Tags: Earth

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

 

diagram of carbon cycle
Science advances: the marine carbon cycle

The amount of dissolved carbon in the world's oceans is roughly equivalent, and likely greater, than atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Some of it gets semi-permanently sequestered, some gets released up into the atmospheric in a process that has been in place for millions of years. But with the global carbon picture changing, understanding the details of these processes has become more urgent: the slightest changes in ocean temperature or…


Robinson Fall Commencement Address

The university's Fall Semester 2014 graduate Commencement featured self-proclaimed "proud and fortunate son of the South" Gregory H. Robinson, the UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. A truly inspiring address that resonates with the realities of our past and our best hopes for the future. Dr. Robinson personifies the best of us in every way. Great words to take into the New Year. Graduate Speaker from UGA BVP on Vimeo.


Genome analysis creates tree of life for modern birds

Long long ago in a land far far away not so far from here at all, crocodiles, dinosaurs, and birds all arose from early reptiles called thecodonts.   Using new computational methods developed by assistant professor of statistics Liang Liu, Travis Glenn of the College of Public health and others, an international team of scientists has shed more light on an obscure period of avian evolution and further untangle the bird family tree. Members…


Eco-initiatives and individual motivation

A new UGA study in the American Review of Public Administration, from faculty in the School of Public and International Affairs, presents findings on individual behaviors by public employees that is all well and good: Authored by Justin M. Stritch, a former doctoral student in public administration and policy, and Christensen, who also is the school's Ph.D. director in the department of public administration and policy, the research found that…

Decorative Image
Understanding how plants adapt to water stress

If there's one thing we take for granted more than the infinite availability of water, it would be the technical ability of our best scientists should that availability ever come into question. Well, the infinite availability of water is very much in quesiton and what is the reaction of scientists? Looking to Mother nature for clues to survival in water-limited environments: [With] a $1.5 million collaborative grant from the National…


Anthropocene lecture: repairing the world

The final event in this fall's very successful Anthropocene Lecture Series takes place tonight at 7 p.m in the Chapel. No scientific investigation can be complete without the inclusion of a moral perspective and tonight's lecture looks at the ways theology and science can work together: The physical sciences tell us the what and the how regarding the condition of the earth, but the why question -- why should we engage in helping to repair our…


Dorsey, Garfinkel and Joye elected to AAAS

Fantastic news for the Franklin College and UGA, as three faculty members including Franklin dean Alan Dorsey were elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science: an honor bestowed upon them by their peers for "scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications." These three faculty members are among 401 new AAAS Fellows who will be presented with an official certificate and a gold…


New funding for ECOGIG-2

Samantha Joye's tireless work in the Gulf of Mexico in the aftermath of the 2010 Macondo well blowout will continue thanks to a major new support stream: Joye has received a new grant to continue its studies of natural oil seeps and to track the impacts of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. The project, known as ECOGIG-2 or "Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf," is a collaborative, multi-…


The 'Anthro' in Anthropcene

Who is the 'Anthro' in Anthropocene? A very good question, and professor of philosophy and women's studies Chris J. Cuomo provides the answer Thursday at the Chapel in this week's installement of the Anthropocene Lecture Series: The term “anthropocene” has gained enormous popularity among scientists who believe that we are currently in a global geological era that is distinguished by the extensive and lasting impacts that “human” activities (i.e…


Fritjof Capra lecture: Systems view of Life

The Franklin College is one of the sponsors of an important Chapel lecture this week by Physicist and systems theorist Fritjof Capra on the "Scientific Understanding of Living Systems and the Systems View of Life" Nov. 13 at 3 p.m. What is a systems view? That's why we'll attend the lecture but, the namesake of our Odum School of Ecology, Eugene Odum, along with his brother Howard T., was an early pioneer of systems ecology - a holistic…


Carbon Sequestration in Salt Marshes

The importance of the world's rainforests, and to some extent the mangroves, as storage sinks for atmospheric are carbon well-known. But salt marshes, too, are extraordinarily efficient mechanism for photosynthesis and the production of biomass that work together to sequester carbon at a high rate. So disappearing wetlands along the coast present much more peril than loss against storm surge, which itself plays significant part in their role in…


Joye at Blue Ocean Film Festival

Samantha Joye, Athletic Association Professor in Arts and Sciences, is participating as a judge in the internationally acclaimed "BLUE Ocean Film Festival and Conservation Summit", underway in St. Petersburg Florida.  Joye joins global leaders in ocean conservation including Sylvia Earle, founder of Mission Blue, marine advocates Fabien and Celine Cousteau, grandchildren of Jacques Cousteau, and royal philanthropist Prince Albert II of…


Uma Nagendra Dances her Ph.D.

This is a quite visionary joining of art and science: University of Georgia doctoral student Uma Nagendra flipped and twisted her way to the top prize in the seventh annual Dance Your Ph.D. contest for her video explaining biology research through an aerial dance performance. The contest, sponsored by Science Magazine, the Association of the Advancement of Science and HighWire Press, challenged scientists around the world to explain their Ph.D.…


Examining the history of plants

It sounds like the title of a cable documentary (a good one! And maybe it is) but scientists from North America, Europe and China have published a paper in PNAS that reveals important details about key transitions in the evolution of plant life on Earth: From strange and exotic algae, mosses, ferns, trees and flowers growing deep in steamy rainforests to the grains and vegetables humans eat and the ornamental plants adorning people's homes, all…


Observatory open house Oct. 17

After a short pause, the UGA observatory open house returns this Friday Oct. 17 from 8 to 9:30 pm: During the early part of the viewing, Mars will be visible. In addition Albireo, a double star in the constellation of Cygnus, and the Ring Nebula, a glowing shell of gas blown off a giant star in the final phase of that star's life, also should be visible. The Ring Nebula is in the  constellation of Lyra. Visitors can view the objects through…


Anthropocene: Economics of the transition

Something that often goes missing in conversations on, much less debates about, what to do about climate change is optimism. If, for example, a discussion of the economics of the transition to an industrial model from the agricultural age had occured, there would have been great gnashing of teeth but a convincing case could have been made, though likely with some strict limitations toward eventual consequences, if these could have been imagined…


Science at the Stadium

One the greatest missed opportunities of gathering so many people on campus several Saturdays each fall for football is not engaging them in other ways with the research mission of the university. Franklin colleagues in marine sciences have designed a new way to make inroads with some of the many UGA supporters who will be here for the Homecoming matchup with Vanderbilt: marine sciences department and faculty will present "Science at the Stadium…


Geology to partner with Chevron to support graduate assistantships

Images: At top, L-R, Skip Forsthoff, Chevron; Annaka Clement, Geology graduate student; Jeff Shellebarger, Chevron: Jason Burwell, Geology undergraduate student: Doug Crowe, Geology department head. Below: undergraduate, graduate students, Geology faculty and alumni.    


Jessica Kissinger: making research usable

Great opportunity to feature not just one of our star faculty members, but also an emerging challenge for all researchers everywhere in this era of big data: Jessica Kissinger is a molecular geneticist whose research on the evolution of disease and the genomes of eukaryotic pathogenic organisms—Cryptosporidium, Sarcocystis, Toxoplasma andPlasmodium (malaria) among them—has led her to perhaps the emerging issue among research scientists…
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