7 Tipping Points That Could Transform Earth | Wired Science | Wi. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issue its last report in 2007, environmental tipping points were a footnote. A troubling footnote, to be sure, but the science was relatively new and unsettled. Straightforward global warming was enough to worry about. But when the IPCC meets in 2014, tipping points — or tipping elements, in academic vernacular — will get much more attention. Scientists still disagree about which planetary systems are extra-sensitive to climate shifts, but the possibility can't be ignored. "The problem with tipping elements is that if any of them tips, it will be a real catastrophe. Levermann's article on potential disruptions of South Asia's monsoon cycles was featured in a series of tipping element research reviews, published December 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Also discussed were ocean circulation, polar icecaps, Amazon rainforests, seafloor methane deposits and a west African dustbowl. Wired Science takes you on a tour. Cool Video: Suzuki Motorcycle Assembles Itself | Autopia | Wired. Wired News. Think Koalas Are Cute? Thank Eucalyptus and Evolution | Wired Sc.
Modern koalas are known for their cuteness, nearly exclusive eucalyptus-leaf diet, and the unexpectedly weird noises they make. Now, new research into their ancient ancestors shows that the koalas' odd appeal arose through the evolutionary interplay between an increasing reliance on an odd food supply and the need to maintain distinct ear structures for hearing each others' bellows. By studying the skulls of koala predecessors that lived five to 24 million years ago in the Miocene, an Australian team argues that evolution reshaped the animals faces to enable them to eat the tough leaves while maintaining their specialized communication anatomy. "The unique cranial configuration of the modern koala is therefore the result of accommodating their masticatory adaptations without compromising their auditory system," write the researchers, led by Mike Archer, a paleontologist at the University of New South Wales, in a paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Image: Dorothy Dunphy.