Katherine Allen is an ocean historian. But instead of pouring through old texts, she studies the chemical composition of tiny ancient fossil shells in Southwest Pacific marine sediment. Allen, a research assistant professor at the University of Maine, says these marine fossils — which have been accumulating on the seafloor for millions of years — […]
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Read transcript There is a long list of learning objectives for the phage genomics course in which first-year undergraduates conduct hands-on research. Students learn how to purify and isolate novel bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacterial hosts — from soil samples. They learn how to characterize their individual phages, which can only be viewed using […]
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Scallop gonads may seem like fun and games to Skylar Bayer given that her missing samples landed her on “The Colbert Report” in 2013. But scallops are no laughing matter to Bayer. “When I was deciding on a Ph.D. project to pursue, I chose to work on a species that is commercially important and relevant […]
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For Stephen Norton, lakes hold a treasure trove of precious scientific information. For the past 40 years, Norton, professor emeritus at the University of Maine, has studied lakes by evaluating sediment cores from around the world. Using the cores taken from the bottom of lakes, he is able to determine the age of the sediment […]
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Read transcript For the past 15 years, aquacultural salmon farmers in Maine have struggled with plummeting embryo survival rates, forcing them to drastically increase the number of eggs they produce — which comes with a hefty price tag. LeeAnne Thayer, Ph.D. candidate in marine sciences at the University of Maine, is determined to find out […]
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Locals and tourists flocking to the coast to eat fresh shellfish may not know about costs and risks that aquaculturists encounter getting the seafood to the table. One of the biggest issues for aquaculture farmers is selecting lease sites without knowing the physics and biology of the estuary environment, which can result in unpredictable productivity. […]
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Students, researchers, fishermen, aquaculturists and other marine professionals will gather at the University of Maine’s marine laboratory, Darling Marine Center (DMC), on Thursday, Aug. 11 for the SEA Fellows Summer Science Symposium. The SEA (Science for Economic Impact and Application) Fellows program is a new initiative developed by UMaine and the University of Maine at […]
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Recent graduate Noelle Leon-Palmer says the University of Maine provided her a rewarding college experience in the classroom studying biology and writing an honors thesis, as well as on the field as a member of the women’s soccer team. Leon-Palmer, of Ajax, a town in Ontario, Canada, graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in […]
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Aaron Putnam, assistant professor with the University of Maine Climate Change Institute, is searching for clues in Mongolia about what “caused the Earth to lurch out of the last ice age.” Kevin Stark, a graduate student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, is embedded with Putnam’s research team and is blogging about the expedition. […]
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Uranium mining in Australia is polluting the Antarctic, about 6,000 nautical miles away. University of Maine climate scientists made the discovery during the first high-resolution continuous examination of a northern Antarctic Peninsula ice core. Ice core data reveal a significant increase in uranium concentration that coincides with open pit mining in the Southern Hemisphere, most […]
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