Greenland’s northern ice sheet is melting for the second time this year
The heatwave that swept through Europe in July has made its way north to Greenland, turning the country’s massive ice sheet to slush. This is the second major melting of the ice sheet this year and leaves the country on track to tie or break the most water loss ever recorded, National Geographic reports.
This matters because global sea levels are rising, and Greenland’s ice alone could contribute a rise of 2 to 13 additional inches of water to the ocean by 2100. Scientists warn that, while melting on this scale is remarkable, it will soon become commonplace. Some models predict this kind of melting will occur every summer by the year 2050.
Colorado man crashes his bike… into a bear
Tim Egan, of Boulder, CO, was out riding his bike in late June when he collided with a black bear. Egan was traveling 45 miles an hour when he struck the bear. The impact sent him flying from his bike onto the pavement where he suffered cracked ribs and cuts to his face. Egan told Backpacker Magazine that he’d never seen such a big black bear and that the bear seemed “upset” after the collision. “Just after the wreck, a buck wandered onto the road, and he looked at the deer and reared to stand up on his feet. He raised his arms up and the deer took off. Then he scampered away,” Egan said.
Egan wants other outdoors-people to know that they should always pay attention in bear-country. “Even people who understand bear behavior… you can see them during the day. I want to make sure people understand that.”
Research shows eating a plant-based diet can ward off type 2 diabetes
New research out of Harvard University has taken a look at the types of foods that are best for lowering your risk of type 2 diabetes. The study looked at a number of previous studies that included over 307,000 people and 23,500 cases of type 2 diabetes and found that those who consumed a largely plant-based diet including fruits, veggies, whole grains, beans and nuts, versus animal-based foods like chicken and fish, were 23 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.
The co-author of the study, Frank Qian, M.P.H., of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health department of nutrition, points out that most of the people at lower risk were not strict vegetarians, however. “Even those who had the highest adherence to a plant-based dietary pattern still consumed on average one to two servings of animal-based foods per day,” Qian pointed out.
