The trees on Kent State University’s campus bring something new to marvel at each season. In the summer, trees provide welcoming shade for students to lounge, fall brings vivid leaves that crunch under students’ feet on the way to classes, and winter pines provide an idyllic picture of fluffy snow. With nearly 4,000 trees on campus, Kent State has been awarded the Tree Campus USA recognition for the 12th consecutive year from the Arbor Day Foundation, a nonprofit conservation organization. According to the foundation, the honor is designed to recognize colleges for “promoting healthy trees...

WKSU Link WKSU | By Jon Nungesser Published February 22, 2020 at 7:00 AM EST LISTEN • 5:00   Joe Gunderman Mark Suchan is the Director of Materials Management for Quasar Energy Group. The Quasar Energy Group has been tasked with hauling away Kent State University's food waste that was ground up through the Grind2Energy system. The food waste will then be fed to Quasar's anaerobic digester.  Mark Suchan is the Director of Materials Management for Quasar Energy Group. Quasar is a Cleveland company that speacializes in renewable energy&n...

Kent State implements changes to recycling policy Becca Sagaris General assignment reporter February 16, 2020 Kent Wired Kent State implemented changes to its recycling policy for the Kent campus this February. “The biggest change is in plastics, of what can be recycled and what cannot,” said Leah Graham, the outreach recycling coordinator. “Plastic bottles and jugs should be recycled, and all plastic other than bottles and jugs should go into the landfill.” Anything with a neck or an opening that is smaller than the body falls under the category of bottles and jugs. The only add...

WKSU Link WKSU | By Joe Gunderman Published February 15, 2020 at 7:01 AM EST LISTEN • 5:00 1 of 2 Heather Dougherty and Grind2Energy storage tank Joe Gunderman 2 of 2 Melanie Knowles KSU Kent State University is adding a Grind2Energy system in the dining area of it's new Design Innovation Hub.  No food scraps pre- or post-consumer will go to a landfill, but rather will be ground and stored until it is trucked to a processing system that will turn those scraps into energy and soil enhancers.  We spoke with Kent State...

Last week, CIIE received messages from Mr. David Dix, one of CIIE Board Members, who is now on a three-week trip in India with his wife, Janet. David and his wife are there to visit with three former visiting scholars from the US Department of State’s International Leaders in Education Program (ILEP). During the ILEP graduates’ time at Kent State University, David and Janet served as their Friendship Families. This trip marks the second time that David and his wife have visited some of their Friendship Family international teachers in India, extending the friendship beyond the program. It loo...

Kent Wired Article By Kimberly Fisher General Assignment reporter December 1, 2019   Kent State was included in the 2019 edition of Princeton’s annual Guide to Green Colleges.    Princeton profiled 413 universities out of the 700 that it surveyed in 2018 and 2019 for “their strong commitments to green practices and programs,” according to a press release from Princeton. These colleges were pulled from a survey done in 2018 that polled hundreds of administrators from four-year colleges about “their institutions’ commitments to the environment and sustainability...

PhD candidate Dexter Zirkle and Dr. C. Owen Lovejoy have examined the development of the human hip joint, and report that its growth is uniquely determined by a special mechanism that is shared only by humans and our direct ancestors (i.e., hominids). Their study is out this week in PNAS.  No other primate has this mechanism. When anatomical characters are found to be unique in an ancestor-descendant lineage (or “clade”) they are termed “synapomorphies.” A recent study* found five hominid synapomorphies since the last common ancestor we shared with chimpanzees. Three are found in the base...

We’ve known for some time that heart disease is prevalent in captive gorilla populations and is a leading cause of death. This is why, in 2010, the Great Ape Heart Project based at Zoo Atlanta (www.greatapeheartproject.org) was formed. The project provides a network of clinical, pathologic and research strategies to aid in the understanding and treating of cardiac disease in all the ape species, with the ultimate goal of reducing cardiovascular-related mortalities and improving the health and welfare of great apes in human care. “Gorilla heart disease is similar to, but different from, what w...