Shark programs hit the sweet spot for ocean-side research universities – weighty enough with scientific import to justify the eyeballs of the hardcore scientific community, gnarly enough to reel in the interest of your plain ol’ Discovery Chanel fiends. For almost a decade, the University of Miami has been one…
At 7:30 in the evening, Terri Frana noticed two black bears gallop through the backyard of her 10-year-old, $725,000 house in Lake Mary, just north of Orlando. Frana, a 44-year-old banker with brown bangs and a kind face, was used to seeing the beasts around her woodsy neighborhood, but she…
James Murley might have the most depressing and difficult job in the county. As chief resiliency officer, the 69-year-old government planner has to make sure that Miami literally doesn’t go under. It’s not going to be easy, with scores of scientists repeatedly finding that sea levels are climbing and a…
Yes, Florida does have bears — black bears, the kind that rarely bother humans other than rifling through trash cans for food. That’s reason enough, apparently, for the state of Florida to authorize a new bear hunt in the state, with permits already issues for hundreds of hunters to track…
Unless you’re a GOP presidential candidate, you’ve probably accepted the facts by now: The global climate is changing. The seas are rising. And at some point, low-lying Miami-Dade County is going to do the whole Atlantis thing. The latest evidence came yesterday, with a new study that found that even…
Miami will be threatened by rising sea levels over the next few centuries. On that there’s pretty much scientific consensus. The only question is exactly how much. Well, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America predicts that our…
Since he entered office in January, Florida Republican Congressman Carlos Curbelo has made headlines for his progressive stance on environmental issues. Representing Florida’s 26th Congressional District, which stretches from Miami to Key West, he touts clean energy, and has split from much of his party in advocating for steps to…
There’s no better real estate in Miami than the 30 acres of downtown waterfront space just south of the Pérez Art Museum Miami. But in its current iteration, the rectangular block known as Museum Park is pretty much a waste — an exposed, feature-less patch of shrubby grass that’s great…
Have you walked outside lately? Like, anytime in the last four months? Miami’s been pretty damned hot. In fact, a University of Miami scientist says, it’s been the hottest year to date in recorded history. Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the Rosenstiel School (and a passionate meteorologist: “I just…
Any guess where Florida’s largest flock of sheep lives? Quite possibly right in the middle of Miami Beach, inside a nondescript Mt. Sinai research building just off the Julia Tuttle Causeway. Unlike their rural cousins, these fluffy animals, more than 100 of them, aren’t kept for wool or left alone…
Remember in August when half of Miami was loosing its mind over the possibility of Tropical Storm Erika coming our way? Yeah, well now Joaquin, which has reached full Hurricane status, is closer to us as a full fledged cyclone than Erika ever was as a mere Tropical Storm. In…
Did you all enjoy last night’s super moon eclipse? It was pretty wasn’t it? A real once in generation astrological event? Yeah, well, residents on Miami Beach woke up this morning to find their streets flooded thank to the extreme high tides brought on by a super moon. The tides…
As a child growing up in Florida there are a few things that are drilled into your head that need saving: Save the Everglades! Save the panthers! Save the mangroves! Save the manatees! But as the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission controversially grapples with new proposed policy that Florida…
During a protest in front of the Miami Seaquarium last summer, a Miami-Dade cop arrested animal activist Steven Bagenski for holding a “Free Lolita” sign while standing on a public sidewalk. Believing his First Amendment rights were being curtailed, Bagenski, along with fellow activists, filed a lawsuit against MDPD with the…
Earlier this week, environmentalists raised a sea level rise rallying cry with Miami Dade County commissioners. Their demands: a $500,000 pool for engineering solutions and a new “chief resiliency officer” for the county who would act as a point person for new infrastructure to keep Miami dry. “The eyes of…
Between making billions with Amazon, experimenting with home drone delivery and buying a little publication called the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos also has been quietly pumping money into a secretive company aimed at blasting paying customers and scientists into space. Tomorrow, the Miami Palmetto Senior High School graduate is set…
In June 2014, Colin Foord and his assistants, with hammer and chisels in hand, dove to the bottom of the PortMiami shipping channel. Their mission: to rescue 500 native corals threatened by the Army Corps of Engineer’s massive dredging project to deepen the port. Foord also had a bigger mission…
Animal rights activists have been pushing Miami Seaquarium for two decades to release Lolita, a now 50-year-old orca held in the smallest tank in the country. Protestors have marched on the Virginia Key park and held press conferences, but now a 29-year-old New Zealander has a different idea of how…
For longtime Redland resident Pat Milone, the best part of her commute home from Kendall is a stop at a farm stand along Krome Avenue. She takes her pick from dozens of vendors selling fruits and vegetables — many grown just a few feet away. “There are grove trees and…
Tropical; Storm Grace is headed for Puerto Rico and could be in South Florida next week, the National Hurricane Center is reporting..The storm, still far out to sea, is moving west at a good clip and strengthening. It was about 685 miles west-southwest of the Republic of Cabo Verde on…
Most Miamians can never quite seem to get around to purchasing that pesky flood insurance for their house or apartment. Try as they might to put it on a to-do list, dishing out the bucks for a weather event that never seems to happen inevitably gets eclipsed by other tasks…
“Oh my god,” a woman intones, a shaky camera phone aimed at the sky. “There’s something that is releasing a whole bunch of light in the … Oh my god!” No, the footage isn’t the start of the latest insufferable “found footage” horror flick about an alien invasion. It’s just…
