ICYMI: Giant Crack Shuts Research Station, Kids Need Dirty Air, & More

A weekly roundup for busy people

By Paul Rauber

November 3, 2017

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Illustration by Peter Arkle

Britain shuts down its Halley VI research station in Antarctica, which is threatened by two huge cracks in the Brunt ice shelf. 

Arctic temperatures in the week of November 5 to 11 are forecast to be from 8ºF to 54°F above normal.

Robert Phalen, a likely appointee to the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board, says that children need to breathe dirty air to strengthen their lungs.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry says that increased access to fossil fuels would prevent sexual assaults in Africa.

The U.S. Forest Service denies an agency scientist permission to deliver a speech on the connection between wildfire and climate change.

The EPA says that water drawn from wells at a hazardous-waste Superfund site in Puerto Rico is fine to drink.

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt bars scientists who receive EPA grants from the agency’s advisory boards, clearing the way for increased participation from scientists funded by industry.

Sam Clovis withdraws his name from consideration as chief scientist at the USDA. He pulls out not because he admittedly has no scientific credentials, but because, as Trump campaign supervisor, he had urged Trump’s foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos to meet with a woman believed to be Vladimir Putin’s niece and obtain “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. 

A new species of orangutan, Pongo tapanuliensisis identified in the Tapanuli region of Sumatra. Only 800 are believed to exist, making them the world’s rarest great ape.

At the request of Australia’s Aboriginal people, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park bans climbing on Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock. 

In Iowa, a dozen dead rabbits are placed at the bottom of a wind turbine, apparently with the intention of luring eagles and other raptors into the path of the turbine blades. 

A four-to-six-foot-long green sturgeon is sighted in the Stanislaus River in California’s Central Valley, where the threatened fish has not been seen in generations.

The Interior Department wants to reverse a 20-year-old ban on uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.

The St. Louis–based Armstrong Energy coal company files for bankruptcy protection. 

Luminant Energy announces that it will close two large coal-fired power plants in Texas. More than half of all U.S. coal plants have now shut down or have committed to retire.

Unemployed coal miners are refusing job-retraining programs in the belief that President Donald Trump is going to revive the coal industry.