geekosystem

Deforestation can wipe out trees and cause habitat loss that leads to the extinction of animals like birds and mammals. Some of the impacts of massive, sudden tree loss in places like the Amazon, though, may have been too small to notice until now. Reporting this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers found that deforestation can profoundly change the makeup of bacteria in soil, wiping out microbial communities that help to make ecosystems unique.

Remember how we had all those droughts all over the country last summer, and all over the world the summers before that? Well, it turns out rather than "economically crippling worldwide drought," you may just want to start referring to that situation by its new name: "Summer." According to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change, the droughts of the last several years could just be the new normal if climate change predictions pan out. If that's the case, say researchers, forests could become a thing of the past. So, y'know, if those are your thing, I guess take a picture now?