“This was the hardest year yet,” Jeff Smoke declared as he crossed the finish line to win the 2016 M22 Challenge, which was held on Saturday, June 11 — his fifth time earning that title. “The competition keeps getting harder.” Smoke, 38, of Niles, Mich., kayaked on the 2004 U.S. Olympic team. Smoke won this year’s race with an overall time of 1:11:29, and most impressive was his paddle time — just 14 minutes and 44 seconds.
Check out this video of last year’s M-22 Challenge. This unique triathlon features a run up the Sleeping Bear Dune Climb, a bike race around the Glen Lakes and a paddle on Little Glen Lake.
From staff reports A new ant species was recently described, for the first time, by German researchers from specimens collected in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. This ant exhibits an unusual behavior: it enslaves other ants. Dr. Susanne Foitzik from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Germany) will present a program discussing this interesting species and its […]
The Leelanau Summer Music Festival opens its seventh season this Saturday, June 11, with Music of the British Isles. The concert will take place at 7 p.m. in the former school of Holy Rosary Church in Isadore (near Cedar) and feature Richard Sherman, MSU Professor of Flute and principal flutist of the Lansing Symphony. Sherman will be joined by virtuoso Russian pianist Genadi Zagor in a musical tour of the British Isles.
Historically, water quality monitoring programs have relied on traditional techniques, such as culturing microorganisms (e.g., E. coli, enterococci) in the laboratory, to evaluate if beaches are safe for swimming, surfing, and other water-exposure recreational activities. However, the significant time-lapse between sample collection and results, typically 18 hours or longer, can result in inaccurate management decisions due to rapidly changing water quality conditions. This results in either unnecessary beach closures or beaches open to swimming when the water quality is actually poor. Recent advancements in DNA-based technology are increasingly becoming indispensable tools in environmental applications, including water quality monitoring. With these techniques, water quality results are achievable on the same day of sampling, within hours of sample collection.
Nationally recognized architectural photographer Dietrich Floeter and Leelanau Press publisher Barbara Siepker capture the beauty and essence of 60 summer cottages and the nostalgia enveloping them in Historic Cottages of Glen Lake.
A big wind swept through Glen Arbor on Aug. 2, 2015, and one of the things it left behind was a different perspective. “New Views: A Storm of Art” opens June 10 at the Glen Arbor Art Association (GAAA), and presents work by 26 artists who interpreted the storm.
Wings of Wonder is inviting the public to a release of an adult Bald Eagle on Sunday, June 5, at 10 a.m., at Eagle Meadow located at 3805 West Empire Highway (about 6.7 miles east of Empire off of hwy 72).
Samaritans’ Closet, a plain brown house over the bridge in the village of Lake Leelanau, is becoming a destination thrift shop. On this particular day the chartreuse leaves of the willows and poplars are just beginning to show. The red twig dogwood is redder than usual and the maples are a dusky ruby and pink. Cardinals call, “Teacher, teacher,” in the marsh along the narrows.
I am grossed out. On the video, a creature reminiscent of horror flicks, B-movies, an almost pornographic monster, except it’s not a monster, except it’s real and it is a monster. Sortof. The winged thing trembles on a flesh-like surface. The film reveals in full detail the tail-end of the monster’s abdomen, where a serrated ovipositor descends, and a double row of “teeth” pierces the surface. Slowly, with mesmerizing tenacity, she saws into the thin-skinned softness, dipping ever deeper into the flesh. Then, and this is where I feel sick, out of that same organ she forces a single small white egg, deposits it firmly into the hole. The ovipositor closes, lifts like a machine, revealing a tiny filament still extending from the hole—the breathing tube of the egg. The egg’s breathing tube!?! The creature turns; huge red eyes stare straight into the camera, and after all that, the darn thing starts the process all over. Hundreds of times. I am not kidding.