There’s no doubt it’s been hot, humid and sticky – but when is it a heat wave? In the Northeast, a heat wave is typically three or more days in a row where temperatures at a particular weather station hit 90 degrees or above. Monday marked day five of …
Archives for July 2016
Balancing Passions, a Rutgers-trained Scientist Heads for the Future
Acquiring new knowledge and sharing it with high school students have marked Talia Young’s journey Talia Young (GSNB’16), a newly minted Rutgers Ph.D. in ecology, studies fish and their relationship to the people and communities that depend on them. She’s also passionate about acquiring new knowledge and sharing it with young people, which is what […]
THE GARDENER STATE: On the road against hunger
New Jersey farmers grow such an amazing diversity of fresh produce, providing residents with a bounty of choice, flavor, nutrition and enjoyment… However, for approximately 16 percent of our population, fresh produce is simply not accessible. Since 1…
Rutgers Master Gardeners landscape Habitat for Humanity home
The Rutgers Master Gardeners of Somerset County, together with other volunteers from the Community Baptist Church in Somerset and Habitat for Humanity, landscaped their 28th Habitat for Humanity home in Franklin on June 25…
How to make a yummy, consistent beer: Rutgers team is on a mission
There’s a lot of science that goes into making a tasty beer. But not all brewers and hop farmers — especially the small ones — have access to the tools and information they need to arrive at the perfect product… “What we reall…
Climate tipping points: What do they mean for society?
The phrase “tipping point” passed its own tipping point and caught fire after author Malcolm Gladwell’s so-named 2000 book. It’s now frequently used in discussions about climate change, but what are “climate tipping points…
This Year’s Record Arctic Melt Is a Problem For Everybody
If your life has felt like a hot mess this year, you’re not alone. Same goes for the Arctic, which month after month has seen its ice cover contract to new lows. By late September, Arctic sea ice may reach its lowest extent since satellite record-keeping began… There could also be more global effects. Some evidence indicates that Arctic warming – which is causing a change in the temperature gradient between the equator and the poles – could be shifting the polar jet stream, causing it to meander more north and south rather than traveling a straight line. A recent study from Rutgers University linked a wavier jet stream to an uptick in extreme weather events, noting that “these are the types of phenomena that are expected to occur more often as the world continues to warm and the Arctic continues to lose its ice.”
Majority of US consumers ‘lack understanding’ of GMOs – survey
Almost 60% of American consumers have “a fair or poor understanding” of GMO foods, despite generally supporting a recently approved bill to introduce mandatory labelling of GMOs in the US… William Hallman, also a visiting scholar at the Annenberg Public Policy Center and professor of human ecology at Rutgers University, said that the bill could help consumers to improve their understanding of genetically modified foods.
We could be days away from a drought
Earlier this year, parts of New Jersey were under a drought watch. The watch was discontinued in March, but the state Department of Environmental Protection could soon issue a new one, perhaps in the next few days… “During the summer there is no real way to project the amount of rainfall that will hit a particular region, or even a municipality,” he said. “One side of town versus another can differ by several inches when it comes to an individual storm or storms over a couple of days,” says Dave Robinson, the state climatologist at Rutgers University.
Youngest Summer Scholar Ever, 9-Year-Old Ennyn Chiu, Finds a Perfect Fit at Rutgers
Ennyn and her 11-year-old sister Enna are studying green-fluorescent protein and other scientific concepts with William Ward, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology. The high, sweet voice of Ennyn Chiu sounds every bit like that of a 9-year-old girl, exuberant with a touch of singsong. But the words she uses, an extensive vocabulary combined with confident, […]