The mothers of beached whale calves often were missing entirely from the beach, a study found.
Category » Stewardship
May 22, 2013
Ethical Evolution
The history of medicine owes a debt to animals
Barely a century has passed since Louis Pasteur developed a vaccination for rabies. Since then, scientists have discovered treatments for some of the worst human scourges: smallpox, tuberculosis, polio and influenza. Much of their success can be traced to experiments on animals under circumstances that would shock us today. Pasteur learned about rabies by infecting [...]
May 21, 2013
From Data to Doing
Converting climate science to community action
Adapting to climate change requires two key things: good data and boots on the ground. As oceans rise, icecaps melt, snowpack diminishes, wildfires rage and aquifers dry up, coupling science to action becomes ever more urgent. But the barriers to linking science to practical action are formidable, often springing from deep disparities in worldview among [...]
May 21, 2013
Nomads No More
Anthropology student listens to the voices of Mongolian herders
Pressure from encroaching modernization is threatening traditional patterns of migration and collaboration in Inner Mongolia.
May 20, 2013
Aquatic Vigil
Labs go to extraordinary lengths for fish and other water dwellers
It boils down to a centuries-old debate among philosophers, scientists, veterinarians, farmers, ranchers, aquarists, and pet owners: What is our obligation to captive animals?
May 9, 2013
Connective Tissue
Finding hope where facts and values intersect
When Michael P. Nelson talks about his work, he mentions carcasses and cadavers to a startling degree — startling because Nelson is not a physician or a veterinarian or even a biologist. He’s a philosopher. So at first glance, necropsy seems an odd topic of discourse. But it starts to make sense when you notice [...]
May 3, 2013
Biochar video
Learn how biochar is made, sequesters carbon and protects water quality
Perry Morrow, student in the Oregon State University Water Resources Graduate Program, produced this video on biochar, the carbonized remains of plants. Turning low-value wood and other biomass into biochar sequesters carbon from the atmosphere for hundreds of years. The resulting material may also benefit water quality by absorbing pollutants such as copper, lead, zinc [...]
February 1, 2013
Corps of Discovery
Mastering the natural history of Oregon's storied lands and waters - and passing it on
Just as some babies are born with special gifts for music or math, Harvard’s Howard Gardner argues, others come into the world with an exceptional sensitivity to nature. The Oregon Master Naturalist program was designed to tap into this devotion to the land and build a statewide corps of expert volunteers.
January 31, 2013
Concord Elementary School
Where vegetables sprout (and kids, too)
Amid the chaos, the kids are learning about the art of gardening.
January 31, 2013
Lake of the Woods
Where the wild things are
“The three key words in the mission of Oregon Master Naturalists are explore, connect, contribute.”
January 30, 2013
An Ethical Tightrope
Learning to make delicate choices
Making ethical choices about animals can be a philosophical high-wire act — a precarious balance of practicality and principle. Weighing practical needs against “normative ethics” — right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust — requires more than a handbook of do’s and don’ts. “The institutional protocols — the laws, regulations, policies — provide [...]
January 29, 2013
Documenting the Giants
Canopy science for old-growth forests
Forest scientist and Oregon State University alumnus Steve Sillett studies and climbs the largest trees in the world. Since 1987, he’s climbed more than 1,000 of these arboreal giants, many of which reach heights greater than 200 feet tall and diameters upwards of 20 feet. Sillett’s study of old-growth forests — and in particular redwood [...]
October 12, 2012
The Ethic of Care
Respect for animals guides their treatment in teaching and research
The three rats snoozing in Cage 57 don’t know it, but they could someday help save thousands of human lives. Snuggled in their EcoFresh bedding, the rodents are digesting a meal that may hold clues to preventing colon cancer, the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. On their cage, equipped with HEPA [...]
October 10, 2012
The Biscuit Fire 10 Years Later
What will the long-term data show?
The 2002 Biscuit Fire not only torched a half-million acres in Southern Oregon, it became a poster child for the debate over post-fire management and forest recovery. When the journal Science accepted a paper on the fire’s aftermath by then-graduate student Daniel Donato, it ignited a long-smoldering debate over what, if anything, should be done [...]
October 10, 2012
Eco-roofs and Earthquakes
Research will guide new structural standards
Growing greenery on roofs brings many benefits. Buildings stay cooler, saving energy. Roofs last longer, saving money and materials. Birds and insects find new habitat, helping ecosystems. And green roofs make urban spaces more aesthetically and spiritually pleasing, as well as reducing heat-island effects for city dwellers. But there are some costs that need to [...]
September 26, 2012
Degrees of Separation
Scientists weigh in on biodiversity quest through Facebook
Facebook may be great for cute kitty videos and baby pictures, but who knew it could play a role in science? Brian Sidlauskas, an Oregon State University fish biologist, and his team used the popular social network to advance their study of biodiversity in a South American rain forest. This video produced by Facebook, Degrees [...]
July 25, 2012
Bug Problems? Call in the Chickens
Oregon State Extension experiments with pest control in organic apple orchard
“Aw, no bugs!” exclaims Betsey Miller after meticulously pouring over a wheelbarrow’s worth of decomposing leaf litter and manure. “The chickens are doing a great job, but it’s still fun for us entomologists to find insects once in a while!” A pen of praiseworthy red-ranger chickens peck away at the grass a few yards away, [...]
July 11, 2012
Horns of Africa
Dylan McDowell studies endangered rhinos in Tanzanian reserves
In the place where Dylan McDowell grew up, wildlife meant sea lions, sandpipers, salmon and passing pods of spouting whales. Where he’s going this summer, wildlife means something else entirely, something reminiscent of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, exotic and fearsome: wildebeests, jackals, baboons, leopards, warthogs. And rhinos that have been poached nearly [...]
July 11, 2012
Sea Urchin
Caitlyn Clark takes her love of ecology to Ireland's first marine reserve
On her first-ever research trip, Caitlyn Clark trudged up and down hundreds of spongy hummocks spanning miles of arctic tundra, all the while swatting at giant mosquitoes and scanning for hungry polar bears. She was in Manitoba to collect data about the habitats of boreal frogs and stickleback fish for Earthwatch Institute Student Challenge Awards [...]
July 11, 2012
Legacy of a Whale
Renee Albertson’s childhood encounter led her, decades later, to French Polynesia
Rain was pouring hard the day Renee Albertson first connected, face-to-face, with a marine mammal. She was a 7-year-old visiting British Columbia’s Sealand aquarium (Canada’s now-defunct answer to California’s SeaWorld) with her mom and dad. The daily show had been cancelled because of the downpour. The usual crowds were absent. As the soggy trio from [...]
June 20, 2012
Relay for Wheat
If wheat breeding were a relay race, the land grant all-star team would include Foote, Kronstad, Peterson and now Zemetra
When he was a college student, Bob Zemetra found the perfect career. “I liked working with plants, and I realized that in plant breeding — in theory — I could be outside in the good part of the year and inside in the bad part of the year.” Things didn’t turn out that way, he [...]
June 7, 2012
Floating Dock from Japan Carries Potential Invasive Species
Starfish, crabs, oysters and algae are among the Asian hitchhikers
When debris from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan began making its way toward the West Coast of the United States, there were fears of possible radiation and chemical contamination as well as costly cleanup. But a floating dock that unexpectedly washed ashore in Newport this week and has been traced back to the [...]
June 7, 2012
Wheat for the West
Land grant research catapulted wheat farming into an economic power that feeds the world
It is arguably the plant that made the West. Pioneers brought wheat in practically every wagon on the Oregon Trail. It fed farm families in the Willamette Valley and miners in the John Day and California gold-rush towns. It was currency and foreign exchange. As the nation grew, scientists developed dryland and irrigated growing techniques. [...]
June 6, 2012
Fisher of Rivers
Haley Ohms wades into Dolly Varden research in Japanese streams
A river runs through Haley Ohms’ life. Actually, a whole bunch of rivers. So spending the summer hip-deep in fast-moving water will feel familiar to the Oregon State University graduate student — even if those cold, tumbling waters flow on the other side of the Pacific Rim. The fish will seem familiar, too. The Dolly [...]
June 5, 2012
Pumped Up
Zachary Dunn helps bring clean water to Kenyan farmers
How far would you go to help someone get a glass of clean water? Zachary Dunn knows exactly how far he’d go: 9,000 miles. And that’s just one trip, one way. By summer’s end, Dunn and fellow Oregon State University students had traveled almost 36,000 miles — greater than the Earth’s circumference — to help [...]
May 30, 2012
From Wood to Watts
Forest-based fuels could fire up rural development, but at what cost?
About a million years ago in South Africa, a Homo erectus cave dweller used fire on purpose, and some charred bones at the site suggest it may have been for cooking. Thus was born the biofuels industry — and also the first known barbecue. The name of that cave, Wonderwerk, means “miracle” in the Afrikaans [...]
May 25, 2012
Evidence for Change
Rigorous climate science trumps our senses
Some people take a dim view of the idea that Oregon, as well as the rest of the world, could be expected to continue warming in coming decades. They may cite March snowfall in the Willamette Valley or unpublished comparisons of mean temperatures over a given time period in specific places. Appealing as it is, [...]
May 25, 2012
Green mulch
More veggies and more fruit = more plastic mulch on farms. Oregon State students look for alternatives.
Bear with me; here’s the problem. Plastic mulch — those shiny sheets spread across row upon row of veggies, strawberries and other crops — enables farmers to produce more types and greater quantities of food. It makes farming more profitable, preserves soil moisture, reduces weeds and saves on labor costs. But this type of mulch [...]
March 18, 2012
From concert hall to lecture hall
How music set the stage for a life in science
James Cassidy doesn’t fit the stereotypical image of a scientist. Two star-shaped earrings dangle from his left ear. A fetching fedora is perched on top of his head. He’s swapped his white lab coat for a charcoal sports jacket. A chic checkered shirt peeks out underneath. His alert grey eyes are framed by dark glasses. [...]
March 2, 2012
Fishing for Facts in Guyana
For two weeks in 2011, dawn signaled the beginning of another day of fish sampling for Oregon State University professor Brian Sidlauskas and his small team of colleagues and graduate students. Their camp was wedged within a mountainous area of northern South America called the Guyana Shield.
