Soil!

Our conversion of landscapes such as forests and wetlands into various forms of domesticated landscapes such as row crops, managed pastures, and cities has been a major source of our greenhouse gas emissions as well as contributing to the ongoing imbalance between carbon sequestration and carbon flow to the atmosphere and oceans. This long article in the New York Times explores the role that soils play in this as well as efforts and ideas for improving carbon storage in our agricultural soils.

https://nyti.ms/2HcQ6d2

 

Footprints in the sand

Archeologists working along the shore of British Columbia have found the oldest known footprints in North America. The image above is from a NYT article describing the find: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/science/footprints-oldest-north-america.html
The article has a link to the actual scientific article that was published in PLOS One laste week.
The find adds a bit of evidence to the still contentious idea that the first human colonists to North America arrived via boat, takeing advantage of the rich coastal marine resources along the Pacific Coast of North America.  The hypthesized route has been called the "kelp highway".