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"content": "\u003cp>NASA sent a robotic spacecraft from Florida \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/08/491482001/nasa-mission-to-retrieve-ancient-asteroid-dust-is-ready-for-launch\">out to an asteroid\u003c/a> Thursday, but that’s not the only asteroid mission the space agency has in the works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials also want to study a different asteroid with the help of astronauts. And it looks like the next president, plus Congress, will have to decide whether this \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/what-is-nasa-s-asteroid-redirect-mission\">human mission\u003c/a> to a flying rock should ever get off the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of visiting an asteroid goes back to 2010, when President Obama went to Kennedy Space Center in Florida to lay out his new plan for space exploration. He said he wanted astronauts to eventually land on Mars, and that the first steps would be to send astronauts out beyond the moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid, for the first time in history,” he \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/about/obama_ksc_pod.html\">told\u003c/a> the NASA workers. “By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trouble is, flying people to an asteroid turned out to be really hard. The trip would take months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So NASA settled on a slightly different \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2013/04/12/176798246/in-nasas-budget-plans-to-shrink-wrap-an-asteroid\">plan\u003c/a>, called the Asteroid Redirect Mission. The agency would send a robot out to retrieve an asteroid and bring it close to the moon. That way, the astronauts could study it in lunar orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t sending people to an asteroid; it was bringing an asteroid to people. But you were still demonstrating some of the technologies that NASA wanted to demonstrate as part of its long-term goal of sending humans to Mars,” explains \u003ca href=\"http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/contributors/marcia-smith\">Marcia Smith\u003c/a>, a space policy analyst and consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was difficult to find a small asteroid to target, and that mission seemed too daunting. “They ultimately made the decision to not move an entire asteroid, but just pluck a boulder from the asteroid’s surface, and bring the boulder to the astronauts,” Smith says. “That is the current plan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having a robot venture out tens of millions of miles, grab a multi-ton, car-sized boulder and then drag it to the moon, plus sending people up to study this rock, will cost something like $2 billion. That’s a hefty price tag, and some question whether this mission really makes sense, given NASA’s limited budget for human space exploration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If your long term goal is to go to Mars, do you need to spend $2 billion doing this mission?” Smith says. “Or can you spend it better doing other things?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/how-will-nasas-asteroid-redirect-mission-help-humans-reach-mars\">says\u003c/a> that when a crew flies up in the mid-2020s to rendezvous with this hunk of asteroid orbiting the moon, it will be a clear step forward — toward putting people on Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_982237\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-982237\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR.jpg\" alt=\"An astronaut in this artist's conception prepares to investigate the asteroid boulder. But proponents of the NASA mission say that instead of sending humans to an asteroid, it might be easier and quicker to bring the asteroid to the humans.\" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR-768x431.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An astronaut in this artist’s conception prepares to investigate the asteroid boulder. But proponents of the NASA mission say that instead of sending humans to an asteroid, it might be easier and quicker to bring the asteroid to the humans. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’ll be the first time we have brought humans back to the lunar vicinity,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/michele-gates.html\">Michele Gates\u003c/a>, program director for the mission at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. “They’ll actually be 50,000 miles past the surface of the moon — farther than people have ever been before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gates says planners are currently targeting a near-Earth asteroid called 2008 EV5, and that the first part of the mission would launch in December 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A major goal is to use advanced solar electric propulsion that’s already in development at NASA. “This technology that we’ll be demonstrating is truly a leap from where we currently are, and a significant step and contribution to what we’ll need for deeper-space human missions,” Gates says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another part of the mission would be to test out the so-called gravity tractor method for altering the course of an asteroid. The robotic spacecraft would hover near the asteroid for a while, using the tiny force of its gravity to tug the asteroid onto a different path. Seeing how well this works could reveal whether that’s a viable strategy for protecting our planet from any dangerous space rocks that astronomers determine are on a collision course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Speaking of collisions, NASA says that moving around a big boulder in space poses no risk to Earth, because even if there was some kind of unlikely accident, a rock this size would be expected to burn up in our atmosphere.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once astronauts met up with the captured asteroid boulder in lunar orbit, they could gather samples of the big rock to bring home. Gates says they’ll be able to retrieve more material than the fully robotic \u003ca href=\"http://www.asteroidmission.org/\">OSIRIS-REx\u003c/a> mission that just launched. And, she says, these samples “will be carefully selected, utilizing the brains, the real-time thinking, the decision-making and the visual capabilities that humans will bring.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mission has been through two key decision-making reviews — the last one wrapped up in July. “We’re currently in what we call the formulation stage,” Gates says, adding that NASA would not make any firm commitment until the next major review, scheduled for March 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone loves this mission. Asked if the space agency should do it, former astronaut \u003ca href=\"http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/voss-ji.html\">James Voss\u003c/a> told NPR, “That’s a really hard question.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_982241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-982241\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR.jpg\" alt=\"Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion technologies would be an essential part of future missions into deep space with larger payloads, NASA says, and this mission would be a way to test the technology. But critics think there are better ways to learn how to explore places such as Mars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR-768x431.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion technologies would be an essential part of future missions into deep space with larger payloads, NASA says, and this mission would be a way to test the technology. But critics think there are better ways to learn how to explore places such as Mars. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He understands NASA’s rationale for it, but says he personally thinks the money could be better spent on something that would get people to Mars more quickly, such as the development of a Mars lander.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, if you just sat down and tried to chart a path forward to Mars, it’s hard to imagine that you’d include this kind of effort to capture an asteroid, says \u003ca href=\"http://www.leroychiao.com/\">Leroy Chiao\u003c/a>, another former astronaut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chiao says that if he were still part of the astronaut corps, he’d be excited to fly around the moon. “And if there happened to be an asteroid there that we could fly in formation with or, you know, a boulder, that’s fine. But I’d be just as happy not flying in formation with a boulder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given that NASA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-journey-to-mars\">stated goal\u003c/a> is to get to Mars in the 2030s, Chiao just doesn’t see the point of this asteroid mission, which he believes is a product of budget constraints and politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On a technical level, I don’t think it’s worth doing,” Chiao says, adding that NASA seems to be trying to satisfy the White House’s desire to do something with an asteroid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He thinks we’d learn a lot more about how to explore Mars if we did something like set up a moon base to test out habitats, rovers and space suits. “But frankly,” Chiao says, “the moon was perceived as President [George W.] Bush’s program, so I don’t think that was really a starter, politically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://waynehale.wordpress.com/\">Wayne Hale\u003c/a>, the former head of NASA’s space shuttle program, tells NPR that he thinks the Asteroid Redirect Mission is “a great technology-development mission. It’s not a science mission, and that’s caused it some criticism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The long term goal, he says, remains to put humans on the surface of Mars. “If a new president were to come in and say, ‘We’re not going to go to Mars, we’re going to just junk that whole idea,” that would be a big deal,” Hale says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he thinks NASA would be OK if the next president decided that this asteroid plan should be abandoned in favor of a different step toward the Red Planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think that would be a huge shift in priorities,” Hale says. “I think that would be something the agency could accommodate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=NASA%27s+Other+Asteroid+Mission%3A+Grab+A+Chunk+And+Put+It+In+Orbit+Around+The+Moon&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Flying people to an asteroid is really hard, so NASA wants to bring part of it to them. But some former astronauts say the $2 billion plan was born of politics and budget cuts, and makes little sense.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>NASA sent a robotic spacecraft from Florida \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/08/491482001/nasa-mission-to-retrieve-ancient-asteroid-dust-is-ready-for-launch\">out to an asteroid\u003c/a> Thursday, but that’s not the only asteroid mission the space agency has in the works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials also want to study a different asteroid with the help of astronauts. And it looks like the next president, plus Congress, will have to decide whether this \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/what-is-nasa-s-asteroid-redirect-mission\">human mission\u003c/a> to a flying rock should ever get off the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea of visiting an asteroid goes back to 2010, when President Obama went to Kennedy Space Center in Florida to lay out his new plan for space exploration. He said he wanted astronauts to eventually land on Mars, and that the first steps would be to send astronauts out beyond the moon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid, for the first time in history,” he \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/about/obama_ksc_pod.html\">told\u003c/a> the NASA workers. “By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The trouble is, flying people to an asteroid turned out to be really hard. The trip would take months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So NASA settled on a slightly different \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2013/04/12/176798246/in-nasas-budget-plans-to-shrink-wrap-an-asteroid\">plan\u003c/a>, called the Asteroid Redirect Mission. The agency would send a robot out to retrieve an asteroid and bring it close to the moon. That way, the astronauts could study it in lunar orbit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It wasn’t sending people to an asteroid; it was bringing an asteroid to people. But you were still demonstrating some of the technologies that NASA wanted to demonstrate as part of its long-term goal of sending humans to Mars,” explains \u003ca href=\"http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/contributors/marcia-smith\">Marcia Smith\u003c/a>, a space policy analyst and consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was difficult to find a small asteroid to target, and that mission seemed too daunting. “They ultimately made the decision to not move an entire asteroid, but just pluck a boulder from the asteroid’s surface, and bring the boulder to the astronauts,” Smith says. “That is the current plan.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having a robot venture out tens of millions of miles, grab a multi-ton, car-sized boulder and then drag it to the moon, plus sending people up to study this rock, will cost something like $2 billion. That’s a hefty price tag, and some question whether this mission really makes sense, given NASA’s limited budget for human space exploration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If your long term goal is to go to Mars, do you need to spend $2 billion doing this mission?” Smith says. “Or can you spend it better doing other things?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NASA \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/how-will-nasas-asteroid-redirect-mission-help-humans-reach-mars\">says\u003c/a> that when a crew flies up in the mid-2020s to rendezvous with this hunk of asteroid orbiting the moon, it will be a clear step forward — toward putting people on Mars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_982237\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-982237\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR.jpg\" alt=\"An astronaut in this artist's conception prepares to investigate the asteroid boulder. But proponents of the NASA mission say that instead of sending humans to an asteroid, it might be easier and quicker to bring the asteroid to the humans.\" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-2_NPR-768x431.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An astronaut in this artist’s conception prepares to investigate the asteroid boulder. But proponents of the NASA mission say that instead of sending humans to an asteroid, it might be easier and quicker to bring the asteroid to the humans. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It’ll be the first time we have brought humans back to the lunar vicinity,” says \u003ca href=\"http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/michele-gates.html\">Michele Gates\u003c/a>, program director for the mission at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. “They’ll actually be 50,000 miles past the surface of the moon — farther than people have ever been before.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gates says planners are currently targeting a near-Earth asteroid called 2008 EV5, and that the first part of the mission would launch in December 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A major goal is to use advanced solar electric propulsion that’s already in development at NASA. “This technology that we’ll be demonstrating is truly a leap from where we currently are, and a significant step and contribution to what we’ll need for deeper-space human missions,” Gates says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another part of the mission would be to test out the so-called gravity tractor method for altering the course of an asteroid. The robotic spacecraft would hover near the asteroid for a while, using the tiny force of its gravity to tug the asteroid onto a different path. Seeing how well this works could reveal whether that’s a viable strategy for protecting our planet from any dangerous space rocks that astronomers determine are on a collision course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Speaking of collisions, NASA says that moving around a big boulder in space poses no risk to Earth, because even if there was some kind of unlikely accident, a rock this size would be expected to burn up in our atmosphere.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once astronauts met up with the captured asteroid boulder in lunar orbit, they could gather samples of the big rock to bring home. Gates says they’ll be able to retrieve more material than the fully robotic \u003ca href=\"http://www.asteroidmission.org/\">OSIRIS-REx\u003c/a> mission that just launched. And, she says, these samples “will be carefully selected, utilizing the brains, the real-time thinking, the decision-making and the visual capabilities that humans will bring.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mission has been through two key decision-making reviews — the last one wrapped up in July. “We’re currently in what we call the formulation stage,” Gates says, adding that NASA would not make any firm commitment until the next major review, scheduled for March 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not everyone loves this mission. Asked if the space agency should do it, former astronaut \u003ca href=\"http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/voss-ji.html\">James Voss\u003c/a> told NPR, “That’s a really hard question.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_982241\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-982241\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR.jpg\" alt=\"Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion technologies would be an essential part of future missions into deep space with larger payloads, NASA says, and this mission would be a way to test the technology. But critics think there are better ways to learn how to explore places such as Mars.\" width=\"800\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/asteroid-3_NPR-768x431.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Using advanced Solar Electric Propulsion technologies would be an essential part of future missions into deep space with larger payloads, NASA says, and this mission would be a way to test the technology. But critics think there are better ways to learn how to explore places such as Mars. \u003ccite>(NASA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He understands NASA’s rationale for it, but says he personally thinks the money could be better spent on something that would get people to Mars more quickly, such as the development of a Mars lander.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, if you just sat down and tried to chart a path forward to Mars, it’s hard to imagine that you’d include this kind of effort to capture an asteroid, says \u003ca href=\"http://www.leroychiao.com/\">Leroy Chiao\u003c/a>, another former astronaut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chiao says that if he were still part of the astronaut corps, he’d be excited to fly around the moon. “And if there happened to be an asteroid there that we could fly in formation with or, you know, a boulder, that’s fine. But I’d be just as happy not flying in formation with a boulder.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given that NASA’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-journey-to-mars\">stated goal\u003c/a> is to get to Mars in the 2030s, Chiao just doesn’t see the point of this asteroid mission, which he believes is a product of budget constraints and politics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“On a technical level, I don’t think it’s worth doing,” Chiao says, adding that NASA seems to be trying to satisfy the White House’s desire to do something with an asteroid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He thinks we’d learn a lot more about how to explore Mars if we did something like set up a moon base to test out habitats, rovers and space suits. “But frankly,” Chiao says, “the moon was perceived as President [George W.] Bush’s program, so I don’t think that was really a starter, politically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://waynehale.wordpress.com/\">Wayne Hale\u003c/a>, the former head of NASA’s space shuttle program, tells NPR that he thinks the Asteroid Redirect Mission is “a great technology-development mission. It’s not a science mission, and that’s caused it some criticism.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The long term goal, he says, remains to put humans on the surface of Mars. “If a new president were to come in and say, ‘We’re not going to go to Mars, we’re going to just junk that whole idea,” that would be a big deal,” Hale says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he thinks NASA would be OK if the next president decided that this asteroid plan should be abandoned in favor of a different step toward the Red Planet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think that would be a huge shift in priorities,” Hale says. “I think that would be something the agency could accommodate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=NASA%27s+Other+Asteroid+Mission%3A+Grab+A+Chunk+And+Put+It+In+Orbit+Around+The+Moon&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California's Warmest Summer: This Is It",
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"content": "\u003cp>Okay, okay, so Mark Twain never said that the coldest winter he’d ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. But were he alive today to be misquoted, he might proclaim this summer in California the warmest he’d experienced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And he’d be right. Federal climate trackers \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/national/201608\">confirmed Thursday\u003c/a> that this summer (defined as June through August) was California’s warmest in 122 years of records. The statewide average temperature for the three months was 75.5°F, or 3.3°F above average. Jan Null, a noted meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services, called out Fresno and Redding as hotspots, with summer temperatures 2.5 and 2.1 degrees above the norm, respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While California was one of only three states that set temperature records for the period, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that every state across the Lower 48 had a warmer-than-average summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_979648\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 650px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-979648\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/statewidetavgrank-201606-201608.gif\" alt=\"California, Connecticut and Rhode Island set heat records for the summer season.\" width=\"650\" height=\"475\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California, Connecticut and Rhode Island set heat records for the summer season. The “122” indicates the warmest period in 122 years of record-keeping. \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>California, with its quirky micro-climates, had some notable exceptions. In San Francisco, not a single day during the month of August breached the 70-degree mark. Null noted that was only the fourth time that’s happened since records have been kept. (He also pointed out that typically, San Francisco’s warmest day of the year doesn’t occur until late September.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Pacific Ocean, on the other hand, remains stubbornly warm — enough so that NOAA has called off its La Niña Watch for this fall and winter. Forecasts now favor “neutral” or near-normal temperatures in the Pacific when California’s rainy season would normally set in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_979647\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 641px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-979647\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ENSOForecast_1609.png\" alt=\"Neutral (green) conditions now dominate the forecast for Pacific Ocean temperatures this winter.\" width=\"641\" height=\"372\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ENSOForecast_1609.png 641w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ENSOForecast_1609-400x232.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 641px) 100vw, 641px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Neutral (green) conditions now dominate the forecast for Pacific Ocean temperatures this winter. \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That could be good news. In previous months, NOAA had set the odds slightly in favor of colder La Niña conditions, which could favor an extension of California’s five-year drought. But they now say there’s a 55-60 percent chance that neither La Niña nor its warm-water opposite, El Niño, will develop this winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last winter marked one of the strongest El Niños ever recorded, raising hopes of a drought-busting wet season. Those hopes never quite materialized, as Northern California saw close-to-average precipitation and Southern California remained relatively parched. About 60 percent of the state remains in \u003ca href=\"http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA\">severe-to-exceptional drought\u003c/a>, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Okay, okay, so Mark Twain never said that the coldest winter he’d ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. But were he alive today to be misquoted, he might proclaim this summer in California the warmest he’d experienced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And he’d be right. Federal climate trackers \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/summary-info/national/201608\">confirmed Thursday\u003c/a> that this summer (defined as June through August) was California’s warmest in 122 years of records. The statewide average temperature for the three months was 75.5°F, or 3.3°F above average. Jan Null, a noted meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services, called out Fresno and Redding as hotspots, with summer temperatures 2.5 and 2.1 degrees above the norm, respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While California was one of only three states that set temperature records for the period, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that every state across the Lower 48 had a warmer-than-average summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_979648\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 650px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-979648\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/statewidetavgrank-201606-201608.gif\" alt=\"California, Connecticut and Rhode Island set heat records for the summer season.\" width=\"650\" height=\"475\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California, Connecticut and Rhode Island set heat records for the summer season. The “122” indicates the warmest period in 122 years of record-keeping. \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>California, with its quirky micro-climates, had some notable exceptions. In San Francisco, not a single day during the month of August breached the 70-degree mark. Null noted that was only the fourth time that’s happened since records have been kept. (He also pointed out that typically, San Francisco’s warmest day of the year doesn’t occur until late September.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Pacific Ocean, on the other hand, remains stubbornly warm — enough so that NOAA has called off its La Niña Watch for this fall and winter. Forecasts now favor “neutral” or near-normal temperatures in the Pacific when California’s rainy season would normally set in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_979647\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 641px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-979647\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ENSOForecast_1609.png\" alt=\"Neutral (green) conditions now dominate the forecast for Pacific Ocean temperatures this winter.\" width=\"641\" height=\"372\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ENSOForecast_1609.png 641w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/ENSOForecast_1609-400x232.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 641px) 100vw, 641px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Neutral (green) conditions now dominate the forecast for Pacific Ocean temperatures this winter. \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That could be good news. In previous months, NOAA had set the odds slightly in favor of colder La Niña conditions, which could favor an extension of California’s five-year drought. But they now say there’s a 55-60 percent chance that neither La Niña nor its warm-water opposite, El Niño, will develop this winter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last winter marked one of the strongest El Niños ever recorded, raising hopes of a drought-busting wet season. Those hopes never quite materialized, as Northern California saw close-to-average precipitation and Southern California remained relatively parched. About 60 percent of the state remains in \u003ca href=\"http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA\">severe-to-exceptional drought\u003c/a>, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Most populations of humpback whales no longer need endangered species protections, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/mediacenter/2016/09_September/06_09.html\">a decision\u003c/a> by the National Marine Fisheries Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. government listed all humpback whales as endangered back in 1970, after commercial whaling had drastically reduced their numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”DGLWaiP9KRCpoyqn13mk7DWCIK8ZCEIn”]But now, officials say they have divided humpback whales into 14 distinct populations. And after a scientific review, they say that nine of those populations have recovered enough that they no longer need to be considered endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe that we have conducted a very thorough scientific assessment,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.eli.org/sites/default/files/docs/seminars/sommabio10_07_14.pdf\">Angela Somma\u003c/a>, chief of the endangered species division at the agency, also known as NOAA Fisheries. “Most of the humpback populations have increased and increased substantially from where they were.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whales that are still considered endangered include populations in Central America, off northwest Africa, in the Arabian Sea and in the western north Pacific. And a population near Mexico is listed as threatened. Whales from the Central America and Mexico populations travel through U.S. waters at certain times of year as they feed in areas off the West Coast and Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a practical matter, little will change for the whales — they’ll still be covered under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, she notes. And the \u003ca href=\"https://iwc.int/home\">International Whaling Commission’s\u003c/a> moratorium on hunting these huge ocean creatures, which was imposed in 1982, remains in effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the day-to-day protections and activities will continue to occur,” Somma says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, officials have filed regulations to ensure that vessels around Hawaii and Alaska continue to maintain a safe distance from the whales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Collisions with ships is a danger to the whales, and they face other threats, such as getting tangled up in fishing gear. The Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group, said \u003ca href=\"http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/humpback-whales-09-06-2016.html\">nearly 40 reports\u003c/a> of whales becoming entangled were recorded off the West Coast in the first half of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Most+Humpback+Whales+Taken+Off+Endangered+Species+List&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Most populations of humpback whales no longer need endangered species protections, according to \u003ca href=\"http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/mediacenter/2016/09_September/06_09.html\">a decision\u003c/a> by the National Marine Fisheries Service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. government listed all humpback whales as endangered back in 1970, after commercial whaling had drastically reduced their numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>But now, officials say they have divided humpback whales into 14 distinct populations. And after a scientific review, they say that nine of those populations have recovered enough that they no longer need to be considered endangered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We believe that we have conducted a very thorough scientific assessment,” says \u003ca href=\"https://www.eli.org/sites/default/files/docs/seminars/sommabio10_07_14.pdf\">Angela Somma\u003c/a>, chief of the endangered species division at the agency, also known as NOAA Fisheries. “Most of the humpback populations have increased and increased substantially from where they were.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whales that are still considered endangered include populations in Central America, off northwest Africa, in the Arabian Sea and in the western north Pacific. And a population near Mexico is listed as threatened. Whales from the Central America and Mexico populations travel through U.S. waters at certain times of year as they feed in areas off the West Coast and Alaska.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a practical matter, little will change for the whales — they’ll still be covered under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, she notes. And the \u003ca href=\"https://iwc.int/home\">International Whaling Commission’s\u003c/a> moratorium on hunting these huge ocean creatures, which was imposed in 1982, remains in effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Many of the day-to-day protections and activities will continue to occur,” Somma says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, officials have filed regulations to ensure that vessels around Hawaii and Alaska continue to maintain a safe distance from the whales.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Collisions with ships is a danger to the whales, and they face other threats, such as getting tangled up in fishing gear. The Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group, said \u003ca href=\"http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2016/humpback-whales-09-06-2016.html\">nearly 40 reports\u003c/a> of whales becoming entangled were recorded off the West Coast in the first half of this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Most+Humpback+Whales+Taken+Off+Endangered+Species+List&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In the course of a 17-year experiment on more than 1 million plants, scientists put future global warming to a real world test — growing California flowers and grasslands with extra heat, carbon dioxide and nitrogen to mimic a not-so-distant, hotter future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results, simulating a post-2050 world, aren’t pretty. And they contradict those who insist that because plants like carbon dioxide — the main heat-trapping gas spewed by the burning of fossil fuels — climate change isn’t so bad, and will result in a greener Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least in the California ecosystem, the plants that received extra carbon dioxide, as well as those that got extra warmth, didn’t grow more or get greener. They also didn’t remove the pollution and store more of it in the soil, said study author Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Plant growth tended to decline with rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This experiment really puts to bed the idea of a greener hypothesis where ecosystems save us from the implications of human-induced climate change,” Field said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, a team of international scientists released a study that looked at Earth from 1982 to 2009 and found it was greening, with a quarter to half the planet producing an increase in the growing season. Field said that earlier study is about trends the planet has already seen, but doesn’t say much about the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were able to use the experimental treatments to produce a ‘time machine’ allowing us to look at conditions we might encounter in the second half of the 21st century,” Field said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On ground outside Stanford’s campus, scientists tended 132 different plots of flowers and grass, each with thousands of plants on them. Some of them got 275 extra parts per million of carbon dioxide in addition to what’s already in the air, which was about 370 parts per million when the experiment started and is now more than 400. Others got an additional 3.6 degrees of heat (2 degrees Celsius), or more water, or more nitrogen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only the extra nitrogen — a byproduct of diesel engines and ammonia used as fertilizer — made plants greener.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Field, whose study appears Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, theorizes that there’s a limit to how much carbon dioxide plants can use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside scientists praised the long-running experiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This study clearly demonstrates that as temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, grassland ecosystems will likely not be able to tolerate the higher temperatures and increased drought stress,” Boston University biologist Richard Primack emailed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A limitation of the experiment was that it focused on one type of ecosystem. Similar research needs to be done in the Arctic tundra, boreal forests, tropical forests and other ecosystems, Primack said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not just plants that will suffer in a hotter world. Biologists have warned that about 20 percent of the world’s lizard species could go extinct by 2080 if current warming trends continue. In a separate study published in the journal, a team led by Clemson University found that the distribution of shade in a lizard’s surroundings matters in preventing overheating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For two consecutive summers, researchers used the New Mexico desert to study the behavior of spiny lizards by setting up different environments with varying amount of shade. Lizards were much better at regulating their body temperature when they had access to many evenly spaced small patches of shade than large swaths of shade far apart, researchers found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two studies “highlight how complex the responses of plants and animals can be to climate change,” said Camille Parmesan, a climate scientist at Plymouth University, who wasn’t part of either study.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the course of a 17-year experiment on more than 1 million plants, scientists put future global warming to a real world test — growing California flowers and grasslands with extra heat, carbon dioxide and nitrogen to mimic a not-so-distant, hotter future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results, simulating a post-2050 world, aren’t pretty. And they contradict those who insist that because plants like carbon dioxide — the main heat-trapping gas spewed by the burning of fossil fuels — climate change isn’t so bad, and will result in a greener Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At least in the California ecosystem, the plants that received extra carbon dioxide, as well as those that got extra warmth, didn’t grow more or get greener. They also didn’t remove the pollution and store more of it in the soil, said study author Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Plant growth tended to decline with rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This experiment really puts to bed the idea of a greener hypothesis where ecosystems save us from the implications of human-induced climate change,” Field said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, a team of international scientists released a study that looked at Earth from 1982 to 2009 and found it was greening, with a quarter to half the planet producing an increase in the growing season. Field said that earlier study is about trends the planet has already seen, but doesn’t say much about the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were able to use the experimental treatments to produce a ‘time machine’ allowing us to look at conditions we might encounter in the second half of the 21st century,” Field said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On ground outside Stanford’s campus, scientists tended 132 different plots of flowers and grass, each with thousands of plants on them. Some of them got 275 extra parts per million of carbon dioxide in addition to what’s already in the air, which was about 370 parts per million when the experiment started and is now more than 400. Others got an additional 3.6 degrees of heat (2 degrees Celsius), or more water, or more nitrogen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only the extra nitrogen — a byproduct of diesel engines and ammonia used as fertilizer — made plants greener.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Field, whose study appears Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, theorizes that there’s a limit to how much carbon dioxide plants can use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Outside scientists praised the long-running experiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This study clearly demonstrates that as temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, grassland ecosystems will likely not be able to tolerate the higher temperatures and increased drought stress,” Boston University biologist Richard Primack emailed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A limitation of the experiment was that it focused on one type of ecosystem. Similar research needs to be done in the Arctic tundra, boreal forests, tropical forests and other ecosystems, Primack said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not just plants that will suffer in a hotter world. Biologists have warned that about 20 percent of the world’s lizard species could go extinct by 2080 if current warming trends continue. In a separate study published in the journal, a team led by Clemson University found that the distribution of shade in a lizard’s surroundings matters in preventing overheating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For two consecutive summers, researchers used the New Mexico desert to study the behavior of spiny lizards by setting up different environments with varying amount of shade. Lizards were much better at regulating their body temperature when they had access to many evenly spaced small patches of shade than large swaths of shade far apart, researchers found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two studies “highlight how complex the responses of plants and animals can be to climate change,” said Camille Parmesan, a climate scientist at Plymouth University, who wasn’t part of either study.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]A deadly fungus that’s been devastating frog populations is still spreading across the globe. In California, the chytrid fungus has moved inexorably across the Sierra Nevada from west to east, leaving thousands of frogs dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Bay Area scientists are trying to turn the tide against the fungus with an experimental treatment, one that could matter to frogs worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re making a last-ditch effort to save the endangered mountain yellow-legged frog by immunizing it against chytrid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain yellow-legged frogs, found only in California’s alpine lakes, have been in steep decline due to the fungus as well as predation by non-native trout. More than 90 percent of the population has disappeared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"689\" height=\"389\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/-IXVcyCZVBg\" frameborder=\"1\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: right\">\u003cem>Video produced by Gabriela Quirós.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it hits, it’s within weeks that they’re just gone, just literally gone,” says Jessie Bushell, director of conservation at the San Francisco Zoo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bushell is part of an emergency search-and-rescue operation for the frogs. Like last summer, when she got up before dawn and drove five hours to meet a helicopter flying out of the Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘We’re staring at what could be the extinction of a significant fraction of the world’s amphibians.’\u003cbr>\n\u003ccite>Roland Knapp, UC Santa Barbara\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“This bright yellow helicopter comes landing down,” she says. “The doors fly open. The firefighters start unloading these large white coolers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coolers were holding hundreds of wiggling, green tadpoles, the sole survivors of a deadly outbreak at their remote alpine lake. Federal biologists had found dozens of frogs dying from chytrid fungus and\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>hoping to save the species, had collected their remaining young.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Priming Immunity\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bushell brought them to the San Francisco Zoo. Scientists there and at the Oakland Zoo are doing an experimental treatment on the frogs in the hope that they’ll survive when they return to the wild. The treatment was pioneered at UC Santa Barbara, where results have been encouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So what we do is we expose them to small amounts of this fungus,” Bushell says, pointing to more than 200 of the frogs, no longer tadpoles, in quarantined tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bushell is making the frogs sick in the hope of building their immunity to chytrid fungus, which attacks the frog’s skin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_959847\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1482px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-959847\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web.jpg\" alt=\"Mountain yellow-legged frogs get an experimental vaccination at the San Francisco Zoo.\" width=\"1482\" height=\"770\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web.jpg 1482w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-400x208.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-800x416.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-768x399.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-1440x748.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-1180x613.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-960x499.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1482px) 100vw, 1482px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mountain yellow-legged frogs get an experimental vaccination at the San Francisco Zoo. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The skin is a really important part of the frog,” she says. “They breathe through their skin underwater.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frogs also absorb key nutrients such as electrolytes through their skin. But when the fungus attacks it, the skin stops functioning normally. The frogs die before their immune systems can fight the fungus off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bushell is hoping a mild fungal infection will teach the frogs’ immune systems how to fight chytrid. She lets her frogs get sick, but before they get too close to dying, she gives them an anti-fungal treatment to clear up the infection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the frogs get chytrid again out in the wild, the idea is their immune systems will be trained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_959963\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-959963\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web.jpg\" alt=\"Roland Knapp releases a yellow-legged frog in a high alpine lake, south of Lake Tahoe.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Roland Knapp releases a yellow-legged frog in a high alpine lake south of Lake Tahoe. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Their bodies identify it and can already be primed to fight off that infection, at least to keep it under control because they’ve seen it before,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Back to the Wild\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some of the yellow-legged frogs, the big test has arrived. Bushell and a field crew hike up a rocky trail in the Desolation Wilderness, south of Lake Tahoe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their big backpacks are loaded with frogs, each in its own tiny Tupperware container.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a new frog home,” says Bushell, looking at a sapphire-blue lake, surrounded by pine trees and granite cliffs. “An oasis for frogs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nhttp://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2016/09/WEBYellowLeggedFrogsSommer.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But chytrid fungus is there, so their immunity will be tested. One-by-one, the team releases each frog on the water’s edge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like letting your kids go,” says Bushell. “Go! Be wild!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the best chance that we know how to give them,” says Roland Knapp, a biologist with UC Santa Barbara who has tracked frog die-offs across the Sierra as the chytrid wave has moved through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I saw the biggest one I’ve ever seen last summer,” he says. “Thousands of dying frogs. Carcasses of frogs all over the place. It was pretty rough to see.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That threat is why biologists are going to such lengths to save yellow-legged frogs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_959979\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-959979\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web.jpg\" alt=\"Mountain yellow-legged frog populations have declined by more than 90 percent.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1032\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-400x215.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-800x430.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-768x413.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-1440x774.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-1180x634.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-960x516.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mountain yellow-legged frog populations have declined by more than 90 percent. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It sometimes seems a little crazy,” Knapp says. “It’s a huge amount of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he says the early results are promising. This is the third summer the team has released vaccinated frogs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They seem to be surviving pretty well,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the immunized frogs survive the worst of the fungus outbreak, the mountain yellow-legged frogs may eventually be able to become resistant to it on their own, generation-after-generation, without human help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That means we have to figure out ways to keep these frogs on the landscape with the chytrid long enough that evolution can actually happen,” Knapp says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_959981\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-959981\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web.jpg\" alt=\"Jessie Bushell with a treated frog at the San Francisco Zoo.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1162\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-400x242.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-800x484.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-768x465.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-1440x872.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-1180x714.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-960x581.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jessie Bushell with a treated frog at the San Francisco Zoo. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The biggest hope, and the biggest question mark, is whether this research could lead to a treatment for other frog species. Some frogs don’t seem to be able to build immunity to chytrid like the yellow-legged frogs can.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have watched chytrid fungus spread across the globe at an alarming rate, driving 200 frog species to extinction. In Central America, scientists have brought some frog species into captivity to spare them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, that’s the only place they exist. And they don’t have much hope of going back to the wild unless some kind of chytrid treatment succeeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re staring at what could be the extinction of a significant fraction of the world’s amphibians,” Knapp says. “So if we can do something to reverse that, even for a few species here and there, we should try to do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not hopeless, scientists say, but it could depend in large part on the survival of one California frog.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A deadly fungus that’s been devastating frog populations is still spreading across the globe. In California, the chytrid fungus has moved inexorably across the Sierra Nevada from west to east, leaving thousands of frogs dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Bay Area scientists are trying to turn the tide against the fungus with an experimental treatment, one that could matter to frogs worldwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re making a last-ditch effort to save the endangered mountain yellow-legged frog by immunizing it against chytrid.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mountain yellow-legged frogs, found only in California’s alpine lakes, have been in steep decline due to the fungus as well as predation by non-native trout. More than 90 percent of the population has disappeared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"689\" height=\"389\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/-IXVcyCZVBg\" frameborder=\"1\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: right\">\u003cem>Video produced by Gabriela Quirós.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When it hits, it’s within weeks that they’re just gone, just literally gone,” says Jessie Bushell, director of conservation at the San Francisco Zoo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bushell is part of an emergency search-and-rescue operation for the frogs. Like last summer, when she got up before dawn and drove five hours to meet a helicopter flying out of the Sierra Nevada.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘We’re staring at what could be the extinction of a significant fraction of the world’s amphibians.’\u003cbr>\n\u003ccite>Roland Knapp, UC Santa Barbara\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“This bright yellow helicopter comes landing down,” she says. “The doors fly open. The firefighters start unloading these large white coolers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coolers were holding hundreds of wiggling, green tadpoles, the sole survivors of a deadly outbreak at their remote alpine lake. Federal biologists had found dozens of frogs dying from chytrid fungus and\u003cstrong>, \u003c/strong>hoping to save the species, had collected their remaining young.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Priming Immunity\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bushell brought them to the San Francisco Zoo. Scientists there and at the Oakland Zoo are doing an experimental treatment on the frogs in the hope that they’ll survive when they return to the wild. The treatment was pioneered at UC Santa Barbara, where results have been encouraging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So what we do is we expose them to small amounts of this fungus,” Bushell says, pointing to more than 200 of the frogs, no longer tadpoles, in quarantined tanks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bushell is making the frogs sick in the hope of building their immunity to chytrid fungus, which attacks the frog’s skin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_959847\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1482px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-959847\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web.jpg\" alt=\"Mountain yellow-legged frogs get an experimental vaccination at the San Francisco Zoo.\" width=\"1482\" height=\"770\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web.jpg 1482w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-400x208.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-800x416.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-768x399.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-1440x748.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-1180x613.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs4-web-960x499.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1482px) 100vw, 1482px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mountain yellow-legged frogs get an experimental vaccination at the San Francisco Zoo. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The skin is a really important part of the frog,” she says. “They breathe through their skin underwater.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frogs also absorb key nutrients such as electrolytes through their skin. But when the fungus attacks it, the skin stops functioning normally. The frogs die before their immune systems can fight the fungus off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bushell is hoping a mild fungal infection will teach the frogs’ immune systems how to fight chytrid. She lets her frogs get sick, but before they get too close to dying, she gives them an anti-fungal treatment to clear up the infection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the frogs get chytrid again out in the wild, the idea is their immune systems will be trained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_959963\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-959963\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web.jpg\" alt=\"Roland Knapp releases a yellow-legged frog in a high alpine lake, south of Lake Tahoe.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frogs1-web-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Roland Knapp releases a yellow-legged frog in a high alpine lake south of Lake Tahoe. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Their bodies identify it and can already be primed to fight off that infection, at least to keep it under control because they’ve seen it before,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Back to the Wild\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some of the yellow-legged frogs, the big test has arrived. Bushell and a field crew hike up a rocky trail in the Desolation Wilderness, south of Lake Tahoe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their big backpacks are loaded with frogs, each in its own tiny Tupperware container.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a new frog home,” says Bushell, looking at a sapphire-blue lake, surrounded by pine trees and granite cliffs. “An oasis for frogs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the Story:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>But chytrid fungus is there, so their immunity will be tested. One-by-one, the team releases each frog on the water’s edge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s like letting your kids go,” says Bushell. “Go! Be wild!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the best chance that we know how to give them,” says Roland Knapp, a biologist with UC Santa Barbara who has tracked frog die-offs across the Sierra as the chytrid wave has moved through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I saw the biggest one I’ve ever seen last summer,” he says. “Thousands of dying frogs. Carcasses of frogs all over the place. It was pretty rough to see.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That threat is why biologists are going to such lengths to save yellow-legged frogs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_959979\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-959979\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web.jpg\" alt=\"Mountain yellow-legged frog populations have declined by more than 90 percent.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1032\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-400x215.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-800x430.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-768x413.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-1440x774.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-1180x634.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog3-web-960x516.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mountain yellow-legged frog populations have declined by more than 90 percent. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“It sometimes seems a little crazy,” Knapp says. “It’s a huge amount of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he says the early results are promising. This is the third summer the team has released vaccinated frogs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They seem to be surviving pretty well,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the immunized frogs survive the worst of the fungus outbreak, the mountain yellow-legged frogs may eventually be able to become resistant to it on their own, generation-after-generation, without human help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That means we have to figure out ways to keep these frogs on the landscape with the chytrid long enough that evolution can actually happen,” Knapp says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_959981\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-959981\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web.jpg\" alt=\"Jessie Bushell with a treated frog at the San Francisco Zoo.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1162\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-400x242.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-800x484.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-768x465.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-1440x872.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-1180x714.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/frog2-web-960x581.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jessie Bushell with a treated frog at the San Francisco Zoo. \u003ccite>(Lauren Sommer/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The biggest hope, and the biggest question mark, is whether this research could lead to a treatment for other frog species. Some frogs don’t seem to be able to build immunity to chytrid like the yellow-legged frogs can.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists have watched chytrid fungus spread across the globe at an alarming rate, driving 200 frog species to extinction. In Central America, scientists have brought some frog species into captivity to spare them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, that’s the only place they exist. And they don’t have much hope of going back to the wild unless some kind of chytrid treatment succeeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re staring at what could be the extinction of a significant fraction of the world’s amphibians,” Knapp says. “So if we can do something to reverse that, even for a few species here and there, we should try to do that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not hopeless, scientists say, but it could depend in large part on the survival of one California frog.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Minion-Like 'Larva Bots' Roam the Seas, Uncovering Secrets",
"headTitle": "Minion-Like ‘Larva Bots’ Roam the Seas, Uncovering Secrets | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Grant Susner leans over the edge of a boat in Bodega Bay, stretches his arm toward the waves and releases “Bipinnaria” into the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bipinnaria — bright yellow against the deep blue surface — begins floating away from the boat, bobbing from side to side in the choppy water. Susner is principle marine electronics technician at the \u003ca href=\"http://bml.ucdavis.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory \u003c/a>and his natural habitat is the marine lab’s main research vessel, the \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/RV-Mussel-Point-UC-Davis-Bodega-Marine-Laboratory-123771934355725/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mussel Point\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon Bipinnaria is joined by its comrades: Hippolyte, Velella, Veliger and Zoea. They drift away swaying in synchrony, like soldiers who’ve decided to waddle instead of march.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These small robots are serving the cause of marine ecology. Their names give clue to their mission — that is, if you majored in marine biology. Each moniker is the name of the free-swimming larval stage of a marine animal. After hatching from eggs, certain sea stars spend their early days as bipinnaria. Some shrimp have a Hippolyte phase (named for an Amazonian queen). Velella are jellyfish. Veliger, clams and sea snails. Zoea are crab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The job of these robots is to behave as much as possible like marine larvae themselves, albeit ones that can transmit their location, send email and take cues from curious researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Splashing Conventional Wisdom\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steven Morgan, a marine ecologist at UC Davis, uses these robots to learn about how marine larvae move, where they are likely to go, how they return to the shore, and how larvae might fare in the face of intensifying ocean acidification and rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You see a tiny larvae, and it’s out [in the ocean] developing for weeks and months — how is it able to make its way back on shore?” asks Morgan. “People around the world have been trying to answer this question for decades.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether you’re into fishing for salmon or spotting sea anemones while exploring tidepools, the fate of marine larvae matters to you. (They also happen to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.pinterest.com/pin/338544096960155420/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">beautiful\u003c/a>, like microscopic architectural gems.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_964781\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-964781\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751.jpg\" alt='Steven Morgan, looking like a proud father with some of his larva bot \"family,\" soon to expand to 50 bots.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steven Morgan, looking like a proud father with some of his larva bot “family,” soon to expand to 50 bots. \u003ccite>(Maggie Carson Jurow)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Understanding how larvae disperse is important for managing fisheries, designing and running marine reserves, and controlling invasive species. But modeling their dispersal has been difficult before now. Prior to the development of these “ABLE” drifters, (Autonomous Behaving Lagrangian Explorers), it was essentially impossible to predict where larvae would travel. But evidence has been mounting that larvae aren’t just aimless drifters; they control their movements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/robot-larvae-deployed-sea/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">early surprising results\u003c/a> has been how close to shore most marine larvae linger. Rather than dispersing into the open ocean, most species stay within a mile of shore. They move up and down in the water column to return to shore on currents they use like an underwater subway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan believes larvae are pre-programmed to return to shore, using environmental cues and subsurface currents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are a lot of skeptics out there that microscopic larvae have any control over where they’re going in this wild and woolly ocean of ours,” he says. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Experiments with his larva bot flotilla will, he hopes, provide the needed evidence to change minds.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Results like this could reinforce the importance of keeping coastal waters \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2016-205\">free of pollution\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has made a big investment in a network of marine protected areas,” says Tom Maloney. As executive director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.oceansciencetrust.org/\">Ocean Science Trust\u003c/a>, Maloney has a keen interest in Morgan’s work. His organization, a non-profit created by the state of California to provide science-based management advice, is trying to understand how changes in the climate will change conditions in the oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to understand the full life cycle for this important suite of invertebrates [and fish],” he says. “It’ll help us understand if our protected areas are achieving the results we want.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Come Get Me\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it is time for Bipinnaria to return to the boat, it surfaces, communicates its coordinates via a satellite relay and sends Susner an email. The message: Here I am. Come get me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a little scouting, boat maneuvering and some skillful scooping with a fish net, all five bots are safely back in the boat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lab currently has a small navy of 25 “larva bots.” Soon they’ll double that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strength of the larva bots — although they are far larger than the creatures they mimic — is that they move with the currents, as larvae do, and they can be programmed to mimic certain behaviors. They can move up or down in the water column at the same speed as larvae, maintain buoyancy, and respond to light, temperature, salinity or pressure in the same way larvae might.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_964780\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-964780\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730.jpg\" alt=\"The larva bot housings are made from recycled fire extinguishers. Fully loaded with electronics, they cost about $1,200 each.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The larva bot housings are made from recycled fire extinguishers. Fully loaded with electronics, they cost about $1,200 each. \u003ccite>(Maggie Carson Jurow)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The bots are built to be “simple and cheap.” Even so, fully loaded with LEDs, trackers, GPS and satellite communicators, and sensors to log salinity, temperature, light, depth and swimming speed, the price tag for each is about $1,200. The housings are made from expired fire extinguisher canisters, donated by fire departments. The ‘petals’ forming a skirt around their waste, which spin to record vertical velocity, were cut by hand. For scientific equipment, they’re surprisingly cute. Susner and Morgan show off their capabilities in the lab with obvious affection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“T\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">hese things are wonderfully built,” Susner says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After some trial and error in the design data, collection began in earnest last year. (Several years ago, before the retrieval mechanisms were perfected, three bots were lost to the waves). With the arrival of 25 more bots in the coming weeks, data collection is about to go into overdrive.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Grant Susner leans over the edge of a boat in Bodega Bay, stretches his arm toward the waves and releases “Bipinnaria” into the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bipinnaria — bright yellow against the deep blue surface — begins floating away from the boat, bobbing from side to side in the choppy water. Susner is principle marine electronics technician at the \u003ca href=\"http://bml.ucdavis.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory \u003c/a>and his natural habitat is the marine lab’s main research vessel, the \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/RV-Mussel-Point-UC-Davis-Bodega-Marine-Laboratory-123771934355725/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mussel Point\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Soon Bipinnaria is joined by its comrades: Hippolyte, Velella, Veliger and Zoea. They drift away swaying in synchrony, like soldiers who’ve decided to waddle instead of march.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These small robots are serving the cause of marine ecology. Their names give clue to their mission — that is, if you majored in marine biology. Each moniker is the name of the free-swimming larval stage of a marine animal. After hatching from eggs, certain sea stars spend their early days as bipinnaria. Some shrimp have a Hippolyte phase (named for an Amazonian queen). Velella are jellyfish. Veliger, clams and sea snails. Zoea are crab.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The job of these robots is to behave as much as possible like marine larvae themselves, albeit ones that can transmit their location, send email and take cues from curious researchers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Splashing Conventional Wisdom\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steven Morgan, a marine ecologist at UC Davis, uses these robots to learn about how marine larvae move, where they are likely to go, how they return to the shore, and how larvae might fare in the face of intensifying ocean acidification and rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You see a tiny larvae, and it’s out [in the ocean] developing for weeks and months — how is it able to make its way back on shore?” asks Morgan. “People around the world have been trying to answer this question for decades.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whether you’re into fishing for salmon or spotting sea anemones while exploring tidepools, the fate of marine larvae matters to you. (They also happen to be \u003ca href=\"https://www.pinterest.com/pin/338544096960155420/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">beautiful\u003c/a>, like microscopic architectural gems.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_964781\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-964781\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751.jpg\" alt='Steven Morgan, looking like a proud father with some of his larva bot \"family,\" soon to expand to 50 bots.' width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3751-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Steven Morgan, looking like a proud father with some of his larva bot “family,” soon to expand to 50 bots. \u003ccite>(Maggie Carson Jurow)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Understanding how larvae disperse is important for managing fisheries, designing and running marine reserves, and controlling invasive species. But modeling their dispersal has been difficult before now. Prior to the development of these “ABLE” drifters, (Autonomous Behaving Lagrangian Explorers), it was essentially impossible to predict where larvae would travel. But evidence has been mounting that larvae aren’t just aimless drifters; they control their movements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/robot-larvae-deployed-sea/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">early surprising results\u003c/a> has been how close to shore most marine larvae linger. Rather than dispersing into the open ocean, most species stay within a mile of shore. They move up and down in the water column to return to shore on currents they use like an underwater subway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Morgan believes larvae are pre-programmed to return to shore, using environmental cues and subsurface currents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are a lot of skeptics out there that microscopic larvae have any control over where they’re going in this wild and woolly ocean of ours,” he says. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Experiments with his larva bot flotilla will, he hopes, provide the needed evidence to change minds.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Results like this could reinforce the importance of keeping coastal waters \u003ca href=\"http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2016-205\">free of pollution\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has made a big investment in a network of marine protected areas,” says Tom Maloney. As executive director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.oceansciencetrust.org/\">Ocean Science Trust\u003c/a>, Maloney has a keen interest in Morgan’s work. His organization, a non-profit created by the state of California to provide science-based management advice, is trying to understand how changes in the climate will change conditions in the oceans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to understand the full life cycle for this important suite of invertebrates [and fish],” he says. “It’ll help us understand if our protected areas are achieving the results we want.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Come Get Me\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it is time for Bipinnaria to return to the boat, it surfaces, communicates its coordinates via a satellite relay and sends Susner an email. The message: Here I am. Come get me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After a little scouting, boat maneuvering and some skillful scooping with a fish net, all five bots are safely back in the boat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lab currently has a small navy of 25 “larva bots.” Soon they’ll double that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The strength of the larva bots — although they are far larger than the creatures they mimic — is that they move with the currents, as larvae do, and they can be programmed to mimic certain behaviors. They can move up or down in the water column at the same speed as larvae, maintain buoyancy, and respond to light, temperature, salinity or pressure in the same way larvae might.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_964780\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-964780\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730.jpg\" alt=\"The larva bot housings are made from recycled fire extinguishers. Fully loaded with electronics, they cost about $1,200 each.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/npr-3730-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The larva bot housings are made from recycled fire extinguishers. Fully loaded with electronics, they cost about $1,200 each. \u003ccite>(Maggie Carson Jurow)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The bots are built to be “simple and cheap.” Even so, fully loaded with LEDs, trackers, GPS and satellite communicators, and sensors to log salinity, temperature, light, depth and swimming speed, the price tag for each is about $1,200. The housings are made from expired fire extinguisher canisters, donated by fire departments. The ‘petals’ forming a skirt around their waste, which spin to record vertical velocity, were cut by hand. For scientific equipment, they’re surprisingly cute. Susner and Morgan show off their capabilities in the lab with obvious affection.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“T\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">hese things are wonderfully built,” Susner says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After some trial and error in the design data, collection began in earnest last year. (Several years ago, before the retrieval mechanisms were perfected, three bots were lost to the waves). With the arrival of 25 more bots in the coming weeks, data collection is about to go into overdrive.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "MAP: Where Will Animals Migrate as Climate Changes?",
"headTitle": "MAP: Where Will Animals Migrate as Climate Changes? | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The natural world is under siege by climate change. Rising temperatures are pushing plants and animals outside their current range. To \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wildlife-climate-change-adaptation-20436\">keep pace with climate change\u003c/a>, species will need a path to follow northward or up in elevation, minimally interrupted by human development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://maps.tnc.org/migrations-in-motion/#4/19.00/-78.00\">This map\u003c/a> shows that path (well, paths actually) in the most beautiful way possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It uses the \u003ca href=\"https://earth.nullschool.net/\">dreamy Earth wind map\u003c/a> for inspiration. But rather than using temperature, wind and sea level pressure data, Dan Majka, a web developer at The Nature Conservancy, used data from two studies to show all the feasible paths that mammals, birds and amphibians can use to find their way to a more suitable climate as their habitat becomes too hot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The map doesn’t show specific species (you’re not going to be able to find the grizzly bear path, for example), but rather shows the general patterns scientists expect animals to follow as the world warms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_976943\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-976943\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/AmazonConnected.gif\" alt=\"Amphibians — represented by yellow lines — are likely to migrate westward out of the Amazon as the world warms. \" width=\"720\" height=\"375\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amphibians — represented by yellow lines — are likely to migrate westward out of the Amazon as the world warms. \u003ccite>(The Nature Conservancy)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The visualization is stunning, but also hopeful. It shows that despite the challenges of climate change and increased urbanization, there are still pathways for the natural world to deal with those threats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zoomed out, it’s clear that the Appalachians are a crucial funnel for climate-induced migration. They’re smack dab in one of the most developed parts of the country and represent some of the last wild land in the eastern U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Much of the land outside of the mountain range is developed or in agriculture,” \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.org/science-in-action/our-scientists/brad-mcrae.xml\">Brad McRae\u003c/a>, an ecologist with the Nature Conservancy, said. “So as species ranges shift north, the Appalachians are providing some of the least-developed routes for movement. They also provide some climate relief due to their high elevation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those high elevation lands will take on added importance and zooming in on the map only reinforces that reality. In South America, there’s a bright swath of yellow moving west out of the Amazon basin to higher elevations. In the Catskills of upstate New York, it’s the same story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_976946\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-976946\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/CatskillsMigrationTNC.gif\" alt=\"New York City is a relatively quiet spot on the climate migration corridor but the Catskills located northwest of the city will be an important climate migration pathway for wildlife. \" width=\"640\" height=\"331\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">New York City is a relatively quiet spot on the climate migration corridor but the Catskills located northwest of the city will be an important climate migration pathway for wildlife. \u003ccite>(The Nature Conservancy)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Beyond high elevations, zooming in anywhere on the map gives a glimpse into not just the geography of where and how species will move to beat the heat, but where humans live, work and grow things. New York may be the most populous city in the U.S. but it’s a veritable ghost town when it comes to animal migrations spurred by rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wildlife-climate-change-adaptation-20436\">one of the studies\u003c/a> on which the map is based, only 2 percent of natural areas east of the Mississippi are connected in a way that allows species to migrate north or up in elevation. Because of the dismal state of connectivity, a small increase in conserved land could provide major benefits in the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://reports.climatecentral.org/nps/overview/\">National Parks\u003c/a> are the lynch pins of wild land out West and could be part of a \u003ca href=\"http://reports.climatecentral.org/nps/future/\">future solution\u003c/a> in the East to ensure species can handle climate change. The recently dedicated Maine North Woods National Monument is a step in that direction, but more land will be needed if plants and animals are going to find new homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "These maps show the migration pathways mammals (pink), birds (blue) and amphibians (yellow) may follow to escape rising heat.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The natural world is under siege by climate change. Rising temperatures are pushing plants and animals outside their current range. To \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wildlife-climate-change-adaptation-20436\">keep pace with climate change\u003c/a>, species will need a path to follow northward or up in elevation, minimally interrupted by human development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://maps.tnc.org/migrations-in-motion/#4/19.00/-78.00\">This map\u003c/a> shows that path (well, paths actually) in the most beautiful way possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It uses the \u003ca href=\"https://earth.nullschool.net/\">dreamy Earth wind map\u003c/a> for inspiration. But rather than using temperature, wind and sea level pressure data, Dan Majka, a web developer at The Nature Conservancy, used data from two studies to show all the feasible paths that mammals, birds and amphibians can use to find their way to a more suitable climate as their habitat becomes too hot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The map doesn’t show specific species (you’re not going to be able to find the grizzly bear path, for example), but rather shows the general patterns scientists expect animals to follow as the world warms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_976943\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-976943\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/AmazonConnected.gif\" alt=\"Amphibians — represented by yellow lines — are likely to migrate westward out of the Amazon as the world warms. \" width=\"720\" height=\"375\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amphibians — represented by yellow lines — are likely to migrate westward out of the Amazon as the world warms. \u003ccite>(The Nature Conservancy)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The visualization is stunning, but also hopeful. It shows that despite the challenges of climate change and increased urbanization, there are still pathways for the natural world to deal with those threats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zoomed out, it’s clear that the Appalachians are a crucial funnel for climate-induced migration. They’re smack dab in one of the most developed parts of the country and represent some of the last wild land in the eastern U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Much of the land outside of the mountain range is developed or in agriculture,” \u003ca href=\"http://www.nature.org/science-in-action/our-scientists/brad-mcrae.xml\">Brad McRae\u003c/a>, an ecologist with the Nature Conservancy, said. “So as species ranges shift north, the Appalachians are providing some of the least-developed routes for movement. They also provide some climate relief due to their high elevation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those high elevation lands will take on added importance and zooming in on the map only reinforces that reality. In South America, there’s a bright swath of yellow moving west out of the Amazon basin to higher elevations. In the Catskills of upstate New York, it’s the same story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_976946\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-976946\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/09/CatskillsMigrationTNC.gif\" alt=\"New York City is a relatively quiet spot on the climate migration corridor but the Catskills located northwest of the city will be an important climate migration pathway for wildlife. \" width=\"640\" height=\"331\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">New York City is a relatively quiet spot on the climate migration corridor but the Catskills located northwest of the city will be an important climate migration pathway for wildlife. \u003ccite>(The Nature Conservancy)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Beyond high elevations, zooming in anywhere on the map gives a glimpse into not just the geography of where and how species will move to beat the heat, but where humans live, work and grow things. New York may be the most populous city in the U.S. but it’s a veritable ghost town when it comes to animal migrations spurred by rising temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/wildlife-climate-change-adaptation-20436\">one of the studies\u003c/a> on which the map is based, only 2 percent of natural areas east of the Mississippi are connected in a way that allows species to migrate north or up in elevation. Because of the dismal state of connectivity, a small increase in conserved land could provide major benefits in the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://reports.climatecentral.org/nps/overview/\">National Parks\u003c/a> are the lynch pins of wild land out West and could be part of a \u003ca href=\"http://reports.climatecentral.org/nps/future/\">future solution\u003c/a> in the East to ensure species can handle climate change. The recently dedicated Maine North Woods National Monument is a step in that direction, but more land will be needed if plants and animals are going to find new homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a> is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "In Tahoe, Obama Underscores Climate Threats, Touts Conservation Funding",
"headTitle": "In Tahoe, Obama Underscores Climate Threats, Touts Conservation Funding | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>President Obama made his first-ever visit to Lake Tahoe on Wednesday to stress the importance of conservation efforts for the lake and the nation at large in the face of climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/280937235″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenges of conservation and combating climate change are connected — they’re linked,” Obama told a gathering at the 20th annual \u003ca href=\"http://tahoesouth.com/events/annual-lake-tahoe-summit/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lake Tahoe Summit\u003c/a>, which brings together political leaders and scientists to hash out major environmental issues facing the lake. Impacts from the changing climate, runoff, erosion, wildfires, and invasive species have all threatened Lake Tahoe’s legendary clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just as this space is sacred to Native Americans, it should be sacred to all Americans,” he told the crowd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why we’re here, to protect this special, pristine place, to keep these waters crystal clear, the keep the air as pure as the heavens,” said Obama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is really nice,” said the president with seemingly genuine delight, after laying eyes on the Tahoe Basin for the first time. “I will be coming here more often.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obama’s admiration for the scenery served to underscore the risks he outlined that climate change and the drought pose to the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A single wildfire in a dangerously flammable Lake Tahoe Basin could cause enough erosion to erase decades of progress when it comes to water quality,” says Obama. “A changing climate threatens even the best conservation efforts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1512529\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1632px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1512529\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe.jpg\" alt=\"Lake Tahoe just before sunrise.\" width=\"1632\" height=\"1224\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe.jpg 1632w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-960x720.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-240x180.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-375x281.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1632px) 100vw, 1632px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lake Tahoe just before sunrise. \u003ccite>(Lindsey Hoshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Obama used the event to announce more than $33 million in funding for ecosystem restoration and renewable energy projects. The largest chunk of new money — $29.5 million — will go toward stemming forest fires by clearing potential fuels near Lake Tahoe. A recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.fs.fed.us/news/releases/forest-service-survey-finds-record-66-million-dead-trees-southern-sierra-nevada\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">U.S. Forest Service report\u003c/a> found more than 60 million trees in the Sierra Nevada either dead or dying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The funding comes at a crucial time for Lake Tahoe, which faces multiple threats despite $1.8 billion in federal, state, and local money having been funneled into protective measures over the past two decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warming temperatures in the region have meant more precipitation falling as rain instead of snow, which creates more runoff into the lake. Warmer temperatures also increase the surface water temperature; a recent \u003ca href=\"http://terc.ucdavis.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UC Davis report \u003c/a>found that the lake is warming faster than ever recorded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although California Senator Dianne Feinstein has urged Congress since 2011 to approve more money under the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act, nothing has materialized. Hence, most of Obama’s environmental conservation efforts have come through executive action.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘A changing climate threatens even the best conservation efforts.’\u003ccite>President Barack Obama\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>During his speech, Obama also announced a package of public and private initiatives aimed at restoring the withering Salton Sea and boosting geothermal energy development in the Southern California deserts. Geothermal plants tap the natural heat deep below the Earth’s surface to generate electrical power. While California is still home to the nation’s largest geothermal operation, development in the state has stalled in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The president said the federal government will work harder to help develop geothermal energy in the southern deserts. The Department of Energy is investigating ways that the Imperial Valley could produce between 100 to 250 megawatts of new geothermal energy while protecting wildlife habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government will also put $29 million into two geothermal research projects run by the \u003ca href=\"http://energy.gov/eere/forge/sandia-national-laboratories-fallon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories, Fallon\u003c/a> in Nevada and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.usu.edu/campuses/page/milford/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">University of Utah\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the administration pledged funding for wildfire prevention and renewable energy, much of the president’s speech focused on private investments.[contextly_sidebar id=”CLtze1ldR9e4PnYovsqnrijpsSZOdmkP”]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Private sources including the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation are part of a new $10 million initiative to restore the Salton Sea, which Senator Barbara Boxer has described as being “at high risk of turning into a public health emergency.” As the lake shrinks from lack of a natural water supply, decaying organic matter releases hydrogen sulfide, which causes air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The appearance is Obama’s first to the annual Tahoe summit, and the first for any sitting president since President Bill Clinton spoke at the inaugural event in 1997.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obama has been on environmental roll lately. Earlier in the summer he visited Yosemite National Park as part of the park service’s centennial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week he established the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/kaww/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument\u003c/a> in north-central Maine and expanded the \u003ca href=\"http://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov/\">Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument\u003c/a>, creating the world’s largest marine protected area off the coast of Hawaii.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After his talk today he’ll travel to Midway Atoll to discuss the importance of Papahānaumokuākea and of protecting our national treasures in the face of climate change.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>President Obama made his first-ever visit to Lake Tahoe on Wednesday to stress the importance of conservation efforts for the lake and the nation at large in the face of climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='”100%”' height='”166″'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/280937235″&visual=true&”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false”'\n title='”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/280937235″'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The challenges of conservation and combating climate change are connected — they’re linked,” Obama told a gathering at the 20th annual \u003ca href=\"http://tahoesouth.com/events/annual-lake-tahoe-summit/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lake Tahoe Summit\u003c/a>, which brings together political leaders and scientists to hash out major environmental issues facing the lake. Impacts from the changing climate, runoff, erosion, wildfires, and invasive species have all threatened Lake Tahoe’s legendary clarity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just as this space is sacred to Native Americans, it should be sacred to all Americans,” he told the crowd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s why we’re here, to protect this special, pristine place, to keep these waters crystal clear, the keep the air as pure as the heavens,” said Obama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is really nice,” said the president with seemingly genuine delight, after laying eyes on the Tahoe Basin for the first time. “I will be coming here more often.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obama’s admiration for the scenery served to underscore the risks he outlined that climate change and the drought pose to the region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A single wildfire in a dangerously flammable Lake Tahoe Basin could cause enough erosion to erase decades of progress when it comes to water quality,” says Obama. “A changing climate threatens even the best conservation efforts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1512529\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1632px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1512529\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe.jpg\" alt=\"Lake Tahoe just before sunrise.\" width=\"1632\" height=\"1224\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe.jpg 1632w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-1180x885.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-960x720.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-240x180.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-375x281.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2017/03/Lake_Tahoe-520x390.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1632px) 100vw, 1632px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lake Tahoe just before sunrise. \u003ccite>(Lindsey Hoshaw/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Obama used the event to announce more than $33 million in funding for ecosystem restoration and renewable energy projects. The largest chunk of new money — $29.5 million — will go toward stemming forest fires by clearing potential fuels near Lake Tahoe. A recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.fs.fed.us/news/releases/forest-service-survey-finds-record-66-million-dead-trees-southern-sierra-nevada\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">U.S. Forest Service report\u003c/a> found more than 60 million trees in the Sierra Nevada either dead or dying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The funding comes at a crucial time for Lake Tahoe, which faces multiple threats despite $1.8 billion in federal, state, and local money having been funneled into protective measures over the past two decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warming temperatures in the region have meant more precipitation falling as rain instead of snow, which creates more runoff into the lake. Warmer temperatures also increase the surface water temperature; a recent \u003ca href=\"http://terc.ucdavis.edu/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UC Davis report \u003c/a>found that the lake is warming faster than ever recorded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although California Senator Dianne Feinstein has urged Congress since 2011 to approve more money under the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act, nothing has materialized. Hence, most of Obama’s environmental conservation efforts have come through executive action.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘A changing climate threatens even the best conservation efforts.’\u003ccite>President Barack Obama\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>During his speech, Obama also announced a package of public and private initiatives aimed at restoring the withering Salton Sea and boosting geothermal energy development in the Southern California deserts. Geothermal plants tap the natural heat deep below the Earth’s surface to generate electrical power. While California is still home to the nation’s largest geothermal operation, development in the state has stalled in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The president said the federal government will work harder to help develop geothermal energy in the southern deserts. The Department of Energy is investigating ways that the Imperial Valley could produce between 100 to 250 megawatts of new geothermal energy while protecting wildlife habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government will also put $29 million into two geothermal research projects run by the \u003ca href=\"http://energy.gov/eere/forge/sandia-national-laboratories-fallon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories, Fallon\u003c/a> in Nevada and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.usu.edu/campuses/page/milford/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">University of Utah\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although the administration pledged funding for wildfire prevention and renewable energy, much of the president’s speech focused on private investments.\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Private sources including the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation are part of a new $10 million initiative to restore the Salton Sea, which Senator Barbara Boxer has described as being “at high risk of turning into a public health emergency.” As the lake shrinks from lack of a natural water supply, decaying organic matter releases hydrogen sulfide, which causes air pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The appearance is Obama’s first to the annual Tahoe summit, and the first for any sitting president since President Bill Clinton spoke at the inaugural event in 1997.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obama has been on environmental roll lately. Earlier in the summer he visited Yosemite National Park as part of the park service’s centennial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week he established the \u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/kaww/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument\u003c/a> in north-central Maine and expanded the \u003ca href=\"http://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov/\">Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument\u003c/a>, creating the world’s largest marine protected area off the coast of Hawaii.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After his talk today he’ll travel to Midway Atoll to discuss the importance of Papahānaumokuākea and of protecting our national treasures in the face of climate change.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Landscaping for Drought Could Make Warm Nights Cooler",
"headTitle": "Landscaping for Drought Could Make Warm Nights Cooler | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>As drought-stricken residents of Los Angeles’s hottest neighborhoods replace thirsty lawns with native plants, pavers and bare soil, new research has shown how their local climates could begin tipping back in the direction of their desert-like origins.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Nighttime lows help people recover daily even as heat waves persist.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-heat-wave-temperature-records-los-angeles-20160619-snap-story.html\">region beset this year\u003c/a> by drought and powerful heat waves, the widespread adoption of drought-proof landscaping is expected to bring warmer days — and much cooler nights. Overall, experts say the changes would help to protect residents from heat waves, which are being made worse by global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California, naturally prone to drought, is enduring the fifth year of a historically bad one. Droughts are projected to intensify in California as temperatures rise, \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/california-snowpack-returns-fears-future-20166\">reducing mountain snowpacks\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-bully-california-drought-19354\">soil moisture\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/california-drought-heatwave-and-warming-20513\">potentially altering weather patterns\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To cut water use, utilities and agencies have been helping Californians swap out their lawns for drought-hardy native landscapes. The L.A. Department of Water and Power says more than 24,000 of its water customers have worked to make the switch since 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can see the beginnings of some real change in landscaping practices,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.environment.ucla.edu/people/alex-hall\">Alex Hall\u003c/a>, a professor at UCLA who studies regional and global climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Done at a large enough scale, University of Southern California research \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL069658/abstract\">published in Geographical Research Letters\u003c/a> this month shows how the landscaping changes could affect the weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_959261\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/temps.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-959261\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/temps.png\" alt=\"Summertime temperatures in Los Angeles since the 1940s.\" width=\"720\" height=\"424\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/temps.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/temps-400x236.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Summertime temperatures in Los Angeles since the 1940s. \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Worsening heat waves are among the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-heat-climate-change-19641\">clearest and deadliest effects\u003c/a> of climate change. The research focused on July temperatures, when heat waves in southern California can be oppressive, taking their heaviest tolls on the elderly, the sick and the poor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were interested in understanding these impacts on a summer month,” said \u003ca href=\"http://cee.usc.edu/faculty-staff/faculty-directory/georgeban-weiss.htm\">George Ban-Weiss\u003c/a>, who researches relationships between local and global climate and who led the new study. “One of our concerns is the health consequences of extreme heat, so we wanted to be sure to study a hot baseline period.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hotter Days, But Much Cooler Nights\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using models, Ban-Weiss and a colleague found that replacing lawns and grassy parks with native bushes and other drought-hardy landscapes would increase daytime temperatures throughout the metropolitan area by 1.3°F on average. That’s largely because irrigation water acts like sweat, cooling down landscapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study helps to inform a ‘what if’ thought experiment, in which a future L.A. morphs back toward its original state, free of irrigation, driven by worsening Western droughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The findings may also be relevant to other cities where soils are wettened during summer more by sprinklers and hoses than by rainfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”pwCrebyEW6F5MuCRM6WDVi6bVHjjmJKt”]In the suburban San Fernando Valley, where temperatures are among the highest, and where the natural environment was described in the 1880s as resembling \u003ca href=\"http://www.boomcalifornia.com/2013/10/myth-of-a-desert-metropolis/\">that of a desert\u003c/a>, daytime temperatures were projected to rise the most — by 3.4°F.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would seem to be bad news. Greenhouse gas pollution has warmed the planet’s surface \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/world-flirts-with-1.5C-threshold-20260\">nearly 2°F\u003c/a> on average, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/west-coast-warming-natural-variability-18067\">natural weather cycles\u003c/a> have caused the West to warm faster than most other places in recent decades. Compounding the problem is the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/urban-heat-islands-threaten-us-health-17919\">urban heat island effect\u003c/a>, with concrete causing L.A. and other cities to warm faster than rural regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was a nocturnal twist to the findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you stop irrigating, you’re making the system go back to the arid system that it really is,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~aswann/Main.html\">Abigail Swann\u003c/a>, a University of Washington ecoclimate researcher. “If you’ve spent any time in arid places, you know that they cool very quickly at night and they also heat very quickly during the day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nighttime Lows Help People Recover\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At night, the modeling projected a cooling effect from the changing landscapes that would be exceed the daytime warming effect. Across L.A., nighttime lows were projected to fall by an average of nearly 6°F if irrigation suddenly ended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a key finding, because nighttime lows help people recover daily even as heat waves persist. From a public health perspective, the findings point to a “net positive,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/people/our-faculty/plk3\">Patrick Kinney\u003c/a>, a professor who directs Columbia University’s climate and health program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s generally thought that nighttime minimum temperatures are more important for health risks than daytime highs during extreme heat events,” Kinney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the water used in Los Angeles is piped in from other counties and regions, and most of that is used to water lawns and gardens. The new findings show that cutting back on irrigation in the low-rainfall metropolis could do more than just save water and the energy needed to transport it — it could save lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Climate Central\u003c/a> is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As drought-stricken residents of Los Angeles’s hottest neighborhoods replace thirsty lawns with native plants, pavers and bare soil, new research has shown how their local climates could begin tipping back in the direction of their desert-like origins.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Nighttime lows help people recover daily even as heat waves persist.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-heat-wave-temperature-records-los-angeles-20160619-snap-story.html\">region beset this year\u003c/a> by drought and powerful heat waves, the widespread adoption of drought-proof landscaping is expected to bring warmer days — and much cooler nights. Overall, experts say the changes would help to protect residents from heat waves, which are being made worse by global warming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California, naturally prone to drought, is enduring the fifth year of a historically bad one. Droughts are projected to intensify in California as temperatures rise, \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/california-snowpack-returns-fears-future-20166\">reducing mountain snowpacks\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-bully-california-drought-19354\">soil moisture\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/california-drought-heatwave-and-warming-20513\">potentially altering weather patterns\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To cut water use, utilities and agencies have been helping Californians swap out their lawns for drought-hardy native landscapes. The L.A. Department of Water and Power says more than 24,000 of its water customers have worked to make the switch since 2009.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can see the beginnings of some real change in landscaping practices,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.environment.ucla.edu/people/alex-hall\">Alex Hall\u003c/a>, a professor at UCLA who studies regional and global climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Done at a large enough scale, University of Southern California research \u003ca href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL069658/abstract\">published in Geographical Research Letters\u003c/a> this month shows how the landscaping changes could affect the weather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_959261\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/temps.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-959261\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/temps.png\" alt=\"Summertime temperatures in Los Angeles since the 1940s.\" width=\"720\" height=\"424\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/temps.png 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/temps-400x236.png 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Summertime temperatures in Los Angeles since the 1940s. \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Worsening heat waves are among the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/extreme-heat-climate-change-19641\">clearest and deadliest effects\u003c/a> of climate change. The research focused on July temperatures, when heat waves in southern California can be oppressive, taking their heaviest tolls on the elderly, the sick and the poor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We were interested in understanding these impacts on a summer month,” said \u003ca href=\"http://cee.usc.edu/faculty-staff/faculty-directory/georgeban-weiss.htm\">George Ban-Weiss\u003c/a>, who researches relationships between local and global climate and who led the new study. “One of our concerns is the health consequences of extreme heat, so we wanted to be sure to study a hot baseline period.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Hotter Days, But Much Cooler Nights\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using models, Ban-Weiss and a colleague found that replacing lawns and grassy parks with native bushes and other drought-hardy landscapes would increase daytime temperatures throughout the metropolitan area by 1.3°F on average. That’s largely because irrigation water acts like sweat, cooling down landscapes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study helps to inform a ‘what if’ thought experiment, in which a future L.A. morphs back toward its original state, free of irrigation, driven by worsening Western droughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The findings may also be relevant to other cities where soils are wettened during summer more by sprinklers and hoses than by rainfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>In the suburban San Fernando Valley, where temperatures are among the highest, and where the natural environment was described in the 1880s as resembling \u003ca href=\"http://www.boomcalifornia.com/2013/10/myth-of-a-desert-metropolis/\">that of a desert\u003c/a>, daytime temperatures were projected to rise the most — by 3.4°F.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would seem to be bad news. Greenhouse gas pollution has warmed the planet’s surface \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/world-flirts-with-1.5C-threshold-20260\">nearly 2°F\u003c/a> on average, and \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/west-coast-warming-natural-variability-18067\">natural weather cycles\u003c/a> have caused the West to warm faster than most other places in recent decades. Compounding the problem is the \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/urban-heat-islands-threaten-us-health-17919\">urban heat island effect\u003c/a>, with concrete causing L.A. and other cities to warm faster than rural regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there was a nocturnal twist to the findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you stop irrigating, you’re making the system go back to the arid system that it really is,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~aswann/Main.html\">Abigail Swann\u003c/a>, a University of Washington ecoclimate researcher. “If you’ve spent any time in arid places, you know that they cool very quickly at night and they also heat very quickly during the day.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nighttime Lows Help People Recover\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At night, the modeling projected a cooling effect from the changing landscapes that would be exceed the daytime warming effect. Across L.A., nighttime lows were projected to fall by an average of nearly 6°F if irrigation suddenly ended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a key finding, because nighttime lows help people recover daily even as heat waves persist. From a public health perspective, the findings point to a “net positive,” said \u003ca href=\"https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/people/our-faculty/plk3\">Patrick Kinney\u003c/a>, a professor who directs Columbia University’s climate and health program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s generally thought that nighttime minimum temperatures are more important for health risks than daytime highs during extreme heat events,” Kinney said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the water used in Los Angeles is piped in from other counties and regions, and most of that is used to water lawns and gardens. The new findings show that cutting back on irrigation in the low-rainfall metropolis could do more than just save water and the energy needed to transport it — it could save lives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Climate Central\u003c/a> is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Scientists Investigate a Mysterious Cancer Plaguing California Sea Lions",
"headTitle": "Scientists Investigate a Mysterious Cancer Plaguing California Sea Lions | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>“This one might be a little stinky,” says Tenaya Norris, a scientist at \u003ca href=\"http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/?referrer=https://www.google.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Marine Mammal Center\u003c/a> in Sausalito. Research assistant Barbie Halaska carries a limp, sodden carcass into the room and drapes it across a gleaming steel table.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Each [sea lion] death is a loss — and an opportunity.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Even before the researchers slice into the tiny, brown California sea lion pup and remove its internal organs, the animal is mostly skin and bones. The young male was less than a year old when he arrived. He hung on for ten days, but was already suffering the effects of severe malnourishment when he arrived — he was about one-quarter the size of a healthy pup—and the staff were unable to save him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris stretches out the subject’s flippers. Picking up a scalpel, she gets ready to open the animal from chin to tail. The pup occupies just one narrow corner of a table large enough for an animal many times this size. And the center has seen its fair share of those. The facility takes in several hundred distressed animals each year, from sea lions to elephant seals to the occasional dolphin or sea turtle. Scientists and volunteers do their best to rehabilitate the sick animals and return them to the ocean. But about half will end up on the metal table instead. Each death is a loss — and an opportunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every animal that dies here is studied exhaustively. Researchers carve the bodies into samples for dozens of ongoing studies. They’re especially interested in the carcasses of California sea lions, which are helping them study a mysterious and aggressive cancer that’s plaguing the species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953857\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25-.jpg\" alt=\"Research assistant Barbie Halaska prepares a California sea lion pup carcass for a necropsy at The Marine Mammal Center. Necropsies, like autopsies, help researchers evaluate cause of death—a necessary part of the science and rehabilitation of marine wildlife.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Research assistant Barbie Halaska prepares a California sea lion pup carcass for a necropsy at The Marine Mammal Center. Necropsies, like autopsies, help researchers evaluate cause of death—a necessary part of the science and rehabilitation of marine wildlife. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953858\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953858\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26-.jpg\" alt=\"A variety of surgical instruments lie ready for use in the necropsy procedure. The Marine Mammal Center shares tissue samples with researchers from around the world.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A variety of surgical instruments lie ready for use in the necropsy procedure. The Marine Mammal Center shares tissue samples with researchers from around the world. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The disease starts in the reproductive organs of adult males and females. By the time they die, tumors have sometimes infiltrated their backbones and turned vertebrae to “mush,” Norris says. She describes examining one dead animal whose spine she could simply slice through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a quarter of the adult California sea lions that die at the Marine Mammal Center suffer from cancer, says director of veterinary science Shawn Johnson. That’s one of the highest cancer rates seen in any wild animal, which is why the center’s scientists have made the disease a research priority. This emphasis has led to some promising discoveries, including the identification of a virus that is likely transmitted sexually and that seems to trigger the cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If researchers can piece together the full story of the California sea lions’ disease, it may help explain how some cancers develop in other animals—including humans. After all, cancer-causing viruses strike people too. At the same time, our understanding of disease susceptibility in humans — in particular, how environmental stressors can turn relatively minor infections into life-threatening disease — is helping scientists understand the role the environment might play in sea lion cancer. In other words, we may not be able to fully understand the set of threats to either species’ health without understanding the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953859\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953859\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10-.jpg\" alt=\"A pickup truck used by Marine Mammal Center staff to rescue injured wildlife sports a custom vanity plate. The full word—pinniped—means fin- or flipper-footed, and refers to seals, sea lions, and walruses.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A pickup truck used by Marine Mammal Center staff to rescue injured wildlife sports a custom vanity plate. The full word — pinniped — means fin- or flipper-footed, and refers to seals, sea lions, and walruses. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Under Pressure\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a sick or injured marine mammal washes up anywhere along 600 miles of the Pacific coastline, volunteers send word to The Marine Mammal Center. If the center decides a rescue is necessary and feasible, it sends a truck. The vehicles carry vanity plates like PINNIPD (for pinniped, a shorthand name for a seal, sea lion, or walrus) or BG ELIE (for elephant seal, a species that’s also represented by a life-sized sculpture at the center). Volunteers use nets and wooden boards to maneuver each sickly or injured creature into an animal crate and onto the truck for its journey to the Marin Headlands — a hilly peninsula separated from San Francisco by the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The center sits high above the ocean, perched on a dry brown hillside dotted with scrubby manzanita. Its remote location is a reminder of the site’s former life as a missile silo during the Cold War. On a beach visible from the center, rolling Pacific waves crest and break against tall humps of rock. In normal years, 600 to 800 different animals come through the center’s doors. But these aren’t normal years. There’s been a surge of sick animals, especially California sea lions (\u003cem>Zalophus californianus\u003c/em>), which live up and down the west coast of North America. The center took in 1,800 animals last year, 1,300 of which were California sea lions. Both numbers were records in the center’s four decades of operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A variety of environmental conditions has led to the surge. A patch of freakishly warm water nicknamed “\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/23/how-warmer-waters-have-led-to-emaciated-seals-on-california-beaches/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the blob\u003c/a>” sat in the northeastern Pacific from 2013 to 2015. The year 2015 also brought a massive bloom of the algae Pseudonitzschia. These microscopic plants produce domoic acid, a toxin that travels up the food chain and concentrates in top predators like sea lions, in some cases causing seizures and brain damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Off the California coast, the ecosystem is really under stress,” says Johnson. That stress is hitting California sea lions particularly hard. Amid these challenging environmental conditions, “The females are having a really, really hard time even finding enough food to produce milk for their pups,” he says. With their mothers struggling to feed them, pups may strike out on their own too soon. They’re landing on shore starving and emaciated — like the one on Norris’s autopsy table. Over the past three years, Johnson says, 80 to 90 percent of all California sea lion pups have died. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has dubbed it an “unusual mortality event.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953867\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953867\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21-.jpg\" alt=\"As part of ongoing patient care, veterinarians use portable technology to examine an X-ray of a sea lion pup's flipper on-site at The Marine Mammal Center.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As part of ongoing patient care, veterinarians use portable technology to examine an X-ray of a sea lion pup’s flipper on-site at The Marine Mammal Center. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953866\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953866\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22-.jpg\" alt=\"The X-ray image of an injured sea lion’s flipper reveals the hardware used to set the break.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The X-ray image of an injured sea lion’s flipper reveals the hardware used to set the break. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953868\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953868\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23-.jpg\" alt=\"Still recovering from sedation, a disoriented sea lion pup ambles back to its enclosure. Taking the X-ray required multiple staff members to ensure the animal’s safety throughout the procedure.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Still recovering from sedation, a disoriented sea lion pup ambles back to its enclosure. Taking the X-ray required multiple staff members to ensure the animal’s safety throughout the procedure. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then there’s the cancer. Scientists first noticed it in California in the 1970s, and they now know it affects Z. californianus along the entire western U.S. coastline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between the 1980s and mid-90s, researchers at the Marine Mammal Center saw cancer in 18 percent of adult California sea lions they examined after death. From 1998 through 2012, that number increased to 26 percent. This may mean the rate of cancer is increasing in the wild, or simply that researchers are paying better attention. Now that they know what to look for, they can spot early-stage cancer in animals without obvious tumors. The toxic algal bloom is also sending young adult animals to the center that might not otherwise have required rehabilitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, the California sea lion population is large enough that it can absorb the losses from cancer, Johnson says. But if starving pups and other challenges cause the population to plunge, cancer’s relative influence could increase dramatically. And whether or not the disease is becoming more common or simply holding steady, Johnson says he knows one thing for certain: “It’s not declining.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disease rates researchers are seeing among sea lions are far from normal, and they want to know why. “Wild populations shouldn’t have cancers like this,” Johnson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Viral Discovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the center’s outdoor pens, patients swim in pools or loll like dogs on sunny patches of concrete. Elephant seal pups with identifying yellow “hat” tags stuck on the tops of their heads watch the goings-on with bulging, Disney-esque eyes. Workers and visitors don rubber boots and step into disinfecting footbaths to avoid cross-contamination among species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some animals in the pens are starving sea lion pups that volunteers are fattening up with a diet of thick, pink “fish milkshakes.” Others have infections, wounds from boat strikes, or brain damage from domoic acid poisoning. If the animals recover, the staff happily sends them splashing back into the surf. While about half of all patients here make it, sea lions don’t fare as well. Last year, only about 35 percent survived to be released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first cancerous California sea lion — a male that staff members nicknamed “Bobby” — showed up among the center’s patients in 1978. During the 1980s and early 1990s, dozens more died during rehabilitation, and researchers found the same types of tumors in the reproductive tracts of all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tumors first form in the cervix or penis, then spread, often metastasizing to the lymph nodes and spine. Sick animals typically have swollen genitals and hind flippers. If the cancer has infiltrated the spine, causing partial paralysis, they may have to drag their hind flippers behind them. Inside a stricken animal, “there’s just masses of yellow, cancerous tissue,” says Frances Gulland, senior scientist at the Marine Mammal Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sea lions themselves are affectionate animals. They’re nice to each other. They’re very endearing,” Gulland says. “When you see a sea lion coming in with cancer and they’re in pain… it’s not only distressing but it also compels you to understand why it’s happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past two decades, the center has intensified its work on cancer research. Scientists have largely focused on causes of the disease and why and how it spreads, Gulland says. When she started working at the center in the mid-1990s, scientists were beginning to suspect that the culprit might be a virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t a crazy idea. Creatures throughout the animal kingdom suffer from cancers that begin as viral infections. In humans, viruses have been linked to as many as 15 to 20 percent of cancers, including cervical cancer, Hodgkin’s disease, lymphomas, and liver cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gulland and others scoured the DNA of cancerous tissues taken from dead sea lions and discovered a previously unknown herpesvirus. The virus appears in the tumors and reproductive tracts of all cancerous sea lions, but is scarce in other parts of the body, and is rarely found in healthy sea lions. While the scientists haven’t proven definitively that the virus causes cancer, evidence is piling up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although that evidence hasn’t yet gotten them closer to curing the cancer-stricken animals, understanding the disease could lead to earlier diagnoses and the development of measures to help prevent its spread. Right now, California sea lions that arrive at the center with suspicious symptoms receive an ultrasound and other tests for cancer. If an animal tests positive, it is euthanized, Gulland says regretfully; there’s nothing else to be done. “We know [the disease] progresses, it’s painful, and it’s not curable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in death, Gulland says, the animals provide a goldmine of information. “Because we have them in hand, we can obtain a lot of very fresh samples.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Causes of Death\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris, it turns out, is right about the smell. The sea lion pup she’s now dissecting on the metal table has been frozen and thawed, making its odor reminiscent of roadkill. She says fresh carcasses have more of a musty, sometimes fishy aroma. An open door lets in air, along with barks and chirps that drift in from the outdoor pens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris and Halaska begin to remove and sort through the sea lion’s organs. They pull out fistfuls of intestines in long, pink loops. Halaska dons goggles and turns on a buzzing electric saw to cut through the skull and get at the animal’s brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the Marine Mammal Center must determine a cause of death for every animal that reaches this metal table. And each one—fur seal, harbor seal, pregnant female, unborn fetus—surrenders its own set of scientific samples. It may be swabbed for flu viruses; its urine or milk or bile or body lice may be carefully saved. These samples will go to labs all over the country, and some will travel the world. Researchers at the center are participating in 40 different collaborative research projects at the moment, Johnson says. And he estimates that a third of those have to do with the cancer that’s afflicting the California sea lion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tiny sea lion whose blood is now pooling at the edge of the rimmed table was not a cancer victim, and his autopsy is comparatively short. Cancerous sea lions, in contrast, as well as a select few adult “controls” that died of other causes, undergo a much more involved “cancer protocol.” For these, researchers must take extensive samples. Skin. Blood. Brain. Tumor. Norris holds a kidney sample in her gloved palm that looks like a slice of beet—she will send tissue slices like this one to a pathologist, who will scrutinize them under a microscope for cancerous cells. Some of the “control” samples have, when observed more closely, revealed very early signs of cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, scientists have learned a few things for certain about the disease. They know animals with cancer carry the herpesvirus. The cancerous animals all have a specific genotype that may help the disease spread. They are also more inbred than other sea lions. Finally, animals with cancer have more pollutants—specifically PCBs and DDT—stored in their blubber than individuals that die of other causes. Research on other marine mammals has linked these ocean contaminants to suppressed immunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How these pieces of knowledge all fit together, however, isn’t yet clear. The scientists’ best guess, Gulland says, is that exposure to pollutants makes a sea lion more susceptible to a herpesvirus infection. When the virus takes hold, it triggers cancer—somehow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To learn more, researchers are studying the DNA of cancerous tissues in the lab, focusing on changes at the level of the chromosome. They’re measuring the concentrations of contaminants like DDT and PCBs in sea lions’ blubber to find out whether these might make the animals more susceptible to a virus. Alissa Deming, a veterinarian and University of Florida PhD student, is looking at the genetics of the sea lion herpesvirus. She wants to prove that the virus indeed causes sea lion cells to turn cancerous. The next question will be how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Herpesviruses are one of the oldest classes of viruses,” says University of Florida geneticist Rolf Renne, who studies the human herpesvirus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma. “They’re pretty much in all mammals, and even in sea urchins.” Humans alone can be infected by eight different herpesviruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These viruses have spent a long time evolving alongside their animal hosts, and they’re usually well-adapted to do little harm, because a dead host is not much good to a virus. Infections can be quite common, and typically lead to cancer or other serious illness only when something suppresses the host’s immune response. “If your immune system craps out on you, then a herpesvirus can take control,” Deming says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The human Epstein-Barr virus, for example, is a herpesvirus that infects about 90 percent of adults. It commonly causes mononucleosis, but if its host has an impaired immune system, the virus can lead to lymphomas or other cancers. Another human herpesvirus causes Kaposi’s sarcoma, a disease best known in the U.S. for affecting immune-suppressed AIDS patients. According to Renne, in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria and other infections compromise people’s immune systems, Kaposi’s sarcoma is much more common—the most common cancer among men, in fact. Ocean contaminants like PCBs and DDT might compromise the immune systems of California sea lions in similar way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The finding that cancer-stricken sea lions have more pollutants in their blubber has caught researchers’ attention. “That’s really important for the human health perspective as well,” Gulland says. “These are contaminants the sea lions are acquiring from their prey. And the fish they eat are the same fish that we eat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their environment is our environment, in other words. And what scientists can learn about cancer in each species might help the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Messy World\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flies circle as Norris and Halaska scoop up and discard what’s left of the young sea lion. Its stripped-down carcass goes into a barrel, which will be picked up and taken to a rendering plant. The carefully collected slices and scraps of its body—anything the researchers aren’t immediately shipping on ice to other scientists—go into vials and plastic baggies, and then into freezers for storage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of those freezers are in the basement, where Cold War missiles were once stored. The freezers stand at attention in a long white row, drawers stuffed with thousands of samples for future research. Frost crackles as Halaska opens the door to one of them. She points out a baggie holding a whale eyeball as big as an apple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists who study cancer particularly value samples like these, which come from animals that lived not in the sterile confines of a lab but in the complicated, messy, germy natural world. These marine mammals’ diseases almost certainly arose from a collision of many factors: genes, environment, other animals and parasites with which they crossed paths. Complex as their stories are, in many ways these specimens are far better than specially bred, genetically identical lab rats for helping scientists understand how cancer develops in humans and other animals living in the real world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How can we look at diseases in our marine mammals and translate what we are learning from that to human medicine, and vice versa?” Johnson asks. To him, this cross-species exploration is the most exciting research underway at the center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea that human and veterinary medicine can inform each other is part of a philosophy known as “One Health,” which says that we need to consider the health of people, animals, and the environment simultaneously if want to truly understand each of them. Human diseases don’t exist in isolation and, Deming says, “people are animals too.” This philosophy isn’t yet widespread in the medical world, where doctors tend to be highly specialized. But the National Institutes of Health is starting to embrace the idea. It held a workshop in 2015 on incorporating One Health into its own research; its program for “comparative biomedical scientists” trains new researchers in both human and animal health at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using such an approach, the research on sea lion cancer can help answer big-picture questions about cancer in other species—humans included—and the viruses that may cause it. One place it’s already revealing connections to human cancer-causing viruses is in Renne’s work on Kaposi’s sarcoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studying the herpesvirus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma in the lab is difficult. “There’s not an animal model that’s very close,” Renne says. That’s why his interest was piqued when Deming approached him about working together on her PhD research: The sea lions and their resident herpesvirus are turning out to be a great model for humans and our own viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deming’s investigation into the genome of the sea lion herpesvirus has already shown it to have striking similarities to both the Epstein-Barr and Kaposi’s sarcoma viruses. The three belong to the same subfamily, and the sea lion virus has genes that seem equivalent to two cancer-triggering genes in the human herpesviruses. These genes help push a host cell into an immortal, constantly dividing state—a strong hint that the sea lion virus not only causes cancer in its hosts, but does so using similar mechanisms to human viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Renne and Deming are looking into whether the virus targets sea lion genes using microRNAs, tiny bits of genetic material that regulate gene activity. Renne has found this to be the case with the Kaposi’s sarcoma virus. If this is also true of the sea lion virus, Renne says, then the researchers will have solid evidence that there are general mechanisms by which this type of herpesvirus causes cancer across very different mammalian species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before she began her PhD research, Deming worked as a clinical veterinarian at SeaWorld in San Diego. She used to get discouraged when she saw cancerous sea lions and could do nothing but euthanize them. But now, her work at the Marine Mammal Center is turning the deaths of these animals into research opportunities. “[It] gives us something productive to do,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a way, the center itself is also turning death into opportunity. Today the deadly missiles are gone, and the walls that once protected them now hold countless samples of animals that lost their lives on this coast. Armed with those bits of blood and bone, scientists hope to protect the health of this ecosystem and the animals—all the animals—that share it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story comes from \u003ca href=\"http://biographic.com/\">Biographic\u003c/a>, an online magazine published by San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.calacademy.org/\">California Academy of Sciences\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "An aggressive disease afflicting California sea lions is helping scientists understand the causes of cancer in all animals—including humans.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>“This one might be a little stinky,” says Tenaya Norris, a scientist at \u003ca href=\"http://www.marinemammalcenter.org/?referrer=https://www.google.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Marine Mammal Center\u003c/a> in Sausalito. Research assistant Barbie Halaska carries a limp, sodden carcass into the room and drapes it across a gleaming steel table.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Each [sea lion] death is a loss — and an opportunity.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Even before the researchers slice into the tiny, brown California sea lion pup and remove its internal organs, the animal is mostly skin and bones. The young male was less than a year old when he arrived. He hung on for ten days, but was already suffering the effects of severe malnourishment when he arrived — he was about one-quarter the size of a healthy pup—and the staff were unable to save him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris stretches out the subject’s flippers. Picking up a scalpel, she gets ready to open the animal from chin to tail. The pup occupies just one narrow corner of a table large enough for an animal many times this size. And the center has seen its fair share of those. The facility takes in several hundred distressed animals each year, from sea lions to elephant seals to the occasional dolphin or sea turtle. Scientists and volunteers do their best to rehabilitate the sick animals and return them to the ocean. But about half will end up on the metal table instead. Each death is a loss — and an opportunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every animal that dies here is studied exhaustively. Researchers carve the bodies into samples for dozens of ongoing studies. They’re especially interested in the carcasses of California sea lions, which are helping them study a mysterious and aggressive cancer that’s plaguing the species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953857\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953857\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25-.jpg\" alt=\"Research assistant Barbie Halaska prepares a California sea lion pup carcass for a necropsy at The Marine Mammal Center. Necropsies, like autopsies, help researchers evaluate cause of death—a necessary part of the science and rehabilitation of marine wildlife.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-25--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Research assistant Barbie Halaska prepares a California sea lion pup carcass for a necropsy at The Marine Mammal Center. Necropsies, like autopsies, help researchers evaluate cause of death—a necessary part of the science and rehabilitation of marine wildlife. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953858\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953858\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26-.jpg\" alt=\"A variety of surgical instruments lie ready for use in the necropsy procedure. The Marine Mammal Center shares tissue samples with researchers from around the world.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-26--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A variety of surgical instruments lie ready for use in the necropsy procedure. The Marine Mammal Center shares tissue samples with researchers from around the world. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The disease starts in the reproductive organs of adult males and females. By the time they die, tumors have sometimes infiltrated their backbones and turned vertebrae to “mush,” Norris says. She describes examining one dead animal whose spine she could simply slice through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than a quarter of the adult California sea lions that die at the Marine Mammal Center suffer from cancer, says director of veterinary science Shawn Johnson. That’s one of the highest cancer rates seen in any wild animal, which is why the center’s scientists have made the disease a research priority. This emphasis has led to some promising discoveries, including the identification of a virus that is likely transmitted sexually and that seems to trigger the cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If researchers can piece together the full story of the California sea lions’ disease, it may help explain how some cancers develop in other animals—including humans. After all, cancer-causing viruses strike people too. At the same time, our understanding of disease susceptibility in humans — in particular, how environmental stressors can turn relatively minor infections into life-threatening disease — is helping scientists understand the role the environment might play in sea lion cancer. In other words, we may not be able to fully understand the set of threats to either species’ health without understanding the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953859\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953859\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10-.jpg\" alt=\"A pickup truck used by Marine Mammal Center staff to rescue injured wildlife sports a custom vanity plate. The full word—pinniped—means fin- or flipper-footed, and refers to seals, sea lions, and walruses.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-10--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A pickup truck used by Marine Mammal Center staff to rescue injured wildlife sports a custom vanity plate. The full word — pinniped — means fin- or flipper-footed, and refers to seals, sea lions, and walruses. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Under Pressure\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a sick or injured marine mammal washes up anywhere along 600 miles of the Pacific coastline, volunteers send word to The Marine Mammal Center. If the center decides a rescue is necessary and feasible, it sends a truck. The vehicles carry vanity plates like PINNIPD (for pinniped, a shorthand name for a seal, sea lion, or walrus) or BG ELIE (for elephant seal, a species that’s also represented by a life-sized sculpture at the center). Volunteers use nets and wooden boards to maneuver each sickly or injured creature into an animal crate and onto the truck for its journey to the Marin Headlands — a hilly peninsula separated from San Francisco by the Golden Gate Bridge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The center sits high above the ocean, perched on a dry brown hillside dotted with scrubby manzanita. Its remote location is a reminder of the site’s former life as a missile silo during the Cold War. On a beach visible from the center, rolling Pacific waves crest and break against tall humps of rock. In normal years, 600 to 800 different animals come through the center’s doors. But these aren’t normal years. There’s been a surge of sick animals, especially California sea lions (\u003cem>Zalophus californianus\u003c/em>), which live up and down the west coast of North America. The center took in 1,800 animals last year, 1,300 of which were California sea lions. Both numbers were records in the center’s four decades of operation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A variety of environmental conditions has led to the surge. A patch of freakishly warm water nicknamed “\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/11/23/how-warmer-waters-have-led-to-emaciated-seals-on-california-beaches/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the blob\u003c/a>” sat in the northeastern Pacific from 2013 to 2015. The year 2015 also brought a massive bloom of the algae Pseudonitzschia. These microscopic plants produce domoic acid, a toxin that travels up the food chain and concentrates in top predators like sea lions, in some cases causing seizures and brain damage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Off the California coast, the ecosystem is really under stress,” says Johnson. That stress is hitting California sea lions particularly hard. Amid these challenging environmental conditions, “The females are having a really, really hard time even finding enough food to produce milk for their pups,” he says. With their mothers struggling to feed them, pups may strike out on their own too soon. They’re landing on shore starving and emaciated — like the one on Norris’s autopsy table. Over the past three years, Johnson says, 80 to 90 percent of all California sea lion pups have died. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has dubbed it an “unusual mortality event.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953867\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953867\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21-.jpg\" alt=\"As part of ongoing patient care, veterinarians use portable technology to examine an X-ray of a sea lion pup's flipper on-site at The Marine Mammal Center.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-21--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As part of ongoing patient care, veterinarians use portable technology to examine an X-ray of a sea lion pup’s flipper on-site at The Marine Mammal Center. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953866\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953866\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22-.jpg\" alt=\"The X-ray image of an injured sea lion’s flipper reveals the hardware used to set the break.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-22--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The X-ray image of an injured sea lion’s flipper reveals the hardware used to set the break. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_953868\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-953868\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23-.jpg\" alt=\"Still recovering from sedation, a disoriented sea lion pup ambles back to its enclosure. Taking the X-ray required multiple staff members to ensure the animal’s safety throughout the procedure.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1365\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23-.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1440x960.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/CAS-Sea-Lions-Valcarcel-23--960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Still recovering from sedation, a disoriented sea lion pup ambles back to its enclosure. Taking the X-ray required multiple staff members to ensure the animal’s safety throughout the procedure. \u003ccite>(Josh Valcarcel)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Then there’s the cancer. Scientists first noticed it in California in the 1970s, and they now know it affects Z. californianus along the entire western U.S. coastline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between the 1980s and mid-90s, researchers at the Marine Mammal Center saw cancer in 18 percent of adult California sea lions they examined after death. From 1998 through 2012, that number increased to 26 percent. This may mean the rate of cancer is increasing in the wild, or simply that researchers are paying better attention. Now that they know what to look for, they can spot early-stage cancer in animals without obvious tumors. The toxic algal bloom is also sending young adult animals to the center that might not otherwise have required rehabilitation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Right now, the California sea lion population is large enough that it can absorb the losses from cancer, Johnson says. But if starving pups and other challenges cause the population to plunge, cancer’s relative influence could increase dramatically. And whether or not the disease is becoming more common or simply holding steady, Johnson says he knows one thing for certain: “It’s not declining.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The disease rates researchers are seeing among sea lions are far from normal, and they want to know why. “Wild populations shouldn’t have cancers like this,” Johnson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Viral Discovery\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the center’s outdoor pens, patients swim in pools or loll like dogs on sunny patches of concrete. Elephant seal pups with identifying yellow “hat” tags stuck on the tops of their heads watch the goings-on with bulging, Disney-esque eyes. Workers and visitors don rubber boots and step into disinfecting footbaths to avoid cross-contamination among species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some animals in the pens are starving sea lion pups that volunteers are fattening up with a diet of thick, pink “fish milkshakes.” Others have infections, wounds from boat strikes, or brain damage from domoic acid poisoning. If the animals recover, the staff happily sends them splashing back into the surf. While about half of all patients here make it, sea lions don’t fare as well. Last year, only about 35 percent survived to be released.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first cancerous California sea lion — a male that staff members nicknamed “Bobby” — showed up among the center’s patients in 1978. During the 1980s and early 1990s, dozens more died during rehabilitation, and researchers found the same types of tumors in the reproductive tracts of all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tumors first form in the cervix or penis, then spread, often metastasizing to the lymph nodes and spine. Sick animals typically have swollen genitals and hind flippers. If the cancer has infiltrated the spine, causing partial paralysis, they may have to drag their hind flippers behind them. Inside a stricken animal, “there’s just masses of yellow, cancerous tissue,” says Frances Gulland, senior scientist at the Marine Mammal Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Sea lions themselves are affectionate animals. They’re nice to each other. They’re very endearing,” Gulland says. “When you see a sea lion coming in with cancer and they’re in pain… it’s not only distressing but it also compels you to understand why it’s happening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past two decades, the center has intensified its work on cancer research. Scientists have largely focused on causes of the disease and why and how it spreads, Gulland says. When she started working at the center in the mid-1990s, scientists were beginning to suspect that the culprit might be a virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It wasn’t a crazy idea. Creatures throughout the animal kingdom suffer from cancers that begin as viral infections. In humans, viruses have been linked to as many as 15 to 20 percent of cancers, including cervical cancer, Hodgkin’s disease, lymphomas, and liver cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gulland and others scoured the DNA of cancerous tissues taken from dead sea lions and discovered a previously unknown herpesvirus. The virus appears in the tumors and reproductive tracts of all cancerous sea lions, but is scarce in other parts of the body, and is rarely found in healthy sea lions. While the scientists haven’t proven definitively that the virus causes cancer, evidence is piling up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although that evidence hasn’t yet gotten them closer to curing the cancer-stricken animals, understanding the disease could lead to earlier diagnoses and the development of measures to help prevent its spread. Right now, California sea lions that arrive at the center with suspicious symptoms receive an ultrasound and other tests for cancer. If an animal tests positive, it is euthanized, Gulland says regretfully; there’s nothing else to be done. “We know [the disease] progresses, it’s painful, and it’s not curable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in death, Gulland says, the animals provide a goldmine of information. “Because we have them in hand, we can obtain a lot of very fresh samples.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Causes of Death\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris, it turns out, is right about the smell. The sea lion pup she’s now dissecting on the metal table has been frozen and thawed, making its odor reminiscent of roadkill. She says fresh carcasses have more of a musty, sometimes fishy aroma. An open door lets in air, along with barks and chirps that drift in from the outdoor pens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Norris and Halaska begin to remove and sort through the sea lion’s organs. They pull out fistfuls of intestines in long, pink loops. Halaska dons goggles and turns on a buzzing electric saw to cut through the skull and get at the animal’s brain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at the Marine Mammal Center must determine a cause of death for every animal that reaches this metal table. And each one—fur seal, harbor seal, pregnant female, unborn fetus—surrenders its own set of scientific samples. It may be swabbed for flu viruses; its urine or milk or bile or body lice may be carefully saved. These samples will go to labs all over the country, and some will travel the world. Researchers at the center are participating in 40 different collaborative research projects at the moment, Johnson says. And he estimates that a third of those have to do with the cancer that’s afflicting the California sea lion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tiny sea lion whose blood is now pooling at the edge of the rimmed table was not a cancer victim, and his autopsy is comparatively short. Cancerous sea lions, in contrast, as well as a select few adult “controls” that died of other causes, undergo a much more involved “cancer protocol.” For these, researchers must take extensive samples. Skin. Blood. Brain. Tumor. Norris holds a kidney sample in her gloved palm that looks like a slice of beet—she will send tissue slices like this one to a pathologist, who will scrutinize them under a microscope for cancerous cells. Some of the “control” samples have, when observed more closely, revealed very early signs of cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, scientists have learned a few things for certain about the disease. They know animals with cancer carry the herpesvirus. The cancerous animals all have a specific genotype that may help the disease spread. They are also more inbred than other sea lions. Finally, animals with cancer have more pollutants—specifically PCBs and DDT—stored in their blubber than individuals that die of other causes. Research on other marine mammals has linked these ocean contaminants to suppressed immunity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How these pieces of knowledge all fit together, however, isn’t yet clear. The scientists’ best guess, Gulland says, is that exposure to pollutants makes a sea lion more susceptible to a herpesvirus infection. When the virus takes hold, it triggers cancer—somehow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To learn more, researchers are studying the DNA of cancerous tissues in the lab, focusing on changes at the level of the chromosome. They’re measuring the concentrations of contaminants like DDT and PCBs in sea lions’ blubber to find out whether these might make the animals more susceptible to a virus. Alissa Deming, a veterinarian and University of Florida PhD student, is looking at the genetics of the sea lion herpesvirus. She wants to prove that the virus indeed causes sea lion cells to turn cancerous. The next question will be how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Herpesviruses are one of the oldest classes of viruses,” says University of Florida geneticist Rolf Renne, who studies the human herpesvirus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma. “They’re pretty much in all mammals, and even in sea urchins.” Humans alone can be infected by eight different herpesviruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These viruses have spent a long time evolving alongside their animal hosts, and they’re usually well-adapted to do little harm, because a dead host is not much good to a virus. Infections can be quite common, and typically lead to cancer or other serious illness only when something suppresses the host’s immune response. “If your immune system craps out on you, then a herpesvirus can take control,” Deming says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The human Epstein-Barr virus, for example, is a herpesvirus that infects about 90 percent of adults. It commonly causes mononucleosis, but if its host has an impaired immune system, the virus can lead to lymphomas or other cancers. Another human herpesvirus causes Kaposi’s sarcoma, a disease best known in the U.S. for affecting immune-suppressed AIDS patients. According to Renne, in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria and other infections compromise people’s immune systems, Kaposi’s sarcoma is much more common—the most common cancer among men, in fact. Ocean contaminants like PCBs and DDT might compromise the immune systems of California sea lions in similar way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The finding that cancer-stricken sea lions have more pollutants in their blubber has caught researchers’ attention. “That’s really important for the human health perspective as well,” Gulland says. “These are contaminants the sea lions are acquiring from their prey. And the fish they eat are the same fish that we eat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their environment is our environment, in other words. And what scientists can learn about cancer in each species might help the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Messy World\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Flies circle as Norris and Halaska scoop up and discard what’s left of the young sea lion. Its stripped-down carcass goes into a barrel, which will be picked up and taken to a rendering plant. The carefully collected slices and scraps of its body—anything the researchers aren’t immediately shipping on ice to other scientists—go into vials and plastic baggies, and then into freezers for storage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of those freezers are in the basement, where Cold War missiles were once stored. The freezers stand at attention in a long white row, drawers stuffed with thousands of samples for future research. Frost crackles as Halaska opens the door to one of them. She points out a baggie holding a whale eyeball as big as an apple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists who study cancer particularly value samples like these, which come from animals that lived not in the sterile confines of a lab but in the complicated, messy, germy natural world. These marine mammals’ diseases almost certainly arose from a collision of many factors: genes, environment, other animals and parasites with which they crossed paths. Complex as their stories are, in many ways these specimens are far better than specially bred, genetically identical lab rats for helping scientists understand how cancer develops in humans and other animals living in the real world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How can we look at diseases in our marine mammals and translate what we are learning from that to human medicine, and vice versa?” Johnson asks. To him, this cross-species exploration is the most exciting research underway at the center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The idea that human and veterinary medicine can inform each other is part of a philosophy known as “One Health,” which says that we need to consider the health of people, animals, and the environment simultaneously if want to truly understand each of them. Human diseases don’t exist in isolation and, Deming says, “people are animals too.” This philosophy isn’t yet widespread in the medical world, where doctors tend to be highly specialized. But the National Institutes of Health is starting to embrace the idea. It held a workshop in 2015 on incorporating One Health into its own research; its program for “comparative biomedical scientists” trains new researchers in both human and animal health at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using such an approach, the research on sea lion cancer can help answer big-picture questions about cancer in other species—humans included—and the viruses that may cause it. One place it’s already revealing connections to human cancer-causing viruses is in Renne’s work on Kaposi’s sarcoma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Studying the herpesvirus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma in the lab is difficult. “There’s not an animal model that’s very close,” Renne says. That’s why his interest was piqued when Deming approached him about working together on her PhD research: The sea lions and their resident herpesvirus are turning out to be a great model for humans and our own viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Deming’s investigation into the genome of the sea lion herpesvirus has already shown it to have striking similarities to both the Epstein-Barr and Kaposi’s sarcoma viruses. The three belong to the same subfamily, and the sea lion virus has genes that seem equivalent to two cancer-triggering genes in the human herpesviruses. These genes help push a host cell into an immortal, constantly dividing state—a strong hint that the sea lion virus not only causes cancer in its hosts, but does so using similar mechanisms to human viruses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Renne and Deming are looking into whether the virus targets sea lion genes using microRNAs, tiny bits of genetic material that regulate gene activity. Renne has found this to be the case with the Kaposi’s sarcoma virus. If this is also true of the sea lion virus, Renne says, then the researchers will have solid evidence that there are general mechanisms by which this type of herpesvirus causes cancer across very different mammalian species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before she began her PhD research, Deming worked as a clinical veterinarian at SeaWorld in San Diego. She used to get discouraged when she saw cancerous sea lions and could do nothing but euthanize them. But now, her work at the Marine Mammal Center is turning the deaths of these animals into research opportunities. “[It] gives us something productive to do,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a way, the center itself is also turning death into opportunity. Today the deadly missiles are gone, and the walls that once protected them now hold countless samples of animals that lost their lives on this coast. Armed with those bits of blood and bone, scientists hope to protect the health of this ecosystem and the animals—all the animals—that share it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story comes from \u003ca href=\"http://biographic.com/\">Biographic\u003c/a>, an online magazine published by San Francisco’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.calacademy.org/\">California Academy of Sciences\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "California’s New Climate Rules, Explained",
"headTitle": "California’s New Climate Rules, Explained | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Following more than a year of legislative toing and froing, California’s leaders agreed this week on how ambitious the state will be in the fight against climate change after 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Short answer: very.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A progressive culture and Silicon Valley-style innovation a decade ago thrust California toward the head of the worldwide pack when it comes to shifting away from polluting fossil fuels in favor of cleaner alternatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, the state Assembly and Senate ensured the state’s leadership will be strengthened when lawmakers approved two key bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation will require Californian agencies take steps needed to reduce greenhouse gas pollution by 40 percent in 2030, compared with 1990 levels. Gov. Jerry Brown plans to sign it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do California’s Goals Stack Up?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s new climate goals are far more ambitious than those of the U.S. overall, and they’re in line with ambitions in Europe, which is a world leader on climate action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both the European Union and California are shooting for 40 percent pollution reductions in 2030 compared with 1990 levels. The Europeans got off to an earlier start, setting a more ambitious target for 2020 than California. That means California will have to work harder to reach its goals for 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is exactly the right goal for California,” said \u003ca href=\"http://energyinnovation.org/team-member/chris-busch/\">Chris Busch\u003c/a>, director of research at Energy Innovation, a policy think tank in California. “It’s strong but undeniably achievable and beneficial.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are any countries or states more ambitious than California?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just as California is the star of climate action in the U.S., the European Union has its own big shot — Germany. Germany aims to reduce its climate impacts by 40 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, which is something California and the EU aim to achieve a decade later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, per person, Californians and Germans continue to be heavier polluters than most Europeans, releasing the equivalent of about \u003ca href=\"http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/newsrelease.php?id=740\">12 tons each\u003c/a> of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in 2013. That’s a third more than the \u003ca href=\"http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=t2020_rd300&plugin=1\">European Union average\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For comparison, the \u003ca href=\"http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC\">average Indian\u003c/a> releases less than 2 tons a year, a figure that is rising as the country’s economy grows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How will California hit its goals?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California runs a number of programs that help it reduce its climate pollution, including financial support for electric vehicle purchases, mandates on biofuels and requirements that utilities source a substantial amount of their power from renewable sources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new legislation requires the California Air Resources Board to strengthen these programs, or roll out new ones, to ensure that the new targets are met.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California also was among the first in the world to set up a cap-and-trade program, which imposes a limit on the amount of pollution that industry can release each year. By selling tradeable allowances needed to pollute, the state raises money that reduces electricity bills and that funds programs that can reduce climate pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How is the cap-and-trade program faring?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cap-and-trade program is withering like a Californian tomato left out in the sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One problem is that California’s notoriously dysfunctional legislature can’t agree on how to spend more than $1 billion in cap-and-trade funds, meaning the money is just sitting around instead of being put to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not like a savings account that we put in the bank and wait for retirement,” a frustrated Sen. Fran Pavley \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-cap-trade-cash-businesses-20160817-snap-htmlstory.html\">recently opined\u003c/a> to the L.A. Times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final legislative sessions for the year are planned for next week, ahead of elections scheduled for November. Many hope the spending will be approved before the break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still have a few more days,” the Environmental Defense Fund’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.edf.org/people/erica-morehouse\">Erica Morehouse\u003c/a> optimistically pointed out\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is that the biggest problem for cap-and-trade?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not even close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bigger problem is that the cap-and-trade program expires at the end of 2020. \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/legal-doubts-over-californias-cap-and-trade-20607\">Legal experts have concluded\u003c/a> that a two-thirds vote from the Assembly and Senate may be needed to extend the program after 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That could see the program destroyed just when it’s needed the most — to help achieve increasingly ambitious climate goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The important thing to recognize about the post-2020 market in California is that the level of effort fundamentally changes,” Stanford expert \u003ca href=\"https://law.stanford.edu/directory/michael-wara/\">Michael Wara\u003c/a> said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unlikelihood of supermajority lawmaker support for cap-and-trade may help to explain why just a small portion of pollution allowances were sold during California’s last two quarterly auctions, reducing anticipated funds flowing into California by nearly $1 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can California’s cap-and-trade program be saved?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California officials have been reluctant to even admit that the legal conundrum exists, perhaps wary of weakening their position in a future court battle. 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Such an idea is likely be opposed as a handout by Californian lawmakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Climate Central\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Following more than a year of legislative toing and froing, California’s leaders agreed this week on how ambitious the state will be in the fight against climate change after 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Short answer: very.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A progressive culture and Silicon Valley-style innovation a decade ago thrust California toward the head of the worldwide pack when it comes to shifting away from polluting fossil fuels in favor of cleaner alternatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, the state Assembly and Senate ensured the state’s leadership will be strengthened when lawmakers approved two key bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislation will require Californian agencies take steps needed to reduce greenhouse gas pollution by 40 percent in 2030, compared with 1990 levels. Gov. Jerry Brown plans to sign it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How do California’s Goals Stack Up?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s new climate goals are far more ambitious than those of the U.S. overall, and they’re in line with ambitions in Europe, which is a world leader on climate action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both the European Union and California are shooting for 40 percent pollution reductions in 2030 compared with 1990 levels. The Europeans got off to an earlier start, setting a more ambitious target for 2020 than California. That means California will have to work harder to reach its goals for 2030.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is exactly the right goal for California,” said \u003ca href=\"http://energyinnovation.org/team-member/chris-busch/\">Chris Busch\u003c/a>, director of research at Energy Innovation, a policy think tank in California. “It’s strong but undeniably achievable and beneficial.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Are any countries or states more ambitious than California?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just as California is the star of climate action in the U.S., the European Union has its own big shot — Germany. Germany aims to reduce its climate impacts by 40 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, which is something California and the EU aim to achieve a decade later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, per person, Californians and Germans continue to be heavier polluters than most Europeans, releasing the equivalent of about \u003ca href=\"http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/newsrelease.php?id=740\">12 tons each\u003c/a> of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in 2013. That’s a third more than the \u003ca href=\"http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=t2020_rd300&plugin=1\">European Union average\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For comparison, the \u003ca href=\"http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC\">average Indian\u003c/a> releases less than 2 tons a year, a figure that is rising as the country’s economy grows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How will California hit its goals?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California runs a number of programs that help it reduce its climate pollution, including financial support for electric vehicle purchases, mandates on biofuels and requirements that utilities source a substantial amount of their power from renewable sources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new legislation requires the California Air Resources Board to strengthen these programs, or roll out new ones, to ensure that the new targets are met.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California also was among the first in the world to set up a cap-and-trade program, which imposes a limit on the amount of pollution that industry can release each year. By selling tradeable allowances needed to pollute, the state raises money that reduces electricity bills and that funds programs that can reduce climate pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>How is the cap-and-trade program faring?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cap-and-trade program is withering like a Californian tomato left out in the sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One problem is that California’s notoriously dysfunctional legislature can’t agree on how to spend more than $1 billion in cap-and-trade funds, meaning the money is just sitting around instead of being put to work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not like a savings account that we put in the bank and wait for retirement,” a frustrated Sen. Fran Pavley \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-cap-trade-cash-businesses-20160817-snap-htmlstory.html\">recently opined\u003c/a> to the L.A. Times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final legislative sessions for the year are planned for next week, ahead of elections scheduled for November. Many hope the spending will be approved before the break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still have a few more days,” the Environmental Defense Fund’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.edf.org/people/erica-morehouse\">Erica Morehouse\u003c/a> optimistically pointed out\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Is that the biggest problem for cap-and-trade?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not even close.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bigger problem is that the cap-and-trade program expires at the end of 2020. \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/legal-doubts-over-californias-cap-and-trade-20607\">Legal experts have concluded\u003c/a> that a two-thirds vote from the Assembly and Senate may be needed to extend the program after 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That could see the program destroyed just when it’s needed the most — to help achieve increasingly ambitious climate goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The important thing to recognize about the post-2020 market in California is that the level of effort fundamentally changes,” Stanford expert \u003ca href=\"https://law.stanford.edu/directory/michael-wara/\">Michael Wara\u003c/a> said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unlikelihood of supermajority lawmaker support for cap-and-trade may help to explain why just a small portion of pollution allowances were sold during California’s last two quarterly auctions, reducing anticipated funds flowing into California by nearly $1 billion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Can California’s cap-and-trade program be saved?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California officials have been reluctant to even admit that the legal conundrum exists, perhaps wary of weakening their position in a future court battle. This week, though, senior Brown advisor \u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/news/program-in-doubt-as-california-climate-bill-approved--20628\">Nancy McFadden\u003c/a> suggested a ballot measure might help circumvent the need for supermajority lawmaker support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a reporter asked Brown about the future of cap-and-trade on Wednesday, he said he expects California’s business community will eventually demand that lawmakers support it, because it would provide an efficient way of helping to comply with the new law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think a lot of it’s going to be driven by the business interests themselves,” Brown said. “They’re going to plead for a market system called cap-and-trade.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Independent experts also point out the program could probably continue operating after 2020 under current law, but only if it hands out the pollution allowances for free. Such an idea is likely be opposed as a handout by Californian lawmakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.climatecentral.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Climate Central\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">is an independent organization that researches and reports on climate change.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The White House says that President Barack Obama will expand a national monument off the coast of Hawaii, creating the world’s largest marine protected area.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">With the announcement, Obama will have created or expanded 26 national monuments.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Obama’s proclamation will quadruple in size a monument originally created by President George W. Bush in 2006. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument\u003c/a> will contain some 582,578 square miles, more than twice the size of Texas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Obama will travel to the monument next week to mark the designation and cite the need to protect public lands and waters from climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The designation bans commercial fishing and any new mining, as is the case within the existing monument. Recreational fishing will be allowed through a permit, as will be scientific research and the removal of fish and other resources for Native Hawaiian cultural practices. Some fishing groups have voiced concerns about what an expansion of the marine national monument would mean for their industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sean Martin, the president of the Hawaii Longline Association, said he was “disappointed” by Hawaii Gov. David Ige’s decision to support expanding the monument. He said the monument’s expansion would be based on political and not scientific reasons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hawaii’s longline fishing fleet supplies a large portion of the fresh tuna and other fish consumed in Hawaii. Martin has previously estimated the fleet catches about 2 million pounds of fish annually from the proposed expansion area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The White House is describing the expansion as helping to protect more than 7,000 species and improving the resiliency of an ecosystem dealing with ocean acidification and warming. A fact sheet previewing the announcement states that the expanded area is considered a sacred place for Native Hawaiians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shipwrecks and downed aircraft from the Battle of Midway in World War II dot the expansion area. The battle marked a major shift in the war. Obama will travel to the Midway Atoll to discuss the expansion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the announcement, Obama will have created or expanded 26 national monuments. The administration said Obama has protected more acreage through national monument designations than any other president.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The White House said the expansion is a response to a proposal from Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz and prominent Native Hawaiian leaders. The federal government will also give Hawaii’s Department of Natural Resources and Office of Hawaiian Affairs a greater role in managing the monument, an arrangement requested by Schatz and Gov. David Ige.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
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"order": 10
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},
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"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
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"order": 1
},
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "WNYC"
},
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
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"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
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