(This story has been updated) One of the oldest and best-established ideas about global warming is that it will hit the Arctic the hardest. The concept, which goes back to papers published decades ago, is called “Arctic amplification,” and the basic idea is that there’s a key feedback in this system that makes everything worse… ‘We’re in record breaking territory no matter how you look at it,” says Jennifer Francis, an Arctic specialist at Rutgers University who has published widely on how Arctic changes affect weather in the mid-latitudes. “The ice is really low, the temperatures are really high, the fire seasons have started earlier,” she says.
Exclusive: Patient safety issues prompt leadership shake-up at NIH hospital
The National Institutes of Health is overhauling the leadership of its flagship hospital after an independent review concluded that patient safety had become “subservient to research demands” on the agency’s sprawling Bethesda campus… “This is a black eye for the NIH,” said Richard Ebright, a professor of chemical biology at Rutgers University who conducts biosafety research. “The NIH is the crown jewel of science and technology. The NIH needs to have a safety record, a compliance record, transparency and leadership befitting a crown-jewel organization.”
As climate change cooks the Arctic, East Coast blizzards may become more likely
Two new studies add support to the idea that climate warming in the Arctic and melting sea ice may be increasingly laying the groundwork for blockbuster East Coast snowstorms…. “Overall, I’d say that the case for an Arctic influence on amplified jet-stream patterns is rapidly getting stronger,” added Jennifer Francis, a professor of meteorology at Rutgers University.
Dominoes fall: Vanishing Arctic ice shifts jet stream, which melts Greenland glaciers
Investigating the factors affecting ice melt in Greenland – one of the most rapidly changing places on Earth – is a major priority for climate scientists… They can occur when there’s a change or disturbance in the jet stream, causing the flow of air …
Lab-grown meat is in your future, and it may be healthier than the real stuff
Scientists and businesses working full steam to produce lab-created meat claim it will be healthier than conventional meat and more environmentally friendly. But how much can they improve on old-school pork or beef?… “Maillard reactions are very important,” says Paul Breslin, a nutritional sciences professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “They are the flavor of cooking and give baked cookies, fresh-baked bread and grilled ribs their characteristic flavors, which we obviously love.”
Why diseases like Zika could unfairly target America’s poor
BALTIMORE – “PLEASE DON’T PUT GARBAGE HERE,” says a sign in a rundown alley in the Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park neighborhood, where more than a third of the homes stand abandoned… Other urban areas are wrestling with the same combination of poverty and mosquito-borne disease risks. Research in New Jersey, conducted by Dina Fonseca and colleagues at the Rutgers Center for Vector Biology, similarly found that economic disparities were a good predictor of the abundance of the Asian tiger mosquito.
Exceptionally warm February produces lowest snow cover in 14 years
February was extremely warm – the warmest such month on record by a landslide. Global temperature was 2.43 degrees higher than average, according to NASA, which was the largest temperature departure on record for any month in any year since 1880… The Global Snow Lab analysis is based on satellite data but it is not purely automated, says David Robinson, professor of geography at Rutgers. “A trained expert scrutinizes a multitude of sources, primarily visible satellite data but they also look at surface observations and even Web cameras in some places,” he said.
Seas are rising way faster than any time in past 2,800 years
Sea levels on Earth are rising several times faster than they have in the past 2,800 years and are accelerating because of man-made global warming, according to new studies… To figure out past sea levels and rates of rise and fall, scientists engaged in a “geological detective story,” said study co-author Ben Horton, a Rutgers marine scientist. They went around the world looking at salt marshes and other coastal locations and used different clues to figure out what the sea level was at different times.
Scientists are floored by what’s happening in the Arctic right now
New data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggest that January of 2016 was, for the globe, a truly extraordinary month. Coming off the hottest year ever recorded (2015), January saw the greatest departure from average of any month on record, according to data provided by NASA… “We’ve got this huge El Niño out there, we have the warm blob in the northeast Pacific, the cool blob in the Atlantic, and this ridiculously warm Arctic,” says Jennifer Francis, a climate researcher at Rutgers University who focuses on the Arctic and has argued that Arctic changes are changing mid-latitude weather by causing wobbles in the jet stream. “All these things happening at the same time that have never happened before.”
Ancient, unknown species of flower found locked away in amber
Anyone who has seen “Jurassic Park” knows that all manner of organisms can end up trapped in amber – preserved in hardened tree resin, waiting for scientists to unlock their secrets millions of years later. The latest find is a previously undiscovered species of flower that could be as much as 45 million years old. The flower, dubbed Strychnos electri by Rutgers botanist Lena Struwe, is described in a study published Monday in Nature Plants.
