If you’re seeking authentic, unforgettable Portuguese cuisine, look beyond codfish and grilled sardines. The true king of the coast is percebes — or goose barnacles — a strange-looking, ocean-forged t...

Sea lavender is both beautiful and powerful; its ability to store large amounts of carbon helps to mitigate atmospheric warming. (Photo: Stan Shebs, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0) Sea ‘lavender,’ a purple flowering plant also known as statice that grows abundantly in salt marshes and coasts around the world, appears to be excellent at removing planet-warming carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in soils. Living on Earth’s Julia Vaz reports on this recent research. Transcript DOERING: In a moment, encountering wonder in the desert, but first this note on emerging science from Living on Earth’s Julia Vaz. [SCIENCE NOTE THEME] VAZ: East or West, the United States seaside is dotted with purple. The plant Sea Lavender grows abundantly in salt marshes. Which makes for a beautiful picture: mixing with the blue of the sea, soft green grass, and golden dunes. Beyond striking, sea lavender is also a powerful fighter against climate change. Researchers in Venice, Italy, where sea lavender also grows, recently found that the plant is excellent at storing carbon. The researchers from the University of Padova spent the summers of 2021 and 2023 knee-deep in salt marshes in Venice collecting data on different plots of vegetation. They...