desert provides life at the bottom of the marine food chain with a critical nutrient. Without the iron carried far and wide in this mineral cloud, oceanic phytoplankton would struggle to bloom. According to a new study led by the University of California, Riverside, the more time...
THE NEW YORK TIMES - In six billion years the sun will expand into a red giant. That process should consume Mercury, and maybe Venus. For a long time we have thought it might incinerate Earth, too. But perhaps all is not doomed for planet Earth (although it may be a world that will have...