9 WIRED Stories You Should Read This Earth Day
The Newest Strategy to Save Bats From Extinction? Bacteria
A disease called white-nose syndrome is killing bats across the country. Since then, it has stormed across the continent, killing more than 5.7 million bats in just eight years. But now, researchers from the US Forest Service think they may have stumbled on a treatment at last.
US Fish and Wildlife ServiceListen Up America: You Need to Learn How to Recycle. Again.
Sure, Americans are recycling more than ever before, but the business side of things is in a lull. Some recycled goods just aren’t worth as much as they used to be, and the downturn has hit the industry hard. There’s no easy solution. But it sure would help if Americans relearned how to recycle.
Donina Asera/Getty Images
Climate Scientists Used to Just Get Angry. Now They’re Taking Action.
Increasingly, climate scientists have realized that climate science barely matters at all in the fight against climate change. Faced with the depressing reality that their years studying climate change have done almost nothing to stop it, they're turning to new strategies to make a difference—and often they have more to do with politics and psychology than atmospheric chemistry.
Getty ImagesThe Future of Wildlife Conservation Is … an Electronic Vulture Egg
More and more, sensors in vulture nests or camera traps in rainforests or drones in the sky are doing the data-gathering scientists have always had to do by hand. And all that’s great—as long as the lights and clicks and whirs don’t spook those data points away.
Microduino
Map Shows Where Sea Level Rise Will Drown American Cities
Even in the most optimistic global warming scenarios, sea level rise will inundate hundreds of US cities. Pulling from census data, topographical information, and loads of climate science, these maps provide a grim glimpse into the future for coastal communities—will your house be flooded?
Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesClimate Change Is Going to Be Expensive—For Everybody
You can put a price on climate change, according to a recentNaturestudy. Researchers suggest economic production could fall by almost one quarter over the next 80 years—and though rich countries will foot some of the bill, developing countries stand to fare the worst. Ouch.
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California’s Katrina Is Coming
As it turns out, the drought isn’t the worst of Californians’ water problems: the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is. The freshwater confluence is shielded from the salty ocean by mere dirt mounds, and if an earthquake or El Nino-induced megastorm were to breach it, California could say goodbye to their principal water supply.
Getty ImagesThe Complex Ecosystems of Cities, Where Plants Meet Politics
Cities may not look like natural ecosystems, but they are prime examples of networks where everything is interdependent. That makes ecology a great method for studying those interactions and their consequences.
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Biologists Could Soon Resurrect Extinct Species. But Should They?
Biologists may soon be able to bring animals back from the dead. That’s a thrilling but distinctly unnatural approach to preserving nature. And some scientists and conservationists are asking if resurrection is really the right way to save the Earth’s threatened species.
Michelle Gadd/USFWS
