Are you suffering from extreme irritability and restlessness during these post-holiday weeks with seemingly no one visiting and nothing to do? The tree is long recycled or boxed and the lights and decorations are all put away. And even your New Year’s …
Environmental and landscape resolutions for the new year
As 2014 comes to a very quick close in just a few weeks, Rutgers is offering commercial landscapers and private citizens some great opportunities to meet and fulfill their New Year’s resolutions that promise to better their landscape and how they care …
Local Rutgers professors receive Fullbright grants
Two Central Jersey residents are among the seven Rutgers professors who have received Fulbright Scholar grants for research and teaching abroad next year at institutions in Austria, Brazil, Iceland and India…Eric Lam, of Monroe, a professor at the Sc…
Grant funds, green schools in Central Jersey
Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Somerset County recently announced that, along with their partners Hillsborough Township and Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association (SBMWA), it successfully obtained a $175,539 grant from the New Jersey Department …
Celebrating excellence in volunteering as a Rutgers Master Gardener
Earlier this month hundreds of Rutgers Master Gardeners gathered at the Cook Campus Center of Rutgers University in New Brunswick to conduct Annual Fall Conference. As part of the continuing celebration of Cooperative Extension’s Centennial Anniversary, the conference’s theme was “100 Years and Still Growing.” This was a very appropriate theme for this group considering the thousands of hours these volunteers offer throughout the state to greatly expand the education mission of Rutgers Cooperative Extension through their county-based offices and programs.
Jersey’s trees still vulnerable two years after Hurricane Sandy
Two years ago this week, Hurricane Sandy ravaged New Jersey with a force not experienced here in a century, and the devastation it caused to coastal areas was the subject of local and national news for weeks and months after. “It was some of the worst storm surge flooding we’ve ever seen,” confirmed arborist Chris Padot, owner of Bridgewater-based Green Tree Surgeons. “But while coastal towns received much of the media attention,the extremely high wind gusts experienced in interior sections of the state wreaked incredible havoc on our area’s trees and created what seemed like a third world country here for a few weeks…” “Our trees have been taking a pounding for the past three years and there’s probably years’ worth of tree work still out there,” said Nicholas Polanin, agriculture and resource management agent with Rutgers Cooperative Extension in Bridgewater.
Study provides deeper understanding of climate change
Most of the concerns about climate change have focused on the amount of greenhouse gases that have been released into the atmosphere. But in a new study published in Science, a group of Rutgers researchers have found that circulation of the ocean plays an equally important role in regulating the earth’s climate…”We argue that it was the establishment of the modern deep ocean circulation – the ocean conveyor – about 2.7 million years ago, and not a major change in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere that triggered an expansion of the ice sheets in the northern hemisphere,” says Stella Woodard, lead author and a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences.
Rutgers professor develops ‘superfood’ lettuce
Blueberries are considered the gold standard of “superfoods” because of their high levels of polyphenols, beneficial compounds shown to protect against diabetes, cardiovascular disease, memory loss, inflammation and cancer. However, this seasonal fruit, often priced at a premium, is high in sugar content, requiring limited consumption by people on restrictive diets…A new superfood that’s low in sugar and available year-round and exceeds the high polyphenol content of blueberries hits the market this month. This high-polyphenol lettuce has been named Rutgers Scarlet Lettuce (RSL) – a tribute to Rutgers’ school mascot and color, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, and is the brainchild of Rutgers Distinguished Professor in Plant Biology Ilya Raskin.
Rutgers discovery can change way to study diseases
Having discovered a new way to study tissues and organs more clearly, for these young scientific entrepreneurs the future seems, well, clear. In 2012, Tom Villani of Plainsboro, a Rutgers University student pursuing a doctorate in medicinal chemistry, …
The state readies for Big Data with passage of bill
“Big Data” has the potential for big results in terms of attracting and retaining industry for the state, public and private experts in New Jersey believe. That’s why a consortium of academia, government and industry leaders have collaborated on creating a one-stop home for the massive amounts of data collected by the likes of sensor cameras, social media and a variety of other sources, said Margaret Brennan-Tonetta, associate vice president for economic development at Rutgers University. The passage of the first “Big Data Bill” by Gov. Chris Christie officially recognizes the New Jersey Big Data Alliance (NJBDA) as the State’s Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Consortium. That move is crucial as it gives the NJBDA legitimacy in the eyes of industry, Brennan-Tonetta said.
