environment

How Fire Coral has an Edge Over Other Species in the Caribbean Reef

Posted on by Riley Bell

Coral reefs are the most productive marine ecosystem known, providing essential habitats and shelters for fish and other organisms. Additionally, they help protect coastlines, support economies, provide important food sources for local fisheries, and so much more. Coral reefs are ecologically essential—but are continuing to vanish. Fire coral (Millepora) brings new hope to this marine crisis due to their unusual ability to grow in two forms and survive under various habitat stresses.

Bladed fire coral (Millepora complanata) undersea, Caribbean Sea, Cuba, Playa Cueva de los peces
Bladed fire coral (Millepora complanata) undersea, Caribbean Sea, Cuba

What Is Fire Coral?

Fire coral has been around for millions of years and is most commonly found in sunny, shallow reefs. They tend to grow in tropical and subtropical waters with many thriving in different areas of the Caribbean Sea, one of the planet’s most biologically diverse ecosystems. Fire coral resembles typical stony corals but has a wicked sting that can cause burning skin reactions, reflecting their relationship as a close relative to jellyfish.

Continue reading “How Fire Coral has an Edge Over Other Species in the Caribbean Reef”

Explore the World From a New Lens with Nature Photography

Posted on by Riley Bell

Each year, on June 15, we celebrate Nature Photography Day. This globally recognized day was designated by the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA) to embrace the value of nature and encourage the enjoyment of nature photography.

Photography helps us explore the natural world and advance conservation efforts to protect plants, nature, and wildlife both locally and globally. One of the great things about Nature Photography Day is that you can participate wherever you are, with whatever equipment you have—nature is all around us!

Continue reading “Explore the World From a New Lens with Nature Photography”

National Wildlife Day: Admiring Our Natural World

Posted on by Riley Bell

On September 4th, 2021 we celebrate National Wildlife Day. This day helps cherish our planet’s biodiversity and recognize issues that impact wildlife. Take a look at three Promega blogs that highlight preservation and conservation efforts being made to support our natural world.

Continue reading “National Wildlife Day: Admiring Our Natural World”

Bioluminescent Sharks Set the Sea Aglow

Posted on by Riley Bell

Many deep sea creatures are bioluminescent. However, before documenting the luminescence of the kitefin shark, Dalatias licha, there has never been a nearly six-foot long luminous vertebrate creature. In a recent study, Mallefet and colleagues examined three species of sharks: Dalatias licha, Etmopterous lucifer, and Emopterus granulosus and documented their luminescence for the first time. These bioluminescent sharks are the largest bioluminescent creatures known.

Researchers studied three species of bioluminescent sharks near the Chatham Islands, New Zealand
Coastline of one of the Chatham Islands, New Zealand
Continue reading “Bioluminescent Sharks Set the Sea Aglow”

Earth Day 2020: Celebrating Nature During A Pandemic

Posted on by Jordan Villanueva

Since Wisconsin issued a Safer at Home order on March 25, I have been leaving my home exactly once a week. Every Tuesday morning, I drive to a small town outside of Madison to spend an hour monitoring a nest of bald eagles. I’ve been volunteering for Bald Eagle Nest Watch since the beginning of the year, and three weeks ago I got my first look at two newly hatched eaglets. Over the past few weeks, I’ve found that my time at the eagle nest is a wonderful relief from the stress of the pandemic and the confinement to my home.

I’m not the only person escaping to natural spaces for relief during the widespread lockdowns in response to COVID-19. Parks have been filled with people taking daily walks and enjoying fresh air when there are few places indoors they can safely go. Besides encouraging many people to visit local parks and forests, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed many complexities of humanity’s relationship with the environment. The severe drop in human activities has resulted in decreased air pollution, as well as fascinating changes in wildlife behavior. However, the pandemic is also an important reminder that the environmental impact of human activity has drastic consequences for global risk of infectious disease. This Earth Day, it’s the perfect time to pause and examine how the COVID-19 pandemic and the natural world are influencing each other for better and for worse.

Continue reading “Earth Day 2020: Celebrating Nature During A Pandemic”

Help the Environment through…Gaming?

Posted on by Julia Nepper

Did you know that April is Earth Month? While you should be good to the planet every day, this month you should be extra good. Maybe buy it a nice pair of socks or something. Compliment it on its majestic mountains. Or, you could compete to see who can be the best at being nice to the planet, like we’re doing here at Promega with our Green Go Challenge.

Green Go Challenge bingo sheet
Get it? It’s like bingo, but green.

Continue reading “Help the Environment through…Gaming?”

Get Out and Count: The Great Backyard Bird Count of 2018

Posted on by Michele Arduengo

2018 has been designated “The Year of the Bird”, and beginning today, Friday, February 16, 2018, bird lovers around the world will grab their binoculars, fill their bird feeders, update their eBird app, and look toward the skies. The 21st Annual Great Backyard Bird Count, one of the largest and longest running citizen science projects, begins today, and you can be part of this grand event of data collection.

All it takes is a mobile device (or computer) to log your results, an account at gbbc.birdcount.org , and 15 minutes of your time during the four-day event.

Can’t tell a red-tailed hawk from a red-winged black bird? That’s okay. The GBBC web site provides a handy online bird guide.  The web site also provides a guide for tricky bird IDs, including: Which Red Finch is it, Identifying Some Common Sparrows, and Identifying Doves.

I recently spent some time talking to Brian Schneider, one of the educators at the Aldo Leopold Nature Center in Monona, WI, to get some tips for first-time birders. Continue reading “Get Out and Count: The Great Backyard Bird Count of 2018”

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle: Foam Coolers

Posted on by Michele Arduengo

12447811_IMG_3195Life science enzymes, cells and reagents are often temperature sensitive, and you need products that arrive cold and ready to work. This means that packaging often requires dry ice, gel ice and foam coolers—challenges for maintaining a small carbon footprint and environmentally responsible shipping and packaging program.

In the last few years, we have moved to unbleached shipping boxes, started using sustainably harvested materials and biodegradable and recyclable air pouches to offer product protection while minimizing negative environmental impact. Continue reading “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle: Foam Coolers”

Don’t Wear Your Retro Polyester Pantsuit into the Ecuadorian Rainforest (or a new player in the bioremediation of plastics)

Posted on by Michele Arduengo

Mindo Cloud Forest, Ecuador
Plastics are really cool. They keep you from having slippery glass shampoo bottles in the shower that can drop and break. They have allowed us to get rid of glass thermoses from student’s lunches. They are lightweight, making shipping and packaging of goods cheaper and lighter, and often, safer. The plastics industry, according to the Plastics Industry Trade Association Website, is the third largest manufacturing industry in the United States employing nearly 900 thousand workers (1). So there are many positives associated with the development, manufacture and use of plastics.

And, one more thing about plastics: They are durable. Perhaps too durable.

Plastics just won’t go away. We throw them away of course, but they cascade out of our landfills, onto our seashores, and into our oceans (2). Unfortunately approximately one-third of all plastic produced is single-use and only 15% of the plastic produced across the globe is recycled (3). This long life, single-use production, and lack of recycling combined with an increase in plastics production from 1.5 million tons in 1950 to 230 million tons in 2010 (4), makes plastic pollution a monumental problem.

Scientists have been working on creative ways to attack the plastics pollution problem. Continue reading “Don’t Wear Your Retro Polyester Pantsuit into the Ecuadorian Rainforest (or a new player in the bioremediation of plastics)”

Ooooh, Fishy, Fish! Please Land on My Dish

Posted on by Maria Perr

Yes, I am a Monty Python fan and I like to play the “Find the Fish” video on YouTube when I need some midday amusement. However, this video brings up the topic of eating less red meat and enjoying more fish on my dish. My husband and I are trying to curb our beef-eating activities by diversifying the protein sources in our diet. We have recently adopted some dining rituals that include Friday Fish Fry (leaning more toward broiling, even though it’s hard to resist a traditional Wisconsin fish fry) and Meatless Mondays for vegetarian fare. One reason for doing this is to hopefully find more sustainable approaches to supporting a healthy diet.

So I was intrigued to learn more about fish farming (aquaculture) at sea when I read Sarah Simpson’s article in the February 2011 issue of Scientific American titled “The Blue Food Revolution”. Sustainability has become more important in many of the buying choices I have made lately, especially after learning that our global population will reach 7 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow to 9.3 billion by 2050. Yikes! How do we provide high-quality protein and nutrition to so many people? Continue reading “Ooooh, Fishy, Fish! Please Land on My Dish”