News Releases

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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Colin Bosma

Colin Bosma: Psychology student mindful of emotion regulation strategies

Colin Bosma gained perspective growing up at an elevation of 8,230 feet in the Rockies in Nederland, Colorado. Its motto: Life is better up here. And he has developed mindfulness — a judgment-free, moment-to-moment awareness of his present thoughts, sensations and environment — through his study of psychology. Mindfulness is central to research Bosma is […]

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Discostella stelligera

UMaine researchers refining Arctic climate history through diatoms

Just above the Arctic Circle, in remote southwestern Greenland, UMaine researchers are seeking to better understand the effects of a changing climate on arctic lakes by looking at one of their smallest inhabitants — Discostella stelligera. The research team conducted a large-scale experiment to test the role of a lake’s thermal structure on populations of […]

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