Nicola Jones

From 2013-2016, a patch of warm water appeared in the Pacific, stretching from Alaska to California. Affectionately nicknamed the Blob, the patch affected weather and ocean life. Many scientists declared the Blob dead in 2016, but it turns out it just sank... and the warm waters at depth have seeped into BC's fjords. That warm water could be affecting salmon runs and more. Read my story in Hakai, with thanks to editor Jude Isabella for the tip on this one! https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/how-the-blob-is-warming-british-columbias-fjords/

A little humour for Friday afternoon. Scientists have discovered that mysterious balls of moss on glaciers seem to move around in a co-ordinated herd. Apparently they are called "glacier mice". https://www.kuow.org/stories/herd-like-movement-of-fuzzy-green-glacier-mice-baffles-scientists?fbclid=IwAR3rCmSXzrqpPBaubIP-1IgHS7MZNWed_n-KjDg7PVbD5InYM3sUs4s_NO4   It looks like I have the scoop in realizing that these are actually the trolls from Frozen. Obviously.

Seasonal flu kills 290,000-650,000 people every year. This year, the flu seasons seems to have been cut short by about 6 weeks, according to WHO reported cases in the northern hemisphere. Here's my piece in Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01538-8 What does this mean? It's hard to say. 1. It's possible that the decline is due to fewer people turning up at clinics with the flu, so not showing up in the statistics. But the WHO says that social distancing is also a likely factor. 2. I was surprised by just how seasonal the regular flu is... it really peaks in Feb and dies right down by end May (around about right now). If the COVID virus is the same, then we should expect a quiet summer. But no ones knows if the novel coronavirus is seasonal or not... it is spreading in warm spots like Singapore, so it might not be. 3. Other diseases, like chickenpox, measles and rubella, are also declining, possibly because of school closures. 4. These diseases being...

Geeks, mark the date on your calendar: this summer researchers are releasing new calibration curves for radiocarbon dating. For people like me, along with many archaeologists and paleoecologists, this is exciting news! I can't remember when I first stumbled upon this piece of information... back when doing some other story touching on radiocarbon dating I guess. But I was intrigued by the idea: radiocarbon dating needs to be calibrated to match up with calendar dates, and this gets redone every 5-10 years or so as the science advances. My story for Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01499-y There is soooo much more interesting backstory to radiocarbon calibration. My favourite detail that didn't make it into this story for space: for the very first calibration curve drawn up in the 1960s, the researchers had to "connect the dots" of the datapoints by hand, lacking adequate computer models and stats to do it for them. They freehanded all the wiggl...

I had the great opportunity to edit this piece for SAPIENS, which answers a lot of questions that had been in the back of my mind. A fascinating look at how past pandemics have affected the environment: https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/covid-19-environment/

In mid-May, COVID-19 cases and deaths entered into the same zone as those numbers for seasonal flu. 300,000 people have died worldwide from COVID-19; surprisingly, 290,000-650,000 die every year from the "regular" flu. This is an important benchmark, but also a potentially misleading one... it does NOT mean that COVID is "only as bad" as regular flu. The important number to keep in mind is how many lives have been saved by public policy measures and social change... and that's perhaps millions. https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2020/05/15/Bottom-Line-We-Save-Millions-Lives/ For a long time now I have felt that concern about sports enthusiasts (rock climbers, bikers, etc) overloading the health system are oddly emphasized, considering the much higher health burden of road accidents. This article hammers home the numbers: temporary reductions on highway speed limits would surely be much more effective at limiting hospital visits. UPDATE: A friend just pointed o...