[Source: NJDA press release] Gerald Ghidiu, retired extension specialist in entomology and former director of the Rutgers Agricultural Research and Extension Center (RAREC), and Bradley Majek, weed specialist who retired in 2013 as director of RAREC, were honored Feb. 10 with Distinguished Service to Agriculture citations by the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture during […]
Archives for February 2016
Scientists are floored by what’s happening in the Arctic right now
New data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggest that January of 2016 was, for the globe, a truly extraordinary month. Coming off the hottest year ever recorded (2015), January saw the greatest departure from average of any month on record, according to data provided by NASA… “We’ve got this huge El Niño out there, we have the warm blob in the northeast Pacific, the cool blob in the Atlantic, and this ridiculously warm Arctic,” says Jennifer Francis, a climate researcher at Rutgers University who focuses on the Arctic and has argued that Arctic changes are changing mid-latitude weather by causing wobbles in the jet stream. “All these things happening at the same time that have never happened before.”
China hates GMOs. Problem is, China really needs GMOs
China has a fifth of the world’s people, but only about 7 percent of its arable land. Food security is a national obsession – so it only seemed natural when, earlier this month, state-owned ChemChina announced its bid to buy the pesticide- and seed-producing giant Syngenta, in what is likely to be the biggest acquisition in the country’s history. Technology, the Party seemed to say, and especially genetically modified crops, are the key to a sustainable future. “There was a widespread public fear that, ‘Oh, maybe they’re trying to sneak this through too!'” says Carl Pray, an economist at Rutgers who has researched Chinese attitudes toward GMOs.
New Species of Flower Encased in Amber Named by Rutgers Botanist
Lena Struwe, associate professor in the departments of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources, and Plant Biology and Pathology, identified a new flower species, Strychnos electri, discovered trapped in amber by entomologist George Poinar from among hundreds of specimens unearthed from an amber mine in the Dominican Republic in 1986. The two flower specimens, estimated to […]
An Ancient Flower Trapped in Amber
The flowers of Strychnos electri are slim and small and trumpet-shaped. Their petals flare out at the tip to form a star, out of which a single spindly pollen tube protrudes. They look as if they might have fallen from the stalk yesterday, but they are…
Newly named prehistoric plant connected to poison and food
A scientist whose work is said to have inspired the movie Jurassic Park has found the oldest known examples of a useful family of plants. The specimens are locked up as fossils in amber millions of years old…. “These flowers looked like they had just fallen from a tree,” Poinar said. Not being a botanist, he decided to run them by one at Rutgers University — Lena Struwe. “I thought they might be Strychnos, and I sent them to Lena because I knew she was an expert in that genus,” he said.
Down on the Farm
Northeast farmers are relying increasingly on agritourism to expand farm income, create employment for family members, and strengthen relationships in the local community. For many farmers, agritourism is a new business model, necessitating a shift fro…
Ancient, unknown species of flower found locked away in amber
Anyone who has seen “Jurassic Park” knows that all manner of organisms can end up trapped in amber – preserved in hardened tree resin, waiting for scientists to unlock their secrets millions of years later. The latest find is a previously undiscovered species of flower that could be as much as 45 million years old. The flower, dubbed Strychnos electri by Rutgers botanist Lena Struwe, is described in a study published Monday in Nature Plants.
Do Pathogens Hold The Key to Understanding the Origin of Eukaryotes?
A new paper in Science, co-authored by evolutionary biologist Debashish Bhattacharya, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, helps to answer the question. A major turning point in the history of life on Earth occurred about two billion years ago – the evolution of complex cells, the so-called eukaryotes. This was the foundational lineage that […]
Strychnos electri: Flower species from deadly genus discovered trapped in amber for 15 million years
A new species of flower has been identified, having been trapped in amber for at least 15 million years. The flower species, from the genus Strychnos, was discovered following fossil extraction from the Dominican Republic 30 years ago, but has only jus…