BU professor talks
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Monday, February 11, 2019 | Vol. XCV, Issue 6 | Binghamton University | bupipedream.com
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Road salt could impact yellow-spotted salamanders Used to combat winter weather, salt poses danger for migration across Connector Road Leora Schwadron pipe dream news
Every February and March, yellow-spotted salamanders migrate from College-in-the-Woods to the Nature Preserve. But with the amount of snow that has accumulated at Binghamton University this winter, the salamanders may face a more difficult challenge while migrating this year — salt. Salt, which is used to melt snow and ice on pavement, is toxic to the salamanders, who have to cross Connector Road to complete their annual migration and lay eggs in Harpur Pond. According to Michael Armstrong, an instructor of biology, the salamanders are particularly susceptible to the effects of salt because of the way they breathe. “An increased concentration of salt is going to be bad for any organism that has moist surfaces,” Armstrong said. “Salamanders, many of which who ‘breathe’ through their skin, are going to be affected because the salt is going to pull out their moisture in some way and so the moisture will not be produced at the same rate and it’s going to be unavailable in certain areas on the skin.” Jessica Hua, an assistant professor of biology, said salt can have varying consequences for amphibians.
“At high concentrations, road salts can kill amphibians,” Hua said. “At lower concentrations, such as environmentally-related concentrations, road salts can make amphibians more susceptible to parasites.” The University has tried taking the salamanders into consideration when making decisions about which roads to keep open during the winter and by regulating how much road salt they use on campus. Until the 2017-18 academic year, Connector Road was closed to traffic during the winter. But since then, the University has kept the road open throughout most of the year, closing it during March to allow the annual migration and designating it as a reduced salt area, which limits the amount of salt used on the road before, during and after winter storms. According to Miranda Kearney, visiting assistant professor of biology, the salamanders continue to cross the road because they are used to their migratory patterns. “There’s sort of a multi-spacial thing going on here which is that the salamanders always crossed Connector Road,” Kearney said. “And so now they’re still going to migrate, but up until last year they never had to deal with the salt.” The salt on Connector Road may not be the only danger for the salamanders. Devin DiGiacopo, a fourthyear graduate student studying biology, said road salts can also
spread through water and move from locations around the Nature Preserve into Harpur Pond. According to DiGiacopo, road salts in the water can have an effect on salamanders’ larvae. “Road salts make their way from roads to water bodies through runoff during precipitation events, or through the movement of groundwater, and most amphibians spend at least one, but sometimes all, life stages in water and are therefore exposed quite frequently,” DiGiacopo said. “Even at lower levels, exposure to this stressor can reduce hatching success of eggs, and impede growth and development of larvae.” Dylan Horvath, steward of BU’s natural areas, said the only ways to prevent salt from affecting salamanders would be to stop using salt on campus entirely or to use alternative options. “It hasn’t been possible, yet, so the compromise is to hopefully lower the impact of salt on the salamanders,” Horvath said. Horvath added that it’s important for the University to consider the environment when making decisions about surrounding roads and facilities. “It’s a good thing that the University administration has taken into consideration the salamander migration when making decisions about the Connector Road,” Horvath said. “We should be able to care about other life besides ourselves and salamanders are important to the environment, which makes them important to humans even if humans don’t often realize it.”
HackBU aims to become beginner-friendly Panelists talk prison conditions, reform Roughly 350 students code in annual hackathon Jeremy Rubino news intern
The sixth annual 24-hour HackBU hackathon took place this weekend, giving the opportunity for Binghamton University students and students across the Northeast to demonstrate their hacking skills. The hackathon, which took place at the University’s Innovative Technologies Complex, began at 11 a.m. on Saturday and ran until 4 p.m. on Sunday. This year’s HackBU brought together around 350 collegiate students across the Northeast, including students from BU, Cornell University, Rochester Institute of Technology and Clarkson University. The influx of students from other participating schools was a result of the event’s new advertising campaign,
according to Melanie Chen, one of HackBU’s organizers and a senior double-majoring in computer science and music. Chen wrote in an email that a primary goal for this year’s hackathon was to attract students unfamiliar with programming and coding. “This year, we advertised more heavily to and expect higher attendance from Harpur College and School of Management students, who likely have less experience with programming as opposed to Watson [School of Engineering and Applied Sciences] students,” Chen wrote. “The same applies to students from other schools.” The event also hosted beginner’s workshops, which Chen wrote was an effort to make the event more diverse and welcoming. “We organized a team-forming and brainstorming workshop before the hackathon in the hopes of helping beginners,” Chen wrote. “In the future,
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Discussion focuses on mass incarceration nationally, locally Valerie Puma
assistant copy desk chief
need to seek financial aid for housing. “A tenants united group is literally just a group of people who come together for a common cause, we’re all here to protect affordable and safe housing,” Johnson said. “Something that a tenant collective can do is something like landlord-tenant mediation. We can also provide resources — employment opportunities, rides to court, housing resources that we can support each other with.” The group also addressed issues with many landlords in Binghamton, such as failing to address safety code regulations and strategies for lobbying lawmakers
According to the World Prison Brief, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, a statistic that students and faculty discussed on Thursday in the Mandela Room. The talk, which focused on prison reform and incarceration in the United States, featured a panel of four professors who discussed their research on imprisonment. Anthony Reeves, associate professor of philosophy and director of the philosophy, politics and law program at Binghamton University, said he organized the event to tackle questions on criminal law and the social issues that surround it. “I think it is safe to say that, in all of U.S. history, it has been clear to many across the political spectrum that these sorts of questions cannot — given the current criminal justice state — be avoided,” Reeves said. John Pfaff, professor of law at Fordham University and a panelist, described his research on sentencing laws and their effects on incarceration. “We substantially over-punish violence,” Pfaff said. “If the United States is going to have any goal other than having the world’s highest incarceration, then we are, at some point, going to have
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maryam soomro business manager Students write code during the 24-hour HackBU hackathon, which took place in the Innovative Technologies Complex on Saturday and Sunday.
Tenants gather to discuss rights, new group Binghamton Tenants United aims to assist local renters Max Samson
pipe dream news
Students and local residents throughout Binghamton are searching for safe and affordable housing as the city adjusts to a changing real estate market and economic environment. On Thursday night, a group organizing to protect tenants’ rights held a kickoff meeting in Downtown Binghamton. According to their Facebook page, the Binghamton Tenants United will be a community space for renters to
organize and discuss issues related to gentrification, rent control, evictions and landlords. During their first meeting, organizers discussed roadblocks to securing equitable housing for Binghamton tenants and proposed solutions and strategies. Amber Johnson, a community organizer with Citizen Action of New York’s Southern Tier chapter, led the discussion. “There’s a housing crisis here in Binghamton,” Johnson said. “I just saw someone come in today to talk about an unlawful event, where a landlord told someone to leave. There are disinvested properties and gentrification. There’s priming, where authorities or officials
ARTS & CULTURE
of an area allow it to go downhill. Kind of like the North Side, kind of like Downtown.” Most of the new group’s members are community activists and organizers for other advocacy groups such as Citizen Action, Progressive Leaders Of Tomorrow and We Must Live, another housing advocacy coalition. The kickoff meeting began with a general discussion of the issues related to safe and affordable housing in Binghamton and then transitioned into discussing their purpose as a group. Later, it focused on discussing an overall strategy for the organizers. The group plans to aid renters by providing resources to those who have been exploited by landlords or
OPINIONS
SPORTS
Ariana Grande releases fifth album “thank u, next” six months after “Sweetener,”
Students compete in “live-action” horse racing for charity at “Night at the Races,”
Contributing columnist Nicholas Walker dispels myths about veganism,
Women’s lacrosse set to begin season,
Wrestling captures its seventh straight dual meet,
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