This year, as Rutgers Cooperative Extension (RCE) celebrates the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 that created the Cooperative Extension Service, what better way to commemorate its history than to invite back those who were part of its past? To this end, a luncheon for RCE retirees was held at […]
Archives for July 2014
New Jersey peach crop arriving late but with top quality fruit
Jersey peaches are being shipped to market, a little late but in time for peach parties and pie contests around the state…The crop was slow to develop thanks to a particularly cold winter. But adequate rainfall and lots of sunny weather has meant top…
Rutgers Study Documenting Barnegat Bay Decline Kept in Limbo
The first quantitative biotic index for Barnegat Bay finds the estuary in steep decline and calls for major changes in how it is managed, according to text posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The comprehensive study by Rutgers University researchers has been kept from publication by the Christie administration which claims Barnegat Bay is a success story. The massive study bears the unwieldy title “Assessment of Nutrient Loading and Eutrophication in Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey in Support of Nutrient Management Planning” and is authored by Rutgers researchers Michael Kennish, Benjamin Fertig and Richard Lathrop.
NJ must act on bay report, watchdog group says
Gov. Chris Christie’s administration should accept and act upon an updated Barnegat Bay report by limiting future land development in Ocean County and adopting strict limits on nutrients flowing to bay tributary streams, contends a watchdog group of former government environmental workers…Rutgers scientists Michael Kennish, Benjamin Fertig and others reported the bay’s declines in water quality and marine habitat are “strongly related to land use” with the biggest impacts associated with big suburban towns such as Toms River, compared to less populous reaches of the southern bay.
Ice on the Beach: How Hail Forms on Hot Days
On a warm summer day, beachgoers in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk were filmed fleeing for cover after hailstones started falling from the sky. The temperature was 98 degrees, according to AccuWeather. How does it hail in the middle of summer? It’s a…
Alumni Story: Two Recent Grads Take ‘Growing Up’ to New Heights
The concept of living walls – also called vertical gardens – isn’t entirely new, but Michael Coraggio (Cook ’06) and Ryan Burrows (GSNB ’13) have turned it into an innovative business that promotes beauty and sustainability with practical and environmentally sound applications. First “invented” in the 1930s, a living wall turns an impervious vertical surface […]
Rutgers Alumnus (GSNB ’12) Named Executive Director of U.S. Botanic Garden
The Architect of the Capitol, the unit that administers the United States Botanic Garden, announced last week the appointment of Ari Novy, Ph.D., as executive director of the Garden. Novy’s connection with Rutgers goes back to 2006 when he began working as a graduate research fellow. He received his doctorate in 2012 from the School […]
The Point Everyone Is Missing About The Return Of The ‘Polar Vortex’
It will be unseasonably chilly in the eastern part of the United States this week, due to a peculiar weather pattern that’s causing deep waves in the jet stream. One of those big waves is bringing cool air down from the northeast Pacific and the Arctic…”We’ve got this cool air coming down over the eastern half of the country, and that’s gonna just be kind of nice,” said Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist and research professor at Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. “But along the east coast, we’re looking at storms and floods. On the west coast, we’re looking at heat and fires. And it’s all part of this jet stream pattern.”
Rutgers NJAES and Board of Managers Host GMO Forum for New Jersey Farmers
Since the early 1980s, the technology to select specific genetic traits from one organism and insert them into the genetic code of another organism, a process known as genetic engineering (GE) or modification (GM), has allowed scientists to create biological products that express traits that are otherwise not available in those products. When applied to […]
Rotary-Rutgers initiative enables garden seed growing
Nearly three years ago, Rotary District 7510 Central NJ had the vision of creating enabling gardens for hands-on club and community service in its five counties of Somerset, Hunterdon, Union, Middlesex and Mercer. The district approached Rutgers Univer…