Search Results

Learn how data helps us make connections to better understand Hudson Valley ecosystems.

As COVID-19 sweeps the world, related viruses quietly circulate among wild animals. A new study shows how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and SARS-CoV-1, which caused the 2003 SARS outbreak, are related to each other.

Urban areas are home to more than just people. Cities are important habitats, central to meeting conservation and environmental justice challenges of the 21st century.

It is a crowning manifestation of the dominance of Homo sapiens over nature that sometime in the past year, the total mass of materials produced (and in use) by humans—our collective stuff—exceeds the mass of all the living things on Earth.

Learn how to use Google Sheets or TUVA (an interactive tool to help make sense of data) to perform basic calculations that will deepen your ability to interpret graphs.

Learn how to use different materials and mediums to communicate data in a fun, effective, and engaging way.

Lakes around the world are getting warmer, which is bad news for cold water fish species and freshwater quality. This is because changes in water temperature shift in-lake processes that can affect the health of the system

A new study, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals that nitrogen-fixing trees play an underrecognized role in recovering tropical forests by enriching nutrient-poor soils with scarce elements such as phosphorus and molybdenum.

Each day we breathe more than 10 cubic meters of air—more if we are exercising—so it stands to reason that stuff in the air can enter our body in large quantities.  One of the pollutants of current focus is fine particulate matter, expressed in micrograms per cubic meter.

An antidepressant commonly detected in waterways could change crayfish behavior in ways that could harm them and their environment.

Diseases much less ubiquitous than Covid-19 have spilled over from humans to wildlife in recent years. Ebola jumped from humans to great apes in the early 2000s with devastating consequences, the H1N1 influenza infected seals and sea lions between 2009 and 2011, while other respiratory viruses have gone on to wreak havoc on mountain gorillas over the past decade, an already endangered population.

Nearly a century after it's discovery, malacologists still are arguing about what sort of animal Helicostoa is. No one has seen it again, and probably no one ever will. Judging from the bit of information on the collection site and the habit of the animal, Helicostoa probably lived in the rushing waters of the Three Gorges, a habitat that was destroyed by the massive Three Gorges Dam.

Visitation to the Catskill and Adirondack Parks is booming. More people connecting with nature in New York State’s Forest Preserves is a good thing. But trail erosion, bear encounters, litter, traffic, safety, and damage to popular sites are just some of the challenges in managing resources for all. How can people get the most out of their time in Forest Preserves while doing the least harm?

As early as 1967, Eric Pianka noted that for lizards in the southwestern U.S, the maximum number of species was associated with the height of the vegetation. In other words, a third dimension of habitat contributed to the richness of species present.

Humans have occupied all continents of the Earth since the end of the last ice age, 12,000 years ago, leaving a lasting imprint of their activities on nature. Largely focusing on the remaining native animals, a recent report suggests that only 3% of the world’s land area is in “natural” condition.

The Melzingah reservoir, which provides drinking water to Beacon residents, experienced an unprecedented algal bloom.

Recent work in the western United States has shown that butterflies have declined at a rate of about 1.6% per year during the past 40 years, associated with warming in the autumn.  In the West, populations of Monarch butterflies persist only in urban areas; elsewhere their numbers have declined from several million to less than 2000 individuals.

In Baltimore, Maryland, leaky sewage infrastructure delivers tens of thousands of human doses of pharmaceuticals to the Chesapeake Bay every year. So reports a study that monitored an urban stream network over a yearlong period.