News from the Media

Over the past two weeks, millions of winter moths have emerged. There have been widespread reports of them throughout the North Shore and Merrimack Valley. These small moths flock to the sides of homes and trees in the twilight hours and after dark. They are the warning sign of devastation that is sure to follow next spring. UMass professor Joseph Elkinton advises. (Newburyport News 12/18/15)

Watershed scientist Timothy Randhir, UMass environmental conservation and research wildlife biologist David King of the U.S. Forest Service and environmental conservation, are on a mission. They are engaged in an interdisciplinary research program that will refine and validate conservation practices viewed by Honduran conservationists as the last best hope for conserving this area’s dwindling forests, which are critically threatened by expansion of unsustainable coffee cultivation. (UMass News Office 12/9/15)

SPRINGFIELD - UMass Amherst landscape architecture students used paper lanterns and spray-chalk sidewalk designs to bring attention, and foot traffic, to the Market Place pedestrian walk in downtown Springfield. (MassLive 12/14/15)

AMHERST, Mass. - Food scientist and analytical chemist Lili He at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently received a three-year, $473,628 grant from the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture to study mechanisms of how chemical pesticides, applied both systemically and to the surface, penetrate fresh produce and move into plant tissues, and how this may affect food safety for consumers.  (Recorder 12/8/15, Quality and Assurance Food Safety 12/7/15, EurekAlert 12/4/15)

It’s that time of year again — the winter moths have arrived. And for some areas, researchers say the swarms will probably be thicker than last year’s.

The winter moth is in the midst of its mating season of late fall and early winter. Many of the insects appearing now are the same ones who chewed through the leaves of New England’s trees in the spring as caterpillars and then burrowed into the soil to wait out the summer. (Globe 11/30/15)

AMHERST, Mass.— A coalition of research institutions and fish and wildlife agencies this week unveiled a new online tool for use by local decision-makers, conservation managers, land trusts, regional planners, landowners and community leaders in Massachusetts who are interested in taking action in response to climate change. Users of the Massachusetts Wildlife Climate Action Tool can look up different species and habitat types to see what beneficial climate actions they can take. (USGS 11/23/15; UMass New Release 11/23/15

Frank Mangan, Professor in UMass Amherst’s Stockbridge School of Agriculture, works with Food Zone on a project to encourage Latinos to make their own sofrito versus buying it in cans from corner stores where contents are high in sugar, sodium and fat. (Valley Advocate 11/09/15)

Stephen DeStefano, adjunct professor, environmental conservation, says there are between 1,000 and 2,000 moose in Massachusetts and they can be dangerous if involved with car accidents because they are such large, heavy animals. (Republican, 11/11/15)

AMHERST, Mass. – As more smart grids and buildings are fitted with digital electric meters, Web-enabled appliances and lighting, programmable outlets and switches, and intelligent HVAC systems that rely on Internet-connected sensors, experts increasingly worry that smart sensors and other Internet-connected devices may leak sensitive private information, or hackers might take such data for malicious purposes. David Irwin, electrical and computer engineering, and Prashant Shenoy of the College of Information and Computer Sciences direct this project. (10/30/15 UMass News Office)