College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences

QUANTA MAGAZINE - enus is arguably the worst place in the solar system. A cloak of carbon dioxide suffocates the planet, subjecting its surface to skull-crushing pressure. Sulfuric acid rains down through the sickly yellow sky but never reaches the lava-licked ground. Venus is so hot — hot enough to melt lead — that the...

POPULAR MECHANICS - For the past several years, dozens of rivers throughout the Arctic watershed have been undergoing a shocking transformation: They’re turning orange. When rivers sport these troubling hues, humans are usually the culprit—whether through mining operations, agricultural runoff, or criminally dumping hazardous materials into waterways. With these rivers mostly tucked away in northern...

DAILY GALAXY - In Alaska’s far north, something strange is happening. Rivers that once ran crystal clear are now turning a rusty orange, and scientists say the shift is permanent. A new study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has uncovered the hidden force behind this transformation, one that is quietly...

DISCOVER MAGAZINE - In the northern Alaskan wilderness, a bizarre symptom of climate change is emerging: The rivers there are turning unnaturally orange. This phenomenon paints a worrisome picture for watersheds all across the Arctic, now faced with toxic metals being released by melting permafrost. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National...

SFGATE - When John McPhee and his ragtag crew first kayaked into the pristine Alaskan wilderness in 1975, they were awestruck. The author, who chronicled his reconnaissance trip in the literary classic “Coming into the Country,” was surrounded by an abundance of untouched flora and fauna. Beneath them, Arctic grayling, chum salmon and Dolly Varden...

US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT - It’s a simple and common prescription for global warming and fire suppression: Plant more trees. But where they’re planted makes a real difference, new research shows. "Our study found more cooling from planting in warm, wet regions, where trees grow year-round," study first author James Gomez , a graduate...

EARTH.COM - Planting more trees cools the planet and can help reduce fires, but the biggest climate returns per tree come from the tropics. That is the core message of new research, which shows that where we plant matters almost as much as how much we plant. The study, led by the University of California...

YALE - The murky world at the bottom of the oceans is now a little clearer, thanks to a new study that tracks the evolution of marine sediment layers across hundreds of millions of years. It is a story of world-building on a grand, yet granular, scale, accomplished by a succession of marine animals that...

THE HILL - Efforts to clean up air pollution in China and across East Asia may have inadvertently contributed to a spike in global warming, a new study has found. The decline in aerosol emissions — which can cool the planet by absorbing sunlight — have added about 0.05 degrees Celsius in warming per decade...