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Lead Article
Bats on the Brink: White-nose syndrome hits home
If this story were a movie, it might best begin with a flashback. After the opening credits, perhaps backed by an ominous soundtrack, we’d be transported back two years, to a happier time before white-nose syndrome had wiped out roughly 90 percent of the local bat population. It is September 2007, and Scott Darling, the bat biologist for Vermont’s Fish & Wildlife Department, is leading a group of 20 bat enthusiasts, including me, up a steep, mile-long trail. It’s a warm autumn evening, and we’re venturing to the Mount Aeolus bat cave in Dorset, Vermont, the largest known bat hibernation site in all of New England. About 23,000 bats have been counted hibernating there. At an overlook on the trail, Darling gives us a lesson on bats. He says that… (more)
Featured Articles
The Wood Chemical Industry in the Northeast: An Old Industry with New Possibilities
With the discovery that crude oil could be refined into a seemingly endless variety of products, petroleum became one of the most important substances on earth. Now, more than a century later, oil has lost some of its allure in the U.S., primarily due to climate change and our overdependence on unpredictable foreign sources. Today, scientists are scrambling to find… (more)
Which Bird Made That Nest?
The diversity of behavior among bird species is nowhere so dramatic as in their nest construction. Each species builds a specifically precise nest that differs in functional ways from those of almost all others. The variations are as endlessly diverse as the color patterns on a feather. Chimney swifts use their saliva to glue dry twigs onto vertical walls in… (more)
The Outside Story
Daphnia’s Changing Shape Stirs a Debate
Winter’s effect on animals isn’t always noticeable. Often, it’s because they’ve flown south, are hibernating, or are hunkered down, having reduced their activity to cope with cold and snow. Under the ice on ponds and lakes, however, hordes of planktonic… (more)
Editor’s Blog
From the Archive
Tale of the Tick: How Lyme Disease is Expanding Northward
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It’s only natural to take a human-centered view of the world. Through this lens, Lyme disease is a ferocious malady that is on the march north. In New Hampshire, researchers recently found that 70 percent of black-legged ticks sampled in Concord were infected with the disease. In Vermont, Lyme disease cases doubled in 2006, then doubled again in 2007. In… (more)