In a paper published Feb. 6 in the new American Geophysical Union journal Earth’s Future, Rutgers postdoc Lili Xia, Rutgers professor Alan Robock, National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist Michael Mills and colleagues demonstrate how crops in China, the largest grain producer in the world, would respond to the climate changes following a “small” regional […]
Archives for February 2015
Bridgewater, Raritan, Somerville Residents Plant Gardens for Clean Water
The Rutgers Cooperative Extension Water Resources Program has partnered with the New Jersey Water Supply Authority Watershed Protection Program to offer rebates to homeowners that build rain gardens. Since 2013, more than 60 area residents have attende…
Bitter Cold Continues Throughout Week for Jersey Shore
Another round of light snow is expected Wednesday, followed by another wave of arctic cold, according to the weather briefing. The temperatures could match Sunday night’s lows, with wind chill values around 10 below zero Wednesday night into Thursday…..
Spy Agencies Using Weather Warfare Against Other Nations Alarms Climate Expert
The prospect of spy agencies such as the CIA using weaponized weather to destabilize hostile nations worries Professor Alan Robock, from the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Prof. Robock explained at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Jose, California, that a covert organization claiming to represent the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asked him whether a hostile nation could use weaponized weather technology against the United States without being detected… Prof. Robock suspected that the two “agents” from this mysterious organization who had approached him actually wanted to find out whether the CIA could get away with messing with another country’s weather.
‘Next Pinatubo’ a Test of Geoengineering
Scientists who study ideas to engineer the climate to mitigate global warming say we should be ready to deploy an armada of instrumentation when Earth has its next major volcanic eruption. Data gathered in the high atmosphere would be invaluable in determining whether so-called “geoengineering” solutions had any merit at all… But Prof Alan Robock from Rutgers University said we had no real knowledge currently of how such a strategy would play out… “We’d like to be able to see how this sulphur dioxide cloud evolves from gas into particles and how the particles grow. If the particles are too big then they’ll fall out much more rapidly and you’d have to replenish them much more rapidly, if you’re interested in doing geoengineering. And so we’d like to understand the processes in the formation of these droplets,” he told BBC News.
Oyster Farmer Reviving Barnegat Bay’s Rich Shellfish Bounty
Today, Gregg is the owner of Forty North Oyster Farms. And even though it took him five years to get all the necessary permits (his work is regulated by 11 governmental agencies), and even though his entire business was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy (just four days after his first sale), he’ll tell you that now, finally, he has the best job in the world… Gregg also has a symbiotic relationship with Rutgers, which is responsible for the modern oyster industry in the first place. In the 1980s, Rutgers developed a disease-resistant strain of oysters, to fight against parasites, a breed line that is used throughout the industry. “Rutgers is world class when it comes to oysters,” says Gregg… Gef Flimlin is considered one of the guardians of Barnegat Bay and enthusiastically promotes Jersey shellfish. Flimlin, a marine extension agent with Rutgers Cooperative Extension, was a guest speaker at an oyster symposium last year at the Montclair Food & Wine festival, talking oysters, sharing clams.
Passaic River Polluters Funding Bacteria Study to Clean up Toxic Mess
The riverbed of the lower Passaic River has hardly been disturbed since the early 1980s when officials determined the sediment was too toxic to dredge… Now scientists from Rutgers and two other public universities, in a pilot study being funded by polluters on the hook for the federal clean up of the Passaic, want to grow an army to fight the contamination… Donna Fennell, an environmental science professor at Rutgers and one of the researchers on the project, said that given the legacy of contamination in the Passaic, it’s “very, very likely” that there are organisms in the sediment that have evolved to break down those pollutants… “New Jersey is a place with a legacy of industry and chemical production, and a lot of contaminated sites,” Fennell said. “It’s terrible what’s happened, but for scientists, it’s exciting microbiology.”
Doing it Together: Community Garden Conference Targets Growing Trend
The rapid growth of the community garden movement hinges on the obvious: Gardening is rewarding, and gardening with others divides the work and multiplies the fun… In New Jersey as elsewhere, the number of plots devoted to community gardens has risen sharply in the past few years. Driven in part by economic belt-tightening and partly by concerns about food safety, growing your own is a new-again trend. It was almost inevitable that community gardeners, a gregarious bunch by nature, would gravitate toward a chance to meet and mingle… The idea of “community” has branched out into several projects. There are volunteers growing crops for the local food pantry, mental health professionals running horticultural therapy programs and demonstration plots tended by Master Gardeners, who are trained in every county by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Service.
Former Rutgers Police Horse Wins “Horse Personality of the Year” Award
Lord Nelson, a former Rutgers University Police Horse, won the inaugural “Horse Personality of the Year” award at the Annual Breeders Awards luncheon, hosted by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture on January 25. The 42-year old American Quarter horse was purchased in 1978 by the Rutgers Equine Science Center (ESC). Until his retirement in […]
Ingredient in Olive Oil Looks Promising in the Fight Against Cancer
A Rutgers nutritional scientist and two cancer biologists at New York City’s Hunter College have found that an ingredient in extra-virgin olive oil kills a variety of human cancer cells without harming healthy cells. The ingredient is oleocanthal, a co…