Flash Point: Shawn Malone’s favorite, toughest Great Lakes shots

We asked Great Lakes photographers to send us their favorite and toughest Great Lakes shot. Shawn Malone of Lake Superior Photography sent us this photo. Northern Lights

The big reason this photo was so difficult to photograph is normally our northern lights displays are well to the north and low to the horizon. This allows for one to pre-plan compositions for this night sky photography. It’s very necessary to do this during the day since you can’t see much at night!

Mild winter, early runoff spur swirling sediment in Lake Erie

A mild winter left Lake Erie nearly ice-free. On the first day of spring last week, a NASA satellite snapped a picture of the southern Great Lakes region and showed sediment clouding up the shallow lake. The colors in the image are accurate. The tan colored-water swirling around the shoreline is sediment rushing in from streams and rivers. The warm winter brought more rainfall than snow, so there was increased runoff.

Handheld pathogen sensor detects bugs in food, environment

When there’s an outbreak of foodborne illness, health inspectors are on the case looking for clues that lead to the tiny culprit making people sick. But instead of sending samples to an off-site lab, inspectors could soon hold the answers in the palm of their hands. Michigan researchers came up with a quick, easy and cheap way to test for toxins and germs using nanotechnology, the study of things on a molecular scale. “It’s a chemical, electrical way of telling the presence of something you’re looking for in a very quick manner,” said Fred Beyerlein, CEO of NanoRETE, the company developing the technology. If contaminated spinach is the suspect, an inspector would put a spinach leaf in a bag of clean water, swish it around until particles wash off the leaf, then test the water for germs. The sensor picks up on changes in the electrical conductivity of the water to find pathogens.

Environmental literacy: What should every Great Lakes citizen know?

What’s the minimum every responsible citizen of the Great Lakes region should know about their environment? It’s a question we’ve been noodling recently in the Echo newsroom. The idea is to develop a list and use it as the basis for questions we’ll ask random people – sort of like the Jaywalking feature on the Tonight Show. We’ll video their answers – right, wrong, funny, creative – and conclude with a look at the answer. We’re consulting some environmental educators and advocates on the kinds of things we might ask.