The world of academia used to be a place where professors and students stayed shuttered away in their research labs and offices, doing their research for the benefit of one another, with no desire to engage in the public eye. Cynics may chuckle and comment that this stereotype is still largely true today. But more and more, institutions and granting…
White-nose syndrome, a mysterious disease that has been killing hundreds of thousands of North American bats since its discovery in 2007, has now forced the U.S. Forest Service to close caves in national forests across the country in an attempt to rein in transmission of the disease. The disease is caused by a cold-loving fungus that infects bats’ faces and…
Ecologists point to forests as important sinks for atmospheric carbon. But a new report suggests that climate change could induce environmental stresses that would chnge the role of forests into a net carbon source. The report, titled “Adaptation of Forests and People to Climate Change – A Global Assessment,” was coordinated by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO)…
A paper in Accountability in Research last week has stirred up significant controversy among researchers, science journalists and bloggers this week. Directly from the abstract: “Using Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Canada (NSERC) statistics, we show that the $40,000 (Canadian) cost of preparation for a grant application and rejection by peer review in 2007 exceeded that of giving every…
PBS gave a sneak preview of its Frontline documentary, Poisoned Waters, today at the National Press Club. The featured speakers included EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and the founding EPA Administrator, Bill Ruckelshaus, who served under Richard Nixon. Both agreed that to really clean up our nation’s waterways, we need one thing: new legislation. “There is murkiness about the jurisdiction that…
The state governments of Maryland and Virginia, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, announced yesterday that Asian oysters will not be allowed in the Chesapeake bay. The decision capped a five-year study on the nonnative oyster to assess its potential to replace the rapidly diminishing native Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica. The decision ultimately came down to the Army Corps…
The Environmental Protection Agency is taking a leaf out of the FBI’s book in their fight against “environmental crimes.” EPA has established a Most Wanted list, including mug shots, of offenders who have been charged with violating environmental laws or regulations. The list was established to put a spotlight on environmental crime and to signal that the agency is taking…
To convince naysayers that climate change is real, maybe all we need to tell them is to look up in the sky – or down into the ocean. Two recent studies show that seabirds can be important sentinels of a changing climate. Says Dee Boersma, University of Washington ecologist and one of the world’s penguin experts, in a NY Times…
The international World Water Week meeting has attempted to raise awareness in developed countries of the growing water sanitation crisis in developing nations. According to the Huffington Post, more than 3 million people are killed each year from water-related diseases, and 98 percent of water-related deaths occur in the developing world. A large part of the world’s water crisis is…
In mid-February, George Will, resident Washington Post conservative and climate-skeptic, wrote an editorial denouncing “Dark Green Doomsayers.” The editorial was filled with anecdotal references of news articles from the 1970’s that declare widespread climate cooling and exclaim that the world will soon find itself in the next ice age. The piece outraged the environmental community and sparked a flurry of…
The EPA sent a finding to the White House on Friday that should surprise no ecologists: that greenhouse gases are pollutants that endanger the public welfare. What might surprise ecologists is that it was sent at all. Until the final days of the Bush administration, the executive branch dragged its feet on a 2007 edict by the Supreme Court that…
Emilio Bruna of the University of Florida wanted to assign students in his graduate seminar on plant -animal interactions something different than a term paper. So he devised a novel plan that would help them learn some crucial concepts while writing concisely: rewriting Wikipedia entries. I caught up with Emilio and student Kristine Callis, who is the first author of…