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When I found out that Cary’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program would be run virtually this summer, I was over the moon. I feared that it might be canceled due to COVID-19. I knew my planned research project would need to change since I wouldn’t be able to study the Hudson River in person, but the news came as a relief.

Pulitzer prize finalist Elizabeth Rush, discusses her new book Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore.

Along with carbon dioxide, a suite of other gases absorb infra-red radiation that is leaving the Earth’s atmosphere, causing global warming. Methane is one of those gases.  Methane is composed of one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms, so its chemical formula is CH4.

Animal-borne diseases have been behind some of the world’s worst pandemics, from the bubonic plague, which originated in rats, to the Spanish influenza, which originated in birds.

For COVID-19 and climate change, scientists don’t make up the scenarios. In case of COVID-19, a long history of epidemiological studies describes the transmission and infection of diseases in novel populations of organisms.

Dr. Barbara Han, using machine learning methods, builds models to predict where pathogens will likely come from during the next outbreak. She expects that the next major outbreak of disease will transmit from animals to humans.

A perfect storm of traits makes it very difficult to identify infected people before they’ve already transmitted the SARS- CoV-2 virus to many other people.

Felicia Keesing has been studying the ecology of infectious diseases since 1998 and is the author of over 70 scientific papers. She is a professor of biology at Bard College and co-leads The Tick Project with Rick Ostfeld, a study testing whether neighborhood-based prevention can reduce human exposure to Lyme and other tick-borne diseases.

While we have been closely focused on the painful nightly White House briefings on coronavirus, at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Trump’s minions have been busy dismantling decades of regulations that have made our air and water much cleaner than 50 years ago. Essentially, the EPA has pledged not to prosecute anyone who might wish to emit a variety of toxics to our environment.

Millions of Americans are under stay-at-home orders as the coronavirus spreads across the country, prompting some to spend more time than usual outdoors during the extended social isolation. While hiking in the woods can provide a much-needed change of scenery, scientists are urging nature-seekers to take precautions against tick encounters.

As the novel coronavirus has rocketed around the world, carrying with it immeasurable suffering, it has, at the same time, spawned a cottage industry of myths, misperceptions, speculation, and on occasion, downright lies. And as the pandemic persists, some of that disinformation centers on connections to food production—especially meat.

The Trump administration announced that the U.S. Department of Interior would no longer enforce penalties for incidental killing of birds—only intentional killing. If I were to shoot a Wood Thrush from the treetop, I could be prosecuted under the MBPA. If I were a land developer and bulldozed the woodland for a new treeless suburban development, I would be forgiven if I inadvertently destroyed a few Wood Thrush nests.

Calling all students interested in science and art! Cary Institute’s Hudson Data Jam competition is a chance to explore scientific datasets and communicate the stories they tell through visual or performing arts.

Using data related to global infectious diseases, computer models are aimed at predicting when, where, and how animal-borne viruses like Ebola (carried by monkey species) and Zika (by mosquitoes) may break out in human populations and trigger deadly epidemics.

It's easy to feel light-deprived during these short, pale winter days, especially after a week of gray weather. Compared to many underwater habitats, though, a cloudy winter's day is a floodlit paradise.

Conservationists argue that incorrect interpretation of scientific facts may impede important conservation efforts needed to preserve bats and their fragile ecosystems.

In the midst of this pandemic, we are all rightly focused on what we can do now. But I want to take a moment to look ahead and ask what we know that could help prevent future pandemics. The answer might surprise you.

Fishery collapses can be difficult to forecast and prevent due to hyperstability, a phenomenon where catch rates remain high even as fish abundance declines. In a recent Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences study, researchers conducted a whole-lake experiment to reveal the causes of hyperstability in recreational fisheries.