COLUMBUS, Ohio – Trees contain valuable information about Earth’s past, so much so that studying their rings may help fill in hidden gaps in Ohio’s environmental history.
Trees are the planet’s living lungs; they remove carbon from the atmosphere to clean the air, and filter our water. Yet depending on their species, not all record long-term environmental changes, such as fires, floods and droughts, in the same way.
By analyzing how various types of tree rings grow in response to these distinct weather-related events, researchers discovered that some can act as useful tools in managing local watersheds, that drain water into nearby streams and rivers.
Specifically, they found that trees in the Midwest are extremely apt at recalling...
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Hotter temperatures may render natural insect repellents less effective against mosquitoes, according to a new study.
Researchers found that a pain receptor called TRPA1 becomes less sensitive in mosquitoes when exposed to heat, meaning that the chemical cues that typically trigger insect avoidance behaviors are prevented from activating as strongly.
TRPA1, also known as the “wasabi receptor,” helps animals detect noxious heat and harmful chemicals. In humans, this receptor can induce eye and skin irritation. In mosquitoes, it influences which hosts the insects find most alluring – specifically, those unprotected by repellents that drive them away, said Peter Piermarini, co-author of the paper and a professor of...
COLUMBUS, Ohio–Using a combination of drones and machine learning techniques, researchers from The Ohio State University have recently developed a novel method for determining crop health and used it to create a new tool that may aid future farmers.
Published in the journal Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, the study investigates using neural networks to help characterize a crop defoliation, or the widespread loss of leaves on a plant. This destruction can be caused by disease, stress, grazing animals, and more often by infestations of insects and other pests.
If left unchecked, whole crop fields can end up damaged, drastically lowering an entire region’s agricultural productivity. To combat this, researchers chose to analyze a cash crop considered to...
