Things have been rather quiet on this blog in the last month or so as I’ve been working hard on #phd2012, and I wanted to give a brief update lest you thought this particular mammoth had gone extinct. I’ll be defending my dissertation on July 5th, and am planning on live-streaming the public portion of my defense, so stay tuned for details!

Remember that post I wrote about the obligatory “What’s next?” I am very excited to report that I will be moving to Providence, RI in August to begin a position as a Voss Postdoctoral Fellow at the Environmental Change Initiative at Brown University. I am very excited about this position, which allows me to work jointly with two advisors from two different departments on an explicitly interdisciplinary project. I’ll be working with global change ecologist Dov Sax (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology) and paleoeclimatologist James Russell (Geological Sciences) on a…

Full Article at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120606132308.htm#.T9A5yMN8-5s.reddit

A group of scientists from around the world is warning that population growth, widespread destruction of natural ecosystems, and climate change may be driving Earth toward an irreversible change in the biosphere, a planet-wide tipping point that would have destructive consequences absent adequate preparation and mitigation.

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The result of such a major shift in the biosphere would be mixed, Barnosky noted, with some plant and animal species disappearing, new mixes of remaining species, and major disruptions in terms of which agricultural crops can grow where.

The paper by 22 internationally known scientists describes an urgent need for better predictive models that are based on a detailed understanding of how the biosphere reacted in the distant past to rapidly changing conditions, including climate and human population growth.

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Coauthor Elizabeth Hadly from Stanford University said “we may already be past these tipping points in particular regions…

‘Water Crisis’ Looming, Hillary Clinton Warns

By JEREMY B. WHITE: March 22, 2012 International Business Times