November-December 2008

So Make It a New Year’s Present.  [Updated]

December 30, 2008

Here are some of the best skywatching resources I use when working on Joe Rao’s “SkyLog” column—an assignment that has inevitably made me more aware of the sky, at least as much as is visible from the lamentably light-polluted urbs I live in. Whether you have a skygazing jones or know someone who does, whether you live under a sky still encrusted with undimmed stars or are contemplating travel to such places, you may find these resources useful and enlightening if you don’t know them already.  more

The Heartbreak of Cosmology

December 16, 2008

Just when scientists think they’ve got the universe’s number, they discover something that throws it all into a cocked hat. They'd hardly had time to right themselves from the discovery of dark matter when dark energy came along and blew them over again.  more

A Cautionary Tale of Two Species

November 26, 2008

Ending on a note of optimism about the vaquita made me nervous—not superstitious about a jinx, but wary of the human tendency to be galvanized by fear but to relax when happy. As an antidote, read the epitaphs of two endangered species that didn't make it.  more

And How, Little Cow!

The critically endangered vaquita porpoise still lives:

A real-time report from the field.

November 24, 2008

A year ago last July, marine biologists Robert L. Pitman and Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho wrote in our pages about the vaquita (Phocoena sinus), the tiny, critically endangered porpoise that lives only in the upper Gulf of California. Every year, they reported, forty to eighty vaquitas were drowning in the entangling gill and drift nets of fishermen and shrimpers from local communities. But if there are fewer vaquitas now than there were a year and a half ago (and, as we’ll see, maybe not!), there is also more real hope for them. An international expedition of marine scientists, just wrapping up as this post comes online, reports directly from the field that enforcement has improved greatly and there are grounds for optimism.  more

(Annie Gottlieb)