Monthly Archive

Disney's Dr. Beth Stevens (Photo by Mariya Stepanyan)

To Beth Stevens, winning a Rachel Carson Award fits: Carson is her role model and the namesake of the center where Stevens conducted her doctorial research. But Stevens, who has been with Disney for more than a decade, is also humble, crediting her larger Disney family for the environmental strides the company’s made.

Western sandpipers breed in Western Alaska and will soon arrive at their summer grounds in the Gulf. Photo: USFWS 

It’s been 70 days since the Gulf oil spill began. Tens of millions of gallons have leaked from BP’s runaway well, located 40 miles off Louisiana’s coast and 5,000 feet beneath the surface. Here’s the latest on wildlife rescue efforts, concerns about chemical dispersants, and Nigeria’s ire over the oil spill double standard.

Blind shrimp swim among tube worms in the Gulf of Mexico. Photo courtesy of the Minerals Management Service and NOAA Chemo III Project

Mussels and tube worms, coral crabs and brittle stars carpet the dark, frigid ocean floor, feeding off of petrochemicals that ooze from beneath the surface. These ecosystems, known as cold seeps, baffled scientists at first, but after much research, biologists realized how they thrive. Now oceanographers and deep sea scientists think that the greatest concentration of habitats may lie in the Gulf of Mexico. Since the late 1970s, more than 100 cold seep sites have been discovered there, but in a terrible twist of fate, they may all be threatened by the oil spill.

Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus), photo by Danielle Langlois, Wikimedia Commons

It seems odd that the kangaroo, an animal with such powerful legs, has such dinky arms. Scientists believe they’ve figured out why that’s the case.

National Audubon Society’s in a race for $200,000, and we need your vote. Every three months, American Express and TakePart are giving away $1,000,000 in grants split between five charities.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, S. Sherpherd

One tablespoon of soil has more organisms in it than there are people on earth! 10 more amazing things you never knew about dirt:

An octopus named Paul has supposedly picked Germany to beat England in the June 27 World Cup match. He's correctly predicted the outcome of all of Germany's games so far.

We’ve written about some impressive octopi, including one that enjoys tackling a Rubik’s Cube and another that builds a mobile home out of coconut shells. But Paul the “psychic” octopus may be among the most beloved cephalopods yet. The 2-year-old mollusk oracle—which lives in Germany but was born in England—has correctly predicted the outcomes of all three of Germany’s World Cup matches so far, and has chosen Germany as the victor over England in tomorrow’s game. UPDATE  6/27: Germany won, so Paul is now 4 for 4.

Jennifer Hanna volunteers with Audubon as a bird transport liaison. Photo courtesy Jennifer Hanna

When the oil spill began, Jennifer Hanna was one of the thousands of people that went online and signed up with Audubon as a volunteer. “I’m an animal lover, and I figured that they needed local volunteers that they wouldn’t have to put up in hotels or find housing for,” says Hanna. For nearly two months, Hanna has been acting as a transport liaison, transferring oiled birds from boats to trucks that take them to cleaning facilities.

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death. I was in the Arctic when he died, at Toolik Field Station with a hundred or so researchers and nine other journalists. To mark the King of Pop’s passing, a couple dozen folks took part in what might be the northernmost performance of 'Thriller', at Toolik Field Station, North Slope, Alaska.