Tags: Earth
Congratulations to our many colleagues on recent accolades and achievements, inspiring our work with their excellence in teaching, research and outreach:
Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt, Richard B. Russell Professor in American History, was named to the nonfiction Longlist for the 2020 National Book Award
Three University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and…
Millions of Americans suffer from pain-inducing conditions such as fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. New research from the University of Georgia shows significant association between warm, tropical air masses and emergency room visits for these conditions.
But not in the way we might think:
The new research by Christopher Elcik, lecturer of geography and atmospheric sciences in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences,…
Early research in explosives remediation to clean soil contaminated with perchlorate, an oxygen-adding compound used in the manufacture of solid rocket fuel, created a path for Valentine Nzengung, professor in the department of geology, to become one of UGA's most visionary inventors and a true Georgia Groundbreaker:
He has spent countless hours in his laboratory studying the properties of some of humanity’s most dangerous…
Plant Biology Doctoral Student Jacqueline Joye Peña and her advisor Assistant Professor Douda Bensasson received the Gilliam Graduate Fellowship Grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The award provides Peña the opportunity to travel to important scientific conferences and meetings in her field, professional development workshops, and a competitive stipend in addition to allowance for diversity and inclusion activities at the…
The National Academy of Inventors has named two Franklin College faculty members to the 2020 class of NAI Senior Members.
Richard Meagher, Distinguished Research Professor of Genetics, and Ronald Orlando, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and chemistry, are the first UGA researchers to receive the senior membership distinction. They join a new class of 38 prolific inventors representing 24 research universities along…
Doctoral student uses dendrochronology—the study of tree rings—to explore the ancient environment, constructing a 5,177-year chronology of the Georgia coast, the longest in eastern North America:
Kat Napora didn’t plan to study trees. The UGA grad student originally worked on shell middens, or ancient trash piles. She’d planned to continue researching them in Ireland, but a tip from a colleague led her to a site…
From debunking COVID myths to explaining its real impacts on work, play and even dining, Franklin faculty have stepped up to supply expertise across numerous fields on issues throughout the media. A sample from this summer:
When schools closed in 1916, some students never returned – associate professor of history Stephen Mihm at Yahoo! News
Remote work is here to stay – associate professor of psychology Kristen Shockley in…
Congratulations to the many Franklin College faculty, students, and alumni on awards, grants, fellowships and other recognition of scholarly activity we learned about over the summer. A sampling of recent accolades for our terrific colleagues:
Lisa A. Fusillo, professor of dance in the Franklin College, has been selected by The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi—the nation’s oldest and most selective all-discipline collegiate honor…
University of Georgia faculty member Michelle Momany has been selected as a Fellow of the Mycological Society of America. Momany, professor of Plant Biology and associate dean in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, was announced as an MSA Fellow at the organization’s first-ever virtual meeting in mid-July.
The Mycological Society of America Fellow Award is granted to an outstanding member of the society for extended service and…
Outbreaks of harmful algae have increased in recent years due to warming trends and longer summer seasons. Also called cyanobacterial algal blooms or CyanoHABs, these large-scale ecological disturbances are often caused by increased urbanization, nutrient pollution, poor waste management and warming weather. The algae can produce toxins that are harmful to humans, pets and aquatic ecosystems.
The CyanoTRACKER project, a collaboration between…
As COVID-19 cases continue to increase, the South faces another hazard in what experts are predicting to be a more active than normal hurricane season. The University of Georgia’s Marshall Shepherd shares what we need to know about preparing for the brunt of storm season during a global pandemic:
Hurricane season 2020 is already shattering records, and it’s only July.
The average hurricane season has about 12 named storms.…
University strengths in plant sciences, genetics and across the life sciences attract world-renown expertise to campus that has built the UGA Plant Center into a research powerhouse. This summer, the plant sciences community welcomed two new leaders, as Jim Leebens-Mack and Wayne Parrott were named directors of the Plant Center and the Integrated Plant Sciences program, respectively, effective July 1:
Taking over from interim director C.J.…
An interdisciplinary team of scientists studying thousands of oyster shells along the Georgia coast, some as old as 4,500 years, has published new insights into how Native Americans sustained oyster harvests for thousands of years, observations that may lead to better management practices of oyster reefs today.
Their study, led by University of Georgia archaeologist Victor Thompson, was published July 10 in the journal Science…
How do sunflowers grow in the desert? Wild sunflowers display extensive variation, both between and within species, and scientists have now reported that variation is preserved by blocks of “supergenes” that permit adaptation to different environments.
Such evolutionary changes are normally broken apart across generations of mating. Considered one of the world’s most important oilseed crops, this finding should improve breeding of the…
Under Phase 1 reopening protocols, the UGA research enterprise is up and running, marking the end of three anxious months for researchers across the university who had to suspend their work as the country grapples with the coronavirus pandemic:
With its 17 schools and colleges spanning hundreds of scholarly and creative disciplines, UGA’s research enterprise is nearly as varied as its faculty. Anticipating the issues and concerns…
Researchers from ETH Zurich and UGA show that the activity of burrowing worms, clams, and shrimp are the most important driver of the community structure of microorganisms in the Earth's biggest carbon sink: continental shelf sediments. The results were published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
Sediments underlying the world’s oceans and shelf seas cover >70% of the Earth’s surface area. These…
Earlier this week, May 18 marked the anniversary of an epic geological event: the eruption of the Mt. St. Helen's volcano in 1980. Mattia Pistone, assistant professor in the department of geology, offered an assessment of the scientific effort in the 40 years since the eruption:
After 40 years since the eruption of Mt St Helens of May 18, 1980, volcanologists strive to forecast the likelihood, magnitude, and style of…
UGA undergraduates, including hundreds of Franklin College majors, shared their research endeavors in a new way this spring during the 2020 Virtual CURO Symposium held April 21-24:
After mentoring from faculty members across various UGA colleges, students shared a total of 580 posters and oral presentations using UGA’s eLearning Commons. Student presenters, faculty members and anyone who requested access were able to…
The Department of Marine Sciences announces a new University of Georgia undergraduate major, available to UGA students beginning in fall 2020, the bachelor of science in Ocean Science.
The Ocean Science B.S. program provides undergraduates with the opportunity to study marine systems from an interdisciplinary perspective, and will prepare students for careers in Marine Sciences and other environmental fields.
OCEAN SCIENCE MAJOR
Overview
The…
UGA junior Angela Tsao is working to advance research at the intersection of computer science and sustainability, and her focus has earned her national recognition as a 2020 Udall Scholar:
She was one of 55 undergraduates selected from across the nation and U.S. territories for the scholarship, which is awarded to sophomores and juniors on the basis of their commitment to careers in the environment, Native health care or Tribal…
Archaeologists from UGA and the Florida Museum of Natural History have discovered the location of Fort San Antón de Carlos, home of one of the first Jesuit missions in North America. The Spanish fort was built in 1566 in the capital of the Calusa, the most powerful Native American tribe in the region, on present-day Mound Key in the center of Estero Bay on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
Archaeologists and historians have long suspected…
The University of Georgia’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day 2020 will be held online.
Most notably, the UGA Earth (Art) Day Challenge, open to the university and Athens community, to create an online exhibition of creative works expressing how participants are connecting with and appreciating the Earth, people or other living creatures during this time of uncertainty, and how this can inspire an even better future. The…
New research from anthropology professor Victor Thompson sheds light on innovative hunter-gatherer practices in early Florida:
[The] Calusa ruled South Florida for centuries, wielding military power, trading and collecting tribute along routes that sprawled hundreds of miles, creating shell islands, erecting enormous buildings and dredging canals wider than some highways. Unlike the Aztecs, Maya and Inca, who built their empires…
New research from UGA Anthropology has found that the practice of feeding wildlife could be more detrimental to animals than previously thought.
In a paper published recently in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers found that feeding wildlife can disrupt the social lives of animal communities, which they discovered by observing and documenting the behavior of moor macaque monkeys along a wooded roadway on the island of Sulawesi in eastern…
Modernization and expansion to continue to fulfill the university's teaching and research missions, a critical part of campus will become the focus of renovations in the near future:
“To remain one of the nation’s top research universities, the University of Georgia must maximize its available facilities devoted to scientific inquiry,” said President Jere W. Morehead. “Our comprehensive plan combines new and renovated research facilities to…