Apple News Today This science writer has seen Earth’s most amazing places. Here’s what she’s learned.
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Jan 24, 2026 Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer-winning environmental reporter and author, shares stories from decades of field reporting. She describes cataloging vanishing insects, probing whale communication with AI, and the rise of rights-for-nature laws. She also discusses carbon removal, U.S. climate policy swings, and why noticing local nature matters.
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Insects As Foundation Of Food Chains
- Insects are pivotal ecosystem engineers that decompose, pollinate, and feed many bird species' chicks.
- Losing insects would cause cascading collapses because they sit at the base of many food chains.
Witnessing A Whale Birth At Sea
- Kolbert joined Project SETI researchers tracking sperm whales and witnessed a whale calf being born off Dominica.
- The team studies structured whale clicks hoping AI might decode their communication patterns.
AI Could Translate Whale Clicks
- Researchers hope machine learning can learn whale click patterns much like language models learn text.
- Such models might predict or even respond to whale signals, raising ethical and interpretive challenges.
