We bushwhacked into a steep, wooded ravine of pine and larch, stepping over sofa-sized boulders and towering mounds of blow-down. At the bottom, where the creek gurgled prettily, the hound suddenly let out a fearsome howl. He had scented the cougar.
At the world’s largest caldera lake, geologists are seeking clues to future volcanic activity, not only at Lake Toba in Indonesia but also at other supervolcano sites around the world, including the one at Yellowstone National Park.
When it comes to water, Lauren Smitherman doesn’t mind getting a little personal. As a graduate student in Water Resources Science at Oregon State University, she asked people in rural Oregon for permission to collect samples of their drinking water. Assured of confidentiality, most people welcomed her into their kitchens where Smitherman ran a stream of cold water from their faucets for a few minutes before filling a plastic bottle.
Whether it was an olive branch signaling a new era of peace or a trumpet sounding the coming of World War III, the Iran nuclear accord has opened a new chapter for the United States in security and international policy.
“Our emotions are being targeted by corporate interests to internalize the wrongs that have been done to the environment,” explains Tim Jensen.
“Maybe it’s a coincidence that I went on to become a botanist who studies the chemical, genetic and evolutionary science behind the tastes and scents that protect plants from animals and insects that would eat them. Maybe, but I doubt it. More likely, those early wildland explorations forged some deep, synaptic connection in my young brain between nature’s mysteries and a grandmother’s love. By the time I got to college, plant ecology was in my bones.”