The U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend $494,000 to study [to study? not fight?] the threat of Cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica), an aggressive Asian grass, on Alabama’s timber industry. In the saddest of ironies, earth-moving machines that had been dispensed to assist in post-hurricane cleanup ended up transporting this invasive back to their home region and introducing it to new habitats to undermine. Read more here.

flickr/smallislander