Listening to nutrition podcasts while navigating grocery store aisles increases the likelihood of consumers making healthier choices, suggests a small but intriguing pilot study…From January to May 2011, researchers at Rutgers University in New Bruns…
Archives for December 2014
10 Toxic Substances to Avoid
There are many things horses should never eat. Certainly, toxic plants rank high on the list of things to avoid, but other substances, organisms, and chemicals can pose risks as well…American, English, Japanese, and Western yew are ornamental evergreen hedge-type plants that grow red berries in the fall. They are commonly used in landscaping across much of North America. As little as a mouthful or two of yew can be lethal, says Sarah Ralston, VMD, PhD, professor in Rutgers University’s Department of Animal Sciences. The plant’s alkaloid toxin taxine causes cardiac and respiratory failure, often within minutes. “It’s not uncommon for horses to be found dead with the plant still in their mouth,” Ralston says.
Growing Antarctic Ice Sheets May Have Sparked Ice Age
The origins of the last major ice age, which cloaked the Northern Hemisphere in colossal glaciers, might have had a surprising cause: the buildup of ice sheets on the other side of the planet, in Antarctica, researchers say…The findings also reveal that “a change in deep-sea heat transport had a profound effect on the Earth’s climate,” said lead study author Stella Woodard, a geochemist and paleooceanographer at Rutgers University in New Jersey…In the study, Woodard and her colleagues analyzed the shells of microscopic bottom-dwelling organisms known as foraminifera in ancient sediments in the Pacific collected by the International Ocean Discovery Program.
Local Rutgers professors receive Fullbright grants
Two Central Jersey residents are among the seven Rutgers professors who have received Fulbright Scholar grants for research and teaching abroad next year at institutions in Austria, Brazil, Iceland and India…Eric Lam, of Monroe, a professor at the Sc…
Undergraduate Wins American Fisheries Society’s Best Poster Award
SEBS student Collin Dobson (Marine Sciences ’15), an intern at the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory, won the Best Poster award at the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the American Fisheries Society annual meeting in Lewes, DE, on Nov. 8. Dobson’s poster, titled “Waved Whelk (Buccinum undatum) in the Mid-Atlantic Bight: Biology of Commercial Catch and Population Distribution,” […]
Fall snow cover in Northern Hemisphere was most extensive on record, even with temperatures at high mark
In 46 years of records, more snow covered the Northern Hemisphere this fall than any other time. It is a very surprising result, especially when you consider temperatures have tracked warmest on record over the same period. Data from Rutgers University…
NSIDC: Arctic Sea Ice Growth “Average” in November
Arctic sea ice grew at a “fairly average” rate through November, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Arctic sea ice extent for November averaged 10.4 million km2 which is 6 per cent or some 630,000km2 below the long run average for November over the period from 1981 to 2010…New research this year from Japanese scientists (Mori et al., 2014) provides support for the hypothesis, put forward by Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University and Steve Vavrus of the University of Wisconsin, that the warming Arctic is contributing to an increasing waviness of the jet stream with the potential for more extreme weather events, including cold outbreaks in the lower 48 U.S. and Eurasia that have been seen in recent years.
Growing Antarctic Ice Sheets May Have Sparked Ice Age
The origins of the last major ice age, which cloaked the Northern Hemisphere in colossal glaciers, might have had a surprising cause: the buildup of ice sheets on the other side of the planet, in Antarctica, researchers say…The findings also reveal that “a change in deep-sea heat transport had a profound effect on the Earth’s climate,” said lead study author Stella Woodard, a geochemist and paleooceanographer at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Deep-sea currents are responsible for about 30 to 50 percent of global heat storage and transport. In the study, Woodard and her colleagues analyzed the shells of microscopic bottom-dwelling organisms known as foraminifera in ancient sediments in the Pacific collected by the International Ocean Discovery Program.
Project plans to prevent groundwater pollution
The Rutgers Cooperative Extension Water Resources Program has conducted assessments for East Brunswick, Milltown, New Brunswick, North Brunswick and South Brunswick. The project involved providing suggestions to intercept and treat water runoff with po…
Student Interns Tackle Oyster Disease Ecology at Haskin Lab
Ecologically diverse communities are resilient communities. But can this diversity also help prevent the spread of disease? This question was at the heart of research conducted during experiments conducted by student interns at the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory in Bivalve, New Jersey. As part of a collaborative project with Old Dominion University, that is funded […]