Category: Fort Collins

Microchips result in higher rate of return of shelter animals to owners

October 13, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Animals shelter officials housing lost pets that had been implanted with a microchip were able to find the owners in almost three out of four cases in a recently published national study.

Lightning's mirror image ... only much bigger

August 23, 2009

With a very lucky shot, scientists have captured a one-second image and the electrical fingerprint of huge lightning that flowed 40 miles upward from the top of a storm.

These rarely seen, highly charged meteorological events are known as gigantic jets, and they flash up to the lower levels of space, or ionosphere.

Tips from the journals of the American Society for Microbiology

April 21, 2009

Detection of Campylobacter in Air Samples May Offer New Monitoring System for Broiler Flocks

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory and the Mystery of the Missing Sinks

January 28, 2009

Picture a tree in the forest. The tree "inhales" carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, transforming that greenhouse gas into the building materials and energy it needs to grow its branches and leaves.

Frozen Flies Safeguard Research, Screwworm Eradication Efforts

February 4, 2005

Using cryopreservation techniques, ARS entomologists can now freeze screwworm fly embryos -- to later thaw and rear them to adulthood. The advance should cut the costs of maintaining fly colonies for research or of programs using the sterile-insect technique. Considered the backbone of screwworm eradication, sterile-insect releases have helped eliminate this parasitic fly species from the United States and Central America as far south as the Isthmus of Panama.

Rising CO2 Could Lower Forage Quality

January 18, 2005

Continued elevated carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere may reduce forage quality among the world's grasslands and lead to reduced weight gain among animals, according to Agricultural Research Service scientists and cooperators. Their five-year study was published in the journal Ecological Applications. Plant physiologist Jack A. Morgan led the study with ARS colleagues and cooperators at Colorado State University. Morgan heads the ARS Rangeland Resources Research Unit in Fort Collins, Colo.