Tags: Earth


Students help in the shift toward sustainability on campus

According to its own waste characterization study in 2006, the state of Georgia estimates that each year it spends $100 million to throw away $300 million worth of recyclables. Now the UGA Office of Sustainability is enlisting, and rewarding, students across campus in the effort to cut down on the waste: The University of Georgia Office of Sustainability has awarded $26,000 to seven student projects as part of its annual Campus Sustainability…


Origins Lecture Series

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the the division of biological sciences will host a new lecture series on the UGA campus this spring: The Origins Lecture Series Since mankind’s earliest days the story of our origins has been one of fascination and inspiration.  In an effort to share that story six of UGA’s leading scientists have come together to present the latest scientific findings on everything from our humble beginnings…


3000 years of human occupation

The department of anthropology will host a very interesting public lecture on January 18, one that brings guest lecturer Scott Fitzpatrick from the University of Oregon to campus to discuss human activity and biological diversity on the Western Caroline Islands of Micronesia: The Palauan archipelago--considered to be on of the most ecologically diverse regions of the world-- is located in the northwest tropical Pacific and consists of hundreds…


The biofuels equation: public opinion

From time to time we've mentioned the long-term investments at UGA in people and research on the issue of developing renewable energy sources. The university has cultivated a wide range of expertise on the subject that goes back decades. And all of that research on everything from fermentation of sugars in plant lignin to biodiesel and drought resistant strains of switchgrass would not be complete without also looking at public support for…


UGA scientific divers discover 36,000-year-old gray whale fossil

This story has been cropping up several places, even before we could get the press release out. But it is, ahem, a whale of a story: While the Atlantic gray whale was hunted to extinction by the 1700’s, the Pacific or California gray swims today with a population near its pre-whaling levels. University of Georgia scientists have published their discovery of an Atlantic gray whale fossil off the Georgia coast that has re-enlivened…


Scientists to speak at SEC renewable energy symposium

A three-day SEC-sponsored event in February to discuss the future of renewable energy will feature two Franklin researchers with wide experience in our region's quest for renewable fuels: The SEC Symposium theme, “Impact of the Southeast in the World’s Renewable Energy Future,” will explore the spectrum of renewable energy technologies, including bioenergy, solar, wind, wave/flow and nuclear.  ... Researchers from all 14 member schools will…


NSF renews coastal research grant

The UGA Marine Institute on Sapelo Island was founded in 1953 and has been at the center of ecological research on salt-marsh coastal ecoystems ever since. That work, lead by our department of marine sciences, continues apace with the renewal of an important NSF grant: A consortium of universities headed by the University of Georgia will continue ecological field research on the marshes and estuaries of the Georgia coast following the renewal of…


Holland elected Paleontological Society president

Image of Lars G. Ljungdahl
4th Annual Ljungdahl Lecture features JPL's Russell

on planets. Open free to the public, the lecture is named in honor of a long-time and much-honored UGA faculty member, Lars G. Ljungdahl. Russell is a member of the Planetary Chemistry Astrobiology Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and on the faculty at the California Institute of Technology. His research interests focus on the emergence of life and oxygenic photosynthesis in the context of hydrothermal systems on…


Shepherd and Knox opine on Sandy and forecasting in the AJC

How do we understand the potential of a megastorm like Sandy, currently battering the East coast of the U.S.? Geography professors Marshall Shepherd and John Knox explain in an Op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Advances in numerical weather forecasting during the past several decades have extended our ability to see into the future. In September 1938, before all of these advances, a hurricane devastated Long Island and much of New…


"Object in Focus: The Orpheus Relief Project" brings together art, sciences

 

woman with weather map
'Good Morning America' meteorologist Ginger Zee

The student chapter of the UGA American Meteorological Society welcomes weekend 'Good Morning America' meteorologist Ginger Zee to campus on Tuesday, Oct. 17 at 4:30 p.m. in room 102 of the Miller Learning Center: Zee is the Emmy Award-winning weather anchor of the "Good Morning America" weekend edition, which is broadcast from the ABC News studios in Manhattan, N.Y. She also reports on weather-related topics from around the country during the…


UGA Observatory Open House Oct. 19

Reach for the stars, or merely gaze upon them from the rooftop of the physics building: The University of Georgia department of physics and astronomy in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences will host its monthly observatory open house Oct. 19 from 8-9:30 p.m. on the fourth floor of the physics building.   The double cluster of Perseus, which is comprised of two nearby groups of thousands of stars, and the pale blue planet Uranus will…

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Physicist and adventurer Francis Slakey

The department of physics and astronomy will host a lecture this week with Georgetown University's Francis Slakey: Slakey will describe the decade-long journey that led him to become the first person to summit the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean during a University of Georgia lecture on Oct. 11 at 4 p.m. in room 202 of the physics building.   Slakey's talk, "Science and the Journey of Extremes," is hosted by the…


Alum returns to present geology colloquium

Franklin College alumnus Ed Moritz (B.S., Geology, '82) returns to campus next week to give a talk about his work on oil and gas projects in Afghanistan. His talk, "Afghanistan's Mineral Endowment: Example Projects from the Hydrocarbon and Mining Sectors," will be held at 3:30 pm on Thursday, October 11 in room 200A of the Geography and Geology Building. The talk is free and the public is invited to attend. Mr. Moritz joined Gustavson Associates…


'The Future of Food' workshop, Oct.1

As world population stretches past seven billion, many questions come to the fore about how to support so many people. For example, what if everyone elsewhere in the world consumed meat at the rate of the developed world? Does growing crops for transportation fuel put pressure on food crops? To address these questions and more, The University of Georgia Center for Integrative Conservation Research will host a free workshop to explore the links…

cell structure graphic on greg background
Cell signaling iBook features faculty partnership from across campus

 


Doctoral Graduate Earns Young Chemist Award

  Judy I-Chia Wu, a recent doctoral graduate from the department of chemistry, was one of six young chemists recently honored by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. Wu, who earned her doctorate in 2011, was awarded the IUPAC Prize for her Ph.D. thesis work titled “Quantification of Virtual Chemical Properties: Strain, Hyperconjugation, Conjugation, and Aromaticity.” She was chosen from more than 40 applicants from 19…


UGA Observatory Open House Sept. 7

  The University of Georgia department of physics and astronomy in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences will host its monthly observatory open house Sept. 7 from 9-10:30 p.m. on the fourth floor of the physics building. The distant planets of the solar system, Uranus and Neptune, will be visible if the sky is clear. The Andromeda Galaxy, which is 2 million light years away and the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way, will be readily…


Robinson receives major ACS award

Big congratulations to professor Greg Robinson: Gregory H. Robinson, Franklin Professor and Distinguished Research Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia, has been honored with a national award from the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. Robinson will be presented with the F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry at the national ACS meeting in April. The award is given to one person…

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New 'Seascape' mural brings to together science, art

 A collaboration between the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences division of biological sciences, Lamar Dodd School of Art and the department of marine sciences, a new “Seascape” mural in the Biological Sciences building, will be formally unveiled on Friday August 31 at 4 p.m. in the third floor hall of biological sciences. “Seascape” is the first in a series of murals by scientific illustration students in the school of art to adorn the…


New website allows access to changes along the coast

Overlapping constituencies have often been the bane of sustainable development practices. Even having the tools that allow different groups to share information and work together has long been a deficiency; and without them, marshalling agreement among competing interests has been that much more difficult and rare. Now, a new web tool from UGA researchers might begin to change that dynamic: a team of University of Georgia researchers has…


Ecology and the Learning Environment

  The slowest-moving indicators can often be the most difficult to study, requiring patience and a general knowledge of many overlapping correlations. It's axiomatic that the seeming constants in life become the benchmarks and things we depend on, even though there are no true constants - with the exception of change itself. Learning from these changes also takes a great deal of patience, honed skills of observation and a diversity of…


Franklin joint-appointment faculty receive $2 million for biofuel development

Faculty appointments that facilitate collaborations across the UGA campus continue to pay off: with the help of grants from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy, University of Georgia professors Chung-Jui Tsai and Andrew Paterson are conducting fundamental research to better understand the plants that may one day produce the fuel that powers our vehicles and homes. Tsai, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and professor in the…

Greenland ice melt
Climatologists note dramatic surface ice melt in Greenland

In widely reported findings, UGA climatologists and NASA independently confirm that during several days this month, nearly the entire ice sheet of Greenland experienced some degree of melting on its surface. On average, about half of the surface of Greenland's ice sheet naturally melts in the summer. The new data—from three different satellites—show that an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July. "This is…
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