Two Rutgers Institute for Marine & Coastal Sciences employees have been recognized by the New Jersey Association of 4-H Agents for their efforts to promote education…Carrie Ferraro of Highland Park develops and conducts many programs for K-12 stu…
Archives for May 2014
NJ 4-H Agents Association Recognizes Rutgers Marine Science Educators with Statewide Award
Carrie Ferraro and Sage Lichtenwalner of the Rutgers Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences were recently recognized by the New Jersey Association of 4-H Agents with the 4-H Educator of the Year Award for their significant contributions to the 4-H program. This award is given to individuals or groups in recognition of outstanding professional education […]
Choc Full of Science: Rick Ludescher Talks Chocolate with NPR’s Science Friday
Marco Rubio says humans are not causing climate change
Scientists have been issuing more new reports on the irreversible effects of climate change in recent weeks. Two groups reported on May 12, 2014, that the global sea level will rise at least 10 feet, accelerating to a dangerous pace after the next cent…
Converging factors: New project to use radar array to determine how ocean currents affect food web
The phrase “going with the flow” takes on a different meaning for scientists studying how tides along the Antarctic Peninsula influence where Adélie penguins go to forage for food during their breeding cycle. Previous research in the region – analyzing 10 years of data from satellite-tagged penguins, an autonomous underwater vehicle and historical tidal records – was the first to link changes in tide cycles to where penguins would find their main prey, Antarctic krill…”Understanding the links between some of the physical drivers and connections throughout the entire system, going from the primary producers to the zooplankton and the top predators, will allow us to have a better understanding how these shifts in climate might impact the system,” noted Josh Kohut, an assistant professor at Rutgers University External Non-U.S. government site and principal investigator (PI) on the CONVERGE project.
Your Home’s Smell Might Be Making You Sick
Joan Bennett, an expert in mold toxins, didn’t believe that mold in homes could make people sick. She had even testified in support of insurance companies fighting “sick building syndrome” (SBS) claims…But then Hurricane Katrina flooded her New Orleans home in 2005, forcing her to evacuate. She returned five weeks later and was horrified. A swarm of fuzzy green patches had engulfed everything from her prized physics books to the Turkish rugs she had bought on her honeymoon…Hurricane Katrina had caused massive power outages, and destroyed the frozen samples in Bennett’s lab at Tulane University where she’d studied the genetics of fungal toxins. So she had to start from scratch, opening a lab at Rutgers University to test her mold odor hypothesis, zeroing in on on the mushroom alcohol MVOC isolated from the mold in her home.
Graduate Student Wins Three GIS Mapping Awards at Statewide Competition
Eden Buenaventura, master’s degree candidate in Ecology and Evolution and a new employee at the Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis (CRSSA) at Rutgers, won three awards at the 27th annual New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection GIS Mapping Competition on April 10.
Care of Pohatcong Native Arboretum in new hands
In March 2002, Antonio Pasquini, Rutgers University professor Mark C. Vodak and a few colleagues received four grants for eco-restoration projects in Warren County. “At the time, me and Jeff Stevens were dealing with an arboretum, while trying to find tree labels, and (Stevens) said, ‘Why don’t we make our own,'” Pasquini said…The founder and developer of the Pohatcong Native Arboretum handed the home of 143 tree, plant and shrubbery species over to representatives of the Warren Hills Regional High School, Rutgers Cooperative Extension and Washington Township, N.J…Pasquini also found professional assistance in Warren County Agricultural Agent Bruce Barbour, who first got involved six months ago and plans to stay on the project to help find Pasquini’s replacement coordinator.
USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack Congratulates Cooperative Extension on 100th Anniversary
Controversial “Alien” Plant Species Are Fighting Toxic Waste At Liberty State Park
Bayonne-born ecologist Frank Gallagher remembers sneaking into railroad cars and diving off the docks a half century ago at what is now New Jersey’s Liberty State Park, just 2,000 feet across the bay from the Statue of Liberty. The park now inspires a different sort of awe in the Rutgers University professor: native and non-native plants have formed unique communities that actually prevent toxic materials from spreading through the soil. These “novel assemblages,” as Gallagher calls them, are found in the innermost 100 of the park’s 1,200 acres. Not only do the plants appear to keep contaminant metals in the soil from moving about, they stay in the soil and out of the plants’ leaves so they are not ingested by birds or other animals.