Showing posts with label Anthropocene. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anthropocene. Show all posts

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Ice Cores and the Ancient Man

Fig.1. AWI Core Repository (Credit: Hannes Grobe/AWI, CC-BY-SA-2.5)

In 2003, paleoclimatologist William Ruddiman at the University of Virginia hypothesized that early humans significantly altered the climate by burning large areas of forests to clear land for farming and grazing. The greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere - mainly carbon dioxide and methane - halted a natural cooling cycle and possibly prevented another ice age.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Sea Turtles and Atomic Bombs

Fig.1. Hawksbill sea turtle, Eretmochelys imbricata
(Credit: Clark Anderson/Aquaimages, 2006)

At 5:30 a.m. on July 16, 1945, the first nuclear weapon was detonated under code name “Trinity.” Although disagreement still remains as to the start or nature of the Anthropocene, many scientists agree that nuclear weapons testing caused a widespread anthropogenic signal in the geologic record. In a couple short decades, these weapons tests doubled the amount of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 in our atmosphere. The isotope in the air entered plants during photosynthesis and animal tissues as animals ate the plants, leaving behind a radioactive trace in the natural world.
 

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

A Year in the Life of Scientific Collections

Fig.1. Scenes from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Credit left to right: Neil Palmer/CIAT, 2011Mari Tefre/Global Crop Diversity Trust, 2008Dag Terje Filip Endresen/Svalbard Global Seed Vault, 2008)

Earlier this year, the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) made a request to withdraw seeds from the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which holds more than 850,000 samples from every country in the world. This request is the first of its kind for the “Doomsday Vault” that holds duplicate seed samples for national and international gene banks. The Syrian civil war forced ICARDA to move its headquarters from Aleppo, Syria, to Beirut, Lebanon, in 2012, and researchers managed to save 80 percent of the seed samples by sending them into storage at Svalbard.

Although such a withdrawal will allow ICARDA to regenerate these precious samples, it reveals the vulnerability of collections to war or even natural disasters. The year of 2015 marked a specific effort by individuals and organizations around the world to protect and sustain scientific collections, from those housed in natural history museums to frozen specimens in gene banks. We identified major trends that have affected both how collections are viewed in science and policy, as well as how they can be protected for generations to come. Read to learn more about what happened in the collections world this year, and what you should watch out for in 2016.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

How to Adapt to Climate Change

Fig.1. This canid evolved from mongoose-like ancestors (Credit: Tambako via Flickr, 2014)

Around 23 million years ago, Earth’s climate cooled considerably, causing a shift in North America’s interior ecosystems. Forests turned into the drier, more open grasslands that remain today. As climate change affected the landscape, animals and plants adjusted to their new surroundings. The fossil record indicates that herbivorous mammals evolved longer legs and teeth more adapted to the increasingly ubiquitous C4 grasses. Although a similar adjustment had not been previously seen in predators, an international team of scientists discovered a link between modern canine hunting habits and the ancient shift in climate.

Friday, September 4, 2015

In the News: Birds of a Feather

Fig.1. House Finch-eggs (Credit: Rich Mooney via Flickr, 2005)

Between Victorian egg collecting and modern day plastic production, humans have endangered bird populations around the world. Living collections and dried specimens found in museums help us to paint a picture of both their ancient relationship with people and future survival:

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Lessons of Ancient Soils


Fig.1. Rice fields in Vietnam (Credit: Mayur Kakade via United Nations Flickr)

Since the advent of agriculture around 12,000 years ago, soil degradation has plagued farming societies. On average, soil is only about a meter thick, but its nutrients, water, and even structure are vital for healthy plant growth. As humans modified the land for urban or agricultural use, soil became less nutrient-rich and prone to erosion.

Friday, July 17, 2015

In the News: Phones, Freezers, and the Future of Biodiversity


Fig.1. Animals like this Sumatran tiger are in significant danger from poaching.  (Credit: Tim Hisgett via Flickr, 2012)

Preserving the environment requires immediate action on wildlife crimes, plant biodiversity, crop adaptability, and more. Read about how biorepositories around the world are addressing our many needs in a warmer world:

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

In the age of humans

No other species has affected their surroundings as much as humans have affected the planet. This mantra was repeated throughout last week’s symposium , “Living in the Anthropocene: Prospects for Climate, Economics, Health, and Security," at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) in Washington, D.C. The “Anthropocene,” or the age of humans, is the increasingly popular term for an era of expanding urbanization, agricultural intensification, and an ever-growing population. Dr. George Luber, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spoke on the extremely timely topic of the widespread public health problems resulting from climate change.