Science + Health

This week’s declaration by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service that the massive Delta tunnels proposed by the Jerry Brown administration would not cause the extinction of several imperiled fish species gave a significant boost to the behemoth project. Still, other impediments must be overcome before the digging starts and the concrete flows.

What happens when the world’s largest mammal washes up dead on your local beach? Residents of Bolinas, California were faced with this question in May, when a 79-foot blue whale turned up ashore on nearby Agate Beach. According to biologists present, the necropsy (an autopsy for animals) revealed that the whale had collided with a ship and died of blunt force trauma.

Donald Trump’s recent withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement was predictable given his unrelenting attacks on the “hoax” of climate change, and the response was predictably negative, save from his fiercely partisan base.

Racism hurts the heart. Both black and white residents of counties where whites reported more racist attitudes were more likely to die from heart disease than those in areas with lower racial bias, according to a recent study from Berkeley psychology researchers. The relationship between whites’ racial bias and death rates was more pronounced for blacks, according to the study, which appeared in the journal Psychological Science last fall.

One of the best ways to flaunt your Earth-hugging bona fides these days is to buy an electric car. It shows you’re willing to put your money—a lot of your money—where your mouth is, assuming your mouth spends a fair amount of time declaiming on global warming, atmospheric carbon emissions, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, and the sinister intentions of the global hydrocarbon extraction cabal. Buying a Tesla demonstrates you’re doing your part to keep our planet cool and green.