“We don't know the magnitude, we don't know the rate. We don't exactly know where insects are declining, and what lineages. So, there's a lot of questions left. But we do know they are in decline. And we probably know enough now that we can act and start making some important conservation decisions.” – David Wagner
This week on Living Lab Radio:
- David Wagner and Eliza Grames of University of Connecticut lay out what we do and don’t know about the widely proclaimed “insect apocalypse,” and how their new EntoGEM project could help us get a better handle on the status of insects.
- Shane King and his colleagues at Vanderbilt University have designed a device to trip people over and over so that they can better understand the stumble response and build it into prosthetic legs. Right now, those with above-the-knee amputations are two hundred times more likely to trip and fall than able-bodied peers.
- NASA planetary scientist Amy Simon says observed changes in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot could spell the end of the iconic, long-lived storm. That may dismay many who’ve grown up with that image of Jupiter, but it has scientists like Simon pretty excited.
- Oceanographer Chris Piecuch of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution explains how local factors, like the weather, affect sea level along our coasts, and how that could lead to local, short-term sea level forecasts.
