News release — list

Climate map of the Arctic Basin

Record early-October warmth across the Arctic

The first half of October 2016 was likely the warmest across the Arctic for this time of year since at least 1948, says Maine’s state climatologist. In the Arctic — 65–90 degrees north latitude — on Oct. 7, 2016, the mean daily temperature averaged a balmy minus 3.5 C (25.7 F), a value that’s 6.6 […]

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Members of the Marine Sciences Club post with a miniboat

Marine sciences undergrads to demo, launch unmanned sailboat on European voyage

Students in the University of Maine Marine Sciences Club are partnering with area schoolchildren to enter the 2016 Atlantic Miniboat Regatta with a nearly 5-foot unmanned sailboat equipped with GPS to track its voyage to Europe by way of the ocean currents. The regatta is organized by Educational Passages, a Belfast, Maine-based program that teaches […]

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Coastal town in Greenland

Sen. King to talk on climate change and its impact on Maine

Climate change and its impact on Maine will be the focus of an address by U.S. Sen. Angus King when he gives the Senator Margaret Chase Smith Public Affairs Lecture at the University of Maine Nov. 10. King’s address, “Maine and Climate Change: The View from Greenland” begins at 3:30 p.m., in the Collins Center […]

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Vernal pool in a forest

In Maine’s new vernal pool plan, conservation and communities win

The future just became a bit brighter for Maine’s amphibians and fairy shrimp under a new plan that encourages protection of vernal pools. The Vernal Pool Special Area Management Plan fine-tunes existing state regulation to a local level. It will serve as a voluntary mitigation tool that helps towns control their vernal pool resources, provide […]

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Striding to better forest for native plants

It was a rainy afternoon in the Penobscot Experimental Forest when Shantel Neptune, a student in the University of Maine’s Ecology and Environmental Sciences Program, snapped a pair of garden loppers through neon pink flagging tape, culminating a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Neptune and the five fellow members in the Wabanaki Youth in Science (WaYs) group came […]

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Gordon Bromley in Peru

Understanding the ebb and flow of Peru’s glacial past

Many thousands of years ago, as the world slowly began to thaw at the end of the last ice age, the landscapes of southern Peru were quite different than the ones University of Maine’s Gordon Bromley finds himself wandering about these days. Large domes of ice, blanketing the high and jagged peaks of ancient cordilleras, […]

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Map of the world made of grain on a plate, with a fork and spoon on either side

Mitchell Lecture to focus on ‘Our Unending Pursuit to Feed Civilization’

Ruth DeFries, the Denning Family Professor of Sustainable Development and University Professor at Columbia University, will give the 2016 Mitchell Lecture on Sustainability at the University of Maine in Orono Oct. 20. Her free public lecture, “Between Optimism and Pessimism: Our Unending Pursuit to Feed Civilization,” will begin at 1 p.m. at the Wells Conference […]

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Paul Mayewski speaks at the Maine-Arctic Forum in Portland, Maine

CCI director speaks about abrupt Arctic climate change at Maine-Arctic Forum

Paul Mayewski, director of the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute (CCI), participated in the opening panel discussion of the Maine-Arctic Forum held in Portland on Oct. 3. The Maine-Arctic Forum coincided with the intergovernmental Senior Arctic Officials Meeting of the Arctic Council being held in Maine throughout the remainder of the week. The panel […]

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Vietnam War protest on campus in the 1960s

Stephen King to launch his newest book at the University of Maine Nov. 7

Editor’s note: Story updated Oct. 5. Stephen King will launch his newest book, “Hearts in Suspension,” at the University of Maine on Nov. 7 with a reading of the book and discussion of his student days at UMaine during the turbulent Vietnam War era, followed by a conversation with his former classmates and friends who […]

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People participate in Ice Age Trial tour

STEM education in the ice age

Thirty Maine middle school and high school teachers were at the Schoodic Institute Sept. 23–25 to learn more about the state’s ice age trail, and how its history and evidence across the landscape could make Earth science lessons come alive. The teachers were joined by researchers from the Maine Center for Research in STEM Education […]

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