The New Theme

Here’s a thread for everyone to list all their complaints, and even some compliments on the operation and appearance of the new theme.…

On the Hunt for a Missing Giant Black Hole

Despite searching with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have no evidence that a distant black hole estimated to weigh between 3 billion and 100 billion times the mass of the Sun is anywhere to be found.…

Capturing 40 years of climate change for an endangered Montana prairie

To better understand the effects of climate change on bunchgrass prairies, Belovsky and Slade studied the National Bison Range, a bunchgrass prairie in Montana, for 40 years. They made repeated observations of plant growth and production, abundances of different plant species, and availability of nitrogen (an important nutrient for plants), generating a comprehensive timeline of ecosystem changes.…

Late fall polar bear habitat 2020 compared to some previous years

As is usual at this time of year, the Canadian Archipelago, the Beaufort, East Siberian and Laptev Seas are well covered in ice (see regions on map below). As for the rest, despite what one polar bear specialist has implied there is no evidence that a slower-than-usual fall freeze-up in the other peripheral seas of the Arctic negatively affects polar bear health or survival.…