science

The largest, oldest citizen science project of the year, the annual Christmas Bird Count will take flight in South Lake Tahoe on Friday, Dec. 14, beginning at 8 a.m. Meet at Alpina Coffee Cafe. Novices to experts are all welcome for this fun winter event that focuses the 7.5 mile radius count circle on the Upper Truckee River mouth.

The City of South Lake Tahoe’s Public Works Snow Removal Operation visited Sierra House Elementary Schools kindergarten and first grade classes to promote snow safety today. Street Supervisor Azril Kalik shared important safety reminders to Ms. Wilson and Ms. Tabor’s first graders.

“When you see the snow removal machines in your neighborhood, it’s important to go inside and play to remain safe. Remember to keep toys, sleds, shovels and your pets out of the road so they do not get damaged,” said Kalik.

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency will release the final draft of the Regional Plan Update and associated documents during the two-day Governing Board meeting taking place on Wednesday, October 24 at the North Tahoe Event Center in Kings Beach, and Thursday, October 25 at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe in Stateline.

The Lake Tahoe Environmental Science Magnet School PTA would like to thank our amazing community for helping to make this year's Walk-A-Thon a huge success! The morning of Sept. 28 started out c...

Sierra Business Council and Capital Public Radio, in partnership with UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center and Sierra Nevada College, invite you to a discussion with renowned Climatologist Dr. Benjamin D. Santer on the evening of Oct. 16 at the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences in Incline Village at Lake Tahoe.

Chromeo, Deadmau5 and Wiz Khalifa will round out 2012 and ring in 2013 at the SnowGlobe Music Festival this winter in South Lake Tahoe, Dec. 29-31.
In it second year the South Shore Lake Tahoe music festival will feature plenty of electronic, hip-hop and rock acts. Beats Antique, Polica, Flosstradamus, Dam Funk and Madeon will be among the artists to perform.

Join Will Richardson of the Tahoe Institute for Natural Sciences at the South Lake Tahoe Branch Library for a discussion on the fall bird migration at Lake Tahoe and the effects of climate change patterns on bird and wildlife migration.
The presentation is on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 6:30 p.m. in the library conference room.

Nine beautiful West Shore gardens and educational talks on conservation landscaping topics highlight the fifth annual Conservation Landscape Tour, one of the signature events produced by the sustainable landscaping experts with the Tahoe Resource Conservation District. Maps for the tour can be picked up on Sunday, August 19 between 1 and 3 pm at the corner of Wilson and Pine Streets in Tahoma, Calif.

Lake Tahoe will be thrust in the spotlight again when scientists, public agencies and elected officials meet Aug. 13 for the 16th annual Lake Tahoe Summit at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course. To be discussed with great interest is the protection and health of Lake Tahoe's fragile environment and economy.
“The health of the environment and the health of the economy at Tahoe are linked,” Derek Kauneckis, political science professor and researcher at the University of Nevada, Reno said. “And the collaborations that have been established at the Lake have set the stage for future efforts.”

The annual Tahoe summit takes place next week in Stateline, Nev. This year's theme is public-private partnership -which may well be a sign of how protecting the Tahoe basin will work in future. Since the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act passed in 2000, the majority of the $1.5 billion of funding for environmental projects has come from state and federal governments.

Children are invited to spend the day with scientists on Saturday, August 11, learning about the unique ecology, function, restoration and preservation of Lake Tahoe.

In a space agency filled with trailblazers, Sally K. Ride was a pioneer of a different sort. The soft-spoken California physicist broke the gender barrier 29 years ago when she rode to orbit aboard space shuttle Challenger to become America’s first woman in space.

Ride, 61, died in La Jolla, Calif. after a 17-month battle with pancreatic cancer, NASA reports on Monday.

Douglas Boyle is Nevada's new state climatologist. He will oversee operations of the Nevada State Climate Office, a public-service department in the College of Science at the University of Nevada, Reno.
The state climatologist and the Nevada Climate Office collect, maintain and interpret Nevada’s climate and weather data information, publish a quarterly report and provide leadership on climatic hazards and drought planning in the state through work and consultation with the governor's office and state agencies.

Lake Tahoe may be one of the most studied lakes in the world, but just how to translate all that climate change data into action remains a challenge. Data suggest a decrease in snow, more extremes like drought and flooding and reduced lake clarity.
Data suggest climate change is bringing an increased risk of more severe forest fires, but warming temperatures may cause other complex ecosystem changes. Local agencies are already planning ways to mitigate and adapt, but making policy based on models that show global trends over the next century is not an easy task.

Nutrition science researcher Dr. Kimber Stanhope will present a study at Lake Tahoe on July 26 that was recently featured in the CBS News 60 Minutes investigative report with Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the metabolic effects of sugar consumption.
The 6 p.m. presentation will be at the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center in Incline Village on the campus of Sierra Nevada College, as part of its monthly lecture series.

The North and South Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce leaders at Lake Tahoe have joined together to launch a Region-wide public participation campaign to harness the groundswell of support for a new vision to restore and revitalize the Basin. Called TahoeFuture.org, the campaign will focus, over the next 8 months, on two critical land-use and transportation plans that create a blueprint for a revitalized Lake Tahoe.

Insights into how policies have evolved at Lake Tahoe to better focus efforts on the pollutants causing Tahoe’s declining clarity are discussed in an interview hosted by Michelle Sweeney at TahoeProject.org. Interviewed are Dr. Nicole Beck, principal and founder of ecosystem science and design firm 2NDNATURE based in Santa Cruz, and Jason Drew, associate scientist at Nichols Consulting Engineers.

On Tuesday Venus will pass across the face of the sun, producing a silhouette that no one alive today will likely see again. See the latest Youtube clip from NASA's SOHO spacecraft below.

Transits of Venus are very rare, coming in pairs separated by more than a hundred years. This June's transit, the bookend of a 2004-2012 pair, won't be repeated until the year 2117. Fortunately, the event is widely visible. Observers on seven continents, even a sliver of Antarctica, will be in position to see it.

A leading Lake Tahoe scientist who has studied invasive species and limnology for 20 years, said issuing permits for commercial harvesting of crayfish at Lake Tahoe will help improve clarity at the pristine lake, as well as take away a food source for other invasive species that threaten clarity and ecosystems.

The erratic year-to-year swings in precipitation totals in the Lake Tahoe, Carson City and Reno areas conjures up the word “drought” every couple of years, and this year is no exception. The Nevada State Climate Office at the University of Nevada, Reno, in conjunction with the Nevada Drought Response Committee, announced Thursday a Stage 1 drought (moderate) for six counties and a Stage 2 drought (severe) for 11 counties.
Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada are no strangers to drought, the most famous being the Medieval megadrought lasting from 800 to 1250 A.D. when annual precipitation was less than 60 percent of normal. The Reno-Tahoe region is now about 65 percent of annual normal precipitation for the year, which doesn’t seem like much, but imagine if this were the “norm” each and every year for the next 200 years.

The economic and environmental future at Lake Tahoe will be discussed among 350 researchers, scientists, policy makers and economic stakeholders at Incline Village this week during the Tahoe Science Conference Tuesday through Thursday.

Summer is a perfect time to learn about birds that migrate to the Lake Tahoe Basin for the season. Join Kirk Hardie, Co-Executive Director of the Tahoe Institute for Natural Science for two events introducing the migratory birds of the Lake Tahoe region. Kirk will present a talk on these avian visitors to the area on Thursday, June 14, 2012 (no-host bar at 5:30pm, presentation begins 6 pm, $5 donation suggested) at the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences on the Sierra Nevada College campus and a bird watching walk on June 16 starting at the UC Davis Tahoe City Field Station.

In one of the most innovate private-public education partnerships developed in recent years, Lake Tahoe Community College prepares to launch the summer follow-up of its successful CONNECT program.

Designed as a way for community members to extend their education pursuits, CONNECT offers noncredit classes at Lake Tahoe Community College with a series of life enhancement workshops for people with passions for arts, theater, health and fitness and business marketing.