News and Events for Nantucket Island
• by Sarah Teach • For many Americans, seals are little more than a childhood memory of a visit to the zoo. But for residents of Nantucket Island, the blubbery marine mammals are quickly becoming a topic of discussion saved only for trusted company. At the core of a growing […]
Gray Seals and People, why can’t we just get along? • by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay, Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • Happy summer 2013! Currently the island is celebrating Memorial Day weekend with parades, BBQ’s, tributes to our war veterans, and cases and cases of Bud Light […]
This Spring’s Pollen Festival • by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay – Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • An allergy is a heightened sensitivity to a foreign substance called an allergen that causes the body’s defense system (the immune system) to overreact when defending itself. This defense system was […]
• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay – Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • What can live in space and almost anywhere on the planet, is abundant on Nantucket, and was studied religiously by children’s author, Beatrix Potter? If you answered lichens, you are correct! I love lichens, they […]
• by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station • Each year in early spring, we start to see the islands’ plants and animals emerge. This past winter has been difficult, with three major storms (Sandy, Nemo, and Saturn) causing significant erosion and destruction around the […]
by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station In the past year, the UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station has offered two public lectures and a summer course in Biomimicry, and we plan to include it in our regular year round and summer offerings. Biomimicry is both […]
by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station As the summer temperatures warm up our harbor and offshore waters, floating translucent creatures begin to crowd our shores and become a concern for swimmers. Unfortunately, as ocean waters warm world-wide and we continue to over-fish or endanger […]
by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station As part of the recent Nantucket Biodiversity Assessment Week program, we set up a couple of moth sheets at the field station and used two different types of lights (UV or “black lights” and mercury vapor lights) to […]
The air is balmy and the sun smiles as I find the discrete nook of Nantucket town that is the Vestal Street headquarters of the Maria Mitchell Association. I meander about the premises for a little, drinking in the dreamlike greenness of it all and feeling a bit like Alice […]
by Dr. Sarah D. Oktay Managing Director UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station This spring on a Q&A feature of www.Nantucket.net a question was submitted by a teacher named Vienna. She wrote: “Is Nantucket sinking? My class is doing a state report and my student needs to know if Nantucket is […]
