Riding safely (Corvallis Gazette-Times) Water beaded on Stacy Brock’s sport bike as she pulled into a parking lot at Oregon State University on Tuesday. The 28-year-old OSU Blackboard administrator loves motorcycling and rides to work nearly every day, except when it’s icy, so a bit of rain wasn’t a problem. Absence of wolves causes imbalance [...]

Build it, and they will come (Economist) Universities are turning increasingly to private partners to help them solve these twin problems: the increasing recruitment of foreign students by other countries, and the need to offer suitable tuition for non-standard foreign learners while keeping home students happy. Since signing up UEA in 2006, INTO has made [...]

OSU to test newest nuclear energy concepts (Portland Business Journal) Oregon State University soon will have a “nuclear” reactor on campus. The reactor will not include any nuclear materials. The university has received a five-year, $6 million grant from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to research a a new “super hot” type of nuclear reactor. Willamette [...]

Can an Ecologist Push NOAA Up the Food Chain? (Science) Marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco launched her career studying the complexity of the intertidal zone–who eats whom, for example, and how ecosystems are affected by internal dynamics and external forces. Her colleagues expect that intellectual background to serve her well in the turbulent waters of U.S. [...]

Can wolves restore an ecosystem? (Seattle Times) No trace remains of the wolves whose howls ricocheted for millennia down the lush valleys of the Olympic Peninsula. But the loss of the stealthy predators in the early 1900s left a hole in the landscape that scientists say they are just beginning to grasp. The ripples extend [...]

Trees in Western U.S. Forests Dying Due to Climate Change (Washington Post) A new study led by the U.S. Geological Survey and involving the University of Colorado at Boulder and Oregon State University as well as other research institutes indicates tree deaths in the West’s old-growth forests have more than doubled in recent decades, likely [...]

Study on herbal remedy and dementia (The Guardian) Research has already shown that the herbal remedy Gingko biloba may help with symptoms like forgetfulness in people who have dementia. Now researchers have carried out a study to look at whether Gingko could help prevent dementia in the first place. The study was done by researchers [...]

The Spotted Owl’s New Nemesis (Smithsonian Magazine) Eric Forsman tramped across the spongy ground with one ear tipped to the tangled branches above. I had come to see one of the planet’s most-studied birds—the Northern spotted owl—with the man who brought the animal to the world’s attention. It was here, not half a mile away, [...]

Oregon State coach is enjoying his Barack Obama connection (LA Times) Craig Robinson has a famous sister (soon-to-be First Lady Michelle Obama), but, at heart, he’s still the Oregon State University head basketball coach. Though most of Saturday’s news conference dealt with the Beavers’ 61-57 overtime loss to Washington State, Robinson fielded a few questions [...]

Changing Forest Policies Proved Difficult For Bush Administration (OPB) Conservationists in Oregon worried eight years ago that President George W. Bush’s election would spell disaster – especially when it came to logging. Dean of Oregon State University’s College of Forestry, Hal Salwasser, concludes that the Northwest Forest Plan is basically broken. Addicted to birds: Oregonian [...]