A science writer crafting accurate, compelling stories about research and its impacts on society.

Virginia Sea Grant •

Bridge website redesign puts teachers at the helm

Like the bridge of a ship—the nautical command center—the Bridge website allows teachers to navigate a wealth of marine science classroom resources. Now, after two decades, the website has an updated look and new features to match the first-class tools it houses. “We wanted people to see it as relevant, and it’s hard to impress upon people that something is high-quality information if it looks old and outdated,” says Celia Cackowski, a Marine Education Specialist in the Marine Advisory Program.
Virginia Sea Grant •

Putting a price tag on wetlands defense: Fellow studies how wetlands decrease flood damage

When it comes to flood protection, most people think of man-made barriers like seawalls or sandbags. But nature already has some defenses in place: wetlands. Day to day, wetland plants anchor soil against erosion. They also push back against the waves to lessen the effects of hurricanes and nor’easters. Wetlands protect the coastline, but engineers and planners need detailed numbers to incorporate natural features into coastline designs.
Virginia Sea Grant •

Maximizing Production: Studying hidden influences on oyster harvests

New advances in aquaculture have sparked growth for the oyster industry over the last 15 years, but current harvests are still nowhere near historic levels. Even so, the amount of oyster leases is approaching record highs. Jennifer Beckensteiner, a Virginia Sea Grant graduate research fellow and Ph.D. candidate at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) is investigating what economic factors and social attitudes might be restricting oyster production.
Virginia Sea Grant •

Surviving the cold: Fellow studies northern speckled trout

When winter temperatures plummet, some speckled trout go belly-up. Researchers call these events cold stuns. Temperatures drop to near-freezing for days at a time, and fish die from hypothermia. After an especially severe cold stun in 2014, recreational fishermen requested the speckled trout fishery be closed for a season to allow the fish populations to recover. Cold stuns—and colder winter temperatures in general—are a particular challenge for speckled trout in Virginia.
Virginia Sea Grant •

No empty stomachs here: VASG researcher studies eels’ dining habits in their historic habitat

The idea to study the relationship between brook trout and American eels first occurred to Jon Studio while he worked on another project in Shenandoah Valley National Park near small mountain streams. “I happened to notice that in some of the streams with brook trout, there also happened to be American eels in pretty large abundance,” Studio says. “These were up in really, really small headwater streams, so I got to thinking, ‘How is it that brook trout and eels are both living in these streams?"
Virginia Sea Grant •

Moving Islands: VASG researcher studies historical—and future—changes along Virginia’s barrier islands

The saying goes that you can’t step in the same river twice, and for barrier islands along the coast of Virginia, the same is true. Barrier islands are sandy dune systems that stand between coastal lagoons and the ocean. In Virginia, barrier islands extend along the Eastern Shore—and some are moving. Cedar Island has been migrating back toward the mainland at an average rate of almost 20 feet per year over the last 30 years.
Virginia Sea Grant •

Building neighborhoods of the future in communities prone to flooding

When designing features to help reduce flooding, some architects think in terms of what they call sponges and barriers: features that keep the water out or temporarily absorb it. Although the basic principles of architectural design don’t change, there are many out-of-the-box ways to apply them to manage flooding in individual neighborhoods, like using empty lots as greenways to break up long stretches of pavement in Huntersville. “These areas not only help with people getting through the neigh
Hillsdale Collegian •

Student research helps prepare Cornell lab for brighter X-ray beams

Only 40 feet under­neath Cornell University’s football field, electron and positron beams race around a half-mile loop of narrow piping nearly as fast as the speed of light in a machine known as the Cornell Electron Storage Ring, or CESR. Junior Laura Salo’s research involving CESR at Cornell this past summer helped move the team one step closer to achieving the goals of the Cornell Lab­o­ratory for Accel­erator-Based Sci­ences and Edu­cation, CLASSE, to produce the brightest source of X-ray be
Hillsdale Collegian •

Untangling the proteins in Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson’s disease, a neu­rode­gen­er­ative disease that results from the death of dopamine-releasing neurons in the brain, affects more than 10 million people worldwide, according to the Parkinson’s Foun­dation. Although the disease includes a variety of symptoms, patients often expe­rience shaking or tremors, slowness of movement, or trouble bal­ancing. For the past two summers, senior Taylor Zimmer worked as a research intern at Van Andel Research Institute, working with a spe­cific protein
Hillsdale Collegian •

Got milk? Cow expert speaks to pre-vet students

When vet­eri­narian and dairy herd per­for­mance spe­cialist Gordie Jones con­sults for a new dairy farm, he said he focuses on the ABCs of dairy farming: air, bunking, and comfort. Jones shared nearly 40 years of expe­rience as a vet­eri­narian and dairy con­sultant with stu­dents Oct. 12 in Stro­sacker Science Center. Although Jones started as a vet­eri­narian, he said he grew tired of his work and tran­si­tioned to con­sulting for dairy farms before even­tually founding and man­aging his ow
GeoSpace •

Researchers identify ‘substantial’ amount of Mercury’s water ice

Mercury may have more exposed water ice held in cold traps than previously thought, a new study finds. Researchers have identified three new craters and four small-scale cold traps on Mercury filled with surface ice and suspect the planet may harbor many smaller patches of exposed ice too small to observe directly. The newly observed ice makes a substantial contribution to the amount of exposed ice thought to exist on Mercury’s surface.
Hillsdale Collegian •

‘Hearing’ solar activity: Students, professor study eclipse

Mil­lions of people across the country traveled to get a prime view of the solar eclipse as its path stretched across the con­ti­nental United States Aug. 21. In addition to the visual spec­tacle of the moon crossing in front of the sun, solar eclipses offer unique insight into solar activity and its effects on Earth. Assistant Pro­fessor of Physics Timothy Dolch and two stu­dents, freshman Nathaniel Birzer and senior Daniel O’Dette, traveled to rural Ken­tucky to see the total eclipse, pho­to­
GeoSpace •

New study details ocean's role in fourth-largest mass extinction

Extremely low oxygen levels in Earth’s oceans could be responsible for extending the effects of a mass extinction that wiped out millions of species on Earth around 200 million years ago, according to a new study. By measuring trace levels of uranium in oceanic limestone that correspond to oxygen levels in seawater present during the rock’s formation, the new study finds areas of the seafloor without oxygen increased by a factor of 100 during the end-Triassic extinction event.
Hillsdale Collegian •

Knecht connects cows, chess, and musical cognition

Human short-term memory only has a capacity for five to seven items — like the digits of a phone number — yet expert musi­cians can learn and retain music they may have heard for the first time only a few minutes ago. According to Pro­fessor of Music Melissa Knecht, these feats of memory involve the musician’s schema, the framework of expe­rience to which he or she compare the new music they encounter. Knecht shared her insights into musical cog­nition in her April 11 pre­sen­tation.
Hillsdale Collegian •

Students help with state park restoration

After hiking through grass almost twice her height and fending off an abun­dance of malignant ticks at Grand Mere State Park, sophomore Andrea Wallace pre­sented her research on a restoration site at the park Oct. 22 at the Michigan Con­sortium of Botanists. Wallace par­tic­i­pated in an ongoing project by Pro­fessor of Biology Ranessa Cooper, who, in 2004, began mon­i­toring the plant diversity in a 40-acre sand mining site in the park near Stevensville, Michigan.
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