Superstorms: Are Natural Disasters Becoming Stronger?
Hollywood has unleashed unrealistic natural disaster movies in the past. But how will climate change actually alter the nature of weather related disasters?
athenssciencecafe July 27, 2015
Environment
Poison ivy's chemical curse
by Uma Nagendra, Athens Science CafeÌ Ah, summer in the American South: the air is abuzz with cicadas, air conditioning, and aerosol bugspray. For many, it's a season equally beloved and reviled. Everyone seems to have their favorite griping point: the relentless humidity, the constant threat of mosquitoes, or my personal nemesis—poison ivy. Although poison
athenssciencecafe June 29, 2015
Can science tell us what makes Stradivarius Top Notch?
by Alex Pilote, Athens Science Café When discussing string instruments, the name Stradivarius is synonymous with excellence and superior craftsmanship. But why is this? Are the violins bearing this name crafted with a more skilled hand? Do they outperform all others? Or perhaps there's a scientific explanation behind this? The question of the superior reputation
athenssciencecafe June 17, 2015
The Little Engineer That Could
by Suzie Henderson, Athens Science Café What is an ecosystem engineer? Every ecosystem, even arctic ice [2], is subject to the influence of ecosystem engineers [3]. An ecosystem engineer alters habitat and consequently changes resource availability to other organisms [2]. Even though all organisms play a role in resource cycling to varying degrees, not all
athenssciencecafe June 1, 2015
Spring Ephemerals in Your Backyard: A Webcomic
Written and Illustrated by Uma Nagendra Uma Nagendra is a PhD Candidate at the University of Georgia and became interested in studying natural disasters since Hurricane Katrina hit her hometown of New Orleans. She enjoys finding creative ways to demonstrate complicated ecological concepts—preferably if it involves running around outside or drawing pictures. When not crawling over downed
athenssciencecafe May 6, 2015
On thin ice: polar bear conservation in the midst of climate change
Everyone has seen it: a panning video showing thousands of miles of Arctic ice. This is usually followed by that same area now enveloped in water with the obligatory polar bear floating on a miniscule ice float. As polar bears rely heavily on sea ice as protective cover to hunt seals, their main food source,
John Spiekerman April 27, 2015
The War on Plastic
Plastic is probably the most important material in our lives today. We see it all around us and use it all the time. So much so that we throw away enough plastic waste each year to circle the planet four times. Why do we consume so much plastic? Sure, it makes our lives more comfortable,
athenssciencecafe March 23, 2015
Reading Between the Vines
If you read the first installment of our ScienceCafé invasive species series, you may have already guessed the name of this topic: Pueraria lobata, or… kudzu! Before kudzu arrived in the states and poison ivy was the only three-leaved vine, times were simpler. No one worried about kudzu invading their yard and killing their plants
athenssciencecafe March 11, 2015
Biofuel ethics: food versus fuel
Is it right to allocate a portion of our food crops for producing fuel? What the problem really boils down to is energy. In the past decade or so, worldwide biodiesel and bioethanol production have increased fivefold. Worryingly the vast majority of that biofuel originated from ethanol was obtained from corn in the US. This
John Spiekerman February 2, 2015
Why are some species so invasive? [Invasive Species, Part 1]
If you drive longer than five miles in the South, you'll undoubtedly see an abandoned lot covered in kudzu. Up until the 1950s, farmers transplanted the fast-growing vine from Asia to the U.S. to stop soil erosion along roads. Individual kudzu vines can grow more than 100 feet per growing season, easily spreading over the
athenssciencecafe January 26, 2015
Restoration with Goats: Ruminating on the Reasons
I will attempt to graze over a topic ubiquitous in the southeast: invasive plants. With over 5,000 nonnative plant species in the U.S., you could say that this is no small problem, whether it is in our hands or not. You may ask yourself: Why should I care about the spread of some obnoxious, ugly
athenssciencecafe November 16, 2014
Are all forest fires bad?
Around mid-summer each year, stories about wildfires, especially in the Western United States begin to dominate the news. Since 2000, there have been between 40,000 to 100,000 wildfires in the U.S. each year that are responsible for an average of 19 fatalities and 7 million burned acres (about the size of Massachusetts). When humans live
athenssciencecafe September 1, 2014