Deciphering the secrets of past climate hidden in ice cores depends on the technical skills and ingenuity under pressure of drillers from ICDS, the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Ice Coring and Drilling Services. In this video, ICDS staffers Lou, Mike and Jay explain why they enjoy the life of drillers, braving extreme cold in some of the remotest regions of the globe. Mike says drilling requires both science and art, and why he keeps his hand on the cable even when it's minus 20; Lou...

Promoting Sustainable Agriculture In Borno State

Fifty years after Sputnik, satellites peering down on Earth have become valuable scientific tools to study the global environment and offer much needed insight into the future of our planet.

Many emerging RNA viruses of public health concern have recently been detected in bats. However, the dynamics of these viruses in natural bat colonies is presently unknown. Consequently, prediction of the spread of these viruses and the establishment of appropriate control measures are hindered by a lack of information. To this aim, we collected epidemiological, virological and ecological data during a twelve-year longitudinal study in two colonies of insectivorous bats (Myotis myotis)...

Human land use of forested regions has intensified worldwide in recent decades, threatening long-term sustainability. Primary effects include conversion of land cover or reversion to an earlier stage of successional development. Both types of change can have cascading effects through ecosystems; however, the long-term effects where forests are allowed to regrow are poorly understood. We quantify the regional-scale consequences of a century of Euro-American land use in the northern U.S. Great...

Resonance is the quality of transmitting even tiny signals between systems that are tuned to the same frequency. Given that cycles of common period are found pervading many different disciplines, perhaps an explanation may be found in resonance. An example is the 160 minute (and associated 80 minute cycle) cycle, found in biological systems, outer planetary spacings, the rotation rates of planets, asteroids and binary stars, solar oscillation and flux and galactic cores. A cosmic pervading...