Mother Nature had its own April Fools' prank in store for the Northeast -- it took only the first day of this month to record the snowiest April ever for Boston, Worcester, Mass., and Providence, R.I., according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University.
Almost 50 years ago, physicists determined the value of one of the fundamental fixed values of physics, the fine structure constant, using quantum electrodynamics theory -- or did they?
Last winter's mish-mash of weather sent bird-watchers to their field guides as species showed up where they're usually not. Documenting irruptions of seldom-seen species throughout North America.
A few bad actors among the more than 30,000 non-indigenous species in the United States cost $123 billion a year in economic losses, Cornell University ecologists estimate. "It doesn't take many trouble-makers to cause tremendous damage," Cornell ecologist David Pimentel.
For Cornell biologist John P. Berry, knowing the punch line to the joke, "Where does an 800-pound gorilla eat?" is not enough. Certainly, the mountain gorillas he studies in Uganda's Bwindi impenetrable forest eat wherever they want. Whatever, too.
From one ecologist's perspective, the American system of farming grain-fed livestock consumes resources far out of proportion to the yield, accelerates soil erosion, affects world food supply and will be changing in the future.
Sixteen years of hard work and setbacks have taught Professor Emeritus Richard B. Fischer what it takes to make the bluebird of happiness happy: Location, location, location. And a few amenities.