Wildfires sweep the Pacific Northwest, sending clouds of toxic smoke into the air. Oslo construct a special "highway" just for bees. And FiveThirtyEight's Christie Aschwanden takes a look at the hard work that goes into scientific research. It's Earthy Thursday, our weekly segment on the Earth and science-related news. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!
As our population increases in size and the demand for resources increases, many people have become increasingly concerned with issues of sustainability. But could the answers to our problems lie in the past? This article from Yes! Magazine takes a look at how indigenous farmers from Mexico are looking to the past to solve problems of the future.
You've probably heard a lot about bees and their declining populations for awhile now. But you probably haven't heard many attempts at a solution. In Norway, the city of Oslo is trying to give their local bees a little helping hand, by building a "highway" through the city that provides them food and shelter.
Radiation. Just the word is enough to send a chill down many people's spines. But what is radiation and just how dangerous it is? As a matter of fact, radiation is far more common than you might think, as Gizmodo's Maddie Stone explains.
If you've been paying attention to the news out of Washington and Oregon these last few weeks, you've doubtless heard about the wildfires sweeping the borderlands between both states. Although progress has been made in fighting the fires, their ferocity and rapid spread in a region not known for its aridity has many worried. Indeed, firefighters are now claiming the fires may well be the result of climate change.
When we think of science we often imagine a catalog of information, full of facts and neat data points. But the reality is that science is really a process, a way of investigating reality, and one that requires a lot of hard (and often messy) work. This article from FiveThirtyEight sums up some of what makes science so hard (and also valuable) and why even the best scientists sometimes get things wrong.