Discoveries Archive
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New Suspect in Frog Deaths
Kermit the Frog once sang, “It’s not easy bein’ green.” His melancholy was well placed. It is not a good time to be a frog: the world over, frogs and other amphibians are dying from mysterious causes, though some of those mysteries are starting to unravel. Aside from the usual suspects: habitat loss, climate change, pollution, and ultraviolet radiation, there… (more)
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Tums for Trees
Acid rain leaches calcium and other nutrients from forest ecosystems. In places where soil calcium levels are naturally low, where acid rain inputs are high, or especially where both these conditions exist, tree calcium deficiencies may arise. Because calcium is an essential element that supports tree health and stress response, calcium deficiencies can take a toll on forest health. Until… (more)
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Proof Is in the Bark
Tree bark can act as a record of all sorts of events: lightning, fire, mechanical scrapes, and even the brief spark of youthful passion, carved with pocketknife, complete with heart, arrow, and initials. Like our own human skin, bark bears the brunt of a wound, scarring over to protect the vital machinery inside. And as our skin respires and absorbs… (more)
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Thinned Thickets Lose Hare
Until a recent study, little was known about the effects of intensive forestry practices on snowshoe hares in northern forests. After studying hare populations following precommercial thinning (PCT), researchers found that this practice, which thins regenerating forests and is used to accelerate stand development, prevents the reestablishment of the complex forest structure that hares need. This study shows that reduced… (more)
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Risky Childhood Begets Long-Legged Frogs
It’s easy to blame your parents if you’re shy or reckless or overly self-critical. Nature may play a role, but nurture (or junior high) is most often the culprit when it comes to such things as personality traits. But what if you’re tall, or pear-shaped, or have little feet? It’s all nature – your for-better-or-worse inherited genes – right? Usually.… (more)
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Whey to Help Hemlocks
Hemlock woolly adelgid, the tiny but mighty scourge of hemlocks from Tennessee to as far north as southern Maine and New Hampshire, may soon face a worthy adversary: University of Vermont researcher Scott Costa. With help from graduate student Stacie Grassano, Costa has developed a local and thrifty way of battling this pest, using a byproduct of cheese-making. In his… (more)
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Wasting Disease Found in Deer Saliva and Muscles
As chronic wasting disease hovers at our doorstep, recent discoveries about how this disease spreads – and the parts of the deer it affects – should raise our collective alert level to “red.” Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a brain disease that affects cervids: deer, elk, and moose. It causes an affected animal’s brain to become peppered with holes, like… (more)
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Headwater Logging Makes Food for Trout
Brook trout are often cited as “indicator species” of stream health. They require clean, cold water, so finding them in abundance means you have an especially healthy stream. A healthy stream is usually a forested stream: forests shade the watercourse, keeping it cool, and add structure that slows water flow and creates resting, feeding, and egg-laying areas for trout, while… (more)
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Extra Calcium Boosts Maple Health
The results are in from a long-term study that has been measuring the response of sugar maples to calcium addition at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire. They confirm scientists’ suspicions that depletion of soil calcium, which is due in large part to acid deposition, is a leading cause of sugar maple decline. Combustion of fossil fuels loads… (more)
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Chasing the Carbon
A new study conducted by The Heinz Center, a national environmental and economic think tank, analyzes greenhouse-gas emissions from magazine and lumber production – from tree to final product to the end of the product’s useful life. The study was commissioned by the companies studied and used only their data, so while it is not experimental or blind in nature,… (more)