Tags: Earth

smartphone screen
Smart[phone] integration of town/gown transit

A UGA app developed to make travel easier between campus and surrounding greater Athens now includes real time information on city bus routes: Since its initial launch in 2013, the UGA mobile app's most popular feature for students has been a bus tracker for Campus Transit. Now, Athens Transit buses are included in the app, which tracks buses and displays schedules of when buses are expected to arrive at each stop. The UGA mobile app also…

students on a boat, water
Oceanographic training on the R/V Savannah

Discover UGA features the Skidaway Marine Institute and the work of our marine sciences faculty: Students from UGA and other universities spent the first half of the course at the UGA Marine Institute on Sapelo Island and the second half at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. During the intensive studies program, they researched animals, plants, microbes and processes in coastal environments and participated in a small research cruise…

man in lab with plants
When thieving weeds attack

An international group of scientists that includes assistant professor of genetics Dave Nelson has discovered how parasitic plants, which steal their nutrients from another living plant, evolved the ability to detect and attack their hosts. Their findings were  published recently in the journal Science: As plant roots grow, they release hormones called strigolactones into the soil. This is a signal that normally helps fungi form a…


Symposium Highlights Undergraduate Research

Later this month, a symposium will highlight the research of 10 undergraduate students from across the country who have been participating in a 10-week Research Experiences for Undergraduates program funded by the National Science Foundation. Boasting from programs as prestigious as MIT and University of California, Berkeley, the students will present their research in nanotechnology and biomedicine Friday, July 31 beginning at 8 a.m. at the…

people with inflated bounce house
Weather-related accidents and conditions

Great demonstration at the geography building yesterday, and our colleague Jessica Luton shares the story: The UGA Geography building lawn looked more like a setup for a child’s birthday party or a carnival than a research project Thursday afternoon as students gathered around a red and yellow bounce house. The students, who are both undergraduate and graduate students studying atmospheric science, are taking a summer geography class meant to…

earth photo from space
The Earth as a Battery

Analogies can be highly effective expressions of a point that seems to go missing and/or is very difficult to understand - take the point, for example, that the Earth's resources are indeed exhaustible and need to be conserved, protected, enhanced and replenished: "You can think of the Earth like a battery that has been charged very slowly over billions of years," said the study's lead author, John Schramski, an associate professor in UGA's…

sun set over water
The Climate for Climate News

Whatever the curent state of the art on presenting/denying/affirming the realities and consequences of a changing global climate, UGA and Franklin College scholars have long been a trustworthy source of expertise on the subject. And it is a complex subject, which is why it calls for scholarship from such a wide range of fields from marine sciences to geography and atmospheric sciences to microbiology, forestry, ecology and the biological…

freshwater wetland photo
Methane emissions

And speaking of the need to protect pristine areas, some that might not be thought of as necessarily pristine also deserve greater consideration of their important functions as natural areas. This new study emphasizes methane sinks that need to be better understood: Though they occupy a small fraction of the Earth's surface, freshwater wetlands are the largest natural source of methane going into the atmosphere. New research from the University…

Ocoee scenic byway photo
Buffer Zones Needed

Interesting findings from Warnell School researchers that could have much broader implications (than just the sites mentioned) - natural wilderness areas need the protection of buffer zones: Coveted for their beauty, these wilderness areas draw innumerable outdoor enthusiasts eager for a taste of primitive nature. But University of Georgia researchers say these federally protected nature areas have a problem: Their boundaries have become prime…

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UGA grad Wx Challenge Champ

UGA graduate Jordan McLeod recently took home top prize in the 2014-2015 WxChallenge, an annual national collegiate weather forecasting competition: McLeod, who was earning his master's degree at UGA when the forecasting competition began in fall 2014, beat out nearly 2,000 participants ranging from undergraduates to tenured professors from over 100 colleges and universities. ...   To compete, participants forecasted the weather conditions-…

oceans graphic with text
World Oceans Day

Samantha Joye and other ECOGIG scientists participated in person and online to celebrate, and elaborate on, World Oceans Day on June 8: World Oceans Day is the United Nations-recognized day of ocean celebration and action. People all over our blue planet organize events to support action to protect the ocean. This year, the theme is Healthy oceans, healthy planet. ECOGIG hosted a Media and Education Day in Gulfport, Mississippi …

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On truth

Astute piece in the Chronicle Review about the opportunism of disputing the truth that actually grew out of the academy: It’s not just garden-variety ignorance that periodically appears in public-opinion polls that makes us cringe or laugh. A 2009 survey by the California Academy of Sciences found that only 53 percent of American adults knew how long it takes for Earth to revolve around the sun. Only 59 percent knew that the earliest…

Marshall Shepherd
Marshall Shepherd talks climate

UGA Research magazine and now the UGA homepage feature this terrific article on atmospheric sciences hero, Marshall Shepherd: The bogeymen he faces aren't humanoid, however, but the misinformation he calls "zombie theories" — the litany of benighted arguments that human activities are not, after all, the root cause of global climate change. Time and time again, atmospheric scientists have countered these assertions — such as "The climate change…

map of Georgia
Climate change vulnerability assessment

Yesterday, The Guardian and ABC News quoted geography professor Marshall Shepherd about a study showing population concentrating into areas facing significant temperature rises. Today, we released news about a study authored by Shepherd and his colleagues about vulnerable populations in Georgia that are highly susceptible to climate change: The study, published May 18 in Applied Geography, examines not only the sensitivity and…

plane over Gulf of Mexico
Use of dispersants in oil spills

The complexity of what happened in the Deepwater Horizon/BP drilling platform explosion and resulting sea-floor oil gusher that flowed for 87 days is only dwarfed by what has happened in the time since. The clean-up, which began immediately, has been a Herculean effort that continues to this day. But a new perspective article in Nature by Samantha Joye and her colleagues brings attention to one problematic aspect of the clean-up: the use of…

storm on radar
Shepherd in WAPO

Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Geography J. Marshall Shepherd addressed the debate (and political gamesmanship) surrounding cuts to NASA's earth science budget in the Washington Post last week: NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, one of the few people that has actually seen our home planet from the vantage point of space, issued a statement noting that proposed cuts, “gut our Earth science program and…

chem formula with sand
Chemists trap molecular species of silicon oxides

In an inspiring breakthrough, chemistry researchers have stablized one of the most abundant silicon oxides in the universe: Using a technique they developed in 2008, the UGA team succeeded in isolating silicon oxide fragments for the first time, at room temperature, by trapping them between stabilizing organic bases. "In the 2008 discovery, we were able to stabilize the disilicon molecule, which previously could only be studied at extremely low…

grass and planet
Earth Week 2015

What can I do? It's always the question, arriving custom built with the pre-supposition that our individual efforts won't go very far to change anything, to make a difference. Especially where protecting the Earth is involved. It's so big and complex, and after all, you're just one person. One person who shops, who buys, who moves about your day, who is observed by others, who take their cues from you and from whom you accept affirmation of the…

earth graphic
Athens Science Café

Special treat from the folks at the Athens Science Cafe tonight beginning at 6 pm at the Foundry: Marshall Shepherd talks about communicating weather and climate: "Zombies, Sports, and Cola: What does it mean for communicating weather and climate?" led by Dr. Marshall Shepherd from the UGA Department of Geography. Dr. Shepherd is the director of the UGA Atmospheric Sciences program and is a Georgia Athletic Association…

woman on ship
Joye receives SEC Faculty Award

Congratulations to Samantha Joye, Athletic Association Professor in Arts and Sciences and professor of marine sciences, who was named UGA's 2015 recipient of the Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award: The award, which is administered by SEC provosts, comes with a $5,000 honorarium and recognizes professors with outstanding records in teaching and scholarship who serve as role models for other faculty and students. ... Joye's…

woman with plants
Fast-growing trees

The creation of biofuels from trees involves a host of challenges, including but certainy not limited to the breakdown of lignin. So researchers have been approaching the problem from a variety of angles and here is the latest glancing blow for renewable energy production: Researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that manipulation of a specific gene in a hardwood tree species not only makes it easier to break down the wood into…

pond green
CyanoTRACKER

An extraordinary new tool developed by some of our best researchers to protect Georgia's inland waterways by engaging the public that enjoys them the most: In August 2014, dangerous levels of a toxin produced by harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie compromised the water supply in Toledo, Ohio, as well as many other smaller cities and towns. The bloom, spawned by large concentrations of cyanobacteria that occur naturally in all ecosystems, produced…

Tornado in manitoba
Climatology Research Lab looks into the future of storms

Statistical techniques like downscaling allow climate researchers to peer across extraordinarily large amounts of different kinds of data to give us a better idea of what to expect in terms of the broader changes in the climate and how those may translate into recurring weather events in the future. Researchers from the department of geography recently published an unequivocal new study: More tornadoes will be commonplace by the year 2080 as a…

The White House
Shepherd to moderate 'Champions of Change' event at White House

In his Climate Action Plan, President Barack Obama laid out a series of steps to combat carbon pollution, prepare for climate-change impacts and lead global efforts to tackle this shared challenge. The steps range from broad, national policy to recognizing localized efforts and the people behind them. One of these will take place Monday, Feb. 9 at the White House and will be hosted by UGA's Marshall Shepherd: Shepherd, the University of Georgia…

protest with sign, flowers
Climate Change Governance

 
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