Lynn Sweet

Tall flowers, dead shrubs, ephemeral lake: Death Valley has become a picture of climate whiplash

tomwt — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:58:54 +0000

Tall flowers, dead shrubs, ephemeral lake: Death Valley has become a picture of climate whiplash tomwt Mon, 04/22/2024 - 09:58 More CNAS in the Media Evan Bush | NBC News April 20, 2024

NBC NEWS - In California’s boom-and-bust climate, Death Valley has offered some of the strangest scenes over the past few years.

Some of the area’s perennial creosote bushes died back during a severe drought that hampered the region through 2022. Then torrential downpours — from the remnants of Hurricane Hilary and subsequent storms — revived annual wildflowers from seed over the last year.

During the winter, extreme rainfall resurrected an ancient lake that is now disappearing once again.

“Death Valley is very extreme. You have to assume that plants and animals are adapted to the edges of what’s livable there. As it gets hotter, that gets to be more of a challenge,” said Lynn Sweet, a research ecologist at the University of California Riverside.

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Joshua Tree National Park is more popular than ever — but its namesake trees are facing extinction

ilseu — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 22:03:29 +0000

Joshua Tree National Park is more popular than ever — but its namesake trees are facing extinction ilseu Sat, 12/19/2020 - 14:03 More CNAS in the Media Miles W. Griffis | VOGUE December 18, 2020

VOGUE — In a wilderness area at the northwest corner of Joshua Tree National Park, ecologist Lynn Sweet treks across the high desert as raucous pinyon jays swoop overhead. She navigates carefully across the landscape of blackbrush and fragrant junipers to inspect the stump of a Joshua tree. Much of the tree’s trunk, branches, and dagger-shaped leaves are sprawled across the desert floor—most likely the casualty of a gust of wind that snapped it like a toothpick.

The tree was one of thousands that Dr. Sweet and her team examined in a recent study that predicted a worrisome future for the iconic western Joshua tree, Yucca brevifolia, within the national park due to climate change. The tree was less than 25% alive during Dr. Sweet and her team’s last recording. Now, the tree is dead.

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Here’s what happens to science when California’s researchers shelter in place

ilseu — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 22:50:11 +0000

Here’s what happens to science when California’s researchers shelter in place ilseu Tue, 03/31/2020 - 15:50 More CNAS in the Media Rachel Becker | CalMatters March 26, 2020

CALMATTERS - As California officials desperately try to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Chris Miller is coaxing a sample of the virus to grow in a secure laboratory at UC Davis.

Working in a laboratory nestled inside containment rooms and cut off from the world by filters, scientists dressed in space suit-like protective gear are feeding cells to a virus isolated from a COVID-19 patient at UC Davis Medical Center.

The goal is to create a supply of viral genetic material to help the clinical pathology team develop new tests. Without these viral samples to provide an unequivocally positive result, researchers can’t tell if a test is truly working.

It’s a new mission for Miller, who, until about two weeks ago, was studying HIV and working to develop a pandemic flu vaccine. “Flu, at the time, seemed like the virus that was going to kill us all and was going to be the big pandemic,” Miller said. “But it seems like coronavirus has other plans.”

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