Paul Hetzler

Paul Hetzler is a Horticulture and Natural Resources Educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension, in Canton, NY. He is the author of "Shady Characters," and the website “Where the Wild Words Are."

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Mint and Maple: Nature’s Memory Medicine

Eating ice cream on a regular basis helps combat Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, according to recent studies. At least that’s how I interpret the results.

Volume 18, Issue 10, October 2023
Paul Hetzler

Fly Research Yields Possible Trauma Treatment

All about new research on fruit flies - with surprising results - on flies dropping like flies when they see dropped flies . . . (Editor says: There may be help in my summer kitchen!)

'Volume 18, Issue 8, August 2023
Paul Hetzler

White Pines: Colossal in Many Ways

The eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) isn’t really a crop-bearing tree, but it has borne priceless “fruit” for American democracy.

Volume 18, Issue 7, July 2023
Paul Hetzler

Biotechnology News: Synthetic Milk of Human Kindness Soon to Become a Reality

. . . Perhaps the most controversial product on Cell Signals’ patent is synthetic Milk of Human Kindness.

Volume 18, Issue 4, April 2023
Paul Hetzler

Sunshine, Coffee and Shoelaces: Keys to Immortality

While telomeres all shrink over time, things like air pollution, chronic stress, obesity, and using alcohol and tobacco are known to hasten the process . . . surprisingly, coffee is good for telomere health as well.

Volume 18, Issue 2, February 2023
Paul Hetzler

High Reindeer

If not for a fungus, Santa’s flying sleigh would be grounded. If that were the case, the only toys he could distribute would be to the elves who made them in the first place . . .

Volume 17, Issue 12, December 2022
Paul Hetzler

Beyond Animals

The idea that one could plant a garden of tree-pod birds and vine-lambs, maybe even a cabbage-patch kid, seemed rational to men who fancied themselves the smartest people in the world.

Volume 17, Issue 11, November 2022
Paul Hetzler

The Giving Tree

. . . Although elms are still present in our forests, Dutch elm disease, which has the appropriate acronym “DED,” now kills them before they can reach maturity.

Volume 17, Issue 10, October 2022
Paul Hetzler

Secret Language of Mushrooms

It’s old news that fungi transfer information chemically under the ground. This new discovery suggests that as fungi decompose wood, they might also be composing sonnets, love-poems, or grocery lists . . .

Volume 17, Issue 9, September 2022
Paul Hetzler

Daycare Forests

Research on the health benefits of being in a forest environment is so compelling that urban daycares in Finland “built” forests for kids to use.

Volume 17, Issue 8, August 2022
Paul Hetzler

The Giant Joro Spider

First your car catches fire, and then your house. Worse yet, your date kills you and devours your flesh without so much as an apology. Yeah, spiders are creepy , , ,

Volume 17, Issue 7, July 2022
Paul Hetzler

Call the Dogs off the Lions

Why do we hate lions? For reasons beyond any logic that I can see, most Westerners have been brainwashed by the lawn-care industry to believe that dandelions are posies non grata in our landscapes.

Volume 17, Issue 6, June 2022
Paul Hetzler

Good News about a Bad Word

The word is Vaccine: Yikes! Let’s get right down to it: a vaccine against poison ivy will soon be available, but only if you really, really, really want it. Promise.

Volume 17, Issue 5, May 2022
Paul Hetzler

Synthetic Photosynthesis!

Every so often, an obscure technical innovation really lights me up. In the fall of 2021, a team of German scientists published a report on their work injecting tadpole noggins with algae.

Volume 17, Issue 4, April 2022
Paul Hetzler

Water Wellness

Academic testing is like water testing in that a passing grade in one realm doesn’t apply to others. Just as an algebra exam won’t affect your history grade (or it shouldn’t) . . .

Volume 17, Issue 3, March 2022
Paul Hetzler

All That Glitters Isn’t Green

I never would have imagined that glitter could be a pollutant of concern. At my age, I need glasses to find a postage stamp – it’s a long shot that I could help pick up glitter.

Volume 17, Issue 2, February 2022
Paul Hetzler

The Mutants Have Landed

The marmorkreb, a.k.a. marbled crayfish, is a destructive new species that first appeared in aquariums in Germany. . . They are here now, and your help scouting for them is both invaluable and essential.

Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2022
Paul Hetzler

Lips and Walls: Digging into Tree Decay

Did you know that trees have an early-warning system? Apparently, they can signal one another about what type of pest has arrived on the scene . . .

Volume 16, Issue 12, December 2021
Paul Hetzler