Climate Change
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Weather vs. Climate
Seattle and the Pacific Northwest are frying under a heat wave this summer. In New York, it’s so cool that the New York Times has called it “the summer that isn’t.” And Texas is suffering under the most severe drought since the 1950s.What does this all mean for climate change?Absolutely nothing.Eve...
August 04, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Day 1: A Geological Trip Back in Time
Smithsonian Secretary Clough flies to Wyoming to learn about a period of intense global warming that occurred 55 million years ago
July 23, 2009 |
By G. Wayne Clough, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Darwin for Dads and More Science Finds in the August Issue
When my daughter was small, I used to take her to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. There, I would explain why the dinosaurs disappeared and how mankind evolved from our primitive forebears. She seemed rapt. But a few weeks ago, after hearing me on the radio discuss a new boo...
July 21, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Climate Change in Your Backyard
What kind of changes can you expect as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere rise? Here are some highlights of changes based on geographic region, from Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, a new report from the U.S. Global Change Research Program:Northeast: Shorter winters with les...
July 08, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Picture of the Week -- Coral Reefs and Climate Change
The ocean is getting warmer, higher and more acidic due to climate change. How well will coral reefs respond to such stresses?To find out, a team of researchers led by the University of Texas at Austin is looking to corals' genes. Sequencing a genome can take years, but a new method developed by th...
May 15, 2009 |
By admin
The Avenging Narwhal Play Set
My colleague Abigail Tucker, who wrote a story on narwhal biologist Kristin Laidre, “In Search of the Mysterious Narwhal” for the May issue of Smithsonian, just got the most hilarious gift—The Avenging Narwhal Play Set.The set is complete with a plastic narwhal; four interchangeable tusks, each wit...
April 30, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Vote for NASA’s Greatest Achievement in Earth Observation
Astronauts might get the most public attention, but some of NASA’s most important achievements have come from the satellites that have orbited the earth over the past 50 years. Now, in preparation for Earth Day in two weeks, NASA is asking the public to vote for which earth observation achievement ...
April 15, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Review: The State of the Planet's Oceans
On Friday I saw The State of the Planet's Oceans as part of the Environmental Film Festival. This one-hour film is the 11th part of the PBS series Journey to Planet Earth.It starts off in the Portuguese town of Aveiro, which for centuries thrived by sending its men to the waters off Newfoundland to...
March 16, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Too Many Choices at the Environmental Film Festival
The Environmental Film Festival kicks off tomorrow here in Washington, D.C., and I’ve been trying to figure out which movies I should take in. With 130 films being shown over the next week and a half, most of them free, I’m overwhelmed. I’ve narrowed my choices down to 14, but I need some help. Are...
March 10, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Disappearing Arctic Coastline
For this month’s collection of 15 Must-See Endangered Cultural Treasures, I wrote about Herschel Island, on the coast of the Canadian Yukon. The island is being lost to erosion as sea level rises and storms and waves become more powerful. Herchel’s cultural treasures—such as the graves of long-dead...
March 05, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Climate Change Rap
What's your take on this? Dorky? Effective?(Hat tip to the Knight Science Journalism Tracker)
February 25, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Green Inspiration at the Top of the Sears Tower
Since I was in Chicago this past weekend (Laura and I attended the AAAS annual meeting—we wrote about fembots, the 1000th Steve, origami, and award-winning science journalism), I took the opportunity to go up to the top of the Sears Tower. As I gazed out over the city, looking down on the roofs of ...
February 18, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Drought + Spark = Australia Burning
I’ve been paying grim attention to the bushfires now ravaging the country outside Melbourne, in the Australian state of Victoria, in part because I have a friend who volunteers with the rural fire service near Sydney. When I visited last year, he played guide during a hike in Ku-ring-gai Chase Nati...
February 10, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
A Melting Antarctica Could Bring an Underwater Smithsonian
Some unknown day in the future, ongoing climate change virtually assures the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will melt away. This ice sheet sits on a bit of land that rests below sea level. Some of the water will fill up this hole and the rest will spread out over the globe. Models that assume the world i...
February 09, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Picture of the Week — Emperor Penguins
Can cuteness save the Emperor penguin? These adorable birds received plenty of attention when the documentary March of the Penguins was released in 2005, but this week came a study in PNAS that predicts the population could be near extinction by the end of the century. The cause is a familiar one—c...
January 30, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
A Welcome to the Obama Administration’s Scientist Appointees
Last month, then president-elect Obama devoted one of his weekly addresses to science:Whether it’s the science to slow global warming; the technology to protect our troops and confront bioterror and weapons of mass destruction; the research to find life-saving cures; or the innovations to remake ou...
January 20, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Picture of the Week—Great Barrier Reef
When I visited friends in Australia earlier this year, I made visiting the Great Barrier Reef a priority. When asked why, I responded: “I want to see it before it’s gone.” People thought I was joking.I wasn’t.Pollution, rising sea temperatures, ocean acidification, coral bleaching. One prediciton f...
January 02, 2009 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Missing: Arctic Rubber Duckies
Missing: 90 yellow rubber duckies dropped into a moulin (a tubular hole) in a melting Greenland glacier approximately three months ago.Identifying features: They have “science experiment,” “reward” and the email address of project scientist Alberto Behar of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory written ...
December 23, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Clean Coal Advice From Doctor Who
We have gotten conflicting information during this holiday season on clean coal—that mythic technology that would let us burn all the coal we want without any pollution or carbon emissions. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity created the Clean Coal Carolers, lumps of coal that sing of...
December 22, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Mystery of the Missing Acorns
I was somewhat surprised to read in the Washington Post yesterday that oak trees from northern Virginia to Nova Scotia failed to produce any acorns this year. Last year there were plenty, so what happened? Are the trees sick? Could it have anything to do with climate change? (Warmer weather out wes...
December 01, 2008 |
By Sarah Zielinski
