Elizabeth City State University biology students have become the first researchers from a historically Black college or university to participate in the American Campus Tree Genome Project and have their work accepted into a worldwide genetic database.

The research on one of the oldest oak trees on campus is now publicly available through the National Center for Biotechnology Information, or NCBI, one of the world’s largest repositories of genetic information.  

HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, a nonprofit research lab in Alabama, began the American Campus Tree Genomes initiative to provide students a way to interact with the latest genome sequencing technologies.

The project involved biological research students Nicole Villardi, Camdyn Peck, Laneya Evans, Zakiya Sledge, Nyaziah Sears, Justin Franklin, Juelle St. Clair and Angelina Sanchez, and Dr. Alex Harkess, Lauren Whitt and Sarah Carey, all with HudsonAlpha.

Margaret Young, professor of biology and faculty expert in plant tissue culture at Elizabeth City State, said Friday in the release that the project marked a significant milestone for both the university and the HBCU community.   

“We are the first HBCU to be part of the American Campus Tree Genome Project, part of Dr. Harkess’ National Science Foundation CAREER grant. This is the first time that we are sequencing/annotating a tree on this campus and having the data readily available on NCBI,” Young said.   

Students collected leaves from an oak tree near the G.R. Little Library on campus and extracted high-quality DNA that was sent to HudsonAlpha for sequencing. Researchers returned the data to the university for the students to analyze before submitting the completed work to NCBI. The research is now available on the international database.

Young said each step of the process required a level of precision and expertise that is uncommon for undergraduate researchers.   

“We were praised by Dr. Harkess. Plant DNA can be difficult to extract due to the tough cell walls and the fact that plants store their waste and have secondary compounds in their cells,” she said.   

Unlike traditional laboratory courses, where experiments are often completed within a few hours, this project took an investment of several days.

“Extracting the DNA took several tries, about 8 hours each from start to finish. This would not work in a traditional lab setting, which is two to three hours,” Young said. “Annotating also took several hours. Luckily, the students had done Computer Programming and could figure out the coding when there were hiccups. Dr. Harkess’s staff also helped polish the data. In a course such as Biological Research, there is a lot of latitude—defined meeting times, plus meeting times each week the students decide upon, which makes it ideal for such a project.”   

Millions will be awarded to broadband providers across rural North Carolina to connect homes, businesses, and community anchor institutions to high-speed internet access.

The governor’s office announced last week that $26 million will go to bring 5,161 rural homes, businesses and community anchor institutions in 66 counties access to high-speed internet infrastructure by the end of the year through the Stop-Gap Solutions program.

A part of the North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s Division of Broadband and Digital Opportunity, the program administers funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to coverage gaps in internet access. This is done by targeting broadband line extensions to reach individuals and small pockets of homes and businesses in hard-to-reach areas.

“These broadband projects will ensure more families can soon access telehealth, students can complete their homework, businesses can compete in larger markets, and communities can thrive,” Gov. Josh Stein said in the release. “I am committed to improving broadband access across the state and making sure no community is left behind.”

On the coast, FOCUS Broadband, also known as Atlantic Telephone Membership Cooperative, has been selected to receive $1.65 million to connect 145 locations in Duplin and Pender counties.

Connect Holding II, LLC, doing business as Brightspeed, will be awarded $1.68 million to connect 2,439 locations in Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Craven, Currituck, Hertford, Hyde, Onslow, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Tyrrell and Washington counties on the coast. Other counties to benefit from this award are Alamance, Bladen, Caldwell, Caswell, Chatham, Columbus, Cumberland, Edgecombe, Franklin, Greene, Halifax, Harnett, Hoke, Johnston, Jones, Martin, Montgomery, Moore, Nash, Northampton, Orange, Person, Pitt, Randolph, Rockingham, Sampson, Stokes, Surry, Vance, Wake, Warren, Wayne and Wilson counties.

HarvestBeam Inc., a broadband provider for rural North Carolina, will receive $413,260 for 95 locations in Craven and Pitt counties.

Roanoke Connect Holdings, operating as Fybe internet provider, will be awarded $2.4 million to connect 826 locations in Bertie, Chowan, Gates, Granville, Halifax, Hertford, Martin, and Northampton counties. 

Wilkes & RiverStreet Networks has been selected to receive $959,828 to connect 306 locations in Camden, Currituck, Stokes and Wilkes counties.

Other providers to be awarded serve customers in Alexander, Bladen, Buncombe, Durham, Henderson, Hoke, Iredell, Forsyth, Jackson, Macon, Orange, Robeson, Rowan, Sampson, Scotland, Swain, Transylvania and Yadkin counites.

“High-speed internet access is the foundation for health care delivery, public safety operations, workforce development, and economic growth in our state,” Teena Piccione, NCDIT secretary and state chief information officer, said. “This program allows us to move with urgency and precision to connect more North Carolinians.”

“We have had nine 100-year storms in the last 20 years,” said Dr. Reide Corbett during a conference in Wilmington back in November. “Somebody said that math doesn’t math.”

Corbett is dean of the East Carolina University Coastal Studies Institute Campus in Wanchese and he was addressing the fourth annual Water Adaptations to Ensure Regional Success, or WATERS, Summit held Nov. 13. He said the statistical model used to predict precipitation frequency is no longer reliable.

The model, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Atlas 14 data server,  is widely used in infrastructure planning and flood risk assessments. Atlas 14 provides statistical modeling that is based on rainfall amounts and storm intensity for the 30 years leading up to the 21st century.

The server “contains precipitation frequency estimates for the United States and U.S. affiliated territories,” according to NOAA.

Corbett told those attending the summit that Atlas 14 “doesn’t hold any longer.”

In a follow-up interview with Coastal Review, Corbett said the problem with Atlas 14 is that it does not factor in how the climate has changed during this century.

“It does not take into account changes in the moisture that the atmosphere has, and it certainly doesn’t project forward,” Corbett said.

That’s why NOAA is developing an Atlas 15 model, which is to be rolled out in stages this year and 2027. When completed, “Atlas 15 will supersede NOAA Atlas 14 as the national standard and will become the authoritative source for precipitation frequency information across the United States.,” according to the NOAA website.

Dr. Jared Bowden, interim director of the North Carolina State Climate Office, agreed that, as a predictive model, Atlas 14 is flawed.

“It doesn’t use the most recent observations. (Atlas 14) hasn’t used any of the data in the past 20 or 25, years, really,” Bowden said.

Atlas 15 is expected to correct that shortcoming nationally, but in the meantime, the State Climate Office has developed a dataset that illustrates how precipitation patterns represented in Atlas 14 may evolve over time. 

RaInDROP, an acronym for the statistical information for the state model, Rainfall, Intensity, Duration and Return for Observations and Projections, is “a product that is tailored to North Carolina,” Bowden said. “Some things in the methodology that we do behind RaInDROP are very North Carolina specific.”

The datasets the State Climate Office developed use the Atlas 14 model as a baseline, but also predict what the future climate will look like. The modeling also takes into account North Carolina’s geography, Bowden said.

“There’s eight climate divisions across our state, and we use these climate divisions to help think about how we scale Atlas 14 values,” Bowden said. “We took climate change projections and tried to figure out how you would scale up based on the different climate divisions.”

The online RaInDROP tool maps show marked variations from Atlas 14 data. For instance, the southeast corner of the state, New Bern, Jacksonville and Wilmington, in particular, will experience significantly more rainfall and more intense events than previously modeled. Bordering the Atlantic Ocean, that output is consistent with climate change data that shows a warming atmosphere.

Climate change is not a linear increase with temperature and moisture, Bowden explained. Rather it’s an exponential increase and an exponential increase in moisture capacity.

“If you’re able to saturate the atmosphere and have a forcing mechanism to wring it out of the atmosphere, such as a hurricane, then you get these really big downpours. You get these really big flooding scenarios that will create just larger and larger problems for our infrastructure.”

The climate office tool is designed to have practical applications in designing infrastructure.

“If you’re looking out at midcentury, let’s say 2050- or 2060-time frame, and you were to design a culvert that’s supposed to last that period of time, how would your design criteria change based on using plausible future scenarios?” Bowden continued.

Public and private infrastructure rely upon reasonably accurate climate models to determine design criteria. Retention ponds, as an example, typically use a 4% annual chance of a 25-year storm as design criteria. Based on that assumption, a retention pond should perform as expected provided the storm events occur as predicted by Atlas 14.

However, climate events predicted by RaInDROP suggest that what is now thought of as a 25-year storm will be more frequent and more intense, and if that happens “it’s not going to perform as you expect, and it’s going to be overwhelmed more frequently, and it’s going to be become a problem,” Bowden said.

Environmental engineer George Wood, owner of Environmental Professionals of Kill Devil Hills for nearly 40 years, told Coastal Review that private infrastructure systems in particular would be overwhelmed by more frequent and increased storm intensity and rainfall. And, compounding the problem is less recovery time for the system between storms.

Wood was particularly critical of how private stormwater systems are maintained – or not — noting that private retention ponds are often overgrown with subaquatic vegetation and culverts are often clogged and incapable of even handling the rainfall amounts for which they were designed.

It’s the day after Halloween. What are you going to do with all those pumpkins on your porch? Blow them up using Civil War technology, of course, with the staff of Brunswick Town and Fort Anderson historic site in Winnabow.

The Great Pumpkin Blowout scheduled for 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, is the “unique experience” of detonating a pumpkin with the same technology used to launch Civil War-era torpedoes, according to organizers.

Visitors will be able to observe different types of torpedoes from the time period and learn the technology behind black powder and the torpedo itself.

Load up those jack-o’-lanterns and be prepared to pay $10 to detonate each pumpkin. Proceeds supports educational programming at the site. Pumpkins with minimal carving offer the best explosions, but all types will work, staff said.

Admission to the site and watching the fun is free.

The Brunswick Town and Fort Anderson State Historic Site was a major pre-Revolutionary port on the Cape Fear River, but was abandoned and burned during the American Revolution. During the Civil War, Fort Anderson was built on top of the old village site, and served as part of the Cape Fear River the Confederacy fell, according to North Carolina Historic Sites, a division of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Five of the 13 college students who recently received the G. Herbert Stout Award for Innovative Student Papers attend coastal universities or their projects were on coastal and environmental issues.

The award presented during the North Carolina Geographic Information Systems Conference recognizes students that have completed an “outstanding project using geographic data to analyze or solve a problem regarding an issue of their choosing,” according to the North Carolina Department of Information Technology.

The NCGIS Conference, held every two years, offers opportunities for professionals and students of geographic information systems and computer mapping technology to network and learn about advancements and new applications for GIS software.

“College and university students represent the next generation of GIS professionals that will be future leaders in both the public and private sectors. Rewarding their academic achievement not only benefits the individual students but ultimately the GIS community as a whole,” Tim Johnson, conference chair and N.C. geographic information officer, said in a statement.

Colleges were able to submit one undergraduate and one graduate student for the award. Winners presented their papers at the NCGIS Conference. Each student received free registration to the conference, recognition at the awards luncheon ceremony and a cash award of $200.

The handful of projects related to the coast or could impact coastal residents looked at environmental justice, sustainability, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.

NCDIT provided the following information on the projects.

Cate Arnold, University of North Carolina Wilmington undergraduate student, was awarded for “Analyzing Impacts from Hurricane Florence on Gentrification in New Hanover County, North Carolina.” Arnold conducted research to determine a correlation between the gentrification process in New Hanover County and the flood impacts of Hurricane Florence. The project aims to identify natural disaster impacts, community resilience and environmental justice issues and will be presented to local policymakers.

Elijah Dalton, UNCW graduate student, was awarded for “Leveraging the Power of Google Earth Engine and Earth Observation Data to Create a Green Infrastructure Suitability Index for the Wilmington Metropolitan Urban Area.” Dalton’s research aimed to assess the benefits of green infrastructure as a strategy for enhancing sustainability and resiliency and the vulnerability of coastal resources. The project uses satellite data to develop a methodology for the effectiveness of green infrastructure in southeastern North Carolina.

Mike Wallace, North Carolina Central University graduate student, was awarded for his work, “COVID-19 Rates and Proximity to Meat and Poultry Processing Plants in North Carolina.” Wallace’s project examines the impact of economic inequalities and population distribution for rural and urban areas on the rate of COVID-19 cases. Wallace used data from the NC COVID-19 dashboard, created by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

Eliza Merrit, Appalachian State University graduate student, was awarded for “Using Interactive Maps to Understand the Content of Second-order Climate Change Beliefs.” Merrit’s study used public opinion maps to examine why people have certain beliefs about climate change. The study used an interactive map of N.C. climate change opinions to evaluate how GIS can be used for effective communication regarding climate change policy.

Caroline Fehlman, Appalachian State University undergraduate student, was awarded for “Exploring Characteristics of Community Resilience Using a Logistic Regression Model.” Fehlman examined the ability of communities to withstand or adapt from disturbances using data on climate variables, socioeconomic damages and community resilience. The study used maps to help communities determine what they need to do to prepare for and prevent damage.

Statewide awards

• Madison Eaton, Elon University undergraduate student, “The Impact of Soil Compaction and Land Cover on Soil Carbon Sequestration at Elon University.”
• Sarah Followill, UNC-Chapel Hill, undergraduate student, “Geovisualizing Urban Sprawl in the Atlanta Metro Area.”
• Ross Jensen, Fayetteville State University undergraduate student, “War Impacts on Landscape Change in Mariupol, Ukraine.”
• Andrea Saravitz, N.C. State University undergraduate student, “Modeling the Invasion of the Spongy Moth.”
• Neylan Visnius, Warren Wilson College undergraduate student, “Intersections of Food Insecurity, Medicare Spending, and Non-Health Interventions in Western North Carolina.”
• Cambria White, N.C. Central University undergraduate student, “Identifying Sources of Methane Leaks in the Bountiful/North Salt Lake Area.”
• Jeremy Davis, N.C. State University graduate student, “Town of Matthews, N.C.: Tree Canopy Assessment Tool.”
• Grey Shipman, UNC-Chapel Hill graduate student, “Transportation Equity in Chapel Hill.”

The conference is sponsored by the North Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, the N.C. Geographic Coordinating Council, and Carolina Chapter of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association. The NCCGIA is part of the N.C. Department of Information Technology. Its mission is to advance the use of GIS technology as a tool for better decision-making in the state.

This is part of a series of special reports by Catherine Kozak, who attended the COP26 climate conference held in November.

PLYMOUTH — As warnings about the need to immediately and drastically cut carbon emissions were blaring full volume at November’s 26th United Nations Conference of the Parties, or COP26, climate summit in Scotland, talk of carbon markets suddenly filled airwaves and the Internet sites. And agriculture was named as the logical vehicle to sell carbon credits.

Carbon trading has been around since 2005 as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate carbon’s effect on global warming, but it’s grown in fits and starts. As authorized by governments, an entity would be allowed to emit an agreed-upon amount of carbon dioxide in exchange for credits that had been purchased — say, from a farmer — to offset the carbon pollution.  Rules for global carbon trading were formalized at COP26. 

Ronnie W. “Ron” Heiniger, associate professor at North Carolina State University and professor and cooperative extension corn specialist at the Vernon G. James Research and Extension Center in Plymouth who has worked with farmers in the region for 28 years, recently elaborated on the labyrinth facing farmers in figuring the value of carbon credits, while they’re contending with numerous other climate challenges.

Corn and other crops absorb tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide, he told Coastal Review. Satellite images of eastern North Carolina in the summertime show that the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere above its farm fields go down quite dramatically as the crops absorb the greenhouse gas.

“And you would think that was a great deal,” Heiniger said. “The problem, of course, is that we lose some of that CO2 that was absorbed into the plant. As the plants decay, they release some of that back into the atmosphere.”

Also, with tilling, the microbes in the soil survive by eating organic molecules, and they release carbon dioxide, he said. “They have to respire, just like human beings.”

Plus, a lot of the soils in the region are peat, which can be 50% carbon.

“Anytime you disturb those, some of the carbon is released,” Heiniger said. “So the issue here is how do we get this carbon that we captured in this crop to stay in the soil.”

With more talk of sequestering carbon, and no-till methods and cover crops, which can encourage a longer growing season, and fewer fallow or bare fields, the concept of selling carbon credits to offset things like oil and gas projects is a possibility. But, he said, it’s not only farmers who are skeptical, so are researchers at N.C. State.

“We’re concerned about this concept of carbon credits because we want to make sure what you’re getting paid for is actually happening,” he said. “The issue is the science needs to be better developed for how much carbon is sequestered and what practices are best for doing it. Those issues still remain to be answered from this mitigation side.”

Cover crops, which involve seeding fields with some kind of grass as a crop is being harvested, with the goal of growing biomass to cover the land. But the practice also creates conundrums. Although it can keep down the need for herbicides by suppressing weeds, as well as protect soil, the cover has to be removed when planting season returns. And the way it’s removed is through chemicals — or plowing it into the soil.

Heiniger said that records over the years reflect a steady increase since the mid-1990s in the number of days at or above 95 degrees, and changes in insect populations and the types of insects that affect crops. There is also increased saltwater intrusion in some low areas. Some of the saltwater is coming up from the groundwater, which presents an even more difficult situation than that coming in from the canals that can be blocked or flushed.

But the rain has become a huge headache.

“The intensity of these storms — that definitely has caught our attention, Heiniger said. “We get more of these 6-. 8-, 10-,12-inch rainfalls than we did close to 30 years ago, when I started here.”

Floodwaters are staying in fields for longer times, suffocating crops.

“And as I tell farmers, when your soil is saturated, that means there’s no oxygen in there,” he explained. “It’s like being in a drought because basically the crop can’t take up water, even though it’s sitting in water. So, it can’t cool itself. It’s basically like you’re in a desert then.”

Heiniger said that the drainage systems — pumps and canals — are critical infrastructure to farmers, although public funds are not provided to maintain them.

Changes in the climate converging with growing resistance to pesticides have led to an increasing problem with stinkbugs, which are better suited to warmer temperatures, he said. And there has been increased damage from bugs in corn, soybeans and cotton.

Heiniger said that corn is the largest crop in northeastern North Carolina by acreage, followed closely by soybeans and cotton a distant third.

Much of the corn grown in the region is used to feed livestock, which provides a more favorable economic return, he explained. The type of corn has also been bred to be more stress-tolerant.

The skyrocketing cost of fertilizer is leading farmers to switch to growing more soybeans, which require less nitrogen, Heiniger said. They also take steps to conserve fertilizer, using less of it, changing the timing and increasing the root system.

As a result of rising costs, he said, farmers will plant less corn, so there will be less corn in the market, and prices will be higher.

Since the 1960s or so, farms in northeastern North Carolina were generally larger than the rest of the state, and they’ve gotten bigger over time. Equipment costs have also gotten bigger — a combine can run about a half-million dollars.

“It’s like owning a beach house,” Heiniger said, chuckling. “You’ve got to get bigger to make that pay.”

Most of the small farms on the sand ridges that had been farmed since the 1600s have been consolidated now into bigger farms, or they’re leased or managed by big farms. But whatever the size of the farm, mitigation methods, including no-till and cover crops, are very early in the development stage.

“Not that we haven’t done cover crops, or that we haven’t done no-till, it’s just that we haven’t put together a system that tries to use all of these to do this,” he said.

Although cover crops can save money otherwise spent on herbicides, the technique is regarded as uneconomical because a farmer is planting something that can’t be harvested. But carbon credits would have the potential to compensate farmers to plant cover crops.

Heiniger said it would probably take up to five years for scientists to develop a strategy that promoted the maximum amount of carbon being returned. Typically, it takes at least three years of ground studies to confirm a practice as viable, and then another couple of years to introduce it to farmers or growers.

N.C. State has started programs looking at cover crops and reduced tillage systems, but more information on carbon sequestering requires soil sampling, testing and data analysis — and the money to do the work.

“We need more funding if we’re going to make progress,” he said. “As you see, agriculture is the linchpin here. They could talk all they wanted on TV about how they’re going to be climate neutral. They’re depending on these credits, and agriculture is it.”

Is agriculture able to participate yet in carbon markets?

“The answer is no,” Heiniger said. “Right now, we’re not ready.”

Once the wrinkles are smoothed out, he fully expects that farmers will be willing participants, including those who are climate change skeptics. It’s the “doomsday scenarios” mixed in with the science that puts them off, he explained. That and unrealistic talk about such fantastical things as electric tractors, which could not — at least with current technology — provide the concentrated power that’s necessary to run such heavy equipment.

“Farmers know climate is changing,” he said. “Farmers understand we adapt, you figure out how to get it done, you mitigate, you find systems that cool the crop or reduce that runoff area and get that water off quicker. You find ways to solve those problems.

“I think that’s what hurts the climate change thing, is that we end up talking about things that are speculative rather than concrete,” Heiniger said. “Farmers see the environment — they don’t talk about it. They farm it.”

Next: Harnessing the ocean’s energy

Reprinted from Outer Banks Voice

New technology aimed at reducing the time it takes to locate missing persons in the water is being tested for the first time on the Outer Banks this summer with the hope that it will become a mainstay in search and recovery efforts while more quickly providing closure to families of drowning victims.

The technology, called AquaEye, was first used locally during a missing swimmer call near Kitty Hawk Pier on July 3. A handheld scanner, AquaEye uses ultrasound and artificial intelligence technologies to identify victims underwater and is touted as being able to scan an 85,000-square-foot area in four minutes.

Phill Lloyd, a Nags Head resident and national training manager for AquaEye, responded to the scene that morning at the request of Mirek Dabrowski, who contracts lifeguarding services for the town of Southern Shores. Dabrowski said that Lloyd – using the AquaEye – was able to quickly locate the victim in what he said was “a difficult search environment.”

Reprinted From the Outer Banks Voice
HATTERAS– Eric Kaplan sees the day when new technology will help predict the beginning of life for one of nature’s oldest species.

Kaplan, founder of the non-profit Hatteras Island Ocean Center, is a former technology company owner who was on the cutting edge of developing Bluetooth and other modern products.

Now, he is part of a project that could narrow the time needed for beach closures to protect sea turtle nests.

A probe is placed in a turtle nest. Photo: Outer Banks Voice

Funded primarily by IBM, the project is called “Turtle Sense,” and according to Britta Muiznieks, a wildlife biologist for the National Park Service, it is still “in its infancy.”

But Cape Hatteras National Seashore managers hope the new technology will someday signal when sea turtles eggs will hatch from nests buried in the sand.

“Previous studies have been unsuccessful in predicting these events with reliable accuracy,” Muiznieks said.

When a sea turtle nest is found on a National Park Service beach, a small enclosure is built around the site to keep pedestrians and vehicles away. After a turtle digs a nest, it takes anywhere from 55 to 80 days for the turtles to hatch. Each nest contains 75 to 150 eggs.

The Park Service expands the nest closures to the surf line 50 to 55 days after the eggs are laid. The tiny turtles, once they hatch, parade to the surf from their nest near the dune line.

During this period, the beach is effectively closed to vehicular traffic.

A number of factors affect when a nest will hatch. But one of the largest is thought to be the ambient temperatures in the nest itself.

According to Muiznieks, cool ambient temperatures prolong incubation periods while hot temperatures shorten the development time.

A crowd gathers at Cape Hatteras National Seashore to watch rangers excavate a turtle nest. Photo: NPS

Humidity and oxygen levels can also affect the incubation period.

Given the number of days in the hatching window, portions of beach can be closed for more than a month.

National Park Service and IBM together are planning on placing sensors in four nests to begin gathering data. The sensors will record nest temperatures and, hopefully, detect motion within the nest.  The information will be transmitted cell phones.

This data will be overlain with human observation to record when the nests actually hatch, or “boil,” as biologists term the event.

It is hoped that the sensors will be able to help predict, within a much narrower window, when a turtle nest is about to boil, and if successful, it could significantly reduce the amount of time Cape Hatteras will need to block off large portions of the beach.

Kaplan and Muiznieks are working with IBM’s Tom Zimmerman to improve the technology.

From previous studies, scientists know that measuring ambient nest temperature is not accurate in predicting when a nest is about to hatch.

That is why sound is being added to temperature data in this season’s study.

Officials at Cape Hatteras National Seashore hope the new technology may one day reduce the length of beach closures because of turtle nests. Photo: NPS

Kaplan and Muiznieks want people to understand the process will take some time and the outcome is uncertain.

“We are hoping that by simultaneously measuring movement and temperature fluctuations and entering this into a computer model that will analyze the data from each nest every two hours, we will be able to accurately predict hatching events” Muiznieks said.

“We need to make sure that the shifting of eggs that occurs naturally within a nest can be distinguished from the shifting of eggs as the hatchlings emerge from their eggshells. “

To be even more accurate, the method could include gas measurements to determine the embryos’ stage of development.

“At this point we are still trying to figure out exactly what we need to be measuring to give us the most accurate results,” Muiznieks said.

Kaplan suspects it will take at least three to five years of data collection before they know if the technology is “ready for prime time.”

Still, the effort shows the Park Service is working hand-in-hand with a private sector entrepreneur and one of the largest technology companies in the world in an attempt to shorten beach closure times.

And if the program is successful, the technology could be used all over the nation and the world.