With unusual weather in Europe and the Americas, low Arctic ice, droughts in Africa and Latin America, 2012 picks up where 2011 left off. Research from the Polar Science Center is cited.  Read more here. 

There’s a frog in Papua New Guinea that researchers announced this week is “the smallest known vertebrate species.” Theodore Pietsch, professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, notes a fish that is smaller.  Read more here. 

At the end of 2011, Science Magazine invited essays to answer the question, “how will the practice of science change in your lifetime?” The purpose was, apparently, two-fold: to kick off a new section in Science Magazine, called NextGen VOICES, and to explore “how can we promote the wide-ranging conversations that will be necessary to meet [the] critical challenges [of a crowded and resource-limited world]?”  

In the first lecture of the 2012 Bevans Series on Sustainable Fisheries, SAFS’ David Armstrong shared “crab sagas” from around the region.  He illustrated the challenge of defining or achieving sustainability in fisheries when they fluctuate with multiple drivers at many scales of space and time.  Read the UW News coverage here.  The next lecture is this Thursday, and focuses on global dynamics in recreational fisheries.  

On January 10 in Olympia, Science Cafe will host SEFS Professor John Marzluff, who will talk about the amazing yet not fully understood members of the corvid family: crows and ravens. Dr. Marzluff will talk about their weird habits, and the neurobiology behind them.  Read more here.