Stephanie Norling, COE2026
If you care about improving your local economy, education, community health, or other aspects of residents’ quality of life, you may benefit from learning about the initiatives of Communities of Excellence 2026. One place you can read a concise summary of the innovative, Baldrige-based nonprofit and its work with communities around the country is Harry Hertz’s June 2020 blog.
Next, consider attending the session on Communities of Excellence 2026 during the Baldrige program’s upcoming, virtual Quest for Excellence
® Conference. I recently spoke with Stephanie Norling, executive director of the nonprofit Communities of Excellence 2026, about that session and her work in general. Following are her answers to my questions.
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Increased global temperatures help invasive species establish themselves in ecosystems, new research led by a Swansea University bioscientist has shown.
The study, published by the Royal Society, gives an insight into the probable combined effects of species invasions, which are becoming more common, and global warming.
Climate warming and biological invasions result in the loss of species. They also alter the structure of ecosystems and the ways in which species interact.
While there is already extensive research on how climate change and invasions affect species and ecosystems, we know surprisingly little about their combined effect, acting together in synergy.
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IMAGE: An illustration of early Earth, as it would have looked around 4 billion years ago view more
Credit: Lucy Entwisle
Lightning strikes were just as important as meteorites in creating the perfect conditions for life to emerge on Earth, geologists say.
Minerals delivered to Earth in meteorites more than 4 billion years ago have long been advocated as key ingredients for the development of life on our planet.
Scientists believed minimal amounts of these minerals were also brought to early Earth through billions of lightning strikes.
But now researchers from the University of Leeds have established that lightning strikes were just as significant as meteorites in performing this essential function and allowing life to manifest.
Despite being discovered almost 300 ago, photosynthesis still holds many unanswered questions for science, particularly the way that proteins organise themselves to convert sunlight into chemical energy and at the same time, protect plants from too much sunlight.
Now a collaboration between researchers at the University of Leeds and Kobe University in Japan is developing a novel approach to the investigation of photosynthesis.