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This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

Here’s a vision fit for a nightmare:  a “family reunion” of every type of Escherichia coli.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) blog. Check back each week as we showcase the stories and news from the agency’s rich science and research portfolio.

Researchers with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have teamed up with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and private consultants to come up with a way to turn a landfill—nobody’s idea of a beauty spot—into a little touch of green heaven, with greenhouse-gas-reducing benefits to boot.

Remember the good old days when you only got the “spring sniffles” for a few weeks as the new leaves began sprouting on the trees?  And doesn’t it seem like now, for some reason, you’re taking your antihistamine almost as often as you take your multi-vitamin?  That’s not your imagination; that’s climate change at work.

A USDA scientist and his collaborators have proven that ragweed pollen in some parts of the northern United States and Canada now hangs around almost a month longer than it did as recently as 1995.  The researchers’ results show those increases are correlated to seasonal warming shifts linked to climate change dynamics in the higher latitudes.

President Obama stressed the importance of innovation in his State of the Union address – and reminded us, “We do big things.”  Wes Jackson, who lent USDA the banner pictured here, founded The Land Institute around the “big idea” of using nature as a model for agriculture, including perennial grain crops whose deep roots hold soil in place and take up water and nutrients year-round, rather than the more typical annual grains that produce a big harvest and then die each year.  But perennial grains generally lack big seeds and high yields, and it has been difficult to breed grains that are both perennial and high-yielding.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the U.S. Department of Agriculture blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the agency’s rich science and research portfolio.

Japanese beetles are tough hombres in the bug world, ripping and chomping their way through more than 300 plant species and nearly 80 plant families.  Farmers and ornamental plant growers spend more than $450 million annually on control measures and replacements for plants destroyed by the beetle, which is by far the most destructive pest of ornamental and turf plants in the eastern United States.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

1935:  It was the year when baseball legend Babe Ruth hung up his spikes, and New Deal programs like the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps extended a helping hand to a nation devastated by the Dust Bowl and gripped by the Great Depression.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

For nearly 60 years, a relentless Asian insect with a silly-sounding name--the hemlock woolly adelgid, or HWA--has chomped a deadly swath through 17 northeastern states, portions of Canada and the Appalachian Mountains, literally sucking the life out of native hemlock trees.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

Even in a tropical paradise like Hawaii, Christmas just isn’t Christmas to some folks without an evergreen tree decked out with twinkling lights and sparkling ornaments. But some USDA scientists worry about that Yule tree being decked out with something else: invasive western yellowjackets.

Here at USDA we are looking for ways that we can help build and strengthen regional and local food systems.  As we talk to farmers, producers, consumers, processors, retailers, buyers and everyone else involved in regional food system development, we hear more and more about small and mid-sized farmers struggling to get their products to market quickly and efficiently.  And more and more we hear that these same producers need access to things like trucks, warehouses, processing space, and storage.  These things require capital investment, infrastructure maintenance and dedicated oversight – things that small and mid-sized producers often can’t afford or manage themselves.

One answer to help regional producers may be a ”food hub.”

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio.

Ahhh!  Remember the days of taking classroom field trips?  Bet you never had one like this—a virtual visit by a classroom on wheels that drives right up to the school’s front door!