Flooding, even from small storm events, has been damaging the quality of life of New Jersey’s residents. Based upon a preliminary land cover analysis of New Jersey, 12.1% of the state is covered with impervious surfaces. This translates into 1,055 square miles or 675,200 acres of impervious cover in the state. It’s estimated that during […]
Archives for March 2016
“Law of Return” and “Biodiversity” are Principles Used in Organic Land Care
The “Soils Matter, Get the Scoop!” blog is published by the Soil Science Society of America, which is the premier organization devoted to soil science. Their goal for the blog is to help preserve this valuable natural resource by educating the public about sustainable practices. This month’s blog post by Rutgers NJAES extension specialist in […]
A surprising and volatile winter in New Jersey
This past winter season was full of surprises, and one of the biggest was the amount of snowfall New Jersey wound up with when all was said and done. According to Dave Robinson, the state climatologist at Rutgers this past winter, “snowfall was actually a little bit above average.” That’s despite the fact that New Jersey saw few snowstorms.
How to Get Ready for the 2016 Fruit Season
As I prepare this article, the season is running a full two weeks ahead of last year’s green tip date on apple! Mature apple scab spores were detected on March 7 in New York’s Hudson Valley by Dave Rosenberger of Cornell University and on March 10 by K…
Why diseases like Zika could unfairly target America’s poor
BALTIMORE – “PLEASE DON’T PUT GARBAGE HERE,” says a sign in a rundown alley in the Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park neighborhood, where more than a third of the homes stand abandoned… Other urban areas are wrestling with the same combination of poverty and mosquito-borne disease risks. Research in New Jersey, conducted by Dina Fonseca and colleagues at the Rutgers Center for Vector Biology, similarly found that economic disparities were a good predictor of the abundance of the Asian tiger mosquito.
AT ISSUE: Climate change hard to deny — or is it?
Climate change and its effects looms as one of the great global challenges of our time. Or not so much, depending on whom you may be talking to. While the scientific community largely agrees not only on the existence of global warming but man’s effect …
Ph.D. Candidate Talia Young Named a 2016 David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow
Talia Young, doctoral candidate in the graduate program in Ecology and Evolution, has been named one of five young scientists who will comprise the David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship Class of 2016. Considered the nation’s premier postdoctoral program in conservation science, the fellowship aims to “identify and support early-career scientists who will shape the […]
Union County experts offer programs for healthy living, gardening, community volunteering and more
Schools, businesses and nonprofit agencies are invited to contact the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Union County to book informational programs on nutrition and other health topics for students and adults. The programs are offered as part of the Extension’s spring programming schedule, County Visions Spring 2016. “The Extension offers a full slate of programming and expert guidance for household and community health, whether you are interested in growing a successful garden, improving your family’s nutrition, volunteering in the community or helping to create a healthier environment in our neighborhoods,” said Freeholder Chairman Bruce H. Bergen.
Philly health inspectors rap Whole Foods, Shop N Bag
Shoppers once chose supermarkets for convenience, cost, customer service and quick checkouts. But a recent study found 83 percent of consumers pick only retail outlets that look clean to them, according to supermarket guru Phil Lempert. A full third of the people he surveyed have turned around and fled stores that seemed less than pristine… “Making food safe costs money,” said Donald W. Schaffner, food safety expert and a professor of microbiology at Rutgers University. “If you’re an upscale chain, you know your customers demand it. It comes through diligence and staffing.”
Partaking in the Rebirth of the East Coast Oyster
French poet Leon-Paul Fargue wrote “Eating oysters is like kissing the sea on the lips.”… Barnegat Bay is also rebounding due to environmental stewardship programs to build oyster reefs under the watchful eye of Gef Flimlin of Rutgers University and local volunteers…How did the endangered American oyster, also called the Eastern oyster, experience this dramatic comeback? I recently visited the New Jersey Aquaculture Innovation Center at Rutgers, located at the end of a gravely road on the banks of the Cape May Canal. On the aquatic factory tour directed by David Jones, who coincidently doesn’t eat oysters, I observed oyster seeds in various stages of maturation as they were fed algae from the adjacent waters. “We sell an average of 10 to 12 million oyster seeds annually to the oyster farming industry in Delaware Bay and elsewhere,” said Jones. Nearby, local oyster farmers harvested Cape May Salts and other brands under the watchful eye of researchers.