Aug 10, 2023 The Hill

Canada’s devastating wildfire season prompts calls for new approach

“[T]he area is too large and too remote and the fuels are too dry. In addition, there are many fires occurring simultaneously, which stretches resources (e.g., aircraft) and firefighting labor,” Robert Scheller, a professor of landscape ecology at North Carolina State University, told The Hill in an email. “Firefighting under these circumstances can really only… 

Aug 10, 2023 CBS News

Climate change harming world’s food supply with corn, wheat harvests impacted

Experts are warning climate change and an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events could have devastating effects on global food production. Rod Rejesus, an agricultural economist at North Carolina State University, joined CBS News to discuss some impacts already being felt. 

Aug 9, 2023 WFAE

Study: NC chiggers with bacterium that causes disease not previously seen in U.S.

Researchers at North Carolina State University and UNC Greensboro found the bacterium in chiggers, microscopic red mites. The bacterium causes a disease called scrub typhus. “We don’t know if this is a recent introduction into the state or if the bacterium has been here for years,” said R. Michael Roe, co-author of the study. “We… 

Aug 9, 2023 WRAL Tech Wire

Making war on robocalls: NC State researchers unveil new weapon – ‘Snorcall’

“Although telephone service providers, regulators and researchers have access to call metadata – such as the number being called and the length of the call – they do not have tools to investigate what is being said on robocalls at the vast scale required,” says Brad Reaves, corresponding author of a paper on the work… 

Aug 9, 2023 WNCN

NC State researchers study how to keep aging dogs healthy

Dogs are family members, best friends and companions, but their lifespans are much shorter than ours, and it can be difficult to watch them age. An N.C. State University researcher is studying how dogs age and working to keep them healthy as long as possible. “It could be going for walks; they don’t go for… 

Aug 9, 2023 Yahoo! News

How fireflies glow – and what signals they’re sending

I’m an entomologist who does research on, and teaches about, the ecology and biology of insects. Recently, I’ve been trying to understand the diversity and ecology of fireflies in my home state of North Carolina. Fireflies are found widely across North America, including many places in the west, but they are most abundant and diverse… 

Aug 8, 2023 Tech Briefs

Caterpillar-Inspired Soft Robotics Locomotion

Researchers at North Carolina State University have demonstrated a caterpillar-like soft robot that can move forward, backward, and even dip under narrow spaces. The caterpillar-bot’s movement is driven by a novel pattern of silver nanowires that use heat to control the way the robot bends. “A caterpillar’s movement is controlled by local curvature of its… 

Aug 8, 2023 Sci Tech Daily

Aging and the Brain: How Probiotics Could Slow Cognitive Decline

“The implication of this finding is quite exciting, as it means that modifying the gut microbiome through probiotics could potentially be a strategy to improve cognitive performance, particularly in individuals with mild cognitive impairment,” said Mashael Aljumaah, a microbiology doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.… 

Aug 8, 2023 Pork Business

Body Condition Targets to Optimize Sow Well-Being, Reproduction

Keeping sows in ideal body condition can be a balancing act. Females that are too thin entering farrowing may have greater stillbirth rates, be more likely to develop shoulder lesions during lactation and have inadequate body reserves at weaning for successful subsequent reproduction. On the other hand, overly fat sows generally incur excessive feed costs… 

Aug 8, 2023 NC Health News

Study is first to sample NC rivers, streams for microplastics

A recent study estimates that 230 billion tiny pieces of plastic the thickness of a human hair and 670 million microplastics about than the size of a grain of sand flow into the Pamlico Sound from the Neuse River Basin each year. To reach that estimate, North Carolina State University and North Carolina Sea Grant… 

Aug 7, 2023 Eos

Drought Leads to More Fossil Fuel Emissions

The findings are “highly transferable” to other areas of the world that rely heavily on hydropower and will experience future hydroclimatic change, said Jordan Kern, an environmental scientist at North Carolina State University at Raleigh who was not involved with the study. “For states and regions that are currently dependent on hydropower…persistent vulnerability to drought… 

Aug 7, 2023 WLOS

Brewing innovation: North Carolina’s journey to perfect local hops for craft beer industry

“In 2007-2008 there was a shortage of hops among the craft brew industry,” explained N.C. State University’s Dr. Jeanine Davis. “A number of entrepreneurs in North Carolina tried to grow hops for this emerging industry. They had a lot of difficulties, and they came to us at the University and at Extension to see if… 

Aug 7, 2023 Axios

The climate wrecking ball striking food supply

“The literature is pretty clear” that if the observed increased frequency of extreme weather events continues, it will hurt crop yields in particular, Roderick Rejesus, agricultural economist at North Carolina State University, told Axios. “It’s possible we could face unprecedented market impacts if we don’t do anything in terms of mitigation and adapting,” Rejesus said. 

Aug 7, 2023 The Wildlife Society

As The Climate Changes, Wild Turkeys Aren’t Keeping Up

“There’s definitely a mismatch between green-up and when they’re reproducing,” said TWS member Wesley Boone, a postdoctoral research scholar at North Carolina State University and lead author on the study published recently in Climate Change Ecology. Turkey poults survive on a diet of insects to make it through their early months. If those insects hatch… 

Aug 4, 2023 Phys.org

Q&A: Researchers track new invasive insect, the elm zigzag sawfly

“This is a very new invasive species first found in Canada in 2020 and in the U.S. in Virginia in 2021,” said the study’s first author Kelly Oten, assistant professor of forest health at NC State. “In 2022, four additional states confirmed it. It happened very quickly. This paper was our effort to document the very…