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Environment
4:13 pm
Fri May 17, 2013

South Florida's New Science Center And Aquarium

Credit Courtesy photo / South Florida Science Museum
The South Florida Science Museum before its makeover.
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What's in a name change? Plenty, when the new moniker also signals an "emotional change," as is the case with the soon-to-be-unveiled South Florida Science Center and Aquarium. The entity is a rebranding of the popular South Florida Science Museum. The longtime Palm Beach County institution hasn't received a makeover since its completion in 1969 (which represents an eternity in a region that is eager to "spruce up appearances" on the regular.) 

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Environment
9:45 am
Thu April 18, 2013

This Scientist Aims High To Save The World's Coral Reefs

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Credit Richard Harris / NPR
Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science takes a water sample during his experiment on part of the Great Barrier Reef. The water is slightly pink because his team is using a dye to trace an acid-neutralizing chemical as it flows across the reef.
Credit Richard Harris / NPR
Ken Caldeira, a researcher with the Carnegie Institution for Science, pilots an aluminum skiff filled with equipment for his experiment on the reef. He is trying to figure out whether corals would grow faster if he neutralized human-induced changes in the ocean's acid balance.
Credit Richard Harris / NPR
Caldeira pours fluorescein dye over the coral to determine which direction the current is flowing. This spectacular dye is also used in medical diagnosis and is considered harmless for the reef.
Credit Richard Harris / NPR
Tubes snake back to a floating tank (the yellow object in the background), which is attached to a skiff anchored just off the reef. The tank contains antacid and some red dye.
Credit Courtesy of Lilian Caldeira
The world's oceans are 30 percent more acidic than they were before the industrial revolution because carbon dioxide from cars and power plants dissolves in ocean water and turns into carbonic acid. That threatens the health of the world's coral reefs.
Credit Richard Harris / NPR
The antacid mixture is pumped over the reef during the hourlong experiment. Caldeira hopes it will neutralize the water and help the coral grow.
Credit Richard Harris / NPR
Field assistant Benjamin Cox keeps track of water samples as they are drawn from the edge of the reef. The samples will be analyzed in a chemistry lab back on One Tree Island.
Credit Richard Harris / NPR
The sun sets at One Tree Island. The research Caldeira's team is doing might help save small patches of coral reefs, but it would be impossible to scale up a chemical treatment to protect whole reefs from increasing ocean acidity.
Credit Courtesy of Lilian Caldeira
Researchers from the Carnegie Institution for Science spent a month at a remote research outpost — One Tree Island, at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef — to study how changing ocean acidity is affecting coral reefs.
Credit Richard Harris / NPR
Members of the research team fend for themselves in a communal kitchen (while fending off persistent ants) before heading out for a challenging day on the reef.
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Originally published on Mon April 22, 2013 9:52 pm

Most scientists find a topic that interests them and keep digging deeper and deeper into the details. But Ken Caldeira takes the opposite approach in search for solutions to climate change. He goes after the big questions, and leaves the details to others.

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Miami Scientist Featured On Discovery Channel
2:03 pm
Fri April 12, 2013

Miami Researcher Stars In TV Special On Great White Sharks

Credit Hermanusbackpackers / Flickr Creative Commons
A Miami-based shark researcher routinely goes face-to-face with nature's top predators.
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Miami-based shark researcher Neil Hammerschlag, whose work WLRN has covered in the past, is getting international attention with his latest study on the feeding habits of the ocean's most feared and misunderstood creature: the great white shark. 

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Aired 3/8/13 on WLRN Channel 17
8:53 am
Mon April 8, 2013

Saving Florida Wildlife

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By James March

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Topical Currents
1:00 pm
Tue March 12, 2013

Ecological Anxiety

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Credit http://www.nathanaeljohnson.org/
Nathanael Johnson
Credit http://www.nathanaeljohnson.org/
All Natural: A Skeptic’s Quest
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  • If you download, link or post this audio, please use the credit: from WLRN's Topical Currents www.wlrn.org

03/12/13 - Tuesday's Topical Currents is with journalist and public radio figure Nathanael Johnson.  He’s the author of ALL NATURAL:  A SKEPTIC’S QUEST.   It’s a mix of science writing and memoir, and chronicles his “ecological anxiety,” with questions about man-made versus made-by-nature.  Is there a middle ground?  That’s Topical Currents with Joseph Cooper & Bonnie Berman . . . Tuesday at 1pm on WLRN-HD1, rebroadcast at 7pm on WLRN-HD2. 

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Florida's Aquifer
4:00 pm
Wed January 30, 2013

Florida's Current Aquifer Models Paint Inaccurate Picture Of State's Water Supply

Credit eutrophication&hypoxia / Flickr Creative Commons
Florida's current computer models for tracking underground water flow are coming up short.
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By Tricia Woolfenden

Understanding how water flows through Florida's aquifers is integral to maintaining  a safe and sufficient supply of fresh water, but current computer models used to monitor the state's aquifers and springs are "full of holes," according to some critics. 

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Florida's Aquifer
11:16 am
Wed January 30, 2013

How Florida's Aquifer Models Are Inaccurate, And Why That Might Be A Problem For Our Water Supply

Credit eutrophication&hypoxia / Flickr Creative Commons
Florida's current computer models for tracking underground water flow are coming up short.
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By Tricia Woolfenden

Understanding how water flows through Florida's aquifer is integral to maintaining  safe and sufficient supply of fresh water, but current computer models used to monitor the state's aquifers and springs are "full of holes" according to some critics. 

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Giant Eyeball
7:41 am
Fri October 12, 2012

'Softball-Sized Eyeball' Washes Up In Florida; Can You I.D. It?

Credit Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Quite a baby blue.
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Originally published on Mon October 15, 2012 10:41 am

Tell us you can resist clicking on this headline from Florida's Sun Sentinel:

"Huge Eyeball From Unknown Creature Washes Ashore On Florida Beach."

It's big, it's blue and the newspaper says "among the possibilities being discussed are a giant squid, some other large fish or a whale or other large marine mammal."

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has sent the eye off for study.

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