CFAES scientist Katrina Cornish’s research on using food waste — namely egg shells and tomato peels — in the making of tires has received media coverage from, among others, U.S. News & World Report, Waste Management World, Recycling Today, WOSU and EcoWatch.
Month: March 2017
Orange you glad for this workshop? Learn 15 ways to improve your woods and wildlife
If trees, deer, birds (like this brilliant Baltimore oriole), butterflies, mushrooms and more are your things, check out this year’s Ohio River Valley Woodland and Wildlife Workshop. It’s this Saturday, March 25, near Cincinnati.
To stave off, or not, another water crisis
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which, among its work, keeps the air you breathe and water you drink clean, would see the biggest cut — 31 percent — of any federal agency in the White House’s proposed 2018 budget, according to a Reuters story. EPA’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative would be especially hard hit. It faces a 97-percent cut in the proposed budget.
How would those cuts, if approved, hit home? Jeff Reutter, special adviser to Ohio State’s Ohio Sea Grant program, said in a recent issue of Cleveland Scene, “If we lose the EPA, we lose Lake Erie.”
The lake, among other things, provides drinking water for 3 million Ohioans.
Turning food waste into tires
Tomorrow’s tires could come from the farm as much as the factory.
CFAES scientists have discovered that food waste can partially replace the petroleum-based filler that has been used in manufacturing tires for more than a century.
In tests, rubber made with the new fillers exceeds industrial standards for performance, which may ultimately open up new applications for rubber.
Read the story. (Photo: CFAES scientists Katrina Cornish (left) and Cindy Barrera by Ken Chamberlain, CFAES.)
REI’s sustainability chief to speak at Ohio State
Combine your work and passions and you can climb mountains. Including real ones.
That’s the message of a presentation being given by Vik Sahney, vice president for sustainability for Seattle-based REI, on April 12 at Ohio State.
Sahney, who at age 38 has climbed the highest peaks on all seven continents, including Mt. Everest, will present “From Summits to Sustainability: Reaching for High Places, Personally and Professionally” at 7 p.m. in the Archie M. Griffin Grand Ballroom in the Ohio Union in Columbus. Continue reading REI’s sustainability chief to speak at Ohio State
Flower-wise, bees favor farm over city
Hungry honey bees appear to favor flowers in agricultural areas over those in neighboring urban areas, says a study done by scientists with CFAES.
The discovery, the scientists said, has implications for urban beekeepers and challenges assumptions that farmland and honey bees are incompatible.
Gather more details. (Photo: Honey bee on goldenrod, iStock.)
When a mosquito can’t go, it’s a problem. But only for the mosquito
You may someday hear less of that buzzing sound. A team led by scientists from CFAES and Vanderbilt University has taken the next step toward developing an improved, sustainable mosquito insecticide — one that won’t cause the biting, sometimes-disease-carrying pests to become resistant to it. Read the story. (Photo: Aedes aegypti by James Gathany, CDC.)
Is solar power worth it on your farm?
CFAES’s Eric Romich will look at the financial prudence of investing in on-farm solar energy as a speaker at the Powering Michigan Agriculture Conference March 9 at Michigan State in East Lansing. Learn more here. Register to attend here. Romich is an energy development field specialist with CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension. East Lansing is about 120 miles northwest of Toledo.
Watch: ‘On Wednesday, we’re going to Kelleys Island to look for salamanders, and that should be a lot of fun’
“Every day, we’re out in the field, we’re collecting data, we’re studying animals,” says 2015 Stone Lab summer student Jeffry Hayes in the video above. The lab, which is at Put-in-Bay in western Lake Erie, is a “great place to do all that,” he says. “There have been a lot of experiences here that I can put on a resume.” Are you a student in college or high school? An educator? Registration is open now for Stone Lab’s summer courses …
Thursday: Saving Ohio’s hemlocks
Dave Apsley, natural resources specialist with CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, presents “Ohio’s Eastern Hemlock Forests and the Threat of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 2, in Ashland University’s 2016-17 Environmental Lecture Series. Details. (Photo: Eastern hemlock, Bill Cook, Michigan State University, Bugwood.org.)