The Tennessee RiverLine, an initiative of University of Tennessee Extension, has been awarded a $500,000 Area Development grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) and Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development to support the development of comprehensive Planning and Design Standards. These standards will help accelerate the creation of new river experience amenities along the 652-mile stretch of the Tennessee River, benefitting residents and visitors throughout the region.

Adults exhibit a general tendency to make better decisions than adolescents, and this improvement drives an increase in specific and more sophisticated choice behaviors, according to a study published November 14^th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Vanessa Scholz and Lorenz Deserno from the University of Würzburg, Germany, and colleagues.

Forests provide biodiversity, ecosystem functions, income and much more. How can these diverse and seemingly diverging demands be met? An international research team led by the University of Göttingen addressed this question by analysing the effects of enriching beech forests in Germany with commercially valuable native (to mountainous regions of Europe) and non-native conifer species, in this case, the Norway spruce and Douglas fir, respectively. Their study showed that enriching beech forests which naturally have few tree species does not necessarily reduce species richness or ecosystem functioning. In fact, their results showed that there were positive gains at many levels including biodiversity, ecosystems and economic viability, especially for the combination of beech with Douglas fir. The research was published in Science Advances.

Rice’s WaTER Institute and Yokogawa Corporation of America announced a new partnership in support of modular autonomous water treatment and reuse processes.