Every year around the Fourth of July, populations of a single-celled organism called Thaumarchaeota explode in the coastal waters throughout the Southeastern United States, increasing more than 1,000 times higher than normal. It's a puzzling event that affects nitrogen availability and the fertility of coastal waters and may contribute to excess production of nitrous oxide, an important greenhouse gas.

Now, University of Georgia researchers have received a $727,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to determine why this happens, if it is limited to the Southeast and what impact these mid-summer blooms have on the environment.

Droughts might be affecting how Georgia's blackwater rivers process carbon, according to a new study led by an ecologist while he was at the University of Georgia. The results, which were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, report less carbon being transported downstream, higher concentrations of carbon in the water and increasing rates of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere in years following droughts.

The Internal Medicine Residency Program, a joint effort of the Georgia Regents University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership and St. Mary's Health Care System, received accreditation on Jan. 28 in the final step toward becoming Athens' first medical residency program.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education approved 10 internal medicine residents to begin their training at St. Mary's in July 2015, with plans for the program to grow to 30 residents by 2017. A medical residency is the final phase of a physician's formal education. Residency training takes place in teaching hospitals, which create programs that allow residents to practice medicine under the supervision and instruction of fully licensed physicians.

The University of Georgia School of Law recently won the 13th Annual American Bar Association Law Student Tax Challenge, a nationwide contest where approximately 90 teams from law schools across the country competed in solving a cutting-edge and complex business problem that might arise in everyday tax practice.

Third-year law student Morgan L. Klinzing and second-year law student Benjamin "Ben" Newell represented UGA. Camilla E. Watson, law professor, coached the pair.

According to Watson, this is the first year Georgia Law has had a team in this competition. "When I announced this opportunity to my class, Morgan and Ben responded," she said. "The competition judges were highly complimentary of their performance, and I am very proud of them."

Keeping milk safe and healthy to drink is a challenge in areas without electricity. A University of Georgia engineer received $1 million to continue working on a milk cooler designed to help dairy farmers, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, who lack access to refrigeration.

The milk cooler, developed by William Kisaalita, professor of biological and mechanical engineering in the UGA College of Engineering, uses the principle of evaporative cooling to quickly bring the temperature of milk to a safe holding temperature.

IS3D LLC, creators of interactive software to teach scientific principles to students in grades K-12, received the "Startup of the Year for 2013" award presented by Four Athens.

Members of the greater Athens community submitted nominations for the inaugural award, which was presented during Four Athens' annual Open House on Jan. 21. "Startup of the Year is given to the team that demonstrates growth, persistence, engagement and an overwhelming desire to succeed," said Jim Flannery, project director for Four Athens (www.fourathens.com). The organization, which was formed to discover startups, build community, connect creativity, accelerate growth and invest in success, plans to give the award annually.

Tiffany Washington, an assistant professor in the University of Georgia School of Social Work, received the 2014 Student Award for Social Work Research by the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work.

An agricultural delegation from the Republic of Mali braved the snow this week to visit the University of Georgia and meet with faculty and administrators.

The visit represents a renewal of the partnership, which was first established in 2006, between the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the people of Mali.

"The purpose of the visit is to foster more cooperation between the agricultural and educational organizations in Mali and scientists here at UGA," said CAES Dean J. Scott Angle. "We are excited to work with our counterparts in Africa to help foster development of agricultural practices here and overseas."

This past weekend, the University of Georgia School of Law captured the top trophy at the Andrews Kurth Moot Court National Competition. This invitation-only tournament had the top 16 moot court programs from law schools across the country, based on performances during the 2012-13 academic year, competing in an elite environment.

Margaret E. "Maggy" Randels and Utrophia D. Robinson, Georgia Law third-year students, were the only undefeated team through multiple rounds of competition and brought home the national victory to UGA. Additionally, Robinson was named the competition's second best oralist, and the pair prepared the tournament's third best brief.

The University of Georgia has received recognition in The Princeton Review's new book, "The Best Value Colleges: The 150 Best-Buy Schools and What It Takes to Get In."

The book, published on Jan. 28, includes 150 academic institutions—75 public and 75 private—based on surveys The Princeton Review, an education services company, conducted in 2012-13 of 2,000 undergraduate institutions concerning their academics, cost and financial aid. The publication also analyzed student survey data collected over the last three academic years. Rankings were made only for the top 10 in each category.

In its overview of UGA, The Princeton Review editors highlighted Georgia's merit-based HOPE Scholarship, which provides high school graduates who have a minimum 3.0 grade point average with a scholarship to cover the cost of tuition and a percentage of student fees and books. The editors also noted that UGA offers the prestigious Foundation Fellowship, which provides an annual stipend of approximately $9,000 for in-state students (in addition to the HOPE Scholarship) and $15,700 for out-of-state students (plus an out-of-state tuition waiver).

Robert Franek, The Princeton Review's senior vice president and publisher, said, "We salute these colleges for their outstanding academics and affordability either via their comparatively low sticker prices or generous financial aid awards to students with need-or both."