"2012: Hottest Year on Record for Continental U.S."

Photograph by Steven Senne, AP

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Written By:

Ker Than

for National Geographic News

Published January 9, 2013

"Temperatures across the continental United States soared in 2012 to an all-time high, making last year the warmest year on record for the country by a wide margin, scientists say."

"2012 marks the warmest year on record for the contiguous U.S., with the year consisting of a record warm spring, the second warmest summer, the fourth warmest winter, and a warmer than average autumn," Jake Crouch, a climate scientist at the National Climatic Data Center at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said in a press conference on Tuesday.
According to a recent NOAA report, the average temperature for the lower 48 states was 55.3 degrees Fahrenheit, which is higher than the previous 1998 record by one degree Fahrenheit.
A single degree doesn't seem like much, but scientists say that it is an unusually large margin. Annual temperature records typically differ only by tenths of a degree Fahrenheit.

From 1917, the coldest year on record, to 1998, the entire range of temperature increase was just 4.2 degrees Fahrenheit. 2012 is now more than one degree above, and was also the 15th driest  year for the nation. "It is abundantly clear that we are seeing [human-caused] climate change in action," Trenberth, who did not participate in the NOAA report, said in an email. "These records do not occur like this in an unchanging climate."

Warming is and has been a topic of much concern for several years, and statistics are all it takes to spark that concern. Of course, warming does not seem to be a short term problem but as time goes on and generations pass, it may be harder for humans to survive, and I won't even mention all of other species that will be affected, or even eradicated, due to our continuing behavior. The least we can do right now is to just keep our eyes open aas well as our minds.
- Andrew

"Tigers Making a Comeback in Parts of Asia"

Photograph by Steve Winter, National Geographic

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Written By:

 Ker Than

for National Geographic News

Published December 28, 2012

"Tigers are making a comeback, thanks to strong government initiatives in India, Thailand, and Russia, scientists announced this week."

Joe Walston, executive director for Asia Programs at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), praised the three countries for taking action to protect their tiger populations. There are only six subspecies of tiger that live in 13 Asian countries left. "There are a number of factors that are necessary for tigers to come back, but without true government commitment, there will not be any success,"stated Walston .

Even with three success stories, the endangered species' numbers continue to hover at all-time lows worldwide due to the combined threats of poaching, loss of prey, and habitat destruction. Today, conservationists estimate that only 3,200 tigers exist in the wild. Even so, Walston claims that the successes in India, Thailand, and Russia prove that tigers are not doomed, and he hopes that other countries soon act in the same manner. "This is not a species that is on an inevitable decline ... They are coming back in some places," he said. Walston also pointed out that saving tigers has other benefits. "When we conserve tigers, we're actually conserving a whole host of species that are maybe not as charismatic or iconic but are equally valuable—and equally threatened."

Tigers are a fascinating species and it is concerning that they may be a generation to live without getting the chance to observe one alive. This is the same for other species that we have all known but may also be vulnerable, such as lions, elephants, etc.
- Andrew

"Crayfish Harbor Fungus That's Wiping Out Amphibians"

Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic

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Written By: 

Helen Fields

for National Geographic News

Published December 17, 2012 

"Scientists have found a new culprit in spreading the disease that's been driving the world's frogs to the brink of extinction: crayfish." 

The last few decades have proven to be fatal for certain frogs and amphibians due to the disease caused by chytrid fungus, affecting more than 300 species which are now nearly extinct. "This pathogen is bad news. It's worse news than any other pathogen in the history of life on Earth as far as we know it," says Vance Vredenburg, a conservation biologist at San Francisco State University. What has been astounding so far is how chytrid can persist in a frogless pond. "Researchers saw it happen many times and were perplexed: If all of a pond's amphibians were wiped out, and a few frogs or salamanders came back and recolonized the pond, they would also die—even though there were no amphibians in the pond to harbor the disease."

One possible reason is that chytrid infects other animals. In the lab, Taegan McMahon, a graduate student in ecology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, exposed crayfish to the disease and they got sick. Within seven weeks, over a third died and a large percentage of survivors were carrying the fungus. She also placed infected crayfish in the water with tadpoles and they too became infected. When McMahon and her colleagues went to the wetlands in Louisiana and Colorado, they also found infected crayfish there. This reveals that crayfish may be a sort of reservoir for the disease. The fungus seems to dine on crayfish then attack amphibians when possible.

Although it doesn't seem like it, frogs, and other amphibians, play important roles within the ecosystems they reside in. Without their presence, many pest populations would explode, and so it is vital to discover what will cause harm and what may be a remedy for any grave situation.
- Andrew

"Trapped Tigress Is Rescued"

Photograph courtesy NASA

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Written By:

Sasha Ingber

National Geographic News

Published December 14, 2012

"On the morning of December 4, a coffee planter in the Indian village of Nidugumba found a tigress caught by the paw in his estate's barbed wire fence."

She had walked around 3/4 of a mile from Nagarahole National Park in India into Nidugumba. The park was declared a tiger reserve in 1999 and has about 11 tigers per 62 square miles. Tigers getting snared or cornered is not too rare, especially after tiger conservation succeeds and populations produce surpluses. Annually, about 30 to 50 tigers are caught across India, usually in illegal wire snares ment to catch deer or pigs.

The coffee planter that had found the tigress contacted the forest staff, and rangers and veterinarians arrived to tranquilize the animal. She was then transported to Mysore Zoo for examination and medical treatment, where it is to be decided whether she will remain in the zoo or be released into the wild.

It's nice to know that there is still a small batch of nice people in the world, no matter how nonexistent they may be. Many caught animals are not so lucky when found caught in traps. Especially if their trappers are the first to recover them. 
- Andrew

"Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity"

Photograph courtesy NASA

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Written By:

James Owen

for National Geographic News

Published December 7, 2012


"When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment."
Gravity plays an important role in root growth, but these scientists have discovered that their space plants did not require gravity to survive. This ability is thought to be related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. The germinated seeds on the International Space Station grew roots that behaved normally as if on Earth, sprouting away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same way observed with gravity.
"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," noted plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul.
This article "grew" to my interest since the availability of plants without gravity (plants in space) will undoubtly aid in the future if (or when) humans decide to spread outside of Earth. Of course, this may not be something to look forward to but it does place relief in peoples' minds.

- Andrew

"Giant Sequoias Grow Faster With Age"

Photograph by Michael Nichols, National Geographic

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Written By:

Christy Ullrich

National Geographic News

Published December 5, 2012

Older and aging giant sequoia trees are growing faster than ever, on average producing more wood in old age then they did when they were younger. Other long-lived trees such as coast redwoods and Australia's Eucalyptus regnans also reveal an increase in wood production after numerous years. "That may be because a tree's leaf area increases as its crown expands over a long life span. The leaves produce more sugars through photosynthesis...and these sugars build wood across a growing cambium, or the living surface separating bark and wood in trees."

A team led by Steve Sillett, a professor at Humboldt State University, recently measured the President, a 3,200-year-old giant sequoia tree in California's Sequoia National Park. Through climbing and measuring, they calculated that the 247-foot-tall tree holds more than 54,000 cubic feet of wood and bark, earning it the title of second largest tree on Earth.

Trees have always been a natural aspect of humans' need for resources. If it it fact that certain species produce more wood and bark at an older age, then perhaps these trees could be harvested from at a specific rate rather than simply being chopped down.

- Andrew

"Polar Ice Sheets Shrinking Worldwide, Study Confirms"

"Polar Ice Sheets Shrinking Worldwide, Study Confirms"

Photograph by Stefan Keller, Reuters

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Written By:

Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic News
Published November 29, 2012

The Polar ice sheets, in reality, are shrinking  and in a relatively fast pace as well, according to a comprehensive new study on climate change. This could potentially bring disastrous results to people and wildlife as sea levels are predicted to rise faster than ever.

Rising seas would increase the risk of massive flooding similar to that caused by Hurricane Sandy last month in New York and New Jersey.  And in the long term, hundreds of millions of people who live along the coast may be forced to abandon their homes.

By reconciling nearly two decades of often conflicting satellite data into one format—in other words, comparing apples to apples—the new study, published in the journal Science, made a more confident estimate of what's called ice sheet mass balance, which refers to how much snow is deposited on an ice sheet versus how much is lost. Between 1992 and 2011, the results reveal that all polar regions except for East Antarctica are losing ice. In that 20-year span, Greenland lost 152 billion tons a year of ice, West Antarctica lost 65 billion tons a year, the Antarctic Peninsula lost 20 billion tons a year, and East Antarctica gained 14 billion tons a year.

News of shrinking ice at the North and South poles is not new, but to know how the fast the rate is at brings much more concern. At the present moment, humans are not directly affected, but the continuous stress being brought upon the environment will eventually cause a calamity. Warming can't be stopped, but sometimes realizing the future will help in coping.

- Andrew