News

Algal biofuel start-up by UMCES alumnus makes waves
July 1, 2015
Ryan Powell holds up a vial of water with fingers caked with mud. It is algae extracted from pond choked with a bloom. He is standing on a farm outside of Baltimore, a test site for a new technology he has developed that can harvest algae from open ponds so it can be turned into crude oil. The oil can then be used as jet fuel, fuel oil, and diesel fuel.

Scientists expect slightly below average Chesapeake Bay ‘dead zone’ this summer
June 23, 2015
Scientists are expecting that this year’s Chesapeake Bay hypoxic low-oxygen zone, also called the “dead zone,” will be approximately 1.37 cubic miles – about the volume of 2.3 million Olympic-size swimming pools. While still large, this is 10 percent lower than the long-term average as measured since 1950. 

Alyson Santoro named Simons Early Career Investigator
June 19, 2015
Dr. Alyson Santoro, assistant professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Horn Point Laboratory, is one of four scientists in the nation to be given the 2015 Simons Early Career Investigator in Marine Microbial Ecology and Evolution award by the Simons Foundation.

The secret lives of fish revealed by the digital age
June 3, 2015
"Imagine the clandestine lives of marine fishes,” begins “Migration Ecology of Marine Fishes,” a new book by Dr. David Secor, one of the most respected voices in marine fish migration studies. Their movements, social interactions, and favorite spots are all obscured beneath the surface. However, an explosion of technological advances in data gathering and analysis has allowed fisheries scientists to observe the secret lives of fish in a whole new way.

Study shows harmful algal blooms in Chesapeake Bay are more frequent
June 1, 2015
A recent study of harmful algal blooms in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science show a marked increase in these ecosystem-disrupting events in the past 20 years that are being fed by excess nitrogen runoff from the watershed.  While algal blooms have long been of concern, this study is the first to document their increased frequency in the Bay and is a warning that more work is needed to reduce nutrient pollution entering the Bay's waters.

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