Climate Lynx

Please forgive me for my military analogies. I am a product of my military upbringing. The ability of a society to prevail against threats such as deadly viruses and climate change have a correlation to an infantry platoon operating in hostile territory. COVID-19 is a threat the whole world is dealing with right now.  Before beginning this column, I consulted with a Marine friend. As a helicopter pilot I am a bit spoiled. Aviators generally sleep at night on a cot protected by infantry guarding a fortified perimeter. Thus, my infantry expertise is a little weak. The Army emphasizes, even to aviators, no matter what skill you are trained for everyone is at their core, Infantry. If an enemy round were to disable my helicopter engine, as Army Aviator, I was expected to join the fight. I was not keen on that way of thinking, and practically, I doubt an infantry lieutenant leading a highly trained infantry platoon would want a helicopter pilot around anyway. But, some in...

The Boreal Forest, the primeval North Woods, the Great Northern Forest; what does climate change mean to the world’s largest forest Biome? The Boreal Forest stretches across Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia. It is the world’s largest continuous forest biome and thus, geographically, the largest carbon absorber. When summer arrives, the vast forest absorbs more CO2 than humans emit, temporarily reducing the greenhouse gas concentration as the giant green lungs of mother earth take in her seasonal breath. If the southern hemisphere had a forest as big, we would not have a global warming problem. Here in the UP we have some forest dominated by the Boreal, but our forest is usually a mix of it and the Eastern Deciduous Forest. I would be remiss not to mention we have a beautiful old growth forest in the Porcupine Mountains where we can find trees from both biomes.  But the real Boreal is north of us in Canada. Maine’s boreal forest and Minnesota’s boreal forest in the no...

We love meat, but do we have to eat the cow? Pat Brown is a world-renowned biochemist with a list of amazing accomplishments. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA, an MD and a PhD in biochemistry. His goal in life was, and still is, to make the world a better place to live for all of us. Most scientists have similar goals, but Dr Brown is setting a new standard. His accomplishments are, in large part, attributable to hardworking teams. One team he headed discovered the basic science defining the mechanism HIV infects human cells making a cure possible. He headed another team discovering a way to monitor genes in a genome. Then they created the micro-array to analyze the genome.  These breakthroughs empower researchers to understand how cells work and how cells are compromised by cancer and viruses like the one we are being ravaged by now.   Vaccine discoveries may be speeded along due to his work. In another effort to move science forward he ...