Thoughts and twitterings around the ecosphere on President Obama’s State of the Union address to Congress, Tuesday, January 24th, 2012. In the Wednesday morning quarterbacking that followed this year’s State of the Union, pundits aired the perennial complaint that the President’s speech ran too long, heavily-laden with a Clinton-style laundry list of programs. But citizens like to hear their favorite…

This post contributed by Nadine Lymn, ESA Director of Public Affairs Many of us still operate under the notion that, as responsible car owners, we should get our vehicle’s oil changed every 3,000 miles to keep our engines running smoothly.  But it turns out that this engrained wisdom is not true if you own a vehicle that is about ten…

Overabundance of an essential nutrient is not always a good thing. – by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer. A tractor spreads manure. Excess fertilizer seeping out of fields has a host of consequences for ecological systems and human health. Credit, flickr user eutrophication&hypoxia, 2010.   NITROGEN is both an essential nutrient and a pollutant, a byproduct of fossil fuel combustion…

This post contributed by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer. Four years ago, graduate student Austin Gallagher took a video camera into the tropical waters around Mo’orea, about 17 km northwest of Tahiti in French Polynesia. With his first post to YouTube, he was hooked. Filmmaking supplied an instant gratification quotient to balance the years of patient, slow research required to…

Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by Science Policy Analyst Terence Houston.  Read the full Policy News here. INTERIOR: GRAND CANYON HARDROCK MINING PROHIBITION ENACTED On Jan. 9, the Department of Interior (DOI) announced its decision to ban new hardrock mining claims on more than one million acres around Grand Canyon National Park for the next 20…

On January 10, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted a waiver to a small aircraft designed to help a young flock of whooping cranes reach their wintering grounds. Since 2001, Operation Migration has been operating a program reintroducing the endangered birds to northeastern North America, seeking to re-establish an Eastern flyway for the birds. Because the organization pays salaries to…

This post contributed by Nadine Lymn, ESA Director of Public Affairs Spoiler alert: this is not an upbeat post, although it does offer a few hopeful spots… As many in the ecological community already know, obtaining monetary support for conducting research is tough.  The number one federal agency that supports fundamental research in ecology is the National Science Foundation (NSF),…

This post contributed by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer Astronaut Bruce McCandless II drifts free, 350 kilometers above Earth’s surface and 100 meters from the safe haven of the Space Shuttle Challenger, during one of NASA’s first un-tethered spacewalks (credit, STS-41B, NASA 1984, via the Astronomy Picture of the Day). Invisible bonds of absolute necessity hold the free-flying astronaut to…

The United State Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) recent decision to remove the gray wolf from protection under the Endangered Species Act in the Great Lakes states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan has been met with a wide array of praise from policymakers and conservationists alike, including Defenders of Wildlife and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Aside from some concerns…

This post contributed by Nadine Lymn, ESA Director of Public Affairs Their silent, shimmery beauty has long stirred human aesthetic appreciation and for centuries individuals have sought to unravel the secrets of snowflakes.  Why are there so many varieties?  Why do all snowflakes have six “arms”?  And why does each flake appear unique, no matter how many fall from the…

This post contributed by Liza Lester, ESA communications officer In November, Norwegians Arnoldus Schytte Blix, Lars Walløe and Lars Folkow brought us the news that running reindeer cool themselves through open-mouthed panting, as Sara Reardon explains at ScienceNOW. Their heavy winter coats are so effective at insulating the animals from arctic temperatures that they have trouble dumping excess heat through…

Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by Science Policy Analyst Terence Houston.  Read the full Policy News here. APPROPRIATIONS: CONGRESS PASSES BILL FUNDING AGENCIES THROUGH FY 2012 The week of Dec. 16, Congress passed H.R. 2055, an omnibus bill which funds the government through the remainder of the current fiscal year (FY) 2012, which ends Sept. 30,…