Have you ever been in a summer monsoon storm, where the winds and thunder seem be calmed when the rain starts to fall? Now we understand a bit more about that dynamic, and the implications with global warming. In a new study released in Science, researchers have quantified the amount of energy that raindrops remove from the air when they fall. 

Recently released research used the “natural experiment” conditions of the lull in ship activity after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to measure the stress effects of ship noise in right whales. They found a significant decrease in stress hormones in these endangered animals during the period of reduced ship activity. The UW’s Center for Conservation Biology‘s Sam Wasser is a co-author on the original study. 

It has proven difficult to figure out the genome of many of the microorganisms in the ocean because they are much less abundant than other, well-known species. This makes it difficult to isolate them and culture them, creating a chicken and egg problem: how do you study them if you can’t grow them, but to grow them you need to know a bit more about them. 

In the past year, jellyfish have wreaked havoc in various places around the world, forcing shut downs of nuclear power plants in Florida, Scotland, Israel and Japan and hampering fishing fleets. What’s going on? Read more here in this Nature News article by Mark Schrope. Friday Harbor Labs’ Connie Mills is mentioned.