Category: Healthy Planet

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Healthy Planet Stewardship Student Research

Fisher of Rivers

A river runs through Haley Ohms’ life. Actually, a whole bunch of rivers. So spending the summer hip-deep in fast-moving water will feel familiar to the Oregon State University graduate student — even if those cold, tumbling waters flow on the other side of the Pacific Rim. The fish will seem familiar, too. The Dolly Varden, which she’ll be studying in 10 woodland streams on the Japanese island of Hokkaido, is a cousin of steelhead and rainbow trout, the topic of her master’s thesis in the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

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Healthy Economy Healthy Planet Innovation

Running Clear

The Arctic Ocean, 1997. Gary Klinkhammer had strapped a water chemistry analyzer onto the hull of a retired U.S. Navy nuclear submarine to measure carbon. He had come to this bleak and desolate place looking for organic matter, fertile detritus dumped into the ocean by massive rivers in Siberia and North America.

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Healthy Economy Healthy Planet Stewardship

From Wood to Watts

About a million years ago in South Africa, a cave dweller used fire on purpose, and some charred bones at the site suggest it may have been for cooking.

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Earth Healthy Planet Inquiry

The Oh! Zone

Like the “sloth moth,” which lives only in the fur of the ambling two-toed and three-toed mammals, the “bat fly” exists only in the fur of the winged, cave-dwelling mammals. Now scientists know that the flea-like, blood-sucking fly has been hanging around with bats for at least 20 million years.

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Earth Healthy Planet Marine Studies Initiative

Tracking the Titans

Varvara and Flex are western grays, an endangered species of only 130 individuals worldwide. However, not all scientists are convinced that western grays are distinct from eastern grays (the species that whale watchers are most likely to spot from the capes and headlands of the Oregon coast). This study will help sort out that question.

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Healthy Planet Stewardship

Evidence for Change

(Photo: Caroline Nash)

Some people take a dim view of the idea that Oregon, as well as the rest of the world, could be expected to continue warming in coming decades. They may cite March snowfall in the Willamette Valley or unpublished comparisons of mean temperatures over a given time period in specific places. Appealing as it is, such evidence hardly constitutes proof that the region is cooling and does not trump rigorous, peer-reviewed science.