EUREKA!

EUREKA!

CAMPUS

notebook

[NEW FINDINGS AND RESEARCH]

Stormy Weather

Cleaner air means more rain.

The Northeast has endured the sharpest increase in rainfall since 1958 among U.S. climate regions, and storms have become more extreme as temperatures in the North Atlantic have increased, according to a study published in Weather and Climate Extremes. The researchers attribute rising sea temperatures to increased greenhouse gases—and to an unintended consequence of the decreased use of industrial aerosols, which reflect sunlight and help cool the earth’s surface. “It’s ironic that cleaning up the environment actually made global warming and extreme precipitation a little worse,” says earth sciences prof Erich Osterberg, one of the study’s authors. “It’s super important to clean up the air, but this means carbon dioxide warming isn’t offset as much.”

A Final Toast

Ancient brew did the trick.

»> A burial site discovered in southern China suggests that people drank alcoholic beverages in rituals to honor the dead at least 9,000 years ago. Anthropology prof Jiajing Wang led a team that analyzed residues in painted pots and jars buried in the same pit with two human skeletons. The researchers found traces of starches, fossilized plants, and mold, which indicate the pots once held alcohol made in a two-step fermentation process. “We would call it beer—but it’s not really a beer,” says Wang. “The pots were used to hold fermented beverages made of mainly rice, tubers, and grains.” The discovery marks the earliest record of “beer” crafted that way, according to the report published in PLOS One.

—Julia Robitaille ’23