Readers discuss net zero carbon emissions and glass frogs

For good measure

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions to curb climate change and getting to net zero is possible but not easy. Alexandra Weitz mentioned inThe road to net zero(SN: 1/28/23, p. 22).

A report by Princeton University’s Net-Zero America Project, released in 2021, estimates that wind and solar power production needs to nearly quadruple by 2030 to meet the US goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, Weitz mentioned. In its most ambitious scenario, it wrote, “the wind turbines will cover an area the size of Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma combined.”

reader Mary Sweeney He noted that while technically correct, the above statement could be misleading. “What the Princeton report actually states is that the visible footprint of the turbines would be equivalent to the compact areas for the above cases. In other words, this figure for land use was arrived at by considering the very large area from which very tall turbines can be seen.” Sweeney books. The actual use of the land will only be a small part of the visible footprint.

the act of disappearing

The glass frog hides almost all red blood cells in the liver while it sleeps, which increases the animal’s transparency, Susan Milius mentioned inGlass frogs make their blood ooze(SN: 1/28/23, p. 6).

reader Lynn Yeager He wondered what criteria researchers used to determine transparency in frogs.

Biologists say transparency thinks a little differently than physicists Jessie Delia From the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. “If individual tissues transmit more than 90 percent of the light, they are—as far as biology goes—relatively completely transparent,” he says. The green dorsal skin gives glass frogs a kind of diffuse transmittance, like filtered light if you were to look up into a tree canopy on a sunny day.

Moreover, the transparency of the glass frog’s skin is shown via a continuum. The clearest translucent skin is on the abdomen, which helps explain why it occurs Delia Some years to observe the phenomenon of burrowing cells in sleeping frogs. Delia They have often seen toads sleeping in the wild, their less transparent backs facing outward as the toads cling to leaves. “I could only see their bellies when I saw them sleeping in captivity on the glass,” he says. From there, “you can see their members live.”

Since frogs can group red blood cells together without forming clots, reader Mara Chen Goldberg He wondered, could this discovery help research into blood clot treatments for humans?

many people ask the same question, Delia He says. Frogs seem to somehow inhibit the blood clotting process of vertebrates. “But at this point, we don’t know if this mechanism can be translated directly to human medicine,” he says.

revision

“A sly fox catches fish, amazes researchers(SN: 11/5/22, p. 4) incorrectly stated that hunting in foxes had not been observed before. While the study featured in the story describes the first record of red fox hunting, a 1991 study published in polar search I have previously reported on hunting Arctic foxes in Greenland. This incorrect fact also appeared in year-end tour in Science newsReleased December 17, 2022 and December 31, 2022.