Insights
Preventable childhood illness
Anew study by a University of Maine economist estimates the cost of
preventable, environmentally related childhood illnesses in Maine
-including lead poisoning, asthma, childhood cancer, and neurobehavioral
disorders - totals $380.9 million annually.
Environmental economist Mary Davis says her study presents a
conservative assessment of the damaging effects of childhood diseases
and the costs of caring for these children. A report on her study, "An
Economic Cost Assessment of Environmentally Related Childhood Diseases
in Maine," also estimates the potential reduction in lifetime income and
educational opportunity for children permanently afflicted by childhood
diseases.
"It is important to note that the economic costs outlined in this report
represent preventable childhood illnesses, and, as such, could be fully
avoided if environmental exposures in children were eliminated," Davis
writes in her report.
Davis, an adjunct faculty member in the UMaine School of Economics, says
she conducted her research independently because of her interest in
children's health issues and because of the plethora of environmental
initiatives expected to surface in the Maine legislature as a result of
LD 2048, An Act To Protect Children's Health and the Environment from
Toxic Chemicals in Toys and Children's Products, which passed last year.
The bill requires Maine to adopt a list of priority chemicals of high
concern, forces manufacturers to disclose the toxic chemicals they add
to products, and authorizes the state to require safer alternatives.
The report is "directly relevant to the state's investment in the
process that the new law has set into motion," Davis says.
Advancing forestry
The University of Maine has received a $350,000 grant to join the
National Science Foundation's Center for Advanced Forestry Systems (CAFS),
an effort by seven universities to help the forest industry in Maine and
across the nation address important issues facing forest managers.
CAFS membership will provide funding for UMaine graduate student
research. It also will link UMaine researchers and the Maine forest
industry at the national level to cooperatively find solutions to common
problems.
UMaine will focus on improving computer models used to predict the
future growth and development of Maine's forests. Models can predict
future wood supplies that support traditional forest products, as well
as emerging markets for bioenergy and bioproducts.
"UMaine will bring a unique approach to this national research because
its focus and expertise has been on naturally regenerated forests with
many tree species, while other universities in CAFS have been focused on
plantation forests of single species," says Robert Wagner, director of
UMaine's School of Forest Resources.
Experts on topic
An analysis of the state's future in the context of changing climate in
the 21st century is the focus of a recently released, 70-page report,
Maine's Climate Future: An
Initial Assessment. Requested by Gov. John Baldacci in 2007, the
analysis was led by the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute,
with support from Maine Sea Grant and several UMaine academic
departments. It considers past climate change, recent evidence of
accelerated rates of change, and the implications of continued change in
Maine as a result of greenhouse gas emissions and associated pollutants.
The report stresses the need for Maine to have a plan for adaptation. It
also highlights opportunities for the state to benefit from a changing
climate, and identifies gaps in the information needed for a positive
transition. A PDF of the report is
online.
They would not take me there
To commemorate the 400th anniversaries of French explorer Samuel
Champlain's founding of Québec and naming of Lake Champlain, the
Canadian American Center at the University of Maine released a new
narrative map detailing the 13 years the 17th-century cartographer
traveled throughout the St. Lawrence River valley in search of the
elusive Northwest Passage.
The nearly 40-inch by 60-inch bilingual map, titled "They Would Not Take
Me There: People, Places, and Stories from Champlain's Travels in
Canada, 1603-1616," was developed by Michael Hermann, senior
cartographer at the Canadian American Center, and Margaret Pearce,
assistant professor of geography at Ohio University. UMaine professor of
French Raymond Pelletier, associate director of the Canadian American
Center, provided translation.
The map, which is based on Champlain's published journals, features
excerpts written by the adventurer, indigenous place names and extensive
narrative details of the five locations where Champlain spent long
periods of time - Tadoussac, Québec, Montréal, Morrison Island and the
Penetanguishene Peninsula.
This spring, the map won a third place national award in the thematic
category in Cartography and Geographic Information Society's 36th Annual
Map Design Competition.
Flying wireless
The CANEUS Fly-by-Wireless Sector Consortium, part of an international
nonprofit organization that serves the aeronautics, space and defense
communities, has tapped University of Maine Assistant Professor of
Electrical and Computer Engineering Ali Abedi to help them pull the
plug.
No, it's not closing down. The consortium is powering up to create
wireless micro and nano technologies for aerospace applications, and has
named Abedi to lead the effort.
Abedi directs UMaine's WiSe-Net Lab for wireless sensor network
research. Currently, he is working on a novel coding scheme for a
battery-free wireless sensor communication system that he says can
perform in harsh environments where the battery-powered sensors now used
in NASA's space shuttle cannot function.
Picture this
A Web-based photo gallery is one of the latest teaching tools in the
field of animal science.
The gallery now includes more than 1,700 images in a dozen categories of
animal husbandry ranging from beef cattle to sheep and goats. It is
designed to aid in college-level courses, as well as Cooperative
Extension outreach.
The Animal Science Image Gallery (anscigallery.nal.usda.gov) was
established in 2003 by the Animal Science Education Consortium and the
National Agriculture Library with the help of a more than $200,000 USDA
Higher Education Program Challenge Grant. Since 2007, the American
Society of Animal Science has provided oversight of the peer-reviewed
submissions of photos, animals and video to assist in animal science
teaching and learning.
Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences Chairperson Martin Stokes,
a member of the Animal Science Education Consortium, helped establish
the gallery and serves as editor for the section on nutrition.
Reflections of climate change
Some of the most dramatic evidence of climate change today is found in
the planet's lakes and reservoirs, according to three researchers from
Miami University, the University of Maine and University of Alberta -
Edmonton, writing in a February issue of Science magazine.
These inland waters that are important regulators in the global carbon
cycle are among the natural resources threatened by climate change. As
sentinels, they already are showing signs of decreased biodiversity and
water quality.
The three researchers - Craig Williamson, Jasmine Saros and David
Schindler - suggest that global lake observatory networks are needed, in
addition to ongoing research to tap the clues found in freshwater
sediments about the effects and mechanisms of climate change over time.
"The outlook for lakes and reservoirs and the ecosystem services that
they provide is bleak," wrote the scientists. "Yet records from these
inland waters may provide the insights necessary to address the dual
challenges of climate change and increased human domination and their
effects on lakes and the larger landscape."
How green is the gulf?
Calculating the amount of chlorophyll in the Gulf of Maine is the focus
of research by University of Maine doctoral candidate Michael Sauer.
Sauer, who is based at UMaine's Darling Marine Center in Walpole, Maine,
has received a $30,000 NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship to create
a more accurate calculation of the amount of chlorophyll in the water.
He is using optical equipment, sensors and data from Gulf of Maine Ocean
Observing System (GoMOOS) buoys to compile information about
temperature, salinity and light absorption in the water column.
Algorithms used for NASA satellite chlorophyll imagery are based on the
open ocean, where phytoplankton is the primary ocean color source.
However, the current method of measuring chlorophyll from satellite
images can't discern it from colored, dissolved organic matter (clear,
yellowish-brown river water). Misinterpreting the color of the ocean
results in misunderstanding the health of the ocean ecosystem.
Sauer was one of two UMaine graduate students to receive NASA
fellowships last year. Oceanography doctoral candidate Margaret Estapa
is studying the release of carbon from mud delivered from the
Mississippi River to areas along the Gulf Coast.
Local long stems
A bouquet of cut flowers can say so much, so beautifully. And now with
help from University of Maine Cooperative Extension researchers and
Master Gardeners, farmers in the state are able to convey those messages
- and more.
For the past five years, Barbara Murphy of Oxford County Extension has
studied the economic viability, necessary growing conditions and best
varieties for Maine farmers interested in growing cut flowers. In 2007,
she was joined by Gleason Gray of Penobscot County Extension.
"Research has shown the crop has tremendous potential; there's a high
dollar-per-square-foot return," Murphy says. "It's a crop many growers
can do to complement their other crops."
Early trials demonstrated the benefits of growing flowers in hoop houses
to extend Maine's growing season. Also piloted was a solar energy
collection system for warming the soil.
Now Murphy and Gray are branching out into vegetables with research
comparing greenhouse- and field-grown varieties.
