While it’s typical for animals to be coming out of hibernation at this time of the year, certain critters may be catching the eyes of passersby in West Milford this week. A wander around the township will reveal eight critters that have been distributed, each with a sign hand-painted on both sides, asking the public to “Stop Litter!” and “Keep West Milford Beautiful,” as well as other Earth Day-related slogans aimed to raise awareness of the impact of litter… The eight critters were selected by 4-H Velveteens to represent both local wildlife and local farm animals with which the club members have actually worked. One is a bear that reminds residents: “Your trash attracts me!” The other painted animals include a chicken, a rabbit, a goat, a pig, a fox, a baby goose, and a fawn… 4-H, which is part of the land grant university system, is the youth division of Rutgers University in NJ, Cornell in N.Y., and Penn State in Pa. and exists in every county in America and in many countries around the world. It employs informal educational programs and promotes “learn-by-doing” to enable youth to develop the knowledge, attitudes and skills they need to become competent, caring and contributing citizens of the world.
Archives for April 2015
Environmentalists Re-Establishing Barnegat Bay Oyster Colony
A century ago, oysters were so plentiful in New Jersey’s Barnegat Bay that visitors would clamber off trains, wade into the water and pluck handfuls to roast for dinner. But decades of pollution, accelerated by rampant development along the bay’s shore…
‘Antarctic Edge’ Explores How Much Hope Is Left
“Antarctic Edge: 70 South,” opening April 17, is an extraordinarily beautiful and important documentary about the dedicated scientists who’ve clocked the deterioration of the Antarctic ice sheet and tracked consequential climate change around the globe for the past 20 years. Filmmaker Dena Seidel had unlimited access to scientific data and personnel, both in Antarctica, where she filmed extensively and exquisitely, and at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where she heads the school’s Center for Digital Filmmaking. Seidel taps scientists’ unquenchable quest for knowledge and there’s a lot of information to absorb. More poetic than polemical, the film combines a thrilling presentation of natural wonders with amusing glimpses into the lives of the scientists. It’s a convincing call for action to save the planet; if that is still possible. “Antarctic Edge” is this week’s edgy must-see.
De-extinction: Not Just a Movie Plot
Carry out a bit of jiggery-pokery involving chaos theory and Jeff Goldblum. Insert the dino DNA into the yolk of a crocodile’s egg and leave to incubate. Soon you’ll have a thriving menagerie of once-extinct beasts roaming the jungles of someone’s private theme park. The 1993 Hollywood blockbuster and Michael Crichton novel of the same name may not have invented the idea of “de-extinction” but they certainly put it out there as a concept… De-extinction, or the idea of bringing extinct species back from the dead, has come a long way over the quarter century since Jurassic Park was first published. It has now matured into a quasi-serious science and has even been the subject of its own TEDx conference… “If it works, de-extinction will only target a few species and it’s very expensive. Will it divert conservation dollars from true conservation measures that already work, which are already short of funds?” asks David Ehrenfeld, professor of biology at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “At this moment brave conservationists are already risking their lives to protect dwindling groups of African forest elephants from heavily-armed poachers, and here we are talking about bringing back the woolly mammoth. Think about it.”
Tired of Bizarre Weather? Blame the North Pacific Mode
The past two winters have been marked by a strange trend in weather patterns: the eastern half of the continent has been swamped by insane snowstorms and frigid temperatures, while the west has luxuriated in spring-like temperatures… Jennifer Francis, research professor in the department of marine and coastal sciences at Rutgers University, is not so sure. Her 2012 paper argued the reduction in ice in the Arctic, which is warming at a much faster rate than other latitudes, would intensify pressure ridges, making them more extreme and persistent… “Last winter and this winter we saw this huge ridge parked over the west coast of North America the whole time. This is exactly the kind of situation we hypothesized,” she said.
Solving the Mystery of Rutgers’ Penalized Horse: Who Should be Saddled With Guilt?
On Wednesday, we brought you the sad news about longtime Rutgers police horse Lord Nelson, who passed away decades after being called for a penalty in a Rutgers-Army game in 1994. But Kevin MacConnell, the former Rutgers associate athletic director for marketing and communications, is “99 percent” sure Lord Nelson wasn’t the equine on the field that day. He says it was a horse from Medieval Times, the theme restaurant that includes jousting tournaments in Lyndhurst… Karyn Malinowski, a professor at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences animal department, sticks by the story that it was Lord Nelson who was penalized that day. She’s the same person who purchased the horse for Rutgers in 1978 and who later owned him after he retired in 2000. “It was absolutely Lord Nelson,” she said on Friday. “Because I remember seeing the news in The Star-Ledger the next day, that I was very mad at Coach [Doug] Graber’s statements because it wasn’t Lord Nelson’s fault. The rider, somebody asked him to go out on to the field. He didn’t just bolt out on to the field.”
The Arbor Trail
Rutgers environmental planning and design major Eliot Nagele (SEBS 2015), stumbled upon the remnants of a trail behind the University Inn and Conference Center when he was cleaning up a nearby creek in 2013. His work to renovate the trail and restore it as an outdoor classroom is documented in Unearthing a Buried Treasure, Parts […]
Review: In ‘Antarctic Edge,’ a Region of Retreating Ice
There aren’t many uncharted areas left on the globe, but “Antarctic Edge: 70 Degrees South” takes viewers to a spot where surveying is so scarce that the destinations may diverge from their locations on a map. Exploring that terrain could mean getting caught in ice for a month, as one scientist in the film recounts experiencing… The movie, a collaboration between marine science and film divisions at Rutgers University, takes a dry, educational-documentary approach to its material. But if talk of sampling krill and phytoplankton populations conjures memories of biology class, “Antarctic Edge” illustrates its points effectively, providing vivid evidence of how shrinking ice at the South Pole affects climates across the globe.
Lord Nelson, a Rutgers Horse, Dies
Lord Nelson, the only horse to be penalized in a college football game, died. Rutgers University said Lord Nelson was 42. One of his duties during his 37-year Rutgers career was carrying the university’s Scarlet Knight mascot during football games. A…
Lord Nelson, Award-winning Rutgers Horse, Passes Away at the Ripe Old Age of 42
Until his retirement in 2000, Lord Nelson served the university’s Department of Public Safety as a mounted patrol horse as well as helped carry the Scarlet Knight mascot across the field at Rutgers football games. The 42-year old American Quarter horse was purchased in 1978 by the Rutgers Equine Science Center (ESC). Following his […]