April 2015 Film Preview
www.indiewire.com, 4/1/2015
Summer blockbuster season is just around the corner, but there's no need to wait until then to see a great
movie. April brings us a wide variety of women-centric projects, as well as quite a few films helmed and/or
written by women... Antarctic Edge: 70° South (doc) - Directed by Dena Seidel: Dena Seidel's
documentary not only offers rare, beautifully shot footage of West Antarctic Pennisula's rapidly changing
environment, studying the connections that reveal the concrete impact of climate change; it is also a oneof-a-kind collaboration between the Rutgers University Film Bureau and the Rutgers Institute for
Marine and Coastal Sciences and contains interviews and insights from some of the world's leading
ocean researchers. It is a fascinating look at their life's work trying to understand how to maintain our
planet.
National 4-H Paper Clover Campaign set for April 22-May 3
www.nj.com, 4/13/2015
National 4-H Council announced the launch of the spring 2015 4-H Paper Clover Campaign in partnership
with Tractor Supply Company (TSC). This event marks the sixth year of collaboration between the
organizations on the national in-store fundraiser, benefiting state and local 4 H programming in each of
the counties where a TSC store is located... The spring 2015 4-H Paper Clover Campaign will take place
April 22-May 3. Shoppers at any of the 13 Tractor Supply Company stores located in New Jersey will
have the opportunity to support 4-H in that county by choosing to purchase paper clovers for a $1 or more
at the checkout. All funds raised will be donated to 4-H, and will support a variety of 4-H youth
development programs in many counties and will assist in supporting statewide 4-H animal science
project events... The 4-H Youth Development Program is part of Rutgers Cooperative Extension, a
unit of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. 4-H educational programs are offered to all
youth, grades K-13(one year out of high school), on an age-appropriate basis, without regard to race,
religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disability,
atypical hereditary cellular or blood trait, marital status, domestic partnership status, military service,
veteran status and any other category protected by law.
Jurassic Park in Real Life: The Race to Modify the DNA of Endangered Animals and Resurrect
Extinct Ones
www.independent.co.uk, 4/14/2015
Jurassic Park has a lot to answer for. It made the idea seem so simple. Take the DNA from a microscopic
drop of dinosaur blood, preserved for 65 million years in the gut of a mosquito trapped in fossilised
amber. Carry out a bit of jiggery-pokery involving chaos theory and Jeff Goldblum. Insert the dino DNA
into the yolk of a crocodile's egg and leave to incubate. Soon you'll have a thriving menagerie of onceextinct beasts roaming the jungles of someone's private theme park... De-extinction, or the idea of
bringing extinct species back from the dead, has come a long way over the quarter century since Jurassic
Park was first published. It has now matured into a quasi-serious science and has even been the subject
of its own TEDx conference. Of course, no-one is talking about bringing back dinosaurs- their DNA is lost
for good- but some scientists are proposing to resurrect a range of other, more-recently extinct species
such as the passenger pigeon and the gastric-brooding frog, both lost within living memory... "If it works,
de-extinction will only target a few species and it's very expensive. Will it divert conservation dollars from
true conservation measures that already work, which are already short of funds?" asks David Ehrenfeld,
professor of biology at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. "At this moment brave
conservationists are already risking their lives to protect dwindling groups of African forest elephants from
heavily-armed poachers, and here we are talking about bringing back the woolly mammoth. Think about
it."
Rutgers University's Famed Horse, Lord Nelson Dies at 42
www.nj.com, 4/14/2015
World-renowned equine personality, professor and former mounted patrol horse, Lord Nelson, passed
away on April 12 at Gales Way Farm in Wrightstown, N.J. Lord Nelson, who will be remembered as
Rutgers University's only equine professor emeritus, lived a distinguished life, full of adventure, up
until the ripe age of 42... His personality is one that Karyn Malinowski, director of the Rutgers Equine
Science Center and faculty member in the Department of Animal Sciences, says was "one-of-akind." She remembers one night working late in Bartlett Hall on the Cook campus and all of a sudden
hearing a fast-paced gallop coming from the road. Upon looking out the window, she saw Lord Nelson,
who remembered to "walk" on the sidewalk and not the street, going back to his stable on College Farm
Road followed by a police officer, on foot, in hot pursuit. Apparently he wanted to end his shift early that
night... Lord Nelson will also be remembered as the first, and only, horse to ever receive an official
football penalty in a NCAA football game. In addition to his time with the student mounted patrol, Nelson
also served as the horse that was ridden by the Scarlet Knight at Rutgers football games. During a close
game against Army in 1994, Nelson broke onto the field and raced all the way down the sideline to the
opposite end of Giants Stadium. Receiving a yellow flag for his "un-sportsHORSE-man like conduct," he
almost cost Rutgers the game.
The Hands Have it: Food Safety Through Handwashing
www.barfblog.com, 4/15/2015
Handwashing is simple. Science says otherwise. Despite endless statements to just wash hands to be
safe — in the kitchen, in food service, at the petting zoo- little research has been done to quantify what
actually works when it comes to hand washing... Dr. Donald Schaffner, a professor of food safety at
Rutgers University, and colleagues, have attempted to add some science to the discussion... "Many
people seem to have strongly held opinions about handwashing, says Schaffner, "but the research base
for those opinions is lacking. Our research begins to dispels some popular beliefs about hand washing."...
The researchers showed that even a minimal handwash (5 seconds, no soap) can remove about 90 per
cent of bacteria on hands.
Scientists Pore Over Warm West, Cold East Divide
www.climatecentral.org, 4/15/2015
From blooming flowers to twittering birds, the signs of spring are popping up and the miseries of winter
are becoming a distant memory for many. But not for some climate scientists... The curiosity of a growing
group of researchers has been piqued by the tenacious temperature divide that has separated East from
West over the past two winters as a wild zigzag of the jet stream has brought repeated bouts of Arctic air
and snow to the East and kept the drought-plagued West baking under a record-breaking dome of heat...
That study, also detailed in Geophysical Research Letters, suggests that while the Pacific heat set the
atmospheric pattern in motion, Arctic sea ice loss in a particular region made the warm/cold difference so
extreme, said Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University... Francis, who wasn't involved with either study,
is one of the main proponents of an idea that by altering how much heat the ocean lets out, sea ice melt
and Arctic warming can also change atmospheric circulation patterns, in particular by making the jet
stream form larger peaks, or highs, and troughs, or lows. Hence the more intense difference between
East and West the last two winters.
Rutgers' Lord Nelson, the Horse Once Flagged for a Penalty at Giants Stadium, Dies
www.nj.com, 4/15/2015
Sad news from New Brunswick on Tuesday- Lord Nelson, a police horse who worked at Rutgers
University and who later was ridden by the Scarlet Knight mascot at football games, passed away
at age 42... Lord Nelson is also the answer to one of the more quirky pieces of trivia: He's one of the only
horses to be penalized during a college football game... Way back in October of 1994, Rutgers faced
Army at Giants Stadium. After scoring a touchdown, Rutgers went up 16-14, but here's what happened
before the PAT, according to the New York Times: "Rutgers missed the extra point because of one of its
mascots, a horse. Exuberant over what turned out to be the winning touchdown, the rider swept onto the
field and rode down the sidelines. That cost the Scarlet Knights 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct,
and the kicker, Eddie Duborg, had to try his conversion from 35 yards out. He missed."
Lord Nelson, a Rutgers Horse, Dies
www.nytimes.com, 4/16/2015
Lord Nelson, the only horse to be penalized in a college football game, died. Rutgers University said
Lord Nelson was 42. One of his duties during his 37-year Rutgers career was carrying the university's
Scarlet Knight mascot during football games. Against Army, in 1994, Lord Nelson was penalized for
unsportsmanlike conduct after he broke free and raced down the sideline at Giants Stadium.
Review: In 'Antarctic Edge,' a Region of Retreating Ice
www.nytimes.com, 4/16/2015
There aren't many uncharted areas left on the globe, but "Antarctic Edge: 70 Degrees South" takes
viewers to a spot where surveying is so scarce that the destinations may diverge from their locations on a
map. Exploring that terrain could mean getting caught in ice for a month, as one scientist in the film
recounts experiencing... The movie, a collaboration between marine science and film divisions at
Rutgers University, takes a dry, educational-documentary approach to its material. But if talk of
sampling krill and phytoplankton populations conjures memories of biology class, "Antarctic Edge"
illustrates its points effectively, providing vivid evidence of how shrinking ice at the South Pole affects
climates across the globe.
Tired of Bizarre Weather? Blame the North Pacific Mode
www.windsorstar.com, 4/17/2015
The past two winters have been marked by a strange trend in weather patterns: the eastern half of the
continent has been swamped by insane snowstorms and frigid temperatures, while the west has
luxuriated in spring-like temperatures... Jennifer Francis, research professor in the department of
marine and coastal sciences at Rutgers University, is not so sure. Her 2012 paper argued the
reduction in ice in the Arctic, which is warming at a much faster rate than other latitudes, would intensify
pressure ridges, making them more extreme and persistent... "Last winter and this winter we saw this
huge ridge parked over the west coast of North America the whole time. This is exactly the kind of
situation we hypothesized," she said.
De-extinction: Not Just a Movie Plot
www.iol.co.xa, 4/17/2015
Carry out a bit of jiggery-pokery involving chaos theory and Jeff Goldblum. Insert the dino DNA into the
yolk of a crocodile's egg and leave to incubate. Soon you'll have a thriving menagerie of once-extinct
beasts roaming the jungles of someone's private theme park. The 1993 Hollywood blockbuster and
Michael Crichton novel of the same name may not have invented the idea of "de-extinction" but they
certainly put it out there as a concept... De-extinction, or the idea of bringing extinct species back from the
dead, has come a long way over the quarter century since Jurassic Park was first published. It has now
matured into a quasi-serious science and has even been the subject of its own TEDx conference... "If it
works, de-extinction will only target a few species and it's very expensive. Will it divert conservation
dollars from true conservation measures that already work, which are already short of funds?" asks David
Ehrenfeld, professor of biology at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. "At this
moment brave conservationists are already risking their lives to protect dwindling groups of African forest
elephants from heavily-armed poachers, and here we are talking about bringing back the woolly
mammoth. Think about it."
Solving the Mystery of Rutgers' Penalized Horse: Who Should be Saddled With Guilt?
www.nj.com, 4/17/2015
On Wednesday, we brought you the sad news about longtime Rutgers police horse Lord Nelson, who
passed away decades after being called for a penalty in a Rutgers-Army game in 1994. But Kevin
MacConnell, the former Rutgers associate athletic director for marketing and communications, is "99
percent" sure Lord Nelson wasn't the equine on the field that day. He says it was a horse from Medieval
Times, the theme restaurant that includes jousting tournaments in Lyndhurst... Karyn Malinowski, a
professor at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences animal department, sticks by the
story that it was Lord Nelson who was penalized that day. She's the same person who purchased the
horse for Rutgers in 1978 and who later owned him after he retired in 2000. "It was absolutely Lord
Nelson," she said on Friday. "Because I remember seeing the news in The Star-Ledger the next day, that
I was very mad at Coach [Doug] Graber's statements because it wasn't Lord Nelson's fault. The rider,
somebody asked him to go out on to the field. He didn't just bolt out on to the field."
Environmentalists Re-Establishing Barnegat Bay Oyster Colony
www.abcnews.com, 4/19/2015
A century ago, oysters were so plentiful in New Jersey's Barnegat Bay that visitors would clamber off
trains, wade into the water and pluck handfuls to roast for dinner. But decades of pollution, accelerated by
rampant development along the bay's shores, have reduced the oyster population to a small fraction of
what it once was... The Berkeley Township project is but one of many such efforts underway in waterways
around New Jersey. A group led by Rutgers University researchers successfully raised oyster
seedlings in cages suspended from the sides of the Earle Naval Weapons Station in Middletown in the
waters of the even more-polluted Raritan Bay, and is looking for ways to expand the project. The Littoral
Society is doing a similar project, primarily aimed at storm protection, in Delaware Bay.
West Milford 4-H Starts its 'Critters Against Litter' Campaign
www.northjersey.com, 4/19/2015
While it's typical for animals to be coming out of hibernation at this time of the year, certain critters may be
catching the eyes of passersby in West Milford this week. A wander around the township will reveal eight
critters that have been distributed, each with a sign hand-painted on both sides, asking the public to "Stop
Litter!" and "Keep West Milford Beautiful," as well as other Earth Day-related slogans aimed to raise
awareness of the impact of litter... The eight critters were selected by 4-H Velveteens to represent both
local wildlife and local farm animals with which the club members have actually worked. One is a bear
that reminds residents: "Your trash attracts me!" The other painted animals include a chicken, a rabbit, a
goat, a pig, a fox, a baby goose, and a fawn... 4-H, which is part of the land grant university system, is the
youth division of Rutgers University in NJ, Cornell in N.Y., and Penn State in Pa. and exists in every
county in America and in many countries around the world. It employs informal educational programs and
promotes "learn-by-doing" to enable youth to develop the knowledge, attitudes and skills they need to
become competent, caring and contributing citizens of the world.
CSI UV Goggles? How to Tell If An Egg is Bad
www.barfblog.com, 4/20/2015
Friend of the barfblog and current Welsh tourist, Don Schaffner of Rutgers University, has a few things
to say about egg safety, especially: most of those so-called tests are BS... The theory behind the float
test? Egg shells are porous, and as time goes on the egg's liquid evaporates through the porous shell and
air enters. That makes the eggs more buoyant, so some say the older an egg, the more it floats... Forget
this test, says Don Schaffner, PhD, a food scientist at Rutgers the State University of New Jersey.
"Eggs do take in air as they age, but the size of the air cell in the egg varies from egg to egg. So a freshly
laid egg and an older egg may react similarly." There is too much variability in air cell size from egg to egg
to make this a valid test, he says... "Salmonella is the organism we are most worried about," Schaffner
says. It could be inside the egg if it was infected before it was laid, or it could be on the shell.
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