The deep green eyes of the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis) have the advantage in the region’s dark spruce-fir, or boreal, forest. They see without being seen. Alexej Siren, a biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, environmental conservation, comments on sightings in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. (National Geographic, March, 2016)
News from the Media
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Canadian lynx expanding New England territory, comments by UMass Amherst environmental conservation
March 8, 2016 -
Mass Net Zero Data Center in Holyoke aims to make Green High Performance Computing Center carbon neutral
March 1, 2016HOLYOKE — Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (professor Prashant Shenoy, College of Information and Computer Sciences) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing battery technology at the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center that could make the hydropowered city even more carbon neutral. (Data Center Knowledge 2/29/16; masslive 2/26/16)
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UMass Amherst Offers Online Associate of Science in Sustainable Food and Farming
February 16, 2016AMHERST, Mass. – The Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is now offering a fully online associate of science degree in sustainable food and farming. Starting in September 2016, the 60-credit associate degree will allow students to study sustainable food and farming from anywhere in the world. (News Office 2/11/16)
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UMass Researchers Studying Climate Change Impact on Maple Syrup Quality
February 11, 2016AMHERST, Mass. – As maple sugaring season approaches, plant ecologist Kristina Stinson, assistant professor of environmental conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, recently received a two-year, $149,800 grant to study the impact of climate change on the quantity and quality of sugar maple sap, including its chemical composition, and of sap from red maples, a species less sensitive to climate change. (Red Lake Nation News, 2/11/16; Phys.org, Recorder, Republican, 2/10/16; News Office release, 2/10/16)
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Tick-borne illnesses: Grant provides for discounted testing of ticks from Cape Cod
February 8, 2016State funding for free tick testing ran out in June, but now Cape Cod Healthcare is helping scientists continue efforts to track infected deer ticks on the Cape by underwriting the cost of tick testing at UMass through a grant to the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension program.
The $20,000 donation from the 2016 Community Benefits Annual Strategic Grants program will help reduce the cost of the tests from $50 per tick to $15 per tick, said UMass microbiologist Stephen Rich. It runs through September. (Cape Cod Times 02/08/16)
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Cranberry farmers adjusting to warm weather, UMass Cranberry Station Director notes
February 1, 2016Carolyn J. Demoranville, director of the Cranberry Experiment Station in Wareham, talks about how cranberry farmers are adjusting to the warm winter this year. She says growers traditionally flood their bogs in winter to protect the plants from damage. (Wicked Local Kingston, 2/1/16)
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UMass Amherst Food Scientist Studies Reducing Saturated Fats in Popular Foods
January 19, 2016AMHERST, Mass. – University of Massachusetts Amherst food scientist Eric Decker has received a three-year, $469,775 grant to explore ways to improve the nutrition of foods high in saturated fats. Results should help food producers address recent new dietary guidelines recommending that Americans eat fewer of those fats to reduce heart disease risk. (1/13/16 UMass News Office)
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UMass Amherst-led Global Teams Win Funds for Agricultural, Air Pollution Research
January 11, 2016Two teams of international researchers led by Om Parkash, agriculture biotechnologist at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, and Richard Peltier, environmental health sciences, have been awarded funding from the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) to initiate global projects designed to ultimately impact millions of people in the developing world. (12/22/15 UMass News Office)
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Brook trout study identifies top climate change pressure factor
January 6, 2016Ben Letcher, adjunct faculty in environmental conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and ecologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, believes that a better understanding of the effects of climate change on Eastern brook trout may help the fish avoid an untimely demise. (1/5/16 Environmental Monitor)
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The secret to making people care about climate change
January 5, 2016Ezra Markowitz, assistant professor, Department of Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-author, Lisa Zava, Columbia University, research American attitudes about climate change and what can make a difference. Spoiler alert: Their legacy. (1/5/16 Washington Post)
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Meet the Cranberry Queen of Massachusetts
January 4, 2016Industry expert Carolyn DeMoranville discusses local heirloom varieties, and shares timeless recipes for making the most of our state berry. (12/28/15 WGBH)
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Barnstable County's longest-serving employee retired
January 3, 2016Barnstable County’s longest serving employee retired January 1 after nearly four decades on the job.
William “Bill” Clark, 65, executive director of the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, has spent virtually his entire career — 38 years — working with the education and research arm of the county. He passed the torch of leadership to his deputy director, Michael Maguire. (12/24/15 Cape Cod Times)
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Scituate kids connect with animals at new 4-H Club
December 22, 2015A new 4-H Club has started in Scituate, as a registered non-profit, part of a co-ed, agricultural-based national organization managed through the UMass Extension office. (Scituate Mariner, 12/17/15)
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State should focus effort on combatting winter moths
December 21, 2015Over the past two weeks, millions of winter moths have emerged. There have been widespread reports of them throughout the North Shore and Merrimack Valley. These small moths flock to the sides of homes and trees in the twilight hours and after dark. They are the warning sign of devastation that is sure to follow next spring. UMass professor Joseph Elkinton advises. (Newburyport News 12/18/15)
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Warm days could give birth to Winter Moth nightmare on Maine coast
December 17, 2015Unseasonable weather is giving the nonnative insect plenty of time to reproduce before its caterpillars wreak havoc next spring. Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment information quoted. Portland Press Herald, 12/17/15
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Environmental conservationists studying Honduran practices
December 16, 2015Watershed scientist Timothy Randhir, UMass environmental conservation and research wildlife biologist David King of the U.S. Forest Service and environmental conservation, are on a mission. They are engaged in an interdisciplinary research program that will refine and validate conservation practices viewed by Honduran conservationists as the last best hope for conserving this area’s dwindling forests, which are critically threatened by expansion of unsustainable coffee cultivation. (UMass News Office 12/9/15)
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UMass Amherst wildlife biologist wins national conservation award
December 16, 2015AMHERST, Mass. – Katherine Zeller, a doctoral candidate in environmental conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, recently won a Switzer Environmental Fellowship from the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation of Belfast, Maine, for her research on developing effective corridors for wildlife between protected areas and wildlife populations. (UMass News Office 12/15/15)
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UMass Amherst landscape architecture students use art for tourism in downtown Springfield
December 15, 2015SPRINGFIELD - UMass Amherst landscape architecture students used paper lanterns and spray-chalk sidewalk designs to bring attention, and foot traffic, to the Market Place pedestrian walk in downtown Springfield. (MassLive 12/14/15)
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Forty years of data on furthest-migrating warbler reveals new insights, UMass researcher leads study
December 10, 2015Tiny Blackpoll Warblers have the longest migratory route of any New World warbler, making a nonstop flight over the Atlantic Ocean each fall from New England to northern South America each year, but a study forthcoming in The Auk: Ornithological Advances shows that individuals that breed in western North America migrate east first to fatten up before migrating across the water. (PhysOrg 12/10/15)
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UMass Amherst food scientist to study pesticides in and on fresh produce
December 7, 2015AMHERST, Mass. - Food scientist and analytical chemist Lili He at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently received a three-year, $473,628 grant from the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture to study mechanisms of how chemical pesticides, applied both systemically and to the surface, penetrate fresh produce and move into plant tissues, and how this may affect food safety for consumers. (Recorder 12/8/15, Quality and Assurance Food Safety 12/7/15, EurekAlert 12/4/15)
