As trees choked by saltwater die along low-lying coasts, marshes may move in — for better or worse, scientists are learning. https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2025/ghost-forests-are-growing-sea-levels-rise-climate-change #KnowableMagazine #ScienceMastodon
On our radar: Death metal vocal techniques
“I think it’s cool that this study is going to bring a lot of new information to what we do know already about extreme vocalization.”
Christina Couch, Science Friday
https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/death-metal-singers-vocal-research/
On our radar: The controversial swimming dinosaur
“A swimming Spinosaurus, like the version that’s going to be on-screen a lot this year, would be a blockbuster discovery — if it could be confirmed.”
Carolyn Gramling, Science News
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dinosaur-spinosaurus-jurassic-swim
The current system of supervised release in lieu of imprisonment may do more harm than good, some experts say. How can society do a better job of rehabilitating law-breakers while keeping them from re-offending? Lola Butcher.
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/society/2024/making-parole-probation-effective
The last #scientific #publication from Devika Varma’s #PhD #thesis at @NIOZnieuws (https://www.nioz.nl/en/news/investigating-paleotemperature-proxies-based-on-archaeal-hydroxylated-tetraether-lipids) is now published in #OrganicGeochemistry:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orggeochem.2025.105010
Many thanks to Isla Castañeda for the invitation to review this paper—yes, I signed the review report.
#Science #ScienceMastodon #AcademicMastodon
#GDGTs #isoGDGTs #TeamArchaea
#Archaeal #tetraether #lipids
A biologists study how bears can coexist with people here and elsewhere, they are learning that coexistence is a two-way street: Bears change their behavior in order to survive, but to share this habitat harmoniously, the people living here must be willing to change, too. https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2025/conflicts-between-people-and-grizzly-bears #KnowableMagazine #ScienceMastodon
Rising heat, pollution, and airborne allergens — fueled by climate change — can contribute to a range of eye disorders, from infections and inflammation to cataracts.
“How climate change threatens eye health”:
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2025/how-climate-change-threatens-eye-health
These spiny or slimy ocean creatures display an astonishing diversity of appearances, behaviors and lifestyles. Many are increasingly threatened.
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2025/weird-wondrous-sea-cucumbers
On our radar: Get curious!
“Curiosity can disappear just when we need it most. In fact, some research suggests questions can serve as an antidote to the anxiety that can arise in times of great uncertainty.”
Elizabeth Weingarten, Behavioral Scientist
https://behavioralscientist.org/in-uncertain-times-get-curious/
Long overlooked, menstrual stem cells could have important medical applications, including diagnosing endometriosis.
The detection of two celestial interlopers careening through our solar system has scientists eagerly anticipating more.
For a look at another side of coffee cultivation — how farming techniques can support biodiversity — read our 2024 interview with ecologist Ivette Perfecto.
Read in:
English: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2024/how-shade-coffee-lends-conservation-a-hand Spanish: https://es.knowablemagazine.org/content/articulo/alimentos-ambiente/2024/cafe-de-sombra-ayuda-conservacion
Our demand for caffeine is largely met by two species of coffee: Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora, and both are being battered by the high heat and unpredictable rainy seasons that come with climate change.
That’s why botanist Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at Kew, is on the hunt for lost coffee species that might replace current crops or help breed new varieties.
Marta Zaraska, Smithsonian Magazine
Some plants stink of rotting meat or dung, which helps them attract flies for pollination. How plants make the carrion stench, which is usually produced by bacteria feasting on decaying corpses, has been a mystery... until now.
Tina Hesman Saey reports for Science News 
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/stinky-plants-evolve-enzyme-rotten-meat
For more hot and stinky plants, check out our recent piece 
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2025/how-thermogenic-plants-woo-pollinators
A number of well-known factors, including exposure to UV radiation, genetics and aging can lead to cataracts, a condition affecting roughly 94 million people in which the lenses of the eyes get cloudy, causing blurry vision. But in recent years, researchers have found another causative factor for cataracts and other eye disorders: climate change.
“Nothing shows more clearly the perfect engineering of the heart than our own failed attempts to imitate it. This history of the total artificial heart is punctuated with both brilliant innovation and continual clinical failure.” —Sian E. Harding, MIT Press Reader
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/in-search-of-the-impossible-machine-the-artificial-heart/ #ScienceMastodon
Replacing or assisting the human heart with a machine would save countless lives. But the quest to build an artificial heart has had many gruesome missteps and caused researchers to reimagine how to keep our blood flowing 
Listen to our 2021 podcast episode:
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-heart-of-invention/id1548524996?i=1000505267893 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5O1CyNUmjK0PqyWXL9FM4c?si=TTRNey7oT5iyiQxgT2vlaw&nd=1&dlsi=f63156d2b59b443d
And anywhere else you enjoy your podcasts: https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2021/the-heart-invention
Around the world, border walls hinder normal travel for more than 700 kinds of mammal, including leopards, tigers and a critically endangered antelope. There were only six such major walls in 1989; today there are 74, many of them slicing through areas rich with species.
Phoebe Weston, the Guardian
The US-Mexico wall, which blocks even pygmy owls that can’t fly high enough to cross, hits traveling creatures especially hard; learn more from our 2024 story (first published in Spanish through Knowable en español)
Read in English https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2024/the-impact-of-the-us-mexico-border-wall-on-biodiversity
Lea en español: https://es.knowablemagazine.org/content/articulo/alimentos-ambiente/2024/impacto-del-muro-entre-eeuu-y-mexico-en-biodiversidad
