DAILY QUICK READ - JUNE 10, 2016

NASA Mapping Coral Reefs

Through technology we can measure the damage and pinpoint the causes, but do we have the will through politics and statecraft to fix the damage and put lasting cures in effect?

Nasa and top scientists from around the world are launching a three-year campaign on Thursday to gather new data on coral reefs like never before.

Using specially-designed instruments mounted on high-flying aircraft, the scientists plan to map large swaths of coral around the world in hopes of better understanding how environmental changes are impacting these delicate and important ecosystems. 

The researchers hope to discover how environmental forces including global warming, acidification and pollution impact coral reefs in different locations by creating detailed images of entire reef ecosystems.

Yellowstone’s Raptors Need More Study

Although this year’s study of golden eagles was put together on a shoestring budget, Smith is hoping to extend the work for at least one more season.

More information will help the scientists reach a better understanding of why so many of the eagles are using this high mountain landscape, as well as establish a point of reference for any future studies of the big raptors as Earth’s climate changes.

“Golden eagles need to be on the lips and minds of visitors,” just like other wildlife in Yellowstone, Smith said. “If people know about them, conservation follows. If people don’t know about them, nobody cares.

What Good Are Zoos?

Genetic diversity is critical to a species survival in the wild.  Programs like this at the San Francisco Zoo are critical in insuring diversity.

The pack is part of a captive breeding program to contribute to the genetic diversity—and therefore the survival—of wolf populations that have been reintroduced to their historical ranges in the southwestern U.S. and central Mexico.

“There’s a lot of talk about animal reintroduction into the wild, but it’s not as common as the layperson thinks,” says David Bocian, Vice President of Animal Care at the San Francisco Zoo.

Genetic diversity is a major challenge to such programs, continues Bocian. The more narrow the gene pool, the more vulnerable the population.

“If they aren’t adaptable to adjust to those curve balls that nature throws at them,” he says, “they’re not going to survive.”

Plastics:  Mans Benefit and Natures Bane

“I want to say one word to you….plastics!”

Recovering and repurposing plastic waste from the ocean.  Several companies have focused on dealing with ocean trash in creative ways.

Scientists estimate that more than 5 million pieces of plastic are floating in the world’s oceans. From flip-flops to microbeads, this pollution poses a serious risk for marine animals, which often mistake plastic for food and starve to death or get caught in plastic packaging and suffocate. Giant plastic islands like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can span for miles.

Since it’s too late to stop that trash from entering the seas, the question is how do we clean it up? Here are some creative ideas.

Recycling plastic bags from environmental curse to cloth.

One such initiative comes from Reform Studio, which has developed a rather ingenious solution to our plastic bag epidemic, in which the bags become the feedstock for a traditional, yet disappearing, industry in Egypt - handweaving.

Reform Studio is the brainchild of two designers, Mariam Hazem and Hend Riad, who came up with the original concept as their project for the Faculty of Applied Arts at the German University in Cairo two years ago, in which they followed their belief that "design can solve stubborn problems."

Arctic Sea Ice Shrinks

Lowest May average ice area ever recorded.  Arctic heading for lowest ever observed.

The average area of sea ice atop the Arctic Ocean last month was just 12 million square kilometers (4.63 million square miles), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). That beats the prior May record (from 2004) by more than half a million square kilometers, and is well over a million square kilometers, or 500,000 square miles, below the average for the month.

This matters because 2016 could be marching toward a new record for the lowest amount of ice ever observed on top of the world at the height of melt season — September. The previous record September low was set in 2012.