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Ouside: “The 33 special agents assigned to the Investigative Services Branch handle the most complex crimes committed on NPS land. When a day hike in Rocky Mountain National Park ended in a grisly death, ISB veteran Beth Shott hit the trail, where she began unraveling a harrowing case…The elite special agents assigned to the ISB—the …
The Royal Society of Biology’s 12 shortlisted entries range from symmetries seen under a microscope to camouflaged insects.
Quartz: “A study published Tuesday (Oct. 16) in the journal Environmental Science and Technology found microplastics in more than 90% of the packaged food-grade salt—also known as table salt—for sale in stores. The team, from South Korea’s Incheon National University and Greenpeace East Asia, sampled 39 brands of salt harvested in 21 countries. Only three …
“Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suits filed by nonprofit and advocacy organizations seeking access to federal government records have more than doubled since President Trump assumed office. This sudden burst in FOIA activity is a marked departure from the slower rise that had prevailed during much of the previous two presidential administrations. In FY 2001, …
BBC: The Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 left a ring of ghost villages as residents fled, fearing radiation poisoning. But now people are choosing to live in the crumbling houses on the edge of the exclusion zone. “…Today it is still illegal to live inside the exclusion zone. Despite this, about 130 to 150 people …
Washington Post: “Insects around the world are in a crisis, according to a small but growing number of long-term studies showing dramatic declines in invertebrate populations. A new report suggests that the problem is more widespread than scientists realized. Huge numbers of bugs have been lost in a pristine national forest in Puerto Rico, the …
Trump Administration Reform and Reorganization Plan: Discussion of 35 “Government-Wide” Proposals, CRS memorandum, July 25, 2018. “This memorandum provides a brief summary and some preliminary analysis of the Donald J. Trump Administration’s recent proposals to restructure and reform agencies, programs, and operations in the executive branch. Specifically, the memorandum covers the 32 proposals characterized by the …
New York Magazine: “Facial recognition technology has some serious, persistent issues. These were clearly shown earlier this year when Amazon’s “Rekognition” mistakenly identified 28 members of Congress as criminals. The technology as a whole largely suffers both from inaccuracy and systemic bias. Regardless of who wields the technology or for what purpose, the algorithms use …
Follow-up to recent posting U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – global warming crisis and 10 year ticking clock please see this study via Brookings – Eco-Socialism or Bust – By Thea Riofrancos, Robert Shaw, Will Speck. “To confront climate change, we need to democratize, decarbonize, and decommodify our energy resources. Broadly, our energy vision …
MarketPlace: “The U.S. Supreme Court has been in the spotlight in recent weeks over the confirmation of its latest justice, Brett Kavanaugh. Now attention turns to the cases the fully staffed high court will consider this session. For more on what the new makeup of Supreme Court will mean for business and the economy, and …
News release: “With more than 6,000 scientific references cited and the dedicated contribution of thousands of expert and government reviewers worldwide, this important report testifies to the breadth and policy relevance of the IPCC,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC. Ninety-one authors and review editors from 40 countries prepared the IPCC report in response …
Washington Post: “A much-awaited report from the U.N.’s top climate science panel will show an enormous gap between where we are and where we need to be to prevent dangerous levels of warming…The IPCC [United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], the world’s definitive scientific body when it comes to climate change, was awarded the …
