In 1985, a passenger jet landing at DFW airport was forced to the ground by an unusual downward blast of wind called a downburst. The plane struck cars on the highway and a water tank, then crashed on the airfield, killing more than 100 people.

It was the third such fatal crash in a decade. So, the FAA set out to invent a new warning system for these dangerous wind events. A downburst is a sinking column of air within a thunder cloud that accelerates toward Earth, reaching speeds over 100 miles an hour.

When it strikes the ground, it blasts out in all directions, like a mammoth version of water splashing in a sink. These winds are strongest just 10 to 30 feet from the ground and travel horizontally outward in all directions. They can fell trees like a tornado’s whirling winds, but they all fall in the same direction, like dominoes.

For aviation, the first step was training pilots to look for visual signs – expanding rings of dust on the ground below, or sharply defined shafts of intense rain.

Technologically things were more complex. Vulnerable airports installed a network of wind sensors, as well as advanced Doppler radar that could track wind speeds. All fed into an early alert system.

By 1994, 46 high traffic airports had installed these systems. They haven’t had a single downburst accident since -- and technology continues to improve. A triumph of aviation safety.

Before modern energy gave us modern air conditioning, we had sweat to keep us cool. And shade. And maybe a jump in a lake.

Animals still rely on those today to beat the heat. Horses, like humans, sweat. When the sweat evaporates, it cools the skin. Dogs, antelopes and some birds pant, drawing breath rapidly across their tongues and throats, where evaporative cooling brings down the temperature of blood near the skin surface. Other birds vibrate the flaps of skin on their throats to circulate air around blood vessels found there.

Elephants do something similar, cooling blood vessels in their huge ears, by flapping them. Camels and toucans draw air across blood vessels in their noses. Rodents and amphibians burrow in the soil or under leaf litter, where it’s cooler and moister.

Some toads burrow and go dormant until the next rain comes. Some even form a protective cocoon of their own shed skin. Deer, doves and many other creatures seek shade during the heat of the day, resting silently to keep metabolic rates low. Even fish seek shade underwater, under overhanging rocks or docks. Or they retreat to the dark depths, where the water’s cooler.

Speaking of water, buffalo and birds splash in shallow pools. Vultures, maybe not surprisingly, go so far as to pee on their own legs to cool themselves off. Which just goes to show, when the heat rises, animals have found amazing ways to adapt.

If you’ve been on a boat, pretty much anywhere in the tropics, you’ve seen mangrove forests.

There are at least 75 species of these small trees, evolved to live in harsh tidal conditions, their roots in sand, their trunks often submerged in saltwater.

There, they can form dense thickets that protect the coast from ravaging waves and storm surges. And that’s just one of their benefits.

Mangroves’ arching root networks trap and stabilize sediment to help build up the coast. In the process, they filter and clean coastal water.

Those same roots serve as nurseries, sheltering the young of many fish and crustacean species. While the forests provide timber for local human populations, and store carbon.

But mangroves are in peril -- from coastal development, agriculture, and especially aquaculture.

Shrimp farmers in Asia are responsible for a third of global mangrove destruction, as they clear forests to build their ponds.

Early efforts to replant the forests had failed. Until an innovative Florida ecologist realized that mangroves thrive best when their roots are wet only 30% of the time and dry the rest, as the tide comes and goes.

He used a backhoe to regrade the coastline to encourage those conditions. Within three years, the resilient mangroves had returned. His methods proved so successful, they’ve been adopted globally, in a preservation program that intends to bring 20% of mangrove coverage back within the decade.