Empty labs, abandoned research: Coronavirus puts climate science on hold
(World News Science)

Imagine working on an experiment that was two years in the making, and then watching it all melt away just before you could finish it. That´s the situation that Emily Bristol, a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin´s Marine Science Institute, almost found herself in when her lab shut down on Tuesday to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Bristol is studying samples of soil and ice extracted from the north Alaskan coast in 2018. At nearly 20 feet long, the cylinders of ice reveal the deep past, holding the frozen remains of dead plants from 40,000 years ago. Bristol is trying to understand how much of that carbon stored in the melting permafrost makes its way into the sea,...