With cities across the United States facing one of the most brutal winters in recent memory, the use of road salt can be an economic game changer, one that forces snowy cities to be innovators that balance safety, cost and the environment.
In the northeastern United States, warmer spring temperatures are leading to shifts in the emergence of the blacklegged ticks that carry Lyme disease and other tick-borne pathogens. At the same time, milder weather is allowing ticks to spread into new geographic regions.
This frigid, snowy winter may be keeping many people indoors, but is likely doing little to kill slumbering hordes of ticks that can carry Lyme disease.
Cary's head of education Alan Berkowitz explains why undergraduate research programs are so valuable-both for the students, who gain research experience, and the scientists, whose scientific thinking can benefit from the mentoring experience.
Although western Lake Erie has become an international poster child for noxious algae, a new study suggests that many of the world’s much smaller, cleaner, and calmer bodies of water are likewise in trouble if greater efforts are not undertaken to keep farm fertilizers and other nutrients out of them.
Familiar to the snowy landscape are salt trucks slowly crawling up and down the interstates and city streets sprinkling salt (which is only effective in temperatures above 15 degrees), or salt-brine over the roads.
Find out what you can do as a homeowner to ensure you are not overusing road salt which can damage metal and concrete, contaminate drinking water, and harm aquatic plants and animals.
By the late 1960s, America’s fresh waters were in crisis. Rivers were catching fire, unsafe E.coli levels were common, and Time Magazine declared Lake Erie dead.
The trees that make up a forest influence its ability to retain carbon and nitrogen, nutrients of concern to ecologists because they impact forest productivity and water quality.
In the U.S. alone, some 15 million tons of salt is applied to our roadways each year. While its use has real benefits, in terms of safety and navigation, there have been cumulative costs to the environment.
In September, I arrived in Millbrook as the new president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. During the past two months, I’ve met with staff to better learn what we do and where we do it. The meetings have been spectacular.
While our trails and grounds are closed for the season, our education staff is gearing up for a busy spring. Field trips and enrichment activities are being scheduled with a focus on data literacy through long-term monitoring.
This past summer Cary's Steward Pickett was a Visiting International Professor at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences in Beijing. The center is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and home to the State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology.
In March, 2014, the Obama Administration launched the Climate Data Initiative. The initiative marshals data from a vast trove of governmental and non-governmental sources to inform decision making and ensure that our nation’s communities and businesses are more resilient to climate change.
Cary-led research has found that antibacterials, such as triclosan, have made their way into the American water system and are fueling the development of drug-resistant bacteria. And there are human health-related reasons to avoid their use in our daily lives.
More and more often, we hear about the arrival of a foreign plant or insect that is wreaking havoc on our native ecosystems. Take, for example, the Emerald Ash Borer, which will likely decimate all the ash trees in our forests.
Mice, chipmunks and shrews are welcoming hosts for the bacteria ticks spread. They're plentiful. They're low to the ground, so ticks can easily hop aboard. And they lack the immune systems that might compromise any infectious agents.
Podcast Heavy storms cause a lot more than water to come trickling down into our rivers. Podcast interview with freshwater ecologist Dr. Stuart Findlay.
Podcast Any time there are high flow events bringing water and sediments from the tributaries and over the dam, it causes several fairly dramatic changes. Podcast interview with freshwater ecologist Dr. Stuart Findlay.
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