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2. Mice
3. Monday Mashups
4. Satellite Watch
5. Great Lakes Smackdown
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Echo

Are you hot? Then you probably believe in global warming

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Are you hot, as in, feeling warm? Then according to research out of the University of Chicago and University of California Berkley you may be more likely to believe in global warming. The study, published last month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that if people feel warmer, like sitting in a hot room, they’re more likely to believe in the climactic change. They found this out by placing people answering the questionnaires in cubicles, some of which were overheated. The researchers say that people placed in the hot cubicles may have had “a sharper mental image of what a hot world would be like.”

Hmm… if that’s a solution to get a consensus on climate change — I suggest that everyone go to a sauna immediately.

Echo

Growers smell trouble in stink bug invasion

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The name of the new invader is enough to make people laugh, but its potential peril is serious enough to make fruit growers weep.

The brown marmorated stink bug, which is notorious for wiping out horticultural crops, has been discovered in Southwest and central Michigan.

In 2010, growers in Pennsylvania lost an estimated 40 to 50 percent of their peach crop to the stink bug, according to Penn State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

Echo

Great Lakes SmackDown! Part II; Join us in the draft for terrestrial invaders

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By Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason

Let’s get ready to rumbleeeee! Last year we introduced the Great Lakes SmackDown!, an interactive feature that pitted eight aquatic invasive species against each other in science-based “lake fights” to determine the region’s most destructive invader. Experts and readers weighed in on which species they thought was the worst for the lakes. In the end, the quagga mussel prevailed with a nasty filter-feeding addiction and a problem with hoarding toxins. But this time around we’re going terrestrial: birds, mammals, insects and all sorts of plants.

Echo

In search of transparency

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The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had an interesting take last week on a Feb. 3 report out of the International Upper Great Lakes Study board. The news story questioned whether the report provided an unbiased view, and quoted one person confused over whether the information represented a “straight-up” news piece.  You can read reporter Dan Egan’s take here. Echo reporter Jeff Gillies, who had referenced the IJC report in a post the day before, disagreed with that assessment.

Echo

VIDEO: Research sheds light on Lake Erie water quality

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In the second segment of a three-part video series on Great Lakes dead zones, Heidelberg University senior research scientist Pete Richards discusses recent research on the role of dissolved phosphorous and why it may be causing new problems. Richards focuses on Lake Erie, which has a long history of high algal growth and low oxygen.

Part I of the series is here. Part III is here. Richards and Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute director Don Scavia recently hosted a workshop on new clues about why the rates of agricultural nutrients are on the rise in the Great Lakes watershed. This workshop was part of the Agricultural Conference on the Environment held at The Lansing Center on Jan. 27.

Echo

MONDAY MASHUP: EPA Enviromapper

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You may find out more than you want to about environmental activities in your area in the EPA Enviromapper.

This EPA map shows almost anything you want (or may not want) to know: from hazardous waste sites to the locations chemicals in use like ammonia.

Land

Teamwork on land investment pays ecological dividends

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LANSING – State and federal agencies, conservation groups and residents have been teaming up to increase the amount of environmentally important land protected in Michigan.

Securing development rights is gaining popularity as it’s cheaper than purchasing land outright to preserve it.