Metamorphosis is stressful. So said SNRE professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Bobbi Low to incoming University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School students in the keynote lecture of the fall welcome ceremony on September 2. Professor Low, who used to research toad skin secretions, likened new doctoral students to tadpoles, which have no reproductive organs; by the time the students graduate, they will be metaphorical toads, producing new research and generating ideas.
SNRE students working with Professor of Landscape Architecture Beth Diamond on a master's project held a public art event at a street festival in Detroit last Saturday. The group—Sarah Alward, Fai Foen, Dana Petit and Christian Runge—set up a tent where visitors could paint tiles that will be incorporated in a future art installation at the Heidelberg Project.
SNRE Associate Professor Dorceta E. Taylor has received the Allan Schnaiberg Outstanding Publication Award from the American Sociological Association. The award is for Taylor's 2009 book, "The environment and the people in American cities, 1600s-1900s: disorder, inequality, and social change," published by Duke University Press.
SNRE Dean Rosina M. Bierbaum and Professors Andy Hoffman, Maria Carmen Lemos and Ted Parsons contributed to a series of recently published national reports on climate change. The National Research Council of the National Academies of Science produced the series, called America's Climate Choices, at the request of Congress.
With record-breaking heat on the East Coast threatening health and maxing out the power grid, you might ask yourself if ití¢â‚¬â„¢s time to replace your old central air conditioner. Weighing the financial and environmental costs of buying a new unit vs. keeping the old one for another year can be difficult. A University of Michigan study determined the optimal time to replace a central air unit to save energy, reduce greenhouse gases and lower utility bills.
Three SNRE researchers have been selected to contribute climate-change adaptation research and analysis to the fifth climate assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The comprehensive assessments examine climate change in terms of physical science, adaptation, and mitigation of impacts, and provide governments with sound scientific knowledge of climate change.
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) has recognized SNRE Dean Rosina M. Bierbaum for her "long and distinguished service" to the scientific community and her ecological work in the public interest. Dean Bierbaum will receive the Distinguished Service Citation at the ESA's 95th annual meeting in August in Pittsburgh.
Bridget Hohner, an SNRE Aquatic Sciences master's student, explains her research on the effects of chemicals to control sea lampreys on mussel populations in Michigan streams. The work is highlighted in a video produced by SNRE Professor Sara Adlerstein through special funding provided by the Rackham Graduate School.
Environmental Justice Professor Paul Mohai, along with Byoung-Suk Kweon, researcher and adjunct assistant professor; Sangyun Lee, research fellow; and doctoral student Kerry Joy Ard, used EPA data and a formula for measuring the impact of pollutants to evaluate the toxic burden of each zip code in Michigan.
University of Michigan aquatic ecologist Donald Scavia and his colleagues say this year's Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" is expected to be larger than average, continuing a decades-long trend that threatens the health of a $659 million fishery. The 2010 forecast, released today by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), calls for a Gulf dead zone of between 6,500 and 7,800 square miles, an area roughly the size of Lake Ontario.