Climate change: Now it’s personal. There will be more itching, sneezing, swelling and gasping for breath as Pennsylvania’s climate shifts and residents are exposed to more poison ivy, stinging insects, pollen allergies and lyme-disease-bearing ticks, a…
Archives for May 2014
Shore communities altered forever by Sandy
Glenn Wilson needed a favor on Saturday, and he knew he didn’t have to ask. He wanted to take his son surf fishing, so he drove from his house by the bay in Point Pleasant and parked in his mother-in-law’s driveway in Ocean Beach, two blocks from the s…
Rutgers Designated New Jersey Financial Education Provider
Rutgers Cooperative Extension (RCE) will be providing teacher workshops and webinars in 2014 to promote financial literacy education, the result of a state law (N.J.S.A. 17:9-43.D) that enabled New Jersey credit unions to serve as repositories of public funds. Previously, only banks were authorized to hold city, town and county accounts in the state of […]
Animal Science Department Pays Tribute to its 2014 George H. Cook Scholars
About 20 percent of the graduating seniors in the George H. Cook Scholars Program in 2014 are Animal Science majors! Out of a total of 10 Animal Science seniors in the program this year, seven were mentored by Animal Science faculty while three had advisors outside of the department. The graduating seniors are listed with […]
Warm Pacific may paradoxically cause U.S. winter freeze: study
Unusually warm western Pacific waters linked to global warming may be the paradoxical cause of a bone-chilling winter in parts of the United States this year, a scientific study said on Thursday…Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, who wrote in 2011 that a melting of Arctic ice may cause cold snaps, said the Pacific had a similar pattern of heavy rainfall in 2011-12 but the winter was mild in the United States. “In both cases the jet stream’s path was extremely amplified or wavy, which is exactly the sort of behavior we expect to occur more frequently in association with rapid Arctic warming,” she told Reuters.
Why population growth isn’t always an economic boon
Texas is leading the way in U.S. population growth. The Census Bureau said Thursday that seven of the top 15 fastest-growing cites are in Texas. They’re clustered around big oil and gas boomtowns like Dallas and Houston, or tech hubs like Austin. Sometimes population equals prosperity…People are moving there for jobs. “Naturally if there’s a lot of hiring you would expect people to migrate in,” says Paul Gottlieb, an economist at Rutgers. “But the jobs have not necessarily been very high paying.”
Weird Winter: Is the Pacific to Blame?
Alaska baked, Detroit froze, and England flooded this past winter, which was one of the coldest on record in the American Midwest. Meanwhile western states, notably drought-stricken California, saw record warmth…”I think it proposes a new mechanism, but there is still a long way to prove the argument,” says climate scientist Qiuhong Tang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Bejing…Tang and some other scientists, notably Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University, have argued that the warming Arctic and shrinking sea ice have diminished the north-south temperature contrast that drives the jet stream, robbing it of the energy that normally keeps it tightly routed around the Poles.
NJ Pollen Count Expected to Get Worse for Allergy Victims
So-called experts are calling this year’s allergy season in New Jersey normal, although allergy sufferers in our state may beg to differ. The pollen began appearing this year the first day of spring. A Rutgers professor insists that conditions are normal. “The sky is not falling this year,” said Leonard Bielory, a professor at the Rutgers Center for Environmental Prediction, according to the Daily Record. “This is the first normal season in at least 10 years. The grass is not as high, pollen counts are normal.”
Local 4-H members present at competition, advance to state
Seventeen local 4-H members received “excellent marks” at the 2014 4-H County Public Presentations. The presentations were hosted by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension 4-H Youth Development Program of Monmouth County at the county’s agricultural building in Freehold Township in April…Thirty-two 4-H members representing more than 15 clubs participated in the county competition, giving oral presentations on a variety of subject areas from “The Effects of Deforestation” to “What You Should Know Before the Vet Arrives,” according to a press release.
Library activities celebrate horses
June is the Month of the Horse at the Monmouth County Library. Each year, the library holds special programs for all ages. This annual observance provides an opportunity to focus on New Jersey’s state animal and the recreational, economic, social and t…