This is a NYT article about the effect of increased temperatures in the metro area on the number of new species. NYC, once classified as a humid subtropical climate, has achieved the distinction of residing in the humid continental category, summers averaging above 72 degrees F and winters above 27, on average. Forget about wrapping your fruit trees in burlap in the winter, for example, not that I have ever done this. Enjoy one of the 15 sultry tropical nights every summer when temperatures stay above 75: it used to be 10. The article doesn't suggest growing palmetto palms in Central Park: Georgia, Florida and South Carolina still retain that distinction. The downside is that invasive weeds, such as knotweed and porcelain berry are running rampant. In the fauna department, bugs that died off in the winter are surviving and multiplying, such as the hemlock woolly adelgid.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/scientists-pull-living-microbes-100-million-years-beneath-sea
Here is a Science magazine article, which I would subtitle, "So you think you have sleep issues?"
It describes 100 million year old microbes which, when brought back to the lab, revived and multiplied. A geomicrobiologist at the Japan Institute for Marine Earth Science and Technology launched a drilling expedition at a site in Australia, at a confluence of ocean currents that is considered the deadest part of the world's oceans. They extracted samples from the mud cores and fed them with nitrogen and carbon compounds. There were 100x fewer samples than in ordinary sea mud and they had to develop special techniques to analyze the small numbers of cells. In terms of geological time, this is very impressive.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/health/alzheimers-blood-test.html A NYT article to remind people that non-Covid research continues. although there might be some advantage to our forgetting at least the first half of 2020. Looking for diagnostic tests for AD has been proceeding apace for years. This is a great result. The test can distinguish whether people with dementia had Alzheimer’s instead of another condition. And can identify signs of the degenerative, deadly disease 20 years before memory and thinking problems are expected in people with a genetic mutation that causes Alzheimer’s. The test is inexpensive and should be available in 2-3 years. This research was published in JAMA.
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