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An important new research paper, titled “Response of Sediment Bacterial Communities to Sudden Vegetation Dieback in a Coastal Wetland,” examines the consequences of plant disappearance and changes in salt marsh soil communities following Sudden Vegetation Dieback (SVD).

The paper, published in Phytobiomes, an open-access journal of The American Phytopathological Society, is written by Wade Elmer, Peter Thiel, and Blaire Steven, scientists at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven. The setting for this study was the marshes of Connecticut’s Hammonasset Beach State Park.

From September 1 through November 30, 2016, Northwestern competed in the U.S. EPA ENERGY STAR's Battle of the Buildings, a national competition to reduce energy use in buildings. The top performer among the University’s competing buildings was the Tarry Research and Education Building. Over the course of the competition, the building saved more than 228,000 kWh of electricity. This is equivalent to the total annual energy usage of 17 average homes.

Northwestern entered five buildings in the competition: the Tarry Research and Education Building, Catalysis Center, 1801 Maple, the Technological Institute, and Cook Hall. These buildings all contain laboratory spaces, which tend to be extremely energy intensive. During the competition, sustainNU worked with building managers, lab managers and users, and the Office of Research Safety to conserve energy while maintaining safe lab procedures.

Changing rainfall patterns may be depleting India’s groundwater storage more than withdrawals for agricultural irrigation, says a new study published in January by Nature Geoscience. 
 
While India’s diminishing groundwater is widely attributed to over extraction, especially in the northern agricultural belts of Punjab and Haryana, the study holds decline in rainfall caused by the rise in the temperatures in the Indian Ocean — a major factor in monsoonal rainfall patterns over the Indo-Gangetic Plain —  to be a more important cause.   

Los investigadores saben que las tormentas han comenzado a ocurrir con mayor frecuencia y que son más peligrosas a medida que el clima se calienta. Un equipo de científicos ha informado de una explicación, utilizando datos de satélites meteorológicos reunidos durante un período de 35 años.

Using a novel approach for computing real-time game strategy, engineers have developed an artificial Ms. Pac-Man player that chomps the existing high score for computerized play.

In the popular arcade game, Ms. Pac-Man must evade ghost enemies while she collects items and navigates an obstacle-populated maze. The game is somewhat of a favorite among engineers and computer scientists who compete to see who can program the best artificial player.