Items tagged with 'science'
White Nose Syndrome continues to kill off bats
Bats with White Nose Syndrome in Hailes Cave in Albany County.
White Nose Syndrome -- the bat disease first identified in the Capital Region -- has killed as many as 6.7 million bats, according to recent estimates by biologists working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Since first being documented in 2006, the disease has now spread to 16 states -- and at many sites it's killed almost 100 percent of the bats. It has some biologists worried that some once-common varieties of bats could be facing extinction. [US FWS] [NYT]
The "white nose" in the syndrome's name refers to a fungus that grows on the face of the bats. Last fall researchers confirmed the fungus was responsible for the syndrome after 100 percent of the bats exposed to it in captivity developed the symptoms in a study. The fungus infects the bats' skin and causes lesions. [Nature News]
In 2010, New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation reported the White Nose Syndrome was likely in all bat caves in the state. The population of some species of bat had declined by 90 percent. [NYS DEC]
The disease was first identified in Howes Cave in Schoharie County -- it spread to other caves in the region and large bat die-offs followed.
Bats don't necessarily have the best reputation with a lot of humans, but they're an important part of the ecosystem because they eat huge numbers of insects -- including mosquitos.
photo: Nancy Heaslip, NYS DEC
A fisher strikes a pose
Today's wildlife moment: a posing fisher.
During our email exchange earlier this week with scientist Roland Kays, he passed along two recent clips his wildlife cameras had captured in the Colonie. The first, embedded above, is of a fisher striking a pose in front of a camera just off Sand Creek Road (we're guessing this is the general area):
This camera was ... in a slim strip of forest that connects 2 larger wooded areas (aka core areas). Our GPS tracking of fishers suggested that they used this strip as a movement corridor to get between the larger fragments, we are now testing that by setting cameras out.
We've linked to it before, but here's Kays' "Scientist at Work" series at NYT about tracking fishers in Latham.
The second clip, of raccoons "jogging" over a footbridge near the Hilton Garden Inn at ALB, is after the jump.
Next stop for Roland Kays: Raleigh
We were disappointed to see recently that State Museum curator of mammals Roland Kays was leaving the institution. As the TU reported, morale at the museum is low and many researchers are leaving as a result, Kays among them (be sure to read chrisck's comment).
Kays is one of our favorite local nerds. He researches how wildlife adapt to urban environments. And the conversation we had with him about fishers in the Pine Bush is still one of our favorite AOA posts (that's him weighing a tranquilized fisher in the photo). Also: he was one of the organizers of the popular Cooking the Tree of Life series at the State Museum. The guy even races unicycles.
So, we emailed him to find out what's next. He emailed back:
[Y]es, sad to be leaving the Albany area, but excited about new opportunities at the new Nature Research Center I'm moving to in Raleigh, NC. I'll also be a Prof at NC State. Dr. Jeremy Kirchman will continue the Cooking the Tree of Life at the NYSM, and I'll also start it up down in Raleigh.
Kays says he's also working on a project that will involve non-scientists running camera traps that report images to a wildlife database. He says that could be up and running this summer and he's hoping it will include some sites here in the Capital Region. We'll see if we can get more details as the project's closer to being ready.
photo via Roland Kays
This just in: the Adirondacks have a lot trees
Where the trees are in New York. (We added the star for the approximate location of Albany as a point of reference.)
Forestry fact of the day: the Adirondacks are one of the areas with the most tree mass in the country, according to a map of "above ground woody biomass" created by the NASA Earth Observatory.
A clip from the map, of New York State, is above. The darker the green, the more tree mass there is.
The national map is posted after the jump in large format. You can see the large swath of forest that runs from Maine, through New Hampshire and Vermont, includes eastern New York, and then runs along the Applachians. And as dense as parts of the swath are, the long, narrow (relatively speaking) forests of the West Coast still trump the East for density of tree stuff (the trees are rather large out there).
Researchers built the map as part of an effort to better understand how much carbon is stored in forests -- and which way that amount is trending.
[via Buzzfeed]
Earlier on AOA: The darkness just to the north
More quakes!
The trio of recent earthquake spots in Berne.
The folks at theNew York State Museum and Geological Survey confirmed that there was yet another earthquake in the Hilltowns this morning, this time a 2.8 magnitude. So that makes three recent little quakes and one big one (from far away).
Dr. Chuck Ver Straeten at the State Museum said that this morning's quake, which happened in Berne at 9:13 this morning, was the biggest of the three that have gently rocked the area in the past four days. Earthquakes in the Hilltowns are common. Between February of 2009 and March of 2010, there were 37 of them! But Dr. Chuck says they don't have anything to do with each other -- they are all coincidental and all from deep in the earth. More people are just paying attention to earthquakes this week because of the one in Virginia that was also relatively mild.
Earlier on AOA: From 2009: More shaking in the Hilltowns
Very Important (scientific) People
GE has posted images from the guest book for the company's original research center in Schenectady (GE Global Research is now in Niskayuna):
While its beginnings were humble, it didn't take long for scientists and inventors from around the world to flock to the Research Lab to see what GE was working on. And each famous mind that visited would stop at Willis Whitney's desk to sign the VIP guest book. The book sat at Whitney's desk from 1914 to 1935, and the signatures are a veritable Who's Who of inventors, physicists, chemists, physiologists, and businessmen -- including 9 Nobel Laureates.
The collection of people who stopped by the place during its first years is remarkable. Among the names signed in the book: Bohr, Marconi, Pavlov.
photo: GE Reports
The Karner Blue
Nabokov once described the a group of Karner Blues appearing like "blue snowflakes".
The first flight of Karner Blue butterflies should be appearing in their habitats around the Capital Region right about now.
The beautiful endangered butterflies hang around sandy pine barren habitats. Two such spots in the Capital Region: the Albany Pine Bush Preserve and the Wilton Wildlife Preserve. Drew was at the Wilton preserve this past week and said the butterflies were easy to spot.
Karner Blues congregate in these habitats because they're also the habitat for blue lupine. The butterflies lay their eggs on the plants.
There's some great history Capital Region history involving the Karner Blue. The common name of the butterflies is linked to a spot here -- and Vladimir Nabokov classified the butterflies. Yep, the author.
Recycled: Pretty. Stinky.
While out walking Otto today we noticed the pear trees -- with their white blossoms and, uh, distinctive odor -- are back in bloom. As Ryan wrote for AOA last year (almost a year to the day):
Which brings us finally to this: why does this tree smell so horrible? As far as I can tell, there isn't any research on why exactly the trees stink. However, I did come up with this: all of the approximately 30 species of pear contain the aroma compound pentyl butanoate. I will spare you the biochemistry -- this is the compound that makes pears and apricots smell as they do. One the precursors of pentyl butanoate is butyric acid, which is present in butter, parmesan cheese and... vomit.
Ryan's post also gets into the history of the trees and why they're everywhere (despite the stink).
Sheep eat the baaaaad
Sheep -- and dogs -- will be working to clear invasive plants from the Normanskill Farm.
There's a new (old) way to combat invasive plant species in upstate New York: small flocks of sheep.
Gary Kleppel, a professor of biological sciences at UAlbany and director of the Biodiversity Conservation and Policy Program there, is in the process of setting up a "targeted grazing" project using sheep at Albany's city-owned Normanskill Farm.
His sheep start arriving in a few weeks and then, with the help of students, dogs, and a fancy fence, the sheep get to work -- eating and gnawing at the plants that cause problems for our ecosystem.
Joseph Henry, Albany nerd for the ages
Nick Fahrenkopf has written an interesting post about Joseph Henry, one of Albany's all-time great nerds:
Henry has been immortalized in more than the UAlbany physics building, his early school, a monument near the original Albany Academy, and buildings in Princeton: the unit of induction is the henry and the medal for service to the Smithsonian is the Henry Medal. Even a mountain range bears his name. Back here in Albany, the church where he was baptized even has a stained glass window of Henry lecturing 12 disciples with the words "Master Scientist and Devout Christian". I find it fascinating that now, over a hundred years later this area is home to the next wave of science and technology that will propel our nation forward. Not the Weather Service, Lighthouses, or telegraphs. But nanoelectronics, solar panels, biomedical engineering. It just seems... fitting.
Among many accomplishments, Henry was instrumental in discoveries on electromagnetism, the beginning of the Smithsonian, and the creation of the National Weather Service.
Earlier on AOA:
+ An entire library of Albanians
+ Right back @ you, governor
image by Henry Ulke via NOAA and Wikipedia
UAlbany's garlic guy
The work of UAlbany chemistry professor Eric Block is the main dish in a NYT piece today by Harold McGee, the creme de la creme of food science writers.
Block is an expert on alliums -- that is, plants such as onions and garlic. From McGee's piece:
"It's still astounding to me what happens when you cut or bite into an onion or a garlic clove," Dr. Block told me in a telephone conversation last month. "These plants originated in a very tough neighborhood, in Central Asia north of Afghanistan, and they evolved some serious chemical weapons to defend themselves."
Their sulfur-based defense systems give the alliums their distinctive flavors. The plants deploy them when their tissues are breached by biting, crushing or cutting. The chemicals are highly irritating, and discourage most creatures from coming back for seconds. They kill microbes and repel insects, and they damage the red blood cells of dogs and cats. Never feed a pet onions or garlic in any form. ...
Dr. Block explains that different alliums stockpile different sulfur chemicals to make their weapons, and this accounts for their varying flavors. The stockpiles themselves are inert, but when the plant's tissues are damaged, enzymes in the tissues quickly convert the sulfur compounds into reactive, stinging molecules.
There a bunch of interesting bits in the article -- whether you cook, or just eat.
Block wrote a recently-published book about alliums, Garlic and Other Alliums: The Lore and the Science. The book blurb says it "outlines the extensive history and the fascinating past and present uses of these plants."
Block co-authored a 2007 paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine that reported the neither raw garlic nor garlic supplements appeared to have clinically significant effects on cholesterol levels in people.
[via @ualbany]
Foxes and fishers and bears, oh my!
A moose at the Saratoga Race Course in June.
Where are the wild things? Lately, it seems the answer is here. And by here, we mean our backyard. And your backyard.
Over the last month, there have been moose sightings in Saratoga and East Greenbush, a bear spotted in Troy and reports of rabid foxes. Every few weeks someone drops into AOA to post a comment about a fisher sighting. And we seem to be hearing about coyotes a lot more, too.
So, what's going on? We called up Roland Kays, the mammal curator at the New York State Museum, for some answers. He studies urban wildlife.
Roland says some of these sightings are probably just part of the cycle of young animals heading out on their own for the first time. But he says there's a bigger story here, too: wild animals are moving into our neighborhoods. And that's a good thing.
$10,000 eggs
The board that manages New York State's stem cell research funding has given the OK for researchers to pay women for their eggs (the technical term is "oocytes"). And not just a few bucks, either. The Empire State Stem Cell Board has approved payments up to $10,000.
New York is the first state to allow its research money to be used this way. Guidelines from the federal National Academies of Science "prohibit cash or in-kind payments for donating oocytes for research purposes."
The Mohawk's ups and downs
Summer's comment about the Mohawk this morning prompted us to go looking for info about the river's water levels. And, as it turns out, there's a bunch of data posted on online -- something to keep in mind if you're a boater, fisherperson or other river user of some sort.
The US Geological Survey posts some pretty simple river level graphs created from data taken at a station in Cohoes. And the National Weather Service uses that data to create a whole bunch of graphs, charts and forecasts for points in Schenectady and Cohoes.
Bonus river data: the USGS service that tracks the Mohawk also tracks rivers and streams all over the state. As you might expect, this list includes the Hudson (here's the reading near Green Island) -- but also smaller streams such as the Normanskill.
Mohawk graph: National Weather Service
Shaking in the Hill Towns
The site of last night's earthquake -- well, here, but 9 km down.
There was another earthquake last night near Berne -- and it was relatively big (for this area).
The seismographic network that monitors this area reports that quake was a 3 on the magnitude scale ("felt quite noticeably by persons indoors, especially on upper floors of buildings"). There are reports that people did feel this one.
Things have been a little shaky in the Hill Towns recently. Over just the last three months there have been 14 earthquakes. Most of them have been tiny. The one last night was the strongest of the group.
There's an interactive map after the jump.
I think, therefore I Twitter
Check it out: one of the researchers involved with the much-buzzed about brain-to-Twitter interface is from the Wadsworth Institute here in Albany.
Gerwin Schalk, who got his PhD at RPI, is developing software that processes and translates brain signals into action. He and other researchers at Wadsworth helped develop the "keyboard" for the brain-to-Twitter device.
Wadsworth has gained attention over the last few years for its researchers' work on brain-computer interfaces. The institute's Jonathan Wolpaw was on 60 Minutes last year as part of a story about the technology.
(Thanks, Celina!)
Turning thoughts into action
The Wadsworth Center, a New York State research institute in Albany, got some national attention last night on 60 Minutes.
A piece looked at how a brain-computer interface developed by Wadsworth's Jonathan Wolpaw is helping people with conditions such as ALS communicate with the world. The device allows people to control a computer just by thinking.
screengrab: CBS
The stuff of bat nightmares
Those aren't milk mustaches.
You'd think this would be a good time of year for local bats. Fat and happy from eating insects all summer, they're ready to settle down for their long winter's nap.
But hibernation's gotten a little spooky for bats around the Capital Region.
... said Jenna about The quintessential Capital Region food?