Biodiversity

"Ever looked up at the clouds and wondered where they came from? That's exactly what atmospheric researcher Lubna Dada studies at the Paul Scherrer Institute. She is part of an international project called CLOUD, wherein she and fellow atmospheric scientists study how clouds form and the role they play in the climate."

"Cheetahs are usually daytime hunters, but the speedy big cats will shift their activity toward dawn and dusk hours during warmer weather, a new study finds. Unfortunately for endangered cheetahs, that sets them up for more potential conflicts with mostly nocturnal competing predators such as lions and leopards, say the authors of research published Wednesday ... ."

"This is what happens when an apex predator collides with an ecosystem engineer."

"Beavers are influential. By cutting trees and damming streams, these rodents change the world around them, raising water levels and creating habitats for diverse plants, insects, fish and more. They are some of the world’s best-known ecosystem engineers, a term for species that produce outsize effects on their environments.

"Congress appears unlikely to pass a new farm bill by the end of this year amid standoffs over Republicans’ push to extend subsidies to three specific Southern crops — at the potential cost of billions in both food aid and popular farm conservation programs."

"In her new book, Endangered Eating, Sarah Lohman chronicles disappearing foods – and why they need protecting".

"The American buff goose. Amish deer tongue lettuce. The Nancy Hall sweet potato. The mulefoot hog. When food historian Sarah Lohman stumbled on these fantastical-sounding ingredients in a database of vanishing foods called the Ark of Taste, she set off on a journey across the United States to discover more ingredients and traditions that had been abandoned in the annals of history.

"News had barely broken of plans to eradicate thousands of nonnative mule deer on Santa Catalina Island before conservation biologist Lauren Dennhardt found herself the target of enraged Avalon residents."

"Called cover crops, they top the list of tasks U.S. farmers are told will build healthy soil, help the environment and fight climate change. Yet after years of incentives and encouragement, Midwest farmers planted cover crops on only about 7% of their land in 2021."

"Companies that make or import a chemical commonly used to make tires will have to submit unpublished health and safety studies under a rule the EPA expects to finalize by the end of next year."