Conservation Magazine, August 27, 2010

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Win-win solutions can be hard to come by. But if Cornell University soil scientist Johannes Lehmann is right, there may be a way to lower our emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, save millions of people’s lives, and significantly boost the productivity of the world’s farms—all at the same time. And, most remarkably, his strategy is based on a deceptively simple technology invented 8,000 years ago.

Lehmann’s idea starts with organic leftovers that people normally burn or leave to rot—forest brush, corn husks, nutshells, and even chicken manure. When this stuff decays or goes up in smoke, it releases vast amounts of heat-trapping carbon into the atmosphere.

Continue reading “Black is the New Green” →

Discover, August 18, 2010

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Every spring the National Football League conducts that most cherished of American rituals, the college draft. A couple of months before the event, prospective players show off their abilities in an athletic audition known as the combine. Last winter’s combine was different from that of previous years, though. Along with the traditional 40-yard dashes and bench presses, the latest crop of aspirants also had to log time in front of a computer, trying to solve a series of brainteasers. In one test, Xs and Os were sprinkled across the computer screen as the athletes took a test that measured how well they could remember the position of each letter. In another, words like red and blue appeared on the screen in different colors. The football players had to press a key as quickly as possible if the word matched its color.

Continue reading “What Happens to a Linebacker’s Neurons?” →

Yale Environment 360, August 5, 2010

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The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is overshadowing another catastrophe that’s also unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico this summer: The oxygen dissolved in the Gulf waters is disappearing. In some places, the oxygen is getting so scarce that fish and other animals cannot survive. They can either leave the oxygen-free waters or die. The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium reported this week that this year’s so-called “dead zone” covers 7,722 square miles.

Unlike the Deepwater Horizon disaster, this summer’s dead zone is not a new phenomenon in the Gulf. It first appeared in the 1970s, and each summer it has returned, growing bigger as the years have passed.

Continue reading “A Looming Oxygen Crisis and Its Impact on World’s Oceans” →

The New York Times, July 12, 2010

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Discover, June 15, 2010

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This month’s column is a tale of two rats. One rat got lots of attention from its mother when it was young; she licked its fur many times a day. The other rat had a different experience. Its mother hardly licked its fur at all. The two rats grew up and turned out to be very different. The neglected rat was easily startled by noises. It was reluctant to explore new places. When it experienced stress, it churned out lots of hormones. Meanwhile, the rat that had gotten more attention from its mother was not so easily startled, was more curious, and did not suffer surges of stress hormones.

Continue reading “Brain switches that can turn mental illness on and off” →