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Green clues: Crime-busters turn to moss to help solve crimes

MARQUETTE – Can tiny pieces of moss become crime-busters? Yes, according to a new study examining how law enforcement agencies, forensic teams and botanists have used moss to solve murders, track missing people, calculate how long ago someone died and – in a notorious western Michigan ...

Recalling Christmases past

Past the dimmed and cracked corners of the memories in my mind’s eye, I can see those week-before-Christmas days of my very young boyhood. Even in those early times, we were being indoctrinated and transformed from innocent and curious toddlers into ravenous post-war American ...

Protecting mussels, tracking progress and a new initiative

MARQUETTE — Have you ever submitted a report to the Midwest Invasive Species Information Network and questioned whether anyone would see it? Maybe you spent a semester slogging through rivers or fields to catalog species and habitat and wondered why. If so, the upcoming NotMISpecies webinars ...

Outdoors North: In an idyllic snow-globe existence

“Well, I grew up wild and free, walking these fields in my bare feet. There wasn’t no place I couldn’t go with a .22 rifle and a fishing pole,” – Bob McDill Growing up in an iron-ore mining town put us kids in close contact with some of the coolest things, especially for boys. I ...

The secret to keeping your holiday greenery fresher longer

I've planted the potted mums in the garden and packed away the scarecrows — now it's time to deck the halls. That means filling vacant pots with evergreen branches foraged from my trees and shrubs, hanging cedar swags on the porch and placing a wreath on the door. They'll look great at ...