News

A team of North Carolina State researcher and INSTAAR Tom Marchitto have developed a robot capable of sorting, manipulating, and identifying foraminifera—microscopic marine fossils that play a key role in our understanding of the world’s oceans and climate past and present. An open-source paper describing the work has been published in the AGU journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems; and the robot itself will be made open source.

Algal mats survive extreme conditions in Antarctica by entering a freeze-dried state. Led by Diane McKnight, researchers collected the green algae that survive there and grew them in the lab to assess their applications for spaceflight.

Presentation on Michael Gooseff, winner of the 2022 Robert L. Stearns Award, profiles his career as a polar science researcher and educator. Gooseff leads the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research project, chairs the Water Quality Control Commission for the State of Colorado, and was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board on Water Body Connectivity for the Environmental Protection Agency among other leadership and teaching roles.

Thawing permafrost—the frozen layer of soil that has underpinned the Arctic tundra and boreal forests of Alaska, Canada and Russia for millennia—is upending the lives of people living in the Arctic and dramatically transforming the polar landscape. The vast amount of carbon stored in the permafrost is an overlooked and underestimated driver of climate crisis. Permafrost thaw needs to get more attention—fast.

Randall Duncan is an undergraduate student who is also a U.S. Army veteran. He is pursuing dual degrees in geology and geography while working with Holly Barnard on hydrology research in the critical zone. Duncan is investigating how beavers influence rivers and floodplains near Crested Butte, Colorado, funded by the NSF GEO-VETS (Geosciences-Veterans Education and Training) initiative.

If Earth heats up beyond 1.5 degrees C, the impacts don't get just slightly worse--scientists warn that abrupt changes could be triggered, with devastating impacts. As the 27th annual climate negotiations are underway in Egypt and the world is set to blow past that 1.5°C warming threshold, NPR asks climate scientists including Merritt Turetsky about three climate tipping points--points of no return that could cause big changes to the Earth's ecosystems.

Hybrids of two common North American songbirds, the black-capped and mountain chickadee, are more likely to be found in places where humans have altered the landscape, finds new research by a team including INSTAAR Scott Taylor. The study is the first to positively correlate hybridization in any species with human-caused landscape changes. It also contradicts a long-standing assumption that these two birds rarely hybridize.

Warren Sconiers—an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder interested in plant-insect interactions, insect ecology, and climate change—shares his story as part of Black History Month.

As climate changes, previously frozen chemical runoff from farms and fields puts water quality at risk in over 40 states, research says. Keith Musselman part of team looking at winter nutrient pollution, a new problem caused by climate change.

A new children’s book is centered in the Critical Zone, the thin outer layer of Earth’s surface from the tops of the trees down to bedrock where life exists and interacts with rock, soil, water, and air. Designed for 8 to 12-year olds, the book is by INSTAARs Eric Parrish and Suzanne Anderson and is published by Muddy Boots Books.