The window for saving the world's coral reefs is rapidly closing

The world’s reefs are under siege from global warming, according to a novel study published today in the prestigious journal Science.

The Ocean Is Losing Its Breath

In the past 50 years, the amount of water in the open ocean with zero oxygen has gone up more than fourfold. In coastal water bodies, including estuaries and seas, low-oxygen sites have increased more than 10-fold since 1950. Scientists expect oxygen to continue dropping even outside these zones as Earth warms.

Overweight Children More Likely to Underestimate Their Size

Overweight children are less accurate in estimating their own body size. And the bigger their body is, the more inaccurate their guesses.

NASA Study: First Direct Proof of Ozone Hole Recovery Due to Chemicals Ban

For the first time, scientists have shown through direct satellite observations of the ozone hole that levels of ozone-destroying chlorine are declining, resulting in less ozone depletion.

NASA's Webb Telescope to Investigate Mysterious Brown Dwarfs

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. Astronomers are hopeful that the powerful infrared capability of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will resolve a puzzle as fundamental as stargazing itself — what IS that dim light in the sky? Brown dwarfs muddy a clear distinction between stars and planets, throwing established understanding of those bodies, and theories of their formation, into question.

Danforth Center Uncovers a Genetic Mechanism That Could Enhance Yield in Cereal Crops

Solving the world’s food, feed and bioenergy challenges requires integration of multiple approaches and diverse skills. Andrea Eveland, Ph.D., assistant member at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and her team identified a genetic mechanism that controls developmental traits related to grain production in cereals. The work was performed in Setaria viridis, an emerging model system for grasses that is closely related to economically important cereal crops and bioenergy feed stocks such as maize, sorghum, switchgrass and sugarcane.

We Need One Global Net­work of 1000 Sta­tions to Build an Earth Ob­ser­vat­ory

We also need to share our data. So says world’s most prominent geoscientist, professor Markku Kulmala.

Environmental challenges, climate change, water and food security and urban air pollution, they are all interlinked, yet each is studied as such, separately. This is not a sustainable situation, for anybody anymore. To tackle this, professor Markku Kulmala calls for a continuous, comprehensive monitoring of interactions between the planet’s surface and atmosphere in his article “Build a global Earth observatory” published in Nature, January 4, 2018.

Is Arctic Warming Influencing the UK's Extreme Weather?

Severe snowy weather in winter or extreme rains in summer in the UK might be influenced by warming trends in the Arctic, according to new findings. 

It's Official: 2017 Was the Second Hottest Year on Record

Last year was the second hottest year on record worldwide, behind 2016, according to a European Union climate monitoring program. Global temperatures averaged 14.7 degrees Celsius (58.46°F) — 1.2 degrees C (2.2°F) above pre-industrial times.

Cancer Mortality in the U.S. Continues Decades-Long Drop

The report estimates that there will be 1,735,350 new cancer cases and 609,640 cancer deaths in the United States in 2018*. The cancer death rate dropped 26% from its peak of 215.1 per 100,000 population in 1991 to 158.6 per 100,000 in 2015. A significant proportion of the drop is due to steady reductions in smoking and advances in early detection and treatment. The overall decline is driven by decreasing death rates for the four major cancer sites: Lung (declined 45% from 1990 to 2015 among men and 19% from 2002 to 2015 among women); female breast (down 39% from 1989 to 2015), prostate (down 52% from 1993 to 2015), and colorectal (down 52% from 1970 to 2015).