NY group buys Tesla property, plans science center

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — A New York community group that raised $1.3 million in a six-week online fundraising effort has purchased a laboratory once used by visionary scientist Nikola Tesla.

"We're feeling very excited and gratified that we've reached this milestone," said Jane Alcorn, president of the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe, on Long Island. Her group announced last week that it had finalized the purchase of the Tesla lab and property for $850,000.

Tesla was a rival of Thomas Edison who imagined a world of free electricity. He conducted experiments in the early 20th century at his laboratory in Shoreham, about 65 miles east of New York City.

Volunteers struggled for nearly two decades to raise money to acquire the property with limited success.

Their effort got a jolt of support last summer from Seattle cartoonist Matthew Inman, a Tesla fan who started promoting the fundraising effort on his website, theoatmeal.com.

Within six weeks, more than $1.3 million had been raised from 33,000 donors in the U.S. and 108 countries.

Tesla abandoned the lab in 1917. For many years it was a photo chemical processing plant; in 1993, officials determined that the property's groundwater had been polluted with cadmium and silver. A remediation effort overseen by state environmental regulators was completed last year.

Alcorn said that the purchase of the property was a key first step but noted much work needs to be done before the group can realize its goal: "to create a fitting memorial to Tesla and a science center to benefit the entire world."

She estimated another $10 million will be required to renovate the property, which is overrun with brush and includes several dilapidated buildings in the complex that will likely need to be demolished.

Alcorn said her group's first priority is to secure the property from further vandalism. Additional fundraisers are being discussed, but Alcorn had no specific details.

Among Tesla's accomplishments were developments in alternating current and research in the creation of wireless communication and radio. He died in New York City in 1943.

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Group seeks endangered listing for Franklin's bumblebee

By Jeff Barnard, Associated PressGRANTS PASS, Oregon — A conservation group filed a petition Wednesday to add a bumblebee from Southern Oregon and Northern California to the endangered species list.The Society for Invertebrate Conservation and Robbin Thorp, an entomologist at theUniversity of California at Davis, formally petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the insect — called a Franklin's bumblebee — under the Endangered Species Act.

Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerces Society in Portland, said the petition is part of an effort to reverse the decline of bumblebees and other native bees around the world due to habitat loss, pesticides and diseases spilling out of commercial greenhouses.

The group is preparing petitions to protect other bumblebee species as well. The Franklin's bee was chosen for this petition because documentation of its decline is more detailed than for other species. Thorp found 94 Franklin's bumblebees in 1994, but he has seen none since 2006.

Farmers often hire honeybee keepers to pollinate crops, but hives have been decimated by a mysterious honeybee killer known as colony collapse disorder.

So some farmers are turning to bumblebees to pollinate, especially for hothouse crops such as tomatoes, peppers and strawberries, and field crops such as blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, squash and watermelon.

Bumblebees pollinate about 15% of all crops grown in the nation, worth $3 billion.

"The decline in Franklin's bumblebee should serve as an alarm that we are starting to lose important pollinators," Black said. "We hope that Franklin's bumblebee will remind us to prevent pollinators across the U.S. from sliding toward extinction."

While many native pollinators have seen declines related to loss of habitat and pesticides, Franklin's bumblebee and some related species have suffered deep and sudden declines that Thorp has theorized may be related to a fungus that was inadvertently transported with bumblebees brought from Europe for commercial use.

Researchers at the University of Illinois are working to see if the fungus known as nosema bombus caused declines in a number of related bumblebees, including the once-common Western bumblebee, the rusty-patched bumblebee, and the yellow-banded bumblebee in the Northeast.

Earlier this year, the Xerces Society and other conservation groups and scientists called on federal agricultural authorities to start regulating shipments of commercially domesticated bumblebees to protect wild bumblebees from diseases threatening their survival.

A 2007 National Academy of Sciences report blamed the decline of pollinators around the world on a combination of habitat loss, pesticides, pollution and diseases spilling out of greenhouses using commercial bumblebees.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.

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Group seeks endangered listing for Franklin's bumblebee

By Jeff Barnard, Associated PressGRANTS PASS, Oregon — A conservation group filed a petition Wednesday to add a bumblebee from Southern Oregon and Northern California to the endangered species list.The Society for Invertebrate Conservation and Robbin Thorp, an entomologist at theUniversity of California at Davis, formally petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the insect — called a Franklin's bumblebee — under the Endangered Species Act.

Scott Hoffman Black, executive director of the Xerces Society in Portland, said the petition is part of an effort to reverse the decline of bumblebees and other native bees around the world due to habitat loss, pesticides and diseases spilling out of commercial greenhouses.

The group is preparing petitions to protect other bumblebee species as well. The Franklin's bee was chosen for this petition because documentation of its decline is more detailed than for other species. Thorp found 94 Franklin's bumblebees in 1994, but he has seen none since 2006.

Farmers often hire honeybee keepers to pollinate crops, but hives have been decimated by a mysterious honeybee killer known as colony collapse disorder.

So some farmers are turning to bumblebees to pollinate, especially for hothouse crops such as tomatoes, peppers and strawberries, and field crops such as blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, squash and watermelon.

Bumblebees pollinate about 15% of all crops grown in the nation, worth $3 billion.

"The decline in Franklin's bumblebee should serve as an alarm that we are starting to lose important pollinators," Black said. "We hope that Franklin's bumblebee will remind us to prevent pollinators across the U.S. from sliding toward extinction."

While many native pollinators have seen declines related to loss of habitat and pesticides, Franklin's bumblebee and some related species have suffered deep and sudden declines that Thorp has theorized may be related to a fungus that was inadvertently transported with bumblebees brought from Europe for commercial use.

Researchers at the University of Illinois are working to see if the fungus known as nosema bombus caused declines in a number of related bumblebees, including the once-common Western bumblebee, the rusty-patched bumblebee, and the yellow-banded bumblebee in the Northeast.

Earlier this year, the Xerces Society and other conservation groups and scientists called on federal agricultural authorities to start regulating shipments of commercially domesticated bumblebees to protect wild bumblebees from diseases threatening their survival.

A 2007 National Academy of Sciences report blamed the decline of pollinators around the world on a combination of habitat loss, pesticides, pollution and diseases spilling out of greenhouses using commercial bumblebees.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.

View the original article here