carbon dioxide

Science is Still Really Cool

Because our Mother is kind, and wants us to survive, no matter how determined we are to kill ourselves:

Transparent jellyfish-like creatures known as salps, considered by many a low member in the ocean food web, may be more important to the fate of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the ocean than previously thought.  Read more 

A Consolation for Old Age and the Prospect of Death

Two months from today I will reach the age which matches the (last two digits of) the year in which I was born. This advancement towards the grave is not nearly as depressing as it was before I read this:

… rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere…may cause poison ivy to grow at almost twice its current pace in the next 50 years, says a report published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This ain’t a hypothetical “gee, what-if” science geeky thing either. They did an actual experiment, although the story here does not go into detail as to how they upped the CO2 in this particular patch of woods. But to continue….  Read more