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Research roundup at MSU-Bozeman (#214)
December 16, 2002 -- by Evelyn Boswell and Annette Trinity-Stevens
Sweet Montana
Montana is one of the top 10 honey producers in the United States, says Randy Rucker, MSU economics professor. The Dakotas are also big producers. After studying the causes and consequences of the federal honey program, Rucker said the program has had its ups and downs. Its effects were minor before the 1980s, but then treasury costs associated with the program skyrocketed to almost $100 million a year for several years. Although changes were quickly made to reduce these costs, the honey program was eliminated in the 1996 Farm Bill. The program was re-instituted with the passage of the 2002 Farm Bill. Honey prices are currently at historical highs, largely due to restrictions on Chinese imports, Rucker said.
Space weather
The earth and sun are closer around the beginning of January than any other time of the year, says Piet Martens, MSU research associate professor. Different from the winter solstice, that distance means about a seven percent difference in the strength of the sun's rays on earth. The solstice occurs in December and refers to the angle of the earth's orbit. As far as space weather goes, it doesn't change with the seasons. It's driven instead by the sun. Everything the sun spits out (magnetic fields, solar wind and high-energy particles) eventually affects the weather in space. Scientists try to minimize the impact on satellites by lowering voltages, switching off nonessential computers and aiming thicker walls toward the sun.
Fire and pine
Ponderosa pine forests need frequent, low-intensity wildfires to maintain a healthy ecosystem. Woodpeckers and bluebirds, for example, depend on fires to provide food and habitat. But fires have been excluded from those forests for about 100 years. Now how should those forests be managed? Would prescribed fires be a good idea? Vicki Saab, a biologist with the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station and an affiliate faculty in the ecology department, is heading an eight-state study to find out. The project will evaluate the effects of three different fire conditions on sensitive bird and mammal species to see which species would do well or poorly under different fire regimes. The work is funded primarily by the federal government.
Goodbye fossil fuels
The U.S. appetite for fossil fuels grows by 3 percent a year. At that rate, consumption will double in just 23 years. And during that 23 years, we will use more fossil fuel than ever before in history. Those figures came from Jack Drumheller, a professor emeritus in physics, during a recent talk at MSU on the exponential growth of fossil fuel use. Drumheller gave the talk, made popular years ago by a man named A.A. Bartlett, for a couple of reasons. For one, he wants people to think their individual consumption patterns. He also wanted to show ways of thinking about exponential growth, such as how rapidly pennies taken from a barrel at an exponential rate can total $1 million dollars (under three minutes).
Contact: Annette Trinity-Stevens, (406) 994-5607 or annettet@montana.edu
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