Marine science student works with sea turtle conservation and rehabilitation
University of Delaware junior Merope Moonstone’s career path was cemented the day she released a juvenile green sea turtle back into its natural habitat after a three-week rehabilitation stint at the Volusia Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet, Florida. (more…)
Efforts continue to increase population of endangered bird
NECEDAH, Wis. – Four whooping crane chicks raised in captivity began their integration into the wild Saturday as part of the continuing effort to increase the wild population of this endangered species. (more…)
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Cold-sensitive mangrove forests have expanded dramatically along Florida’s Atlantic Coast as the frequency of killing frosts has declined, according to a new study based on 28 years of satellite data from the University of Maryland and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md.
Between 1984 and 2011, the Florida Atlantic coast from the Miami area northward gained more than 3,000 acres (1,240 hectares) of mangroves. All the increase occurred north of Palm Beach County. Between Cape Canaveral National Seashore and Saint Augustine, mangroves doubled in area. Meanwhile between the study’s first five years and its last five years, nearby Daytona Beach recorded 1.4 fewer days per year when temperatures fell below 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 degrees Celsius). The number of killing frosts in southern Florida was unchanged. (more…)
Die Wiederwahl Barack Obamas hing an einem dünnen Faden. Ein Buch beschreibt, wie der US-Präsident seine Selbstzweifel überwand.
Denver, 3. Oktober 2012. Das erste TV-Duell zwischen Barack Obama und dem republikanischen Herausforderer Mitt Romney ist vorbei. Romney eilt von der Bühne in die Garderobe und wird von seinem Team jubelnd empfangen. Seine Frau Ann umarmt ihn, Sohn Tagg ruft begeistert: «Dad, Du hast ihn vernichtet!» Was war geschehen?
Romney hatte neunzig Minuten lang die Bühne dominiert. Er trat eloquent, freundlich und doch hartnäckig auf, bestimmt und doch humorvoll – wie ein Präsident. Obamas Lager dagegen musste konsterniert zusehen, wie ihr Mann völlig neben den Schuhen stand. Er wirkte abwesend und schläfrig, kritzelte Notizen auf Zettel und starrte auf das Pult vor sich hin. Keine Spur von Verve und Leidenschaft. (more…)
On Monday morning — Labor Day — first-year students gathered in classrooms around campus for their First Readings seminars. The program, initiated at Brown seven years ago, is designed to give new students a common reading experience and prepare them for college life.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Classes don’t officially begin until Wednesday, but first-year students got their first taste of academic life at Brown on the first Monday in September, when all 1,537 of them gathered in classrooms around campus for the annual First Readings seminars. (more…)
Like malaria, dengue fever is an infectious disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Unlike malaria, there is no vaccine for it. As many as 100 million people contract dengue each year, but MSU researcher Zhiyong Xi is working to change that.
Among the estimated 2.5 billion people at risk for dengue, more than 70 percent live in Asia Pacific countries, which spurred Xi to establish a collaborative research institute at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. (more…)
Using a “patient monitoring” device attached to a whale entangled in fishing gear, scientists showed for the first time how fishing lines changed a whale’s diving and swimming behavior. The monitoring revealed how fishing gear hinders whales’ ability to eat and migrate, depletes their energy as they drag gear for months or years, and can result in a slow death.
The scientists in this entanglement response suction-cupped a cellphone-size device called a Dtag to a two-year-old female North Atlantic right whale called Eg 3911. The Dtag, developed at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), recorded Eg 3911’s movements before, during, and after at-sea disentanglement operations. (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — Invasive “crazy ants” are displacing fire ants in areas across the southeastern United States, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. It’s the latest in a history of ant invasions from the southern hemisphere and may prove to have dramatic effects on the ecosystem of the region.
The “ecologically dominant” crazy ants are reducing diversity and abundance across a range of ant and arthropod species — but their spread can be limited if people are careful not to transport them inadvertently, according to Ed LeBrun, a research associate with the Texas invasive species research program at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in the College of Natural Sciences (more…)
