Scientists are seeing surprising melting in Earth’s polar regions at times they don’t expect, like winter, and in places they don’t expect, like eastern Antarctica.

New studies and reports issued this week at a major Earth sciences conference paint one of the bleakest pictures yet of dramatic warming in the Arctic and Antarctica. Alaskan scientists described to The Associated Press on Tuesday never-before-seen melting and odd winter problems, including permafrost that never refroze this past winter and wildlife die-offs.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday released its annual Arctic report card, detailing the second warmest year on record in the Arctic and problems, including record low winter sea ice in parts of the region, increased toxic algal blooms, which are normally a warm water phenomenon, and weather changes in the rest of the country attributable to what’s happening in the far North.

“The Arctic is experiencing the most unprecedented transition in human history,” report lead author Emily Osborne, chief of Arctic research for NOAA, said Tuesday.

‘A new Arctic’

What’s happening is a big deal, said University of Colorado environmental science program director Waleed Abdalati, NASA’s former chief scientist who was not part of the NOAA report.

“It’s a new Arctic. We’ve gone from white to blue,” said Abdalati, adding that he normally wouldn’t use the word “scary” but it applies.

And that means other problems.

“Continued warming of the Arctic atmosphere and ocean are driving broad change in the environmental system in predicted, and, also, unexpected ways,” the NOAA report said.

One of the most noticeable problems was a record low sea ice in winter in the Bering Sea in 2017 and 2018, scientists said.

In February the Bering Sea “lost an area of ice the area of Idaho,” said Dartmouth College engineering professor Donald Perovich, a report card co-author. 

This is a problem because the oldest and thickest sea ice is down 95 percent from 30 years ago. In 1985, about one-sixth of Arctic sea ice was thick multi-year ice, now it is maybe one-hundredth, Perovich said.

University of Alaska Fairbanks marine mammal biologist Gay Sheffield not only studies the record low ice, but she lives it daily in Nome, far north on the Bering Sea.

“I left Nome and we had open water in December,” Sheffield said at the American Geophysical Union conference in Washington. “It’s very much impacting us.”

“Having this area ice free is having this massive environmental change,” Sheffield said, adding there’s been a “multi-species die off” of ocean life. She said that includes the first spring mass die off of seals along the Bering Strait.

Shrinking permafrost

Ornithologist George Divoky, who has been studying the black guillemots of Cooper Island for 45 years, noticed something different this year. In the past, 225 nesting pairs of the seabirds would arrive at his island. This past winter it was down to 85 pairs, but only 50 laid eggs and only 25 had successful hatches. He blamed the lack of winter sea ice.

“It looked like a ghost town,” Divoky said.

With overall melting, especially in the summer, herds of caribou and wild reindeer have dropped about 55 percent — from 4.7 million to 2.1 million animals — because of the warming and the flies and parasites it brings, said report card co-author Howard Epstein of the University of Virginia.

University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Vladimir Romanovsky said he was alarmed by what happened to the permafrost — ground that stays frozen years on end. This past year, Romanovsky found 25 spots that used to freeze in January, then February, but never froze this year. 

Because of warming, the Arctic is “seeing concentrations of algal toxins moving northward” — infecting birds, mammals and shellfish to become a public health and economic problem, said report card co-author Karen Frey.

And the warmer Arctic and melting sea ice has been connected to shifts in the jet stream that have brought extreme winter storms in the East in the past year, Osborne said.

But it’s not just the Arctic. NASA’s newest space-based radar, Icesat 2, in its first couple of months has already found that the Dotson ice shelf in Antarctica has lost more than 390 feet (120 meters) in thickness since 2003, said radar scientist Ben Smith of the University of Washington.

Another study released Monday by NASA found unusual melting in parts of East Antarctica, which scientists had generally thought was stable.

Four glaciers at Vincennes Bay lost nine feet of ice thickness since 2008, said NASA scientists Catherine Walker and Alex Gardner.

Loss of ice sheets in Antarctica could lead to massive rise in sea level.

“We’re starting to see change that’s related to the ocean,” Gardner said. “Believe it or not this is the first time we’re seeing it in this place.”
…

With its wooden walls and posters on protecting forests and fauna, Brazil’s pavilion at the U.N. climate talks in Poland offers no hint of the angst at home and abroad over mixed messages on global warming from its president-elect.

But campaign promises made by Jair Bolsonaro that could weaken protection for the Amazon rainforest are a hot topic of conversation among visitors, said Caio Henrique Scarmocin, one of three hosts on the stand.

At the conference, whose outcome will be key to implementing the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, scientists and environmental activists said they were laying the groundwork should calls for Bolsonaro to protect Brazil’s forests fail.

Campaign statements from Bolsonaro, who takes power in January, suggested indigenous lands could be opened up to economic exploitation, including agribusiness and mining, and environmental fines eased.

The ability of Ibama, Brazil’s environmental protection agency, to fine those who break environmental laws is one of the government’s best defenses against the destruction of forests, stoking fears of a deforestation spike under the new government.

Bolsonaro, who campaigned on a far-right platform, also pushed the Brazilian government to withdraw its offer to host next year’s U.N. climate conference.

“He has a hostile approach over environmental issues,” said Paulo Barreto, a researcher with Imazon, a Brazilian institute monitoring deforestation in the Amazon.

Brazil is home to about 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest, considered by many as nature’s best weapon against global warming, because trees absorb and store carbon from the air.

Alfredo Sirkis, executive secretary of the Brazilian Forum on Climate Change, said he thought dialogue with the incoming government was still possible.

But if environmental roll-backs proceed, there was a “contingency plan,” he told journalists.

A coalition would assemble regional governments committed to respecting Brazil’s emissions reduction goals set under the Paris pact, said Sirkis.

Governors in as many as seven Brazilian states, including Amazonas, Pernambuco, the Federal District, Espirito Santo, Parana and Rio Grande do Sul, had already expressed interest in joining, he said.

“This is for starters,” said the former congressman.

A spokesman for the presidency of Brazil at the climate talks declined to comment.

U.S. shows the way

The plan has similarities with “We Are Still In,” a U.S. group of more than 3,500 mayors, governors and business leaders who have promised they will not retreat from the Paris deal.

Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump gave notice the United States would leave the accord — although it cannot formally withdraw until 2020 — arguing it was bad for the economy.

Mauricio Voivodic, executive director of WWF-Brazil, said his group had been in touch with the U.S. campaign through WWF-US, which is part of the “We Are Still In” secretariat.

The American coalition has its own pavilion at the U.N. climate talks.

“We are learning from ‘We Are Still In’ the importance of sub-national (governments) and companies enhancing commitments for the implementation of the Paris Agreement,” Voivodic said.

But WWF-Brazil is not yet trying to emulate the model because it wants to prioritize dialogue already under way with the transition government, he added.

“It could be an option, but we are not going in the direction of starting planning this,” said Voivodic.

Brazil’s future environment minister told Reuters on Monday his “inclination” was not to leave the Paris Agreement, after Bolsonaro said on the campaign trail he might quit the deal, under which countries set their own targets to cut emissions.

Marcio Astrini, public policy coordinator for Greenpeace Brazil, said he also looked to the United States as a vague blueprint to build a similar “resistance movement.”

A Brazilian version would draw on linkages between about 150 civil society groups who worked closely over the last year to oppose Bolsonaro’s campaign, he said.

Also mirroring tactics used in the United States, his group does not exclude filing lawsuits to push back against potential weakening of environmental and climate regulations in Brazil.

“It’s on the table,” he said, adding that it was still a last-resort option.
…

A new proposal from the Trump White House would roll back more Obama-era environmental regulations.

Trump administration officials say Tuesday’s proposed change in the Clean Water Act provides “a clear, understandable, and implementable definition” of what kinds of bodies of water the government can regulate. Environmental groups say the new rules are a concession to industry and will pollute the nation’s already polluted waterways.

Definition of ‘waters’

During the Obama era, what constituted “Waters of the United States” was expanded under the Clean Water Act to include all kinds of wetlands from ditches that only contain water part of the year, to wetlands adjacent to larger rivers or lakes. The definition was created to help ensure that America’s water was kept clean at the source, with the assumption being that it was necessary to regulate creeks, ditches and wetlands because they eventually flow into bigger bodies of water.

But farmers, construction companies and landowners bristle at what they say is the expansive nature of the definition, arguing the rules prohibit them from using a significant portion of land under their control.

Reacting to those concerns, the Trump administration is rolling back Obama-era protections in what EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler calls a “simpler and clearer definition” that will “help landowners understand whether a project on their property will require a federal permit.”

The new rules say that the federal government will now only regulate “traditional navigable waters, tributaries to those waters, certain ditches, certain lakes and ponds, impoundments of jurisdictional waters, and wetlands adjacent to jurisdictional waters.”

That leaves out huge areas of wetlands, meaning “features that only contain water during or in response to rainfall (e.g., ephemeral features); groundwater; many ditches, including most roadside or farm ditches; prior converted cropland; stormwater-control features; and waste-treatment systems” that were covered will no longer be subject to federal regulation.

Christopher Williams from American Rivers says the new rules will remove “protection from wetlands that don’t have an apparent surface connection to another water body, a lake or a river, and there are millions of acres across the country that are isolated like that.”

The argument is that these isolated bodies of water — some of which don’t exist year-round — don’t need protection because they don’t impact the nation’s major waterways.

Williams disagrees.

“These ephemeral streams are incredibly important parts of a freshwater ecosystem,” he told VOA, adding that the Obama-era rules are scientifically dense and lay out the “important ecological connections between all these types of water, whether it’s wetlands or ephemeral streams, isolated or otherwise.”

The old regulations made the case that these areas “should all be included in the definitions of ‘Waters of the United States’ if you’re trying to conserve that freshwater system as a whole,” Williams said.

Some environmental groups vow to fight the new rules.

“This proposal is reckless,” Jon Devine from the Natural Resources Defense Council told VOA via email. “… and we will fight to ensure it never goes into effect.”

There is a 60-day comment period before the rule can be applied. In addition, the Obama-era regulations are in place in 22 U.S. states, while the rules are held up in court in another 28 states.

Environmental policy changes

Williams sees a big change in the way the Environmental Protection Agency has evolved under the Trump administration.

“It’s clearly changed in that much of the rhetoric of the current EPA is about balancing environmental regulations with economic development,” Williams said, “and making sure that they are efficient and not costly to the economy and don’t interfere with business activity.”

Tuesday’s actions follow the U.S. refusal to endorse a new U.N. report on climate change at climate talks last week in Poland. They also follow a White House plan announced last week that would eliminate requirements that coal plants install expensive new technology designed to capture carbon emissions.

Such changes fall under Trump’s campaign promise to roll back government regulation, saying environmental mandates amount to a “war on American energy.” The president also denies the scientific consensus that humans are warming the planet.

Responding last week to the 1,600-page National Climate Assessment report produced by 13 federal agencies outlining the potentially devastating impacts of climate change, the president said, “I don’t believe it.”
…

Environmental groups opposed to offshore drilling sued the federal government Tuesday to prevent future seismic tests for oil and gas deposits 

in Atlantic waters off the U.S. East Coast. 

Seismic testing, which uses air gun blasts, violates federal laws that protect marine mammals, endangered species and national environmental policy, according the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Charleston, S.C., against U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and the National Marine Fisheries Service. 

The fisheries service in November gave initial permission to five companies to conduct seismic airgun tests beneath a vast region off the East Coast. The permits allow marine wildlife to be harassed but not killed.

Conservationists say the testing, a precursor to oil drilling, can cause disorientation that leads to beachings of an endangered species, the North Atlantic right whale. 

U.S. President Donald Trump is pursuing increased petroleum drilling as part of an “energy dominance” policy. A proposal to open nearly all U.S. waters to offshore drilling, announced in January, is pending.

Objections ‘steamrolled’

“The Trump administration has steamrolled over objections of scientists, governors and thousands of coastal communities and businesses to enable this dangerous activity,” Michael Jasny, a director and ocean noise pollution expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.

A federal marine biologist said last month that no seismic tests had been known to cause whale beachings. A spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency within the Commerce Department, declined to discuss ongoing litigation.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit also included the Southern Environmental Law Center, Sierra Club, Oceana, the Center for Biological Diversity and the North Carolina Coastal Federation. 

Lawmakers from South Carolina and coastal mayors held a news conference on Tuesday in Charleston to address the issue. 

U.S. Rep.-elect Joe Cunningham, a Democrat, said drilling threatens fishing industries, jobs, recreation and a tourism industry worth $21 billion.

“I’m here not just to say ‘no to offshore drilling’ but ‘hell, no, to offshore drilling,’ ” added Cunningham, who said he would introduce legislation next year to reinstate a ban on U.S. offshore drilling that had been renewed by President Barack Obama. 

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, opposes drilling off the coast of his state. State Attorney General Alan Wilson, also a Republican, will send a letter of opposition to Ross soon, a spokesman said by phone.

More than a dozen states are seeking exemptions from offshore drilling leases.

“Oil spills don’t respect state boundaries,” said Catherine Wannamaker, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center.
…

Deforestation in Brazil’s tropical Cerrado savanna, which makes up a quarter of the country, fell 11 percent to a record low in 2018 compared with a year earlier, the Ministry of Environment said in a statement Tuesday. 

Deforestation in the South American country’s savanna biome totaled 6,657 square kilometers (2,570 square miles), an area larger than the U.S. state of Connecticut. That’s just below 6,777 square kilometers in 2016, the previous low since records began to be kept, the ministry said.

A biome is a grouping of plants and animals that have adapted to a specific environment. 

This contrasts with the Amazon rainforest, making up 40 percent of Brazil, which has seen a 13.7 percent spike in deforestation this year to a 10-year high. 

Activists have been concerned that deforestation could spike under policies proposed by President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who assumes office Jan. 1 and has pledged to end the current “industry of fines” for environmental violations like deforestation.

The figure for Cerrado is based on the change in deforestation between August 2017 and July 2018, the period used to measure annual destruction, as recorded by Brazilian space research agency Inpe. The statement did not give a reason for the decline in deforestation.

The Cerrado’s vegetation soaks up major amounts of carbon dioxide, making its preservation key to curbing greenhouse gas emissions and for countering global warming. 

While the Cerrado is less densely forested than the Amazon rainforest, its plants have deep roots that lock carbon into the ground and are sometimes referred to as an underground forest. 

Ricardo Salles, Brazil’s future environment minister under Bolsonaro, told Reuters on Monday that Bolsonaro would not gut resources for environmental protection, contrary to the fears of environmentalists. 

Money for environmental protection is spent inefficiently and mismanaged, he said, arguing he could produce better results with the same budget.
…

A U.S. energy official says “no country should have to sacrifice economic prosperity or energy security in pursuit of environmental sustainability” during a U.N. climate discussions in Poland. Preston Wells Griffith, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of International Affairs at the Department of Energy, spoke at a U.S. government-sponsored event Monday in Katowice, responding to criticism of the U.S. administration’s policy of supporting the fossil fuel industry. Zlatica Hoke reports.
…

Scientists have drilled a mile and a half (2.5 kilometers) beneath the seabed and found vast underground forests of “deep life,” including microbes that persist for thousands, maybe millions of years, researchers said Monday.

Feeding on nothing but the energy from rocks, and existing in a slow-motion, even zombie-like state, previously unknown forms of life are abundant beneath the Earth despite extreme temperatures and pressure.

About 70 percent of Earth’s bacteria and archaea — single-celled organisms with no nucleus — live underground, according to the latest findings of an international collaboration involving hundreds of experts, known as the Deep Carbon Observatory, were released at the American Geophysical Union meeting in Washington.

This “deep life” amounts to between 15 and 23 billion tons of carbon, said the DCO, launched in 2009, as it nears the end of its 10-year mission to reveal Earth’s inner secrets.

“The deep biosphere of Earth is massive,” said Rick Colwell, who teaches astrobiology and oceanography at Oregon State University.

He described the team’s findings so far as a “very exciting, extreme ecosystem.”

Among them may be Earth’s hottest living creature, Geogemma barossii, a single-celled organism found in hydrothermal vents on the seafloor.

Its microscopic cells grow and replicate at 250 degrees Fahrenheit (121 Celsius).

“There is genetic diversity of life below the surface that is at least equal to but perhaps exceeds that which is at the surface and we don’t know much about it,” Colwell said.

‘Distinct’ from surface life

Similar types of strange, deep life microbes might be found on the subsurface of other planets, like Mars.

“Most of deep life is very distinct from life on the surface,” said Fumio Inagaki, of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

Using the Japanese scientific vessel Chikyu, researchers have drilled far beneath the seabed and removed cores that have given scientists a detailed look at deep life.

“The microbes are just sitting there and live for very, very long periods of time,” he told AFP.

Brought up from these ancient coal beds and fed glucose in the lab, researchers have seen some microbes, bacteria and fungi slowly waking up.

“That was amazing,” said Inagaki.

Scientists have found life in continental mines and boreholes more than three miles (five kilometers) deep, and have not yet identified the boundary where life no longer exists, he added.

How basic biology works?

Gaining a better understanding of subsurface life on Earth can also help understand and better engineer climate-change fighting technologies that may one day sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

“What we learn here will help us understand what to look for on other planets or other systems where life could exist,” said Colwell.

In any case, studying what some scientists have called the “Galapagos of the Deep,” dramatically changes human’s perception of life on Earth, and their place in it.

Most of our planet’s microbial life is deep beneath the surface, and it may have played a big part in the evolution of Earth’s atmosphere by locking carbon dioxide underground and allowing air for people and animals to breathe.

“There is lots and lots of life on Earth that we did not know about. The fact that so much of it — at least in the marine sediment — is functioning at extremely low energy, it really changes our basic conception of how biology works,” said Karen Lloyd, an associate professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

“They are new branches on the tree of life that have been on Earth, doing whatever it is that they do, for billions of years, but without us ever noticing them,” she told AFP.

“It is like looking beside you and finding that you have an office mate you never knew about.”
…

When a U.S. district judge last month ruled a federal ban on female genital mutilation unconstitutional, he undercut the federal government and alarmed anti-FGM activists, who hope to eradicate the practice.

The World Health Organization calls FGM, also known as female circumcision, a human rights violation of women and girls, with no health benefits.

Some 200 million women and girls around the world, mainly in Africa, have experienced FGM, the WHO says.

In his opinion, Judge Bernard Friedman called FGM “despicable,” but also “a local criminal activity” that must be addressed at the state level. In enacting a federal law, he said, Congress overstepped.

Now, local lawmakers, advocates and newspapers are calling for state bans that equal or surpass the scope of the federal law that was struck down.

‘Never again’

The case Friedman ruled on centers around Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, an emergency room physician accused of performing FGM on at least 100 girls in Michigan for more than a decade.

Prosecutors have focused their case on nine girls, aged 7 to 12, from three states. The girls allegedly were subjected to FGM with the aid of Nagarwala and seven others, including the girls’ mothers.

Defense attorneys say the procedure amounted to only a “nick” on the girls performed as part of a religious ritual — not FGM. But they also argued in July that the federal law banning FGM is unconstitutional.

State Senator Rick Jones, who represents Michigan’s 24th district, told VOA by phone that he was shocked to learn about Nagarwala’s case and strongly disagrees with Friedman’s ruling.

Last year, Jones became the spokesperson for a package of bills outlawing FGM statewide. The legislation passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Now, Michigan has some of the toughest FGM laws in the country.

Health-care providers convicted of performing FGM face up to 15 years in prison, along with the permanent loss of their medical licenses. Parents who take their daughters to doctors to be cut can lose custody.

The 1996 federal law, meanwhile, stipulated up to five years in prison and fines for medical providers who perform FGM.

“We wanted to send a strong message around the world: Never again bring your girls to Michigan for this horrible procedure,” Jones said.

Across the U.S., 27 states have passed laws banning FGM, many of which have been written in recent years and include penalties that go beyond the federal law, which also criminalizes so-called “vacation cutting,” the practice of taking girls out of the United States to have FGM performed overseas.

News organizations are among those pushing for an expansion of state laws. Last month, the Seattle Times editorial board called for a ban in Washington, one of 23 states yet to outlaw FGM.

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times editorial board said all 50 states should ban the “barbaric” practice, in light of Friedman’s ruling.

Religious ritual?

The health-care providers and families involved in the Michigan case belong to Dawoodi Bohra, a Shi’ite Muslim sect based in India with about 2 million followers worldwide.

According to a study published earlier this year, FGM, called khafd in Dawoodi Bohra communities, is widespread in the sect and involves cutting the clitoral hood or part of the clitoris, without an anesthetic, when girls turn seven.

The study, commissioned by WeSpeakOut, an advocacy group focused on eradicating khafd, also found that three-quarters of Dawoodi Bohra women have experienced FGM.

The severity and nature of FGM can vary.

Health-care providers have identified four types of FGM. Khafd involves Type 1 FGM. Other types involve removing all of the external genitalia and narrowing the vaginal opening.

Jones rejects the idea that there’s a religious basis for the procedure, however it’s performed.

“Across the world, this has been practiced by Christians, pagans, Muslims, even a small Jewish sect in Ethiopia,” he said.

“This is not about a religion,” he added. “This is about men attempting to control women’s behavior by this horrible procedure.”

The WHO identifies both short-term and permanent harms associated with the practice. Immediate concerns include severe pain, infections and, in some cases, death. Long term, women and girls subjected to FGM face a range of physiological and psychological complications that can affect menstruation, childbirth and sexual health.

The United States has been unequivocal in condemning the practice, saying “the U.S. government considers FGM/C to be a serious human rights abuse, and a form of gender-based violence and child abuse” on a fact sheet posted to the Citizenship & Immigration Services website.

Education and legislation

Friedman’s November decision is the latest in a series of setbacks for prosecutors.

Nagarwala spent seven months in 2017 in jail before 16 friends posted a $4.5 million unsecured bond, against the pleas of prosecutors, who argued Nagarwala could silence potential witnesses or even flee the country if released.

And in January, the judge dismissed charges that Nagarwala and a second doctor, Fakhruddin Attar, transported minors with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, an offense that carries a lifetime sentence.

Nagarwala still faces conspiracy and obstruction charges that could result in decades in prison.

The trial is now set to begin next April, the Detroit Free Press reported last month. However, the prosecution could appeal last month’s decision, drawing the case out further.

Looking beyond the Michigan case, Jones said the key to stopping FGM isn’t just legislation but also education.

“What we have to do is continue to fight this worldwide. This is a global problem,” Jones said.

“It is a violation of human rights,” he said. “And I’m going to continue speaking out worldwide against this horrible, horrible practice that must end.”
…

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has discovered ingredients for water on a relatively nearby skyscraper-sized asteroid, a rocky acorn-shaped object that may hold clues to the origins of life on Earth, scientists said on Monday.

OSIRIS-REx, which flew last week within a scant 12 miles (19 km) of the asteroid Bennu some 1.4 million miles (2.25 million km) from Earth, found traces of hydrogen and oxygen molecules — part of the recipe for water and thus the potential for life — embedded in the asteroid’s rocky surface.

The probe, on a mission to return samples from the asteroid to Earth for study, was launched in 2016. Bennu, roughly a third of a mile wide (500 meters), orbits the sun at roughly the same distance as Earth. There is concern among scientists about the possibility of Bennu impacting Earth late in the 22nd century.

“We have found the water-rich minerals from the early solar system, which is exactly the kind of sample we were going out there to find and ultimately bring back to Earth,” University of Arizona planetary scientist Dante Lauretta, the OSIRIS-REx mission’s principal investigator, said in a telephone interview.

Asteroids are among the leftover debris from the solar system’s formation some 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists believe asteroids and comets crashing into early Earth may have delivered organic compounds and water that seeded the planet for life, and atomic-level analysis of samples from Bennu could provide key evidence to support that hypothesis.

“When samples of this material are returned by the mission to Earth in 2023, scientists will receive a treasure trove of new information about the history and evolution of our solar system,” Amy Simon, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in a statement.

“We’re really trying to understand the role that these carbon-rich asteroids played in delivering water to the early Earth and making it habitable,” Lauretta added.

OSIRIS-REx will pass later this month just 1.2 miles (1.9 km) from Bennu, entering the asteroid’s gravitational pull and analyzing its terrain. From there, the spacecraft will begin to gradually tighten its orbit around the asteroid, spiraling to within just 6 feet (2 meters) of its surface so its robot arm can snatch a sample of Bennu by July 2020.

The spacecraft will later fly back to Earth, jettisoning a capsule bearing the asteroid specimen for a parachute descent in the Utah desert in September 2023.
…

City frogs and rainforest frogs don’t sing the same tune, researchers have found.

 

A study released Monday examined why Panama’s tiny tungara frogs adapt their mating calls in urban areas — an unexpected example of how animals change communication strategies when cities encroach on forests.

 

These frogs take advantage of the relative absence of eavesdropping predators in cities to belt out longer love songs, which are more alluring to female frogs.

 

Tungara frogs don’t croak like American bullfrogs. To human ears, their distinctive call sounds like a low-pitched, video-game beep. To female frogs, it sounds like pillow talk.

 

Every evening at sunset, the 1-inch male brown frogs crawl into puddles to serenade prospective mates. The lady frog selects a mate largely based on his love song.

 

Researchers found that the urban frogs call faster, more frequently and add more embellishments — a series of staccato “chucks” on the end of the initial whine — compared with those in the forest.

 

Those fancy urban love songs are three times more likely to attract the ladies, as scientists learned by playing back recordings of both city and forest frog calls to an audience of female frogs in a laboratory. Thirty of 40 female frogs hopped over to the speaker playing the urban frog calls, the researchers report in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

 

Whether the female frogs hailed from the city or forest themselves, they showed the same preference for fast-paced, complex crooning that combines high and low tones in quick arrangements.

 

Study co-author Michael J. Ryan, a biologist at the University of Texas who has studied tungara frogs for more than 30 years, said that the high and low notes likely stimulated the inner and outer ear chambers of female frogs in a pleasurable or interesting way.

 

So why don’t rainforest frogs sing the same way?

 

The scientists set out to confirm their hypothesis that frogs that added extra high-pitched “chucks” attracted not only more mates, but also more trouble from frog-eating bats and parasitic midges. With the help of camera traps and sticky paper, the researchers demonstrated that extended frog calls significantly increased the risk of attracting predators.

 

In the rainforest, the frogs must balance two goals: attracting a mate and staying safe.

 

In the city, there are no frog-eating bats, and far fewer snakes and midges. The male frogs are freer to belt their hearts out.

 

“An urban male can take greater risks,” said lead author Wouter Halfwerk, an ecologist at Vrije University in Amsterdam.

 

A town frog also has to work harder to find a mate because lady frogs are rarer in the city. “Competition for females increases,” said Halfwerk. “The best adaptation is to be the most attractive, with an elaborate love song.”

 

Corinne Lee Zawacki, a biologist at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved in the study, said the researchers’ methodology confirmed that urbanization is the reason for the call changes.

 

“I love the choice of study system,” she said. “A lot of background research has already been done on this frog. So we can see clearly how urbanization changes the interplay of natural and sexual selection” — or the trade-offs between survival and courtship goals.

 

But not all amphibians are as lucky as Panama’s tungara frogs.

 

“Amphibian populations are declining worldwide, mostly due to habitat destruction,” said Andrew Blaustein an ecologist at Oregon State University, who was not involved in the study. “This is a rare case — and a very interesting case — of an animal adapting quickly, in evolutionary terms, to new circumstances.”
…

Environment ministers from nearly 200 countries are arriving in the Polish city of Katowice to join haggling over ways to advance the 2015 Paris accord to curb climate change. National leaders have stayed away from this year’s climate change conference largely because it is devoted to agreeing the details of the implementation of the Paris agreement.

But as ever, the devil is in the details.

Ahead of the ministerial arrivals, climate activists from around the world marched Saturday in the Polish city to vent their frustration and to urge governments to “wake up” and “make the planet green again.”

“It’s time to save our home,” they chanted near the hall hosting the two-week U.N. Climate Change Conference.

Meanwhile, 1,500 kilometers away police in Paris battled Yellow Vest protesters mounting their fourth Saturday of action against the government of French President Emmanuel Macron, a revolt triggered initially by the imposition of higher taxes on fuel.

For Western governments, even environmentally-friendly ones, climate change poses a massive political dilemma the protests in France are bringing home.

Impose the tax hikes and costly regulations scientists say are needed to lower emissions and move economies away from dependency on fossil fuels and governments risk prompting a backlash, largely from lower-income workers and pensioners who can ill-afford to bear the expense. Or move slowly and risk blow back from climate activists and their supporters among largely middle-class and higher-income groups able to adapt with less hardship.

Squaring the circle between those who demand fast-track climate-friendly measures and those who want to slow down and mitigate the impact of moving towards a low-carbon future isn’t going to be easy, as the Paris protests demonstrate, say analysts.

Poland, which is hosting this year’s conference, used the opening last Monday of the 24th U.N. climate change conference to emphasize the dilemma and to try to temper ambitions when delegates come to finalize the rule book for the Paris agreement to make the accord operational.

Among other things Polish leaders called for a “just transition” for fossil fuel industries that face cuts and closures amid efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, warning a badly managed transition to a low-carbon, renewable-energy future will cause major disruption to industry, hardship for ordinary people and could trigger social unrest not just in France, but in other industrialized nations.

Many climate activists attending the conference dismiss warnings about social and political repercussions, seeing them as merely efforts to impede progress, apply the brakes and of providing specious justification for propping up fossil-fuel industries.

British naturalist and documentary-maker David Attenborough gave voice to their frustration last week at the conference, warning time is running out to avert irreversible disaster.

“If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon. The world’s people have spoken, their message is clear, time is running out, they want you, the decision-makers, to act now. They’re supporting you in making tough decisions, but they’re also willing to make sacrifices in their daily lives,” he said.

Climate activists remain furious that attempts to incorporate a key scientific study into the talks failed last week. U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, published in October, said the world is completely off track from curbing global warming and is heading towards a catastrophic three-centigrade jump in temperatures this century.

Four oil-producing countries, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia, opposed the inclusion of the IPCC report into the conference’s key negotiating text. The report is likely to resurface in the final week of bargaining.

The issue of a “just transition” is fast developing into one of the core climate-related issues governments are debating, and it is prompting the attention of investor organizations as well as organized labor.

“As the world begins its much-needed transition from high-carbon to low-carbon economies, investors will have to look beyond physical environmental issues and consider the social aspects of workers and their communities who will be impacted by the move away from carbon-intensive industries,” says Fiona Reynolds, chief executive of the Principles for Responsible Investment, an international network of major institutional investors.

 
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Many companies including McDonald’s and Kellogg are purging artificial colors from their foods, but don’t expect your cheeseburgers or cereal to look much different.

Colors send important signals about food, and companies aren’t going to stop playing into those perceptions.

 

What’s accepted as normal can change, too, and vary by region. Up until the 1980s, Americans expected pistachios to be red because they were mostly imported from places where the nuts were dyed to cover imperfections.

 

“People used to get all the coloring all over their fingers. We now kind of laugh at that,” said Richard Matoian, executive director of the American Pistachio Growers, a trade association.

 

Now most pistachios sold in the U.S. are grown domestically and come in their naturally pale shells.

 

McDonald’s announced in September that it had removed artificial colors from many of its burgers and Kellogg has pledged to remove them from its cereals by the end of this year.

 

Americans, however, apparently aren’t entirely ready to part with the technicolor pieces that float around in milk. After removing artificial colors from Trix, General Mills poured them back in last year to bring back a “classic” version in response to customer demand.

 

But it’s not just processed and packaged foods that create illusions with colors.

 

Cheese 

Boar’s Head, Cabot, Kraft, Tillamook. Check the packages of most cheddar cheeses, and they’ll likely list an ingredient called annatto, a plant extract commonly used for color.

 

The practice reaches back to when cheesemakers in England skimmed the butterfat from milk to make butter, according to Elizabeth Chubbuck of Murray’s Cheese in New York. The leftover milk was whiter, so cheesemakers added pigments to recreate butterfat’s golden hue, she said.

 

Another cheese that sometimes gets cosmetic help: mozzarella.

 

Sara Burnett, director of food policy at Panera Bread, said mozzarella sometimes gets its bright white from titanium dioxide, a widely used ingredient in products like mints and doughnuts.

 

Without it, mozzarella would be beige or off-white.

 

The whitening is done because most U.S.-made mozzarella starts with cow’s milk, which can have yellow hues, said Cathy Strange, global cheese buyer at Whole Foods.

 

In Italy, she said, mozzarella is traditionally made with water buffalo milk, which is whiter because the animal can’t digest beta carotene.

 

Egg yolks 

Many home cooks think darker egg yolks are fresher or more nutritious. But the color may be the result of marigold petals, alfalfa or coloring products in chicken feed.

 

Yolk color is primarily determined by the carotenoids — naturally occurring pigments in plants — that hens eat, according to Elizabeth Bobeck, a poultry nutrition professor at Iowa State University. It’s easy to change yolk colors by simply altering hens’ diet, she said.

 

Darker yolks aren’t necessarily healthier, Bobeck said. The belief that they are is likely rooted in the idea that yolks are darker when hens are fed a diet of fresh plants, which contain the pigments.

 

Marc Dresner, a spokesman for the American Egg Board, said yolk colors varied more when chickens were fed whatever was available in the barnyard. Commercial feed has made yolk colors more consistent, but synthetic color additives are not allowed for chicken feed, Dresner said.

 

Bart Slaugh, a representative for Eggland’s, noted mayonnaise and pasta makers may prefer paler yolks.

 

Salmon

 

Bright pink flesh may signal freshness to shoppers eyeing salmon fillets, which is why farmed salmon may have been fed synthetic astaxanthin, a version of a naturally occurring compound.

 

The Food and Drug Administration notes that manufacturers have to declare on labeling if color additives were used for salmon. At Costco, farmed salmon is labeled with the disclosure “color added through feed.”

 

It may not sound appetizing, but manufacturers know the difference color can make.

 

Salmon with a darker flesh can command an extra 50 cents to $1 per pound when offered side by side with lighter salmon, according to research by animal feed maker DSM.

 

To help producers size up the desirability of their salmon, the company offers a “SalmoFan” with varying shades of pink to help judge flesh colors.

 

Representatives for DSM did not respond to requests for comment.

 

 

 
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Efforts to boost global action against climate change are stuttering, as several key nations have objected to a key United Nations-backed report on the impacts of rising temperatures at the COP24 talks in Poland.

Many developing nations say they are already suffering from the impact of climate change, especially in south Asia and Africa, where water shortages and intense storms are putting lives and livelihoods in danger.

In Malawi in southern Africa, a bustling fish market stood at Kachulu on the shores of Lake Chilwa just five months ago. Now, hundreds of fishing boats lie marooned across the vast bay as vultures circle over the cracked, sun-baked mud. Water levels here fluctuate annually, but scientists say climate change is making the seasonal dry-out of the lake far more dramatic. Fishermen are being forced to leave and look for work elsewhere, says Sosten Chiotha, of the non-governmental organization ‘LEAD’ – Leadership for Environment and Development.

“Climate change contributes to the current recessions that we are experiencing, because you can see that in 2012 there was a recession where the lake lost about 80 percent of its water. Then it recovered in 2013, but not fully. So since then every year we have been experiencing these recessions,” Chiotha said.

Scientists gathering at the COP24 climate talks say it is developing countries like Malawi that are being hit hardest by the impacts of climate change.

The charity Water Aid has released a report ranking the countries worst-hit by water shortages, with Sudan, Niger and Pakistan making up the top three.

“There are people who are living with the impact of climate change right now. And they’re feeling those impacts not through carbon, but through water. And as we’ve seen over the past few years and will continue to see for many years to come unfortunately, is a huge increase in water stress and absolute water scarcity,” Water Aid’s Jonathan Farr told VOA from the climate talks currently underway in the Polish city of Katowice.

Richer nations have pledged $100 billion a year for poorer nations to deal with the consequences of climate change. Water Aid says they are failing to deliver the money.

Scientists say emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be reduced by 45 percent by 2030 to have any hope of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius – the target agreed in the Paris climate deal.

However, the number of coal-fired power stations – the most polluting form of energy generation – is growing. The German organization ‘Urgewald’ calculates that $478 billion had been invested into expansion of the coal industry between January 2016 and September 2018.

“In fourteen African countries now the first coal plants are being developed, it’s completely crazy. Economies that could just be leap-frogging to a renewable energy economy, that instead are having – largely by foreign companies – having coal plants being pushed on them as the solution to energy problems,” Urgewald’s director Heffa Schucking told reporters in Katowice this week

Meanwhile the World Health Organization warns that climate change will exacerbate the impact of some disease and health problems, including malaria, malnutrition and heat exposure.

There is little optimism at the talks that much concrete progress will be made, as several countries including the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia have already voiced objections to a key scientific report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
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As the U.N. global climate conference in Katowice, Poland entered its second week Sunday, the non-governmental environmental organization Greenpeace demanded urgent action from world leaders to tackle climate change.

Greenpeace activists projected a message onto the roof of the “Spodek” arena where the COP24 is being held, saying “No Hope Without Climate Action: and “Politicians Talk, Leaders Act.”

Disappointing many of the scientists and delegates at the conference, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait refused to endorse a landmark study on global warming which was to be the benchmark for future action in curbing the global warming.

The four nations wanted only to “note” but not “welcome” the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that was released in October, in keeping with the views of the Trump administration. With no consensus on including the report, the idea was dropped.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has announced he is pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, tweeted Saturday that “people do not want to pay large sums of money … in order to maybe protect the environment.” 

The IPCC’ report said that drastic actions would be needed to achieve the Paris accord’s most ambitious target of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The report warned that the world was far from that target and heading more towards an increase of 3 degrees Celsius.

On Monday, the environmental ministers arrive at COP24 and many delegates hope that they will make every effort to include the IPCC report in the conference agenda.
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