NYSERDA, a New York State agency that works on energy research and development, announced a new tech product completely manufactured in the Southern Tier.
birds
Will Changing Wind Patterns Affect Migratory Birds?
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According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, changing winds may make it harder for North American birds to migrate southward in the autumn, but make it easier for them to come back north in the spring. Researchers from the lab came to this conclusion using data from 143 weather radar stations to estimate the altitude, density, and direction birds took during spring and autumn migrations over several years. They also extracted wind data from 28 different climate change projections in the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Their findings were published today in the journal Global Change Biology. “We combined these data to estimate how wind assistance is expected to change during this century under global climate change,” explains lead author Frank La Sorte, a Cornell Lab of Ornithology scientist.
News
Central NY Legislators Say DEC Needs More Flexibility To Issue Deer Culling Permits
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(WRVO) – Central New York state legislators have introduced a bill that would give the state Department of Environmental Conservation more flexibility with issuing deer control permits. This comes after DEC officials determined they were steering too far away from the current law. David Skeval of Cornell Coorperative Extension of Onondaga County said after an internal review at the DEC, officials realized their process of issuing deer culling permits is cumbersome, and also not following environmental law. “It’s not so much that the DEC said, ‘we’re going to change our minds and our law,'” Skeval said. “They’re not changing the law, they are trying to follow it a little closer.
News
Former EPA Administrator Said Climate Report Leakers Should Be Thanked
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Podcast: Play in new window
The former EPA regional administrator under President Barack Obama said scientists who leaked the report about further evidence of climate change to The New York Times should be commended as“whistleblowers.” Judith Enck, who was with the EPA from 2009 until President Donald Trump took office, said it’simportant that the public see the report. Compiled by scientists at 13 federal agencies, it contains theresults of thousands of studies showing that climate change caused by greenhouse gases is affectingweather in every part of the United States, causing average temperatures to rise dramatically since the1980s. Enck said those who leaked the report should be thanked for providing a public service. “I would refer to whoever did it as a whistleblower, not a leaker,” Enck said. “Tax dollars were spentputting this report together.” Enck said it’s also important that the draft report be seen to protect against any potential wateringdown of its conclusions by the Trump administration.
News
Tompkins Health Department Warns Of Blue Green Algae In Cayuga Lake
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The Tompkins County Health Department says harmful blue-green algae has been found in Cayuga Lake. In a press release, the Department says the Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) have been “visually identified” on each side of the Southern end of the lake, and that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has confirmed the HABs. Ingesting water infected by blue-green algae can make humans and pets ill. The Department is urging residents to look out for strongly colored water, a paint-like surface and floating mats or scum. You can see sample images here of both HABs and non-toxic green algal blooms. Boiling, chlorinating, or otherwise treating your water will not make it safe to use during a bloom. The Department has this instruction: “During a bloom, do not drink, prepare food, cook, or make ice with water from the lake or from beach wells.” Pets should also be kept from drinking untreated surface water.
Science
8 Things You Didn’t Know About Bees
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Photo by Odilon Dimier/Getty Images
According to PBS Newshour, Beekeepers all over the world have reported significant colony losses in the last ten years. Those may be caused by the interconnected effects of pesticides, parasites, landscape changes and a warmer climate. But the good news is that the phenomenon has shined a spotlight on one of the nation’s most ubiquitous workers, reinvigorated local beekeeping and sparked a bustling local honey movement. Here are some unforgettable takeaways:
1. Forgive us, but honey is bee vomitus
Bees need pollen mostly for the protein, and nectar mostly for the carbohydrates.
Science
Scientists are Digging up the Dirt for Clues to Disappearing Nitrogen in the Chesapeake Bay
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Thomas Fisher of UMCES enters data from a stream logger into his computer at his makeshift office near South Forge Branch, one of the Choptank’s tributaries. The logger measures water depth and temperature. (Dave Harp)
by Rona Kobell
Rona Kobell is a staff writer for the Bay Journal. Her work has won numerous awards and in 2008, she was selected as a Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan, where she spent a year studying the use of economic incentives in environmental policy. Call it the case of the missing nitrogen.
According to the Chesapeake Bay Journal, scientists have wondered what happens to the nitrogen that farmers apply to fields over the past several decades.
Science
The Pros and Cons of Potential Development in National Parks
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Yellowstone Canyon, from Shutterstock
Science Friday airs on WSQX Fridays between 2-4pm. With the National Park Service turning one hundred this week, discussions continue on how to make the parks financially lucrative. More than 300 million tourists visited the national parks in 2015, a five percent increase from the previous year. Of those visitors, more than five million flocked to Grand Canyon National Park alone. With a surge in hikers and bikers come more parking lots and developments.
Science
DEC is Seeking Help Monitoring an Invasive Species
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Asian Longhorned Beetle Photograph credit: Kenneth R. Law, USDA APHIS PPQ,
www.forestryimages.org/
The Asian Longhorned Beetle showed up on New York City around 1996, likely hitching a ride in cargo containers. This pest is most destructive in its larval stage, according to the New York State DEC. This pest was collected on maple and horse chestnut trees by the New York City Parks and Recreation Department at Green Point in northern Brooklyn. It was initially identified by E. Richard Hoebeke of Cornell University. The Longhorned beetle is a pest found in China, Japan and Korea. This was the first detection of this pest in the United States.
Science
EPA Science Advisory Board Sharpens Criticism of Fracking Report
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EPA science panel calls on the agency to produce more evidence for its assertion that fracking by gas rigs like this one does not have a widespread effect on drinking water. photo by JOE ULRICH/ WITF
By John Hurdle, State Impact Pennsylvania
A scientific advisory panel on Thursday stepped up its criticism of the Environmental Protection Agency’s controversial report on fracking, calling on the agency to provide evidence for its landmark conclusion that fracking for oil and gas has had “no widespread, systemic impacts” on drinking water.
Read the rest of the story here.
Science
Would You Eat a Plate Full of Worms?
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image by Lisa Brown
by Alison Baitz, NPR Goats and Soda
In southern Venezuela, the Ye’kuana people gather them from the mud around streams or dig them up from the floor of the highland forest. They’re gutted and boiled and eaten — or smoked and sold at prices three times that of other smoked meats. What is this lucrative, forageable fare? Earthworms.
“These edible worms are as much a part of the food supply as chicken is [in the U.S.],” says Darna Dufour, a professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado – Boulder and a colleague of Maurizio Guido Paoletti, a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Padova in Italy. He’s the co-author of a paper on the “Nutrient content of earthworms consumed by Ye’Kuana Amerindians.”