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    Recycled glass could help fend off coastal erosion

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    In the 1960s, saltwater intrusion in a southeast Louisiana swamp killed the trees and plants that lived there. Now restored with freshwater, the swamp has become the perfect place for revegetation projects — particularly because healthy swamps can serve as a speed bump to slow hurricanes. 

    That’s one reason why the open water of Bayou Bienvenue, once home to cypress and tupelo trees, now hosts an island of native trees, grasses — and recycled glass. The artificial island is helping researchers understand a new approach to coastal restoration. More

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      Crystallized dino eggs provide a peek into the tumultuous Late Cretaceous

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      Crystals hidden inside dinosaur eggs at a famous fossil site are giving scientists a chance to do something that’s long proven elusive: figure out how old the ancient nests really are.

      Finding these fossilized eggs’ true shelf life makes it possible to connect large-scale changes in climate to tiny shifts in the structure of eggshells, the researchers report September 11 in Frontiers in Earth Science. That, in turn, offers a new way to assess the ancient environments in which the dinosaurs nested. More

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      Just like humans, many animals get more aggressive in the heat

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      Citations

      E.K. Francispillai, S.M. Dietsch and L.J. Chapman. Effects of temperature on fish aggression and the combined impact of temperature and turbidity on thermal tolerance. Journal of Thermal Biology. Vol. 125, October 2024, 103987. doi: 10.1016/j.jtherbio.2024.103987.

      H.M. Choi et al. Temperature, crime, and violence: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Environmental Health Perspectives. Vol. 132, October 2024, 106001. doi: 10.1289/EHP14300.

      S. Pappas. How heat affects the mind. Monitor on Psychology. Vol. 55, June 2024, p. 42.

      N.A.R. Jones, J. Newton-Youens and J.G. Frommen. Rise and fall: increasing temperatures have nonlinear effects on aggression in a tropical fish. Animal Behaviour. Vol. 207, January 2024, p. 1. doi: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.10.008. 

      T. Dey, A. Zanobetti and C. Linnman. The risk of being bitten by a dog is higher on hot, sunny, and smoggy days. Scientific Reports. Published online June 15, 2023. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-35115-6.

      P. Krapf et al. Global change may make hostile – Higher ambient temperature and nitrogen availability increase ant aggression. Science of the Total Environment. Vol. 861, February 25, 2023, 160443. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160443.

      A. Xu et al. Monkeys fight more in polluted air. Scientific Reports. Published online January 12, 2021. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-80002-z.

      K.E. Bissell and K.K. Cecala. Increased interspecific aggression between Appalachian stream salamanders at elevated temperatures. Freshwater Science. Vol. 38, December 2019, p. 834. doi: 10.1086/705995.

      G. Greenberg. The effects of ambient temperature and population density on aggression in two inbred strains of mice, mus musculus. Behaviour. Vol. 42, January 1972, p. 119. doi: 10.1163/156853972X00130.

      R.M Berry and C.E. Jack. The effect of temperature upon shock-elicited aggression in rats. Animal Learning and Behavior. Vol. 23, November 1971, p. 341. doi: 10.3758/BF03336141. More

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      River turbulence can push toxic pollutants into the air

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      Toxic pollutants from a Southern California river are infiltrating the air.

      Polluted water surging along a turbulent section of the Tijuana River in San Diego can release toxic gases, including hydrogen sulfide, into the air, researchers report in the Aug. 28 Science. In a nearby neighborhood, hydrogen sulfide — produced from sewage breakdown and known for its rotten egg smell — peaked at levels thousands of times the typical urban amounts.

      “As far as we can tell, this is one of, if not the first time, that we’ve seen a full-on air pollution crisis caused by a river, especially one so close to the community,” says Benjamin Rico, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California, San Diego. More

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      20 years after Hurricane Katrina, is the U.S. better prepared? 

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      In late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast. The storm cut a deadly swath through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, deluging coastal towns as surges of ocean water swept relentlessly ashore, driven by powerful winds. The sheer force of the surging waters overpowered levees meant to protect low-lying New Orleans from floodwaters; the levees failed, and about 80 percent of the city was inundated.

      In all, the hurricane caused more than 1,800 fatalities, displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and was responsible for about $125 billion in property damage. It’s one of the two costliest Atlantic hurricanes on record, tied with 2017’s Hurricane Harvey. More

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      Useful metals get unearthed in U.S. mines, then they’re tossed

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      Many useful metals unearthed from U.S. mines are discarded.

      When mining operations dig for valuable metals, they often exhume ore containing other metals too. These by-product elements are usually treated as waste, but recovering even small fractions could offset the need to import them, researchers report August 21 in Science. For instance, recovering just 1 percent of rare earth elements from this material could replace imports.

      “We’re used to skimming cream off the top,” says Elizabeth Holley, a mining geologist from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. “We need to be better at recovering more from what we’re using.” More

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      A glacier burst, flooding Juneau. Again. This one broke records

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      A glacial outburst has sent floodwaters rushing through the town of Juneau, Alaska, forcing residents to evacuate parts of the state capital. The unusual event, called a glacial lake outburst flood, or GLOF, happened as water spilled out of an ice-dammed lake and gushed downstream through melted tunnels in the underside of a large glacier.

      The people of Juneau have experienced at least one such flood every summer for the last 15 years.

      “It’s a story about glacier change,” says Jason Amundson, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, who is monitoring the event. The warming climate has caused glaciers here to shrink and separate from one another. That’s left an empty valley along the edge of Mendenhall Glacier, which now fills with rain and meltwater each summer. At some point, the water collects deep enough that its pressure forces an opening under the edge of the glacier — allowing it to escape. More

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      Warm autumns could be a driver in monarch butterflies’ decline

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      Toastier fall weather might cause migrating monarch butterflies to wing it and change their flight plans, starting the countdown toward death. 

      Eastern monarchs captured during their autumn migration and exposed to warm temperatures in the lab came out of their usual reproductive hiatus, evolutionary biologist Ken Fedorka and colleagues report August 12 in Royal Society Open Science. Breaking that hiatus means the butterflies will likely die sooner than they normally would.

      “Once you decide to go reproductive, your clock starts ticking,” says Fedorka, of the University of Central Florida in Orlando. More

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      See how aerosols loft through Earth’s sky

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      The sky abounds with aerosols, tiny particles with large sway over Earth’s temperature. A new NASA visualization reveals how these airborne particles swirl through the atmosphere.

      The agency’s Goddard Earth Observing System tracks major aerosol types — sulfates, black carbon, dust and sea salt. It combines satellite and ground-based observations with advanced computer simulations to show how aerosols can affect air quality and visibility far from their sources. See where they loft in this visualization spanning August 1 to September 14, 2024. More