Night-of-the-Nor'easter: "Century Storm" Turns Delaware Coastal Life Upside Down

By dark of night they howl across Delaware Bay, these winds that reach 60 miles per hour. The gales of a nor'easter in May—a winter storm that happens this late in the season only once a century—overturn everything in their path. Along Delaware's Pickering Beach, seaweed washed in with the tide scurries along the water's edge, its long tendrils chased by a whirlwind of sand grains. A full moon lies hidden behind storm clouds. Nor'easter rains slice down like ice picks. Beach houses on Sandpiper Lane are dark; even the sandpipers have flown. Everything—from birds to humans—has run for cover...

Global Warming: Sea-level Rise, Drought, and...Kidney Stones?

The news may be less well-known than sea-level rise and extensive drought, but a hot Earth could also increase the incidence of kidney stones, according to research by Tom Brikowski of the Geosciences Department at the University of Texas at Dallas, and Yair Lotan and Margaret Pearle of the Department of Urology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. The condition is caused by dehydration, a "desertification" of the human body in which stone-forming salts rise...

Where's the Water? Look on Weekdays

Looking to collect some raindrops in a water-starved world? You might fare best on weekdays, recent research suggests. Rainfall data recorded from space show that summertime storms in the southeastern United States shed more rainfall mid-week than on weekends. Air pollution from humans is likely fueling the trend...

Dybas, C.L. 2009. Ripple marks—The story behind the story. Oceanography 22(1):8–11, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2009.24.

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