NASA says ozone hole stabilizing but won't fully recover until 2070→

Tony Barboza, reporting for LA Times:

“The hole in the ozone layer is stabilizing but will take until about 2070 to fully recover, according to new research by NASA scientists.
The assessment comes more than two decades after the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty that banned chlorofluorocarbons and other compounds that deplete the ozone layer, which shields the planet from harmful ultraviolet rays.”

So the Earth's thin protective layer is predicted to take about 100 years to return to pre-pollution levels. Our ability to screw up our only place to live is without limit. Luckily politicians acted when they did. Can you imagine if the ozone hole was detected this year? Today's politicians would deny that there was a problem and radicalized citizens would argue that it was a government plot to take away their way of life! 

http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Slides_AGUbriefing_FINAL_to_print.pdf

Humans are becoming more carnivorous→

Hannah Hoag, reporting for Nature,

“Globally, the human trophic level increased by 3% from 1961 to 2009, driven largely by more meat consumption in India and China.”

Perhaps the most important statistic estimated for 2013.

What Do We Mean By “Clean?”→

Emily Hilts, writing at 'The Life Aquatic' blog:

“Let’s say we could clean Mendota in an instant. What would it look like? Far clearer water, healthy stands of plants, no floating garbage… we can all agree on this vision, right? But what if we drift closer to shore – what does it look like then? Not everyone has the same idea of what a “clean” shoreline looks like.”

Nice story weaving recent lake science and what make place. 

Waters of Wisconsin–and Beyond [pdf]→

Robert G. Lange, reporting for Wisconsin People & Ideas:

“Limnology, the study of inland waters, is an academic discipline of great interest to the citizens of Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin–Madison limnologists have been studying the waters of Wisconsin since 1895 with the goal of finding solutions to the vexing and myriad challenges our waters continually face. Examining the causal relationships involved in nutrient pollution and lake food webs, studying the impact of dams (and their removal) on rivers, monitoring the health of the Great Lakes, and evaluating the impact of climate change on our waters are all in a day’s work for the scientists at the university’s Center for Limnology.”

Great story on the history of the Center for Limnology and the outstanding scientists that have contributed so much to the understanding of lake ecosystems.

Leading Canadian ecologist calls on scientists to recover policy influence→

Ron Meador, reporting for MinnPost: 

“David Schindler made plain in a talk Tuesday evening entitled “Letting the Light In: Providing Environmental Science to Direct Public Policy,” on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus.

Schindler is a Minnesota-born engineer turned freshwater ecologist, a longtime leader in Canada’s environmental academy in part because his résumé includes deep involvement as a scientist in the battles over acid rain, eutrophication, dioxins and, more recently, the impacts of oil production from the Alberta tar sands.”

What’s wrong with gorgeous Lake George? Scientists wire it up to find out→

David Richardson, reporting for Grist: 

“Thomas Jefferson called Lake George in Upstate New York “without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw.” The painter Georgia O’Keefe lived part time at the lake during the 1920s and ’30s, drawing inspiration for some of her laconic, gauzy landscapes. The Whitneys summered there, the Roosevelts, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers — all the big industrialists. It’s still one of New York’s top vacation destinations, bringing in around $1 billion in tourism each year.

If climate change took vacations it would probably go there too. But climate change doesn’t take vacations. In fact, Mark Swinton says it’s kind of hanging out at Lake George all the time, and not in a regular-folk, kick-back-in-an-Adirondack-chair-and-read-a-good-book sorta way.”

Why rabbits have white tails→

Daniel Cressey, reporting for Nature News Blog: 

“Dirk Semmann, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Göttingen in Germany, thinks he has the answer to this puzzle — and the evidence to back it up. Other theories hold that rump patches are warning to other animals, are sexually selected, or serve to show a predator that they have been spotted.

Semmann’s research suggests that these spots actually confuse predators because of their very noticeable nature. By focusing on the bright spot, the would-be predator ignores the larger body of the animal. Then, when the rabbit executes a sharp turn, the spot disappears and the predator has to readjust to focus on the camouflaged coat, losing vital seconds.”

How science studies lakes like White Bear; update on fixing a lethal intersection→

Ron Meador, reporting for MinnPost: 

“Sometimes it seems we know still less about the water beneath our feet: how much of it there is, how reliably it’s being replenished, how long our ever-increasing demands on it can be sustained.

Many interesting glimpses into our reservoirs of groundwater knowledge and ignorance were laid out in a talk last Thursday evening, sponsored by The Freshwater Society and the University of Minnesota’s College of Biological Sciences.”