#scienc

Red Alert. Credit: ESO/Christoph Malin

El problema de la sociedad no es que los niños no sepan ciencia. El problema es que los adultos que no saben ciencia. superan en número a los niños 5 a 1, ellos ejercen el poder, escriben las leyes. Cuando tienes adultos científicamente analfabetos, no tienes definido el tejido que hace a una nación rica y fuerte. The problem in society is not kids not knowing science. The problem is adults not knowing science. They outnumber kids 5 to 1, they wield power, they write legislation. When you have scientifically illiterate adults, you have undetermined the very fabric of what makes a nation wealthy and strong

A Massive Seagrass Project Is Restoring a Lost Food Web for Wintering Geese

When the Chesapeake Bay's eelgrass forests disappeared, Atlantic Brant lost a major food source. Decades of work have helped reverse those losses.  

In an October study published in Science Advances, Orth and a team of researchers from the institute detail the world's largest eelgrass restoration effort, situated in the southern Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Virginia. Their decades-long project has restored nearly 9,000 acres of eelgrass in a region where it was nearly extirpated while bringing back a once-lost food web to a wintering habitat for Atlantic Brant and other species.

Eelgrass, a type of submerged aquatic vegetation, is long and tubular and found in patches in tidal bays, resembling a swaying lawn of green spaghetti. These noodles are the foundation for fish habitats and waterfowl diets across the globe, and in the Chesapeake Bay, are part of an ecosystem making a comeback thanks in part to hands-on projects like this.

Once found in abundance in coastal bays across the east coast, eelgrass coverage plummeted after a devastating plant disease and hurricanes in the 1930s decimated about 90 percent of the vegetation in the Atlantic. The clear water once cleaned by eelgrass became a more opaque and murky environment with little vegetation. Seed sources were washed out of their habitats, making recovery difficult across its range.

Natural restoration was perhaps the hardest in the Chesapeake Bay, where narrow entrances to suitable sites precluded any seeds from taking hold. When Orth and others initially sought ways to restore eelgrass in the bay, marine scientists had low expectations. “The hypothesis was that, well, you know these bays are shallow, they’re muddy, maybe there was an ecosystem state change and these grasses would never come back,” Orth says...