Tags: Earth

train station with train
Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems

A perennial political and economic issue, the state of American infrastructure in the face of rapid environmental and social changes is the focus of a new UGA institute that will involve collaboration with Franklin College faculty: The Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems will be administered by the College of Engineering and will include faculty members from more than nine academic units across campus. Faculty in the new institute…

woman i n lab with glasses
'Good as gold' at the nanoscale

"Medieval alchemists tried to create gold from other metals," she said. "That's kind of what we did with our research. It's not real alchemy, in the medieval sense, but it is a sort of 21st century version." Gold has long been a valuable resource for industry, medicine, dentistry, computers, electronics and aerospace, among others, due to unique physical and chemical properties that make it inert and resistant to oxidation. But because of its…

man outdoors
Amazing student: Jonah Driggers

For St. Simons Island native Jonah Driggers, the ecology of the small island community has instilled a sense of mission that has been shaped by his UGA experiences: Although I began my freshman year with vague intentions of pursuing a career in business, I always harbored a love of the outdoors that was developed over years of Scouting and working in the garden with my dad. Experiences made possible through the Foundation Fellowship, like taking…

historical black and white photo of men with instruments
UGA civil engineering program gains accreditation

Though its presence at UGA goes back to the 19th century, civil engineering at the university entered another new era with its initial ABET accreditation announced this week: As part of the evaluation, the commission used detailed criteria to analyze student performance and outcomes, curriculum requirements and program educational objectives, faculty competency and facilities. In its final report, ABET listed an emphasis on written and oral…

digital numerical graphic, blue on black
Informatics Hiring Initiative

The big news about Big Data on campus includes the announcement of eight new faculty members in the rapidly growing field of informatics that we welcome to UGA this year: The new hires, who will work in seven departments and five of the university's schools and colleges, build upon the university's longstanding leadership in informatics. UGA has more than 160 faculty members whose work involves the analysis of massive data sets, and plans are…

weather monitor with super G
Climate data in the classroom

New technology installed at two UGA locations will provide real-time weather data and early warnings for severe weather. Donated by WeatherStem CEO Edward Mansouri,the stations were installed in the State Botanical Garden and on the main campus in early August. The station links to the web and provides tools such as text alerts for changing weather conditions and forecasts. Users can also replay time-lapse videos from attached webcams. Marshall…

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A new era of science education at UGA

When classes begin tomorrow on campus, many students will find themselves as the first of many students to follow in their footsteps at the new Science Learning Center on South Campus. The building, which has been years in the making and in many ways serves as the counterpart to the Miller Learning Center, will open its doors officially to students on the first day of classes--fostering in a new era of science education on campus.

people with bounce house outside
Heat dangers of bounce houses

A nearly ubiquitous sight on the suburban landscape, inflatable bounce houses mark the fun and frivolity at children’s parties and other events practically year round. But a new study from Andrew Grundstein and Marshall Shepherd in geography examines the heat safety issues that can put children in danger amid all the innocent play: Expanding on the concept of microclimates like those in parked vehicles that cause serious injuries to children,…

salt marsh day
Satellite data show Georgia salt marsh health decline

Scientists at UGA's Marine Institute at Sapelo Island have found that the amount of vegetation along the Georgia coast has declined significantly in the last 30 years, spurring concerns about the overall health of marshland ecosystems in the area: Using data collected by NASA's Landsat TM 5 satellite, which provided 28 years of nearly continuous images of the Earth's surface between 1984 and 2011, the researchers found that the amount of marsh…

two people in a field
Archeologists find 16th-century fort San Marcos

A team of archaeologists led by University of South Carolina's Chester DePratter and UGA's Victor Thompson has located the remains of a Spanish fort erected in 1577 in the Spanish town of Santa Elena, on present-day Parris Island, S.C. For decades, attempts to find it have failed, and Fort San Marcos stayed hidden until new technology brought it to light: San Marcos is one of five Spanish forts built sequentially at Santa Elena over its 21-…

aerial view of dock with research vessel
Measuring marine CO2 production

Near the ocean surface, sunlight causes the breakdown of organic compounds and converts them into carbon dioxide. Until recently, this process has been nearly impossible to measure because the additional carbon dioxide produced per day is tiny compared to the existing high concentration of CO2 present in the sea. But using a new technique and a new NSF grant, marine sciences researchers at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography are working…

algal bloom on a pond
Citizen science smartphone app: Cyanotracker

In order to download the CyanoTRACKER app on Android devices, you should first locate the 'Google Play Store' launcher on your device. If you cannot locate the icon on your home screen you may need to click the "Apps" icon and search through the list there. From the Google Play Store you may search for "cyanotracker" (without quotes) to bring up the app information and installation page.  Click install.  You may be prompted regarding…


Greenland ice melting and arctic amplification

Clear skies and warmer weather in northern Greenland from this high-pressure system resulted in record setting surface temperature and meltwater runoff in the northwest. With less summer snow falling and melting underway, northern Greenland's reflectivity also decreased and the water absorbed more heat from the sun, further increasing melting.  It is unclear whether this set of circumstances will continue to hold true this summer, or in…

browser window with magnifying glass
Climate Feedback

Not the feedback loop, but fact-checking media reports. In perhaps the next iteration of evaluating climate news and data, how trustworthy is the science you read about? A new group will track the accuracy of climate news to evaluate what's out there: Last week, Climate Feedback announced the Scientific Trust Tracker, a feature that will track news outlets’ accuracy on climate change, one scientist-reviewed story at a time. Right now,…

flowering plant close-up
How plants respond to climate change

Jill Anderson, an assistant professor of genetics, has received a $1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation Early Career Development Program to study the effects of climate change on plants. Among the NSF's most prestigious, CAREER awards support junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholar and the integration of education and research: Anderson's project tests whether plants will be able to survive on a warming…

oil sheen on water from the air
UGA team travels to Gulf of Mexico to investigate May 12 oil spill

Marine scientist Samantha Joye organized a rapid response research cruise to assess the impact of a crude oil spill approximately 90 miles south of Timbalier Island, Louisiana: The U.S. Coast Guard responded to the spill reportedly discharged from a Shell subsea wellhead flow line on May 12. "Our goal for this response mission is to document the distribution of oil in the water column, to characterize the hydrocarbons and to assess the fate of…

micro-organisms on black
Understanding the microbiomes

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy hosted a May 13 event on microbiomes—communities of microorganisms that live on and in people, plants, soil, oceans and the atmosphere—featuring presentations from four scientists including UGA's Samantha Joye: Microbiomes maintain the healthy function of ecosystems, influencing diverse features of the planet from human health to climate change and food security. During the event, the…

four people in a lab, with model
Dawn Of the DAWGSat program

The time when UGA did not have a space program is soon to be ending, thanks to some truly ambitious and imaginative undergraduate students and an interdisciplinary faculty team: A University of Georgia project led by a team of undergraduate students and including faculty from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering was recently selected for funding by NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative. The UGA proposal, "CubeSat…

man, with students and fire demo
Discover UGA: Helping Communities

Flashes and Bangs Service-learning course designed to reach and teach budding young scientists is just one of the Discover UGA features this month on the theme of Helping Communities: The course is designed to combine and develop different skills of the students. “When we started the shows, as part of the grant, Nick Barker, who is an outreach professional, was the lead presenter who explained the science and concepts, while my research…

glacier melting, with people
Tracking the Greenland meltwater

Very interesting work in the context of a significant increase in the melting of glacial land ice on the island of Greenland due to atmospheric warming: a team of researchers led by faculty at the University of Georgia has discovered the fate of much of the freshwater that pours into the surrounding oceans as the Greenland ice sheet melts every summer. They published their findings today in the journal Nature Geoscience. "Understanding…

people on board a research vessel
Scientists discover new reef system at mouth of Amazon River

Marine sciences professor Patricia Yager is part of an incredible story of the unlikely discovery of a reef system near the mouth of the Amazon River: A new reef system has been found at the mouth of the Amazon River, the largest river by discharge of water in the world. As large rivers empty into the world's oceans in areas known as plumes, they typically create gaps in the reef distribution along the tropical shelves—something that makes…

graphic with UGA arch
Watershed UGA

Urban watersheds represent one of the most complex and intractable environmental quandaries: overlapping jurisdictions, streets, property boundaries and buildings make it all but impossible to reclaim any relationship to a naturally existing water collection basin. Watersheds are drainage points for surface water to reach a river or other outlet and they are essential for the health of both land and water. The heart of the UGA campus sits in the…

sea, with sun, waves
Combined Symphony Orchestra and Choirs concert

Setting Whitman to music was something of an English tradition from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, and Williams was a notable participant. While [perhaps] not technically an Earth Week event, we have made it so. Our student orchestra and choirs are second-to-none, led by the best faculty that attract amazing musicians to campus to study and perform. Williams' great 'Sea Symphony' places our finest large ensembles in the vanguard of…


Study predicts impacts of sea level rise

Assessing the risk from rising seas using year 2100 population forecasts for all 319 coastal counties in the continental U.S., a new UGA study predicts that more than 13 million American homes will be threatened by rising sea levels by the end of the century: The study is based on analyses by Mathew Hauer for his doctoral work with the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences; Deepak Mishra of the UGA department of geography; and Jason…

earth illustration
Attributing extreme weather events to climate change

Can extreme weather events - hurricanes, droughts - be linked to climate change? A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine establishes for the first time that science can now estimate the influence of climate change on these extreme events: The findings, presented to White House and congressional leaders on March 10 by committee members who conducted the study and wrote the report, describes how the…
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