News
Lake George, N.Y. – The world’s most advanced environmental monitoring system – developed through The Jefferson Project at Lake George – is being used to understand and protect Skaneateles Lake, a central New York drinking water source now threatened by toxic algae. Building on a connection through the New York State Harmful Algal Bloom (HABs) Initiative launched in late 2017, the Jefferson Project installed a custom-designed robotic sensing platform on Skaneateles, and began collecting data just prior to an early-August HABs event this year.
Can environmental toxins disrupt circadian rhythms – the biological “clock” whose disturbance is linked to chronic inflammation and a host of human disorders? New research findings puts question squarely on the table.
Sandra Nierzwicki-Bauer, professor of biological sciences and associate director of the Darrin Fresh Water Institute at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has been appointed to the Drinking Water Quality Council by New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo. The council will guide New York’s actions to ensure that all communities across the state have access to clean drinking water.
Amphibians can evolve increased tolerance to pesticides, but the adaptation can make them more susceptible to parasites, according to a team that includes researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Organic additives found in road salt alternatives — such as those used in the commercial products GeoMelt and Magic Salt — act as a fertilizer to aquatic ecosystems, promoting the growth of algae and organisms that eat algae, according to new research published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
A common species of zooplankton—the smallest animals in the freshwater food web—can evolve genetic tolerance to moderate levels of road salt in as little as two and a half months, according to new research published online today in the journal Environmental Pollution.
Naturally occurring chemicals found in de-icing road salts can alter the sex ratios in nearby frog populations, a phenomenon that could reduce the size and viability of species populations, according to a new study by scientists at Yale and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
With support from the National Science Foundation, The Jefferson Project at Lake George is poised to complete the most powerful aquatic monitoring sensor network in existence.
As global temperatures rise, how will lake ecosystems respond? As they warm, will lakes—which make up only 3 percent of the landscape, but bury more carbon than the world’s oceans combined—release more of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane?
As it broadens its reach, the Darrin Fresh Water Institute has transitioned from a research center based within the School of Science to an Institute wide center.