For Friday, Jan. 16, 2026

1 – In case you missed it, Saginaw Bay is mentioned in a recent State of the Great Lakes Report from Michigan’s environmental agency. 

It’s in a section about lake whitefish and invasive quagga mussels. 

An article says an increase in quagga mussels has coincided with a decline in whitefish populations in the Great Lakes, particularly in large parts of lakes Michigan and Huron. 

The problem is that too few young whitefish are surviving to the adult stage. Quagga mussels filter out algae from the water column that would otherwise feed zooplankton, which juvenile fish eat. 

The report says more productive areas of lakes Huron and Michigan, such as Saginaw Bay and Green Bay, still produce young whitefish. But the mussels are prolific, much more widespread than their zebra mussel cousins, and remain a concern. 

…

2 – The new year is a time for looking ahead. The Global Challenges Foundation has a list of the five biggest risks facing humanity. 

You probably can guess some of them.

First off we have Risk 1: Catastrophic Climate Change, followed by Risk 2: Ecological Collapse.

The report says “Concentrations of greenhouse gases, the loss of forests and biodiversity and the decline of the marine ecosystem health are accelerating, eroding the stability of the Earth system on which societies depend.”

Risk 3 is Weapons of Mass Destruction, followed by Risk 4: Artificial Intelligence or AI. Not surprises. 

But Risk 5? Near Earth Asteroids.“Near-Earth objects pose a rare but potentially catastrophic threat,” the report says, “ranging from local destruction to global climate disruption. Although detection and tracking capabilities have improved dramatically, vast numbers of smaller asteroids remain unknown.”

The report is online at GlobalChallenges.org.

h/t Nature Beat #89