The Signal

With the arrival of spring comes the spring planting season, and a flurry of activity in the College’s campus garden. Many of the garden’s volunteers are part of the Bonner Scholars Program, but all College students are welcome to volunteer at and spend time in the Bonner Garden(Octavia Feliciano/Staff Writer).

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Spring means planting season for the Bonner Garden

By Octavia Feliciano | Apr. 27, 2022

The work begins in the greenhouse on the third floor of the biology building. There, student and faculty volunteers tend to a wide variety of seedlings destined for the College’s Bonner Garden. After the last frost date, sometime in mid to late April, a variety of peas, peppers and herbs will be the first to leave the greenhouse for the garden. When the weather grows warmer other crops like tomatoes will follow them.

Efforts to combat the destruction of the environment have come to have a sense of urgency in recent years, with Reuters reporting that in 2021, deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest hit a 15-year high(Image created by Lauren Schweighardt/Graphic Designer).

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Climate change emerges as the critical issue in Brazil’s 2022 election

By Octavia Feliciano | Apr. 19, 2022

Discussions about combating climate change and environmental degradation in Brazil is becoming an integral part of the nation’s presidential race. The two candidates leading the polls in the upcoming election, according to data amalgamated by the Council of the Americas, are incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former president who served from 2003 to 2011.

Preparing for the effects of climate change on cities requires rethinking infrastructure. Some policymakers are working to make changes that ensure their cities can endure fluctuating temperatures, flooding and other consequences of global warming(Image created by Lauren Schweighardt/Graphic Designer).

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Cities are seeking ways to protect themselves from the effects of climate change

By Octavia Feliciano | Apr. 7, 2022

Residents of Jamaica Bay consider it a great place to live in New York City. They are close to all the offerings of a large urban center and still get to experience the natural beauty of the region. But with ocean levels rising as a result of climate change people may not be able to live in many of the towns in Jamaica Bay for much longer.

The agreement made by the UN Environment Assembly is a step towards addressing the issue of plastic waste, but it does not yet require nations to make changes to their current methods of disposing of plastic(Image created by Lauren Schweighardt/Graphic Designer).

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UN Environment Assembly takes first step towards reducing plastic waste

By Octavia Feliciano | Mar. 30, 2022

175 nations committed to develop a treaty that would address global plastic waste pollution. The agreement was made on March 2, during the fifth session of the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, NBC reports. "Today marks a triumph by planet earth over single-use plastics," said Inger Andersen, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, in a statement reported by NBC. "It is an insurance policy for this generation and future ones, so they may live with plastic and not be doomed by it."

CDC changes Covid-19 precaution recommendations for those in low and medium risk communities(Image created by Lauren Schweighardt/Graphic Designer).

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New CDC Covid-19 guidelines relax mask recommendations for most of the country

By Octavia Feliciano | Mar. 15, 2022

Guidelines released by the CDC on Feb. 25 suggest around 70% of Americans can stop wearing masks, The New York Times reports. The CDC obtained this figure by evaluating the risk of Covid-19 in each U.S. county. In counties with a low or medium community risk, the CDC no longer lists mask-wearing as a recommended Covid-19 prevention behavior.

Professor Wund's lab studies phenotypic plasticity in three-spined stickleback fish (science.tcnj.edu).

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Bio research at the College in the time of Covid-19

By Octavia Feliciano | Mar. 7, 2022

Typically, Professor Marcia O'Connell has five to 10 students working hands-on in her research lab, studying embryogenesis in zebrafish. In the 2020-2021 academic year, she had one. Still, it was an improvement over the end of the spring 2020 semester, when even O’Connell could not be in the lab.

The BBC reports that NASA views the James Webb Telescope as a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been in operation for 30 years and is starting to show signs of wear(Image created by Lauren Schweighardt).

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NASA’s James Webb Telescope another step closer to sending back unprecedented images of space

By Octavia Feliciano | Feb. 23, 2022

After traveling 1 million miles from Earth, the James Webb Telescope has sent back its first set of images from space: 18 pictures of a star in the Ursa Major constellation. The images are a crucial first step in aligning the telescope’s mirrors to capture images of deep space, The New York Times reports.

Ursula Mitra, a Manhattan birdwatcher told the New York Times, “I’ve been birding Central Park now for at least five years, and frankly I have never seen an eagle hunting on the reservoir except for the past four or five weeks." (Flickr/ "eagle" by Shanna Waller, June 19, 2011).

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Bald Eagle “Rover” spotted hunting in Central Park

By Octavia Feliciano | Feb. 10, 2022

Bald eagles are a rare sight in cities, but that may be slowly changing. The New York Times reports that a bald eagle named Rover’s presence in New York City is part of a growing trend of birds of prey settling into urban areas. Rover himself was born to a family of bald eagles residing in another city, New Haven, Connecticut.

The New York Times reports that the crash is not expected to cause significant disruption, but that it is expected to provide scientists the opportunity to learn more about crash sites and the materials that lie under the surface of the moon(Flickr / “Rocket Booster” by valkyre131 on February 1, 2007).

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Rocket booster on collision course with moon after seven years in space

By Octavia Feliciano | Feb. 5, 2022

The remains of a rocket booster that helped launch a climate observation satellite in 2015 are on a path to collide with the earth’s moon. Experts predict the collision will occur on March 4 at 7:25 a.m.

Jakarta faces problems from overpopulation and global warming that led officials to conclude it is not sustainable as a base of government operations(Flickr/”Jakarta” by Mufid Afif, February 1, 2011).

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Environmental concerns prompt Indonesia to relocate their capital city

By Octavia Feliciano | Jan. 31, 2022

On Jan. 18, the Indonesian Government approved a bill to relocate their capital. Indonesia’s current capital city, Jakarta, faces problems from overpopulation and global warming that led officials to conclude it is not sustainable as a base of government operations.

Serving the College since 1885

Octavia Feliciano

Spring means planting season for the Bonner Garden

Climate change emerges as the critical issue in Brazil’s 2022 election

Cities are seeking ways to protect themselves from the effects of climate change

UN Environment Assembly takes first step towards reducing plastic waste

New CDC Covid-19 guidelines relax mask recommendations for most of the country

Bio research at the College in the time of Covid-19

NASA’s James Webb Telescope another step closer to sending back unprecedented images of space

Bald Eagle “Rover” spotted hunting in Central Park

Rocket booster on collision course with moon after seven years in space

Environmental concerns prompt Indonesia to relocate their capital city

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