Warren County celebrates Extension's 100th anniversary with tree planting
NJ.com, 5/6/2014
Celebrating 100 years of the Rutgers Cooperative Extension, past and present staff, joined by County Agricultural Agent Bruce Barbour,
Freeholder Director Ed Smith and Freeholder Deputy Director Richard Gardner, planted a Rutgers-bred "Red-Beauty" dogwood tree at the Wayne
Dumont Jr. Administration Building today in White Township. Secretary Milly Rice read "Trees," a poem by Joyce Kilmer published in 1914 and
inspired by a white oak at what is now the home of Rutgers University's School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.
A Coming of Age for Citizen Science [OP-ED]
scistarter.com, 5/6/2014
Has anyone noticed how much media coverage citizen science is getting? Bird counts, tree monitoring, bee cataloguing, water testing, ocean
analyses, air sampling and star gazing - the list goes on and on...The Rutgers Cooperative and Research Extension, for example, has formed a
partnership with Duke Farms, the Atlantic County Utilities Authority and others to create a statewide Environmental Stewardship certification
program which produces science-literate graduates, but it does not train enrollees to actually collect data. The program trains graduates in the
basic processes of earth, air, water and biological systems...Explaining the emphasis, Bruce Barbour the program director said, "If there's one
focus I personally try to communicate, it's to try to kindle an enthusiasm in the science process and a greater awareness of the role that
participants should be playing, whether or not they have an educational background in science."
Clean Drinking Water for New Jersey Residents Comes at Steep Price
NJSpotlight.com, 5/7/2014
Many of New Jersey's 21 largest cities face, in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to upgrade sewer systems that now pollute
rivers and bays during heavy rains, according to a new report prepared by Rutgers University for New Jersey Future, a smart-growth
organization. And time is running out for those communities to fix the problem..."One point is clear: With aging water infrastructure, what can go
wrong at some point will, unless preemptive action is taken," said Daniel Van Abs (associate research professor in Human Ecology), the
principal investigator for the study, who works at Rutgers University. "Looking the other way does not make the system work any better."
Allergen Proteins: Plant Sanitation's Biggest Challenge
foodprocessing.com, 5/8/2014
Food sensitivities affect a growing segment of the American public, but food allergens occupy a special space. Gluten intolerance has spawned a
growth market in gluten-free foods, with dedicated production facilities being built to cater to it. But the at-risk population for specific food allergies
is too small and scattered to trigger similar investment...Given allergen control's priority status under FSMA, Donald Schaffner of Rutgers
University argues, "It's got to be more cost effective to control them on the front end" than to deal with in a recall. To help food companies better
manage allergens, a working group chaired by Schaffner has developed a personnel training curriculum that will be made available when FSMA
rules are finalized.
Rutgers Cooperative Extension to commemorate 100th anniversary
NJ.com, 5/8/2014
Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Somerset County will plant a dogwood tree at the Ted Blum 4-H Center, Bridgewater in commemoration of
the 100th Anniversary of Cooperative Extension on Wednesday, May 14, at 7 p.m. The public is invited. This year is the 100th Anniversary of the
signing of the Smith-Lever Act, which established the Cooperative Extension Service throughout the United States as a collaborative effort of
federal, state and local governments. Each state's land grant institution, which is Rutgers, The State University in New Jersey, coordinates
Cooperative Extension.
The Fun and Sex of Shellfish Restoration
thesandpaper.villagesoup.com, 5/8/2014
Wet, dirty sex - that's the topic for discussion of an upcoming class. "It's the sex talk," admitted Gef Flimlin, professor and marine extension
agent of the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County. "Now, the average guy is really interested because he sees those three letters:
S, E, X." This class is the second for ReClam the Bay, the nonprofit organization that is affiliated with the Barnegat Bay Shellfish Restoration
Program sponsored by Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County. The class will feature Flimlin discussing how spawning happens in the
clam hatchery - the sex part. Flimlin said the class will go from spawning all the way to harvesting.
Controversial "Alien" Plant Species Are Fighting Toxic Waste At Liberty State Park
gothamist.com, 5/8/2014
Bayonne-born ecologist Frank Gallagher remembers sneaking into railroad cars and diving off the docks a half century ago at what is now New
Jersey's Liberty State Park, just 2,000 feet across the bay from the Statue of Liberty. The park now inspires a different sort of awe in the Rutgers
University professor: native and non-native plants have formed unique communities that actually prevent toxic materials from spreading through
the soil. These "novel assemblages," as Gallagher calls them, are found in the innermost 100 of the park's 1,200 acres. Not only do the plants
appear to keep contaminant metals in the soil from moving about, they stay in the soil and out of the plants' leaves so they are not ingested by
birds or other animals.
Care of Pohatcong Native Arboretum in new hands
LehighValleyLive.com, 5/9/2014
In March 2002, Antonio Pasquini, Rutgers University professor Mark C. Vodak and a few colleagues received four grants for eco-restoration
projects in Warren County. "At the time, me and Jeff Stevens were dealing with an arboretum, while trying to find tree labels, and (Stevens) said,
'Why don't we make our own,'" Pasquini said...The founder and developer of the Pohatcong Native Arboretum handed the home of 143 tree, plant
and shrubbery species over to representatives of the Warren Hills Regional High School, Rutgers Cooperative Extension and Washington
Township, N.J...Pasquini also found professional assistance in Warren County Agricultural Agent Bruce Barbour, who first got involved six
months ago and plans to stay on the project to help find Pasquini's replacement coordinator.
Converging factors: New project to use radar array to determine how ocean currents affect food web
antarcticsun.usap.gov, 5/9/2014
The phrase "going with the flow" takes on a different meaning for scientists studying how tides along the Antarctic Peninsula influence where
Adélie penguins go to forage for food during their breeding cycle. Previous research in the region - analyzing 10 years of data from satellite-tagged
penguins, an autonomous underwater vehicle and historical tidal records - was the first to link changes in tide cycles to where penguins would find
their main prey, Antarctic krill..."Understanding the links between some of the physical drivers and connections throughout the entire system, going
from the primary producers to the zooplankton and the top predators, will allow us to have a better understanding how these shifts in climate might
impact the system," noted Josh Kohut, an assistant professor at Rutgers University External Non-U.S. government site and principal
investigator (PI) on the CONVERGE project.
Your Home's Smell Might Be Making You Sick
ozy.com, 5/9/2014
Joan Bennett, an expert in mold toxins, didn't believe that mold in homes could make people sick. She had even testified in support of insurance
companies fighting "sick building syndrome" (SBS) claims...But then Hurricane Katrina flooded her New Orleans home in 2005, forcing her to
evacuate. She returned five weeks later and was horrified. A swarm of fuzzy green patches had engulfed everything from her prized physics books
to the Turkish rugs she had bought on her honeymoon...Hurricane Katrina had caused massive power outages, and destroyed the frozen samples
in Bennett's lab at Tulane University where she'd studied the genetics of fungal toxins. So she had to start from scratch, opening a lab at Rutgers
University to test her mold odor hypothesis, zeroing in on on the mushroom alcohol MVOC isolated from the mold in her home.
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