Star Tribune
Fishy-smelling corpse flower blooms at Gustavus Adolphus College
ST. PETER, Minn. – The corpse flower at Gustavus Adolphus College is in full bloom, and the air Sunday was fetid with the stench of dead fish.
The flower, known as Gemini, opened up late Saturday night, said Amy Kochsiek, a continuing assistant professor of biology at Gustavus.
The brief and infrequent blooms of a corpse flower can sometimes only last a few hours, and by Sunday afternoon the plant already smelled like fish, one of the last odors in the cycle, Kochsiek said.
The Biology Department set up a livestream for curious Minnesotans to watch the plant bloom. Signs directed visitors to the greenhouse on the third floor of the campus’ Nobel Hall of Science, where on Sunday visitors could observe the plant through a window.
The endangered corpse flower species has adopted a strategy of emitting the smell of rotting flesh and other smells that attract flies, beetles and other insects that can help spread its pollen, said Brian O’Brien, a professor emeritus in chemistry at Gustavus, last week.
The flowers originate in Sumatra, Indonesia, and their pungent odors start off identical to rotting flesh before cycling through notes of fecal matter, decaying fish and sauerkraut, O’Brien said.
Gustavus saw the first flowering of the plant in Minnesota in 2007, according to the college. Other plants in Minnesota have also begun to sprout, such as one that bloomed earlier this year at the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in May.
Over the course of the corpse flower’s bloom, the plant will heat up by 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit, which helps the smell spread and attract pollinators, the professor said. The immense energy required to heat up the flower and release its stinky aromas are part of the reason why the plant blooms so infrequently.
By late afternoon Sunday, the corpse flower had already started to wilt, the scent had faded and the plant had gone cold. Soon, professors at the college will open a hole in the plant’s exterior, hard as a watermelon rind. They’ll scoop out its pollen with a teaspoon to store for posterity, as part of efforts to preserve the species.
There’s a still chance Gustavus will see another bloom this year, said Kochsiek. A second plant, genetically identical to the one that bloomed, has about a coin flip’s chance of either flowering or becoming a leaf.
So far, though, the plant is still “unsure,” Kochsiek said.
Star Tribune
A clever wolf repeatedly snuck into a Minnesota ranch. Biologists with the Voyageurs Wolf Project figured out its MO.
Johnson’s ranch sits in the densest part of the state’s wolf territory, and is surrounded on all sides by five active packs south of Voyageurs National Park. At 1,600 acres with 750 head of cattle, it’s not just the biggest ranch in wolf territory, but one of the trickiest terrains. It’s hilly, and has marshy land on one of its borders. Ninemile Creek and the Black Duck River run through it.
If a fence can keep wolves out here, Gable said, it can keep them out pretty much anywhere.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has been trying out similar fences over the last four years. The fences built have been much smaller — enclosing 40 acres or less. They work more as pens, where cows can give birth in peace and then the calves can rotate out when they’re older and less vulnerable. The state reports no wolves have made it inside the six fences that have been installed.
Fences are no small investment, however. Johnson’s 7.5-mile fence cost roughly $70,000 in materials, plus hundreds of man-hours provided by Gable, his research partner, Austin Homkes, Johnson and the USDA to install it. If they had to contract out the installation work, the fence would have cost several hundred thousand, Gable said.
Rancher Wes Johnson drives his truck past some of his red angus cattle. (Anthony Souffle/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
But shooting problem wolves is expensive, too.
Every spring Johnson would lose a handful of calves to wolves soon after they were born. The public has to pay to reimburse ranchers for any wolf-killed livestock, and it pays federal trappers to hunt problem wolves. In Johnson’s case, the trappers were called in after each incident to kill up to a dozen wolves in the area.
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault as part of a nondisclosure agreement, though he maintained that their encounter was consensual, according to a statement from his lawyer Saturday and other documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Hegseth’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, said that Hegseth was “visibly intoxicated” at the time of the incident, and maintained that police who were contacted a few days after the encounter by the woman concluded “the Complainant had been the aggressor in the encounter.” Police have not confirmed that assertion.
Hegseth agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to the woman because he feared that revelation of the matter “would result in his immediate termination from Fox,” where he works as a host, the statement said.
The statement came after a detailed memo was sent to the Trump transition team this week by a woman who said she is a friend of the accuser. The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, alleged he raped the then-30-year-old conservative group staffer in his room after drinking at a hotel bar. The person who sent the memo to the transition team did not respond to requests for comment from The Post.
The accuser, whose identity has not been made public, filed a complaint with the police alleging she was sexually assaulted days after the Oct. 7, 2017 encounter in Monterey, California, but the local district attorney did not bring charges. Police confirmed that they investigated the incident. After she threatened litigation in 2020, Hegseth made the payment and she signed the nondisclosure agreement, his attorney said.
The detailed, four-page memo about the incident has set off debate among senior Trump transition officials, but so far Trump has stood behind Hegseth. Spokesman Steven Cheung earlier this week said: “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”
The documents from Hegseth’s attorney and the memo to the transition team from someone who said she is a friend of the woman and was “present and involved” in the case tell drastically different stories about what happened seven years ago at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa – although both sides agree that Hegseth had a sexual encounter with a woman there.
Hegseth, whose second wife had filed for divorce the previous month, had traveled to Monterey to speak to a California Federation of Republican Women conference. Afterward, according to his lawyer, he went to the hotel bar with a group of attendees.
The Gophers women’s hockey team contained longtime WCHA rival Minnesota Duluth, winning 3-2 Saturday afternoon to sweep a series at Amsoil Arena. The No. 3 Gophers haven’t lost to the No. 4 Bulldogs since the NCAA regional final in mid-March 2022.
Peyton Hemp, Gracie Graham and Emma Connor scored for the Gophers (10-3-1, 6-3-1 WCHA), with Abbey Murphy getting two assists. UMD’s Kamdyn Davis and Nina Jobst-Smith scored for the Bulldogs (6-55-1, 5-4-1 WCHA).
Gophers freshman goalie Hannah Clark had 31 saves; UMD’s Eve Gascon had 35.
UMD freshman defender Davis scored her first career goal off a backhanded pass from sophomore winger Grace Sadura. Davis skated in from Clark’s left side and lofted it to the right corner in the first five minutes of the opening period. Freshman defender Graham whipped the puck past Gascon midway through the period to tie the game. Peyton Hemp scored a power-play goal in the final two minutes of the first period, poking the puck in low on a rebound of a shot by Nelli Laitinen. The Gophers closed the period with a 2-1 advantage.
UMD’s Sadura left the game near the end of the second period after taking a major misconduct penalty for making contact with an opponent’s head. The Bulldogs were able to kill the penalty to close the period.
Gophers junior winger Connor scored midway through the final period, putting a rebound past Gascon. The Bulldogs had a 5-3 power-play advantage when Jobst-Smith sent the puck sailing high past Clark in the final five minutes of play. UMD pulled Gascon in the final minute but wasn’t able to tie the game.
The Gophers eased past the Bulldogs 4-1 in Friday’s opener, helped by two goals by Ella Huber, one shorthanded, the other an empty-netter, and two assists by Natalie Mlynkova. UMD’s Gascon had 48 saves, tying a personal best.
The Gophers host No. 8 St. Cloud State for a home-and-home series next weekend. The Bulldogs host unranked Bemidji State.
Photographing the rooms of kids killed in school shootings
How do you make a portrait of a child who isn’t there? Photographer Lou Bopp found a way, but it wasn’t easy.
A clever wolf repeatedly snuck into a Minnesota ranch. Biologists with the Voyageurs Wolf Project figured out its MO.
Photographing the rooms of kids killed in school shootings
How do you make a portrait of a child who isn’t there? Photographer Lou Bopp found a way, but it wasn’t easy.