Antimicrobial resistance is a serious and growing problem for public health.  Over time, more and more types of bacteria have become resistant to known antibiotics making it very difficult to treat various kinds of infections. 

A new group of antibiotics with a unique approach to attacking bacteria has been discovered at McMaster University in Canada, representing a promising new clinical approach in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. 

The newly found corbomycin and the lesser-known complestatin have a never-before-seen way to kill bacteria, namely, breaking

the function of the bacterial cell wall. Bacteria

have a wall around the outside of their cells that gives them shape and is a

source of strength.  Antibiotics like penicillin kill bacteria by preventing building of

the wall, but the new antibiotics work by doing the opposite – they prevent the wall from

being broken down. Breaking down the cell wall is

critical for cells to divide. In order for bacteria to grow and spread, they need to expand and divide. By completely blocking the breakdown of the wall, it is as if the bacterium is trapped in a prison and can’t expand or grow. 

The researchers demonstrated in mice that these new antibiotics can

block infections caused by the drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus which is a

group of bacteria that can cause many serious infections. 

The researchers believe this new approach

can be applied to other antibiotics and lead to

the discovery of new ones with different mechanisms of action. This

study found one completely new antibiotic, but since then, they have found a

few others in the same family that have this same new mechanism. 

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Antibiotics discovered that kill bacteria in a new way

Photo, posted March 15, 2012, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Recent climate models from multiple organizations project that the amount of warming that doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide would cause would be much more than previously estimated.  And one of the significant changes to the models relates to the role of clouds.

Clouds have long been a major uncertainty in climate

calculations.  Clouds can shade the earth

and thereby provide cooling.  But clouds

can also trap heat.  Which effect

dominates depends on how reflective the clouds are, how high up they are, and

whether it is day or night.  The dynamics

of clouds are complicated.

If you fly across the ocean, you will see blankets of low clouds

extending for hundreds of miles.  These

marine stratus and stratocumulus clouds predominantly cool the Earth.  In fact, they shade roughly a fifth of the

oceans and reflect 30-60% of the solar radiation that hits them back into

space.

Recent studies indicate that as global temperatures rise, these clouds

are likely to become thinner or burn off entirely, leaving more clear skies

through which the sun may add another degree Celsius or more to global warming.

The concerns about clouds are part of the larger issue about feedbacks

in warming the world.  It has long been

clear that the greenhouse effect of doubling CO2 levels in the atmosphere would

raise global temperature.  But there are

amplifying feedback effects.  Melting

large areas of snow and ice reduces reflectivity and allows the land and oceans

to absorb more heat.  More water vapor

entering the atmosphere traps more heat. 

And now clouds are another concern.

Overall, these effects are leading to climate models predicting much

larger global temperature increases, which is a scary prospect for the world.

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Why Clouds Are the Key to New Troubling Projections on Warming

Photo, posted September 10, 2006, courtesy of Nicholas A. Tonelli via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Under a new initiative, builders in New Jersey will have to take climate change into account in order to win government approval for projects.  New Jersey is the first state in the United States to enact such a requirement, which will leverage land-use rules to control what and where developers can build, and limit the volume of pollution. 

Through executive order, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy will require

the state Department of Environmental Protection to draft new building

regulations.  The changes, to be adopted

by January 2022, do not require legislative approval, but could face political

and legal challenges. 

Climate change is expected to have a significant impact on New Jersey and its 130 miles of coastline.  According to a recent study from Rutgers University, the sea level along the New Jersey coast rose 1.5 feet since 1911, which was more than twice as much as the global average. The sea level is expected to rise by as much as another foot by 2030.  At the same time, some coastal areas of New Jersey are gradually sinking.

The initiative by New Jersey comes on the heels of a Trump

administration proposal which would allow federal agencies to not

take climate change into account when evaluating infrastructure projects. The

federal changes are geared towards speeding up approvals for highway

construction, pipelines, oil and gas leases, and other major infrastructure

projects.   

In the absence of anything resembling leadership on climate change from the federal government, it remains for states like New Jersey to continue to press ahead.  In addition to the new building initiative, New Jersey also plans to produce 100% clean energy by 2050. 

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Web Links

Excluding Climate Change From Infrastructure Planning | Earth Wise

With 130-Mile Coast, New Jersey Marks a First in Climate Change Fight

Photo, posted August 27, 2016, courtesy of Rashaad Jorden via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

It is still early in the year, but extreme weather events are already piling up.  January was the warmest month on record globally and there have been many records shattered in Europe and Asia.  A number of places in Eastern Europe, including parts of Russia, have seen temperatures 12 to 13 degrees above average.

While the warming of the Arctic has been in the news with increasing

frequency, the Antarctic is also seeing rising temperatures and is one of the

fastest-warming regions in the world. 

On February 6th, Esperanza Base along Antarctica’s Trinity Peninsula measured a temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the highest temperature ever recorded on that continent.   This rather balmy temperature narrowly beat out the previous record of 63.5 degrees, which occurred in March of 2015.

This one-time reading is certainly anomalous, and scientists say it is associated with a ridge of high pressure that was lingering over the region for several days.  Local wind conditions led to additional warming.

However, the conditions leading to record-breaking high temperatures

are not one-time anomalous events. Over the past 50 years, temperatures in the

Antarctic have surged by an extraordinary 5 degrees in response to the Earth’s

rapidly warming climate.  A rise of five

degrees in day-to-day weather is no big deal. A five-degree rise in a region’s

average temperature is enormous.

About 87% of the glaciers along the west coast of Antarctica’s Trinity Peninsula have retreated over that 50-year period, most of which doing so during just the past 12 years.

Some researchers claim that the new temperature record is an extreme

event that doesn’t tell us anything about the changing climate.  Many others are convinced that there will be

many more high temperature records to follow.

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Web Links

Antarctica just hit 65 degrees, its warmest temperature ever recorded

Photo, posted February 24, 2019, courtesy of Mike via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Printed circuit boards are key elements of modern electronic devices that support and connect all of their electronic components.  On average, they are composed of 30% metallic and 70% nonmetallic substances.

Once the circuit boards have served their purpose, they are often

burned or buried in landfills, and can pollute the air, soil, and water.  The biggest problem is that they have

brominated flame retardants added to them in order to keep them from catching

fire.  Compounds in brominated flame

retardants have been linked to endocrine disorders and fetal tissue damage.

Many circuit boards are recycled to recover valuable materials –

generally the metals they contain.  But

recycling has its own problems.  Metallic

components can be recovered from crushed circuit boards by magnetic and

high-voltage electrostatic separations. 

When the metals are removed, what remains are resins, reinforcing

materials, brominated flame retardants, and other additives, which are of

little value and present various dangers.

Researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in China have developed a ball-milling

method to break down these potentially harmful compounds, enabling safe

disposal.  A ball mill is a rotating

machine that uses small agate balls to grind up materials. The researchers also

added iron powder, which helps remove bromine from organic compounds by

breaking the carbon-bromine bonds in the flame retardants.  The result was particles with half of their

bromine content removed as well as decomposition of phenolic resin compounds.

The ever-increasing proliferation of device technology had led to a

new set of pollution and waste challenges facing society.  Research on ways to reduce the impact of

high-tech garbage is an important need for society.

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Web Links

Toward safer disposal of printed circuit boards

Photo, posted February 18, 2018, courtesy of Diego Torres Silvestre via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the world and people are mostly the reason.  Species are disappearing because of changes in land and sea use, the direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species resulting from globalization.  The challenges of conserving the world’s species are many and difficult.  Among these challenges are determining which species are endangered and how and when to protect them.

What constitutes an endangered species is not necessarily obvious. 

Extinction risk increases as a species is driven to extinction from

portions of its natural range.  Most

mammal species have already been driven to extinction from half or more of

their historic ranges because of human activities.

According to a recent survey of ordinary Americans, three-quarters of

participants said that a species deserves special protections if it had been

driven to extinction from any more than 30% of its historic range.  This compares with the language of the U.S.

Endangered Species Act that defines an endangered species as one that is “in

danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.”

Experts and decision-makers are more accepting of risks and losses

because they believe greater protection would be impossibly expensive.  Decision-makers tend to be influenced by

special interest groups with a vested interest in not instituting protections.

Before human activities began elevating extinction risk, a typical

vertebrate species would have experienced an extinction risk of 1% over a

10,000-year period.  Current policies

consider a 5% risk over 100 years to be acceptable.  Policies consider whether we can afford to

protect species.  Given the dangers of

declining biodiversity, we should ask whether we can afford not to.

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Web Links

What Is An Endangered Species?

Photo, posted July 29, 2018, courtesy of Sergio Boscaino via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

International shipping is a large and growing source of greenhouse gas emissions.  Maritime transport produces about a billion tons of CO2 annually, accounting for about 2.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.  The environmental impact of shipping includes air pollution, water pollution, and even acoustic pollution.  In many coastal areas, ships are responsible for more than 18% of some air pollutants.  Overall, there are more than 100,000 transport ships at sea, of which about 6,000 are large container ships.

In recent years, the shipping sector has had both internal willingness

and external pressure to reduce emissions, but shipping is a tough, competitive

business and it isn’t easy to stay competitive and help protect the

environment.

A recent study at Abo Akademi University in Finland has found that

improved ship utilization rates and investments in environmentally sustainable

technologies for enhanced energy efficiency would significantly reduce carbon

dioxide emissions.  Of equal importance,

those same measures would contribute to lowering of freight costs.

If the same cargo volume can be shipped using less fuel, shipping

companies will gain major savings in terms of fuel costs.  Digitalization can provide valuable

benefits.  For example, new digital

planning and booking systems would enable smarter use of routes while also

diminishing traffic with half-empty vessels or even ones with no cargo

aboard.  Reducing such underutilization would

improve the capacity utilization rate and eliminate emissions caused by

so-called ballast traffic.

Global shipping continues to grow. 

It is essential that it becomes smarter and more efficient to protect

the environment and improve its economics.

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Web Links

Environmentally friendly shipping helps to reduce freight costs

Photo, posted February 18, 2016, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Wearable technology is an ever-increasing part of our world.  Fitness trackers have become commonplace for people of all ages.  Smart watches perform a growing range of functions.   There are wearable health monitoring systems of many types for assisted living, elderly patients, and people with specific health problems.  Virtual reality headsets are increasingly popular and there is now even smart technology footwear that is integrated with smartphones and mapping software.

The adoption of wearable electronics has so far been limited by their

need to derive power from relatively bulky, rigid batteries that reduce comfort

and even may present safety hazards related to chemical leakage or

combustion.  To date, there has not been

a power source that can stretch and bend the way our bodies do, which would

enable electronic designs that people can comfortably wear.

Researchers at Stanford have recently announced the development of a

soft and stretchable battery that relies on a special type of plastic to store

power more safely than the flammable formulations used in conventional

batteries today.

The lithium ion batteries in our phones, computers, cameras and

electric cars already make use of plastic electrolytes.  These polymer electrolytes are in the form of

flowable gels.  The Stanford researchers

developed a new polymer that is solid and stretchable rather than gooey and

potentially leaky.  But it still carries

an electric charge and maintains a constant power output even when squeezed,

folded or stretched to nearly twice its original length.

The prototype battery is thumbnail-sized and stores only about half as much energy for its size as a conventional battery.  But the researchers are working to increase both the size and the energy density of the battery. 

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Web Links

A new stretchable battery can power wearable electronics

Photo, posted November 28, 2016, courtesy of Timo Newton-Syms via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

For decades, conservation biology has characterized the movement of species into new habitats as potential invasions of alien species that pose serious dangers to local ecosystems and resident species.  Wild species are classified as either native or alien.  But this way of looking at the natural world is becoming increasingly controversial.

As the world warms, a mass exodus of tens of thousands of species is

transforming the distribution of biodiversity. 

Scientists have documented countless species shifting their ranges

towards the poles, higher up into the mountains, and deeper into the oceans in

response to the changing climate.

Deciduous shrubs have spread into the Arctic tundra.  Tropical fish have arrived in the kelp forests of the eastern Mediterranean. 

A growing number of scientists now say that continuing to base

conservation policy on the native-alien dichotomy may actually endanger

biodiversity.  The climate-driven range

shifts may be the only way for many species to survive.  Furthermore, only a small fraction of new

arrivals may actually endanger resident species and ecosystems.

There are real distinctions between climate-displaced species and

disruptive alien species introduced through global trade and travel.  Among other things, climate-displaced species

tend to shift their ranges alongside other species they have co-evolved with.

There is talk of establishing a Climate Change Redistribution Treaty

that would create a transnational system to manage species shifting across

geopolitical and biogeographical borders. 

The assumptions traditionally made as to which species to protect, which

to leave to their own devices,  and which

to eradicate are no longer valid and the time has come to base conservation

policies on the new reality.

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Web Links

Native Species or Invasive? The Distinction Blurs as the World Warms

Photo, posted March 21, 2011, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Arctic is warming faster than any region on Earth and mostly we’ve been hearing about the rapid disappearance of Arctic sea ice.  But the land in the Arctic is also undergoing major changes, especially to the permafrost that has been there for millennia.

Permafrost occurs in areas where the temperature of the ground remains below freezing for two years or more.  About a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere’s landscape meets this criterion.  Most of the world’s permafrost is found in northern Russia, Canada, Alaska, Iceland, and Scandinavia.

Permafrost regions previously carpeted in cranberries, blueberries, shrubs, sedges, and lichen are now being transformed into nothing but mud, silt, and peat.  So-called regressive thaw slumps – essentially landslides – are creating large craters in the landscape.  (The Batagaika Crater in the Yana River Basin of Siberia is a kilometer long and 100 meters deep).

Apart from the violence being done to the Arctic landscape, the

greatest concern is that the permafrost has locked in huge stores of greenhouse

gases, including methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide.  It is estimated that the permafrost contains

twice as much carbon as is currently contained in the atmosphere.  As the permafrost thaws, these gases will be

released.  With them will be pathogens

from bygone millennia whose impact cannot be predicted.  Climatologists estimate that 40% of the

permafrost could be gone by the end of the century.

As the permafrost thaws, the region’s ecosystems are changing, making

it increasingly difficult for subsistence indigenous people and Arctic animals

to find food.  Landslides are causing

stream flows to change, lakes to suddenly drain, seashores to collapse, and

water chemistry to be altered.

The warming Arctic is about much more than disappearing sea ice.

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Web Links

How Thawing Permafrost Is Beginning to Transform the Arctic

Photo, posted February 9, 2017, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.