Light pollution: The dangers of bright skies at night
Artificial light revolutionized life on earth. But as our nights grow increasingly bright, its negative impacts are becoming ever more visible on our health and on nature.
Tokyo at night
When the Earth shook the Los Angeles region on the night of January 17, 1994, many houses, bridges and power lines were toppled. At that moment, the brightly illuminated metropole was plunged into darkness.
People torn from their beds emerged to the reality of having been hit by an earthquake. They also, according to local observatories and police stations who reportedly received phone calls to this effect at the time, emerged to alleged sightings of a giant silvery cloud in the sky. What they were seeing was actually the Milky Way and stars which until then, had remained obscured behind the dazzling city lights.
Pandemic slows, but can t stop Experimental Lakes Area
Skeleton crews ensure more than half-century chain of data continues through pandemic at the ELA, but major projects on microplastics and oil spills delayed.
Dec 21, 2020 1:15 PM By: Ian Kaufman
Updated
THUNDER BAY – The COVID-19 pandemic may have set back key projects at one of Canada’s most influential research facilities, but scientists at the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) are counting their blessings as they look back at 2020.
Operated by the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the ELA encompasses 58 lakes in a remote stretch of northwestern Ontario about 50 kilometres east of Kenora.
Benjamin Powell Photography https://www.instagram.com/photos bp/ CC-BY
Freshwater ecosystems provide important services to human societies, such as water, food, regulation of hydrological extremes, pollutant attenuation, and carbon sequestration. As freshwater systems are under pressure from human activity and climate change, a more complete understanding of these systems is needed to respond to the environmental changes associated with these processes.
Here Prof Kirsten Seestern Christoffersen and Dr Ben Abbott, Guest Editors of
PLOS ONECall for Papers on Freshwater Ecosystems, share their thoughts on the present and future of freshwater science research.
What are the most interesting scientific advances in freshwater science recently?