It was tragic enough that Susana Rivera-Mills’ girlhood was visited by war. It was frightening enough to flee her hometown of San Salvador on a dark night bundled in the backseat of the family Fiat with her little brother Fabio. And yet, as improbable as it seems, the hardest part was still ahead.
Category » Features
February 2, 2013
A Place of Belonging
Once a child immigrant, Susana Rivera-Mills’ past became her future
February 2, 2013
Words to Live By
Language and culture meet identity
The early findings from Independence reveal a community that is holding onto Spanish for five and six generations.
February 1, 2013
Corps of Discovery
Mastering the natural history of Oregon's storied lands and waters - and passing it on
Just as some babies are born with special gifts for music or math, Harvard’s Howard Gardner argues, others come into the world with an exceptional sensitivity to nature. The Oregon Master Naturalist program was designed to tap into this devotion to the land and build a statewide corps of expert volunteers.
January 31, 2013
Concord Elementary School
Where vegetables sprout (and kids, too)
Amid the chaos, the kids are learning about the art of gardening.
January 31, 2013
Lake of the Woods
Where the wild things are
“The three key words in the mission of Oregon Master Naturalists are explore, connect, contribute.”
January 31, 2013
South Slough
Where the waters mix
Anne and Philip Matthews have explored every twist and tangle of the South Slough, which became the nation’s first national estuarine research reserve in the 1970s.
January 31, 2013
Rimrock Ranch
Where steelhead will swim again
Guiding tours for the Deschutes Land Trust has been, for years, an outgrowth of Mary Crow’s passion for the land.
January 30, 2013
Caring for Cows
Humane treatment of livestock benefits industry as well as animals
Studies show that a stressed animal is more likely to be a sick, scrawny, infertile animal — hardly the formula for business success if you’re a rancher or dairyman.
January 23, 2013
Sex in Play
From dolls to sports, sexualized culture affects youth
It takes media savvy and strong role models to promote healthy development in the face of what the American Psychological Association calls “the massive exposure to portrayals that sexualize women and girls and teach girls that women are sexual objects.”
July 11, 2012
Legacy of a Whale
Renee Albertson’s childhood encounter led her, decades later, to French Polynesia
Rain was pouring hard the day Renee Albertson first connected, face-to-face, with a marine mammal. She was a 7-year-old visiting British Columbia’s Sealand aquarium (Canada’s now-defunct answer to California’s SeaWorld) with her mom and dad. The daily show had been cancelled because of the downpour. The usual crowds were absent. As the soggy trio from [...]
January 19, 2012
Surf’s Up!
Scientists help coastal communities plan for an uncertain future
If you love big surf, go to Depoe Bay on the Oregon coast during a winter storm. As swells rise and break offshore, winds whip ocean spray high into the air, but the waves move inexorably toward the harbor (the “world’s smallest navigable harbor,” reads a road sign), channel through rocks and, with a resounding [...]
November 21, 2011
Contraceptive vaccine under study for elephants and horses
For Ursula Bechert, reducing conflicts between wild animals and people comes down to good birth control.
The first lesson the elephants taught Ursula Bechert was that they had a sense of humor.
October 27, 2011
Chemistry for Life
The foundation for OSU's new science center was built a century ago
In 2011, the first Baby Boomer turned 65 — the leading edge of a wave that is going to change the country. By 2030 one in every five Americans will be older than that. People are already living longer, taking time to travel and to enjoy their families. Think gourmet cooking classes, fishing trips and [...]
October 27, 2011
Rice Paddy People
In a rural village, farmers fight industrial pollution
The young Chinese laborer was desperate. Like millions of other migrant workers in China’s dash to industrialize, he had left his home and family to work in a factory in the rural interior. Now, environmental officials had closed the zinc smelter in Futian where he worked, and without a job, nearly out of money and [...]
October 26, 2011
The Science of Design
On the cutting edge of functional apparel for health, comfort and sustainability
One day last spring, a Nike executive was touring Oregon State University’s apparel design facilities. After being shown the textile lab, the thermal lab and the chemistry lab, he blurted out: “Oh my gosh! This is design with beakers!” He was right — but only partly. Beakers are just the beginning of science-based apparel design [...]
October 26, 2011
Co-conspirators in Melanoma
Researchers discover "partners in crime" in deadly skin disease
Americans spend billions to beautify their outermost organ — to make it softer and younger, to erase wrinkles, conceal freckles, fake a tan, flaunt a tattoo. In our obsession with skin’s cosmetic qualities, it’s easy to forget the role it plays as nature’s biohazard suit. It defends our bodies against a barrage of environmental and [...]
October 25, 2011
Is There a Pill for That?
How the Internet is changing the way Americans seek health care
Instead of blindly following “doctor’s orders,” patients can power up their iPad, Google their symptoms and join a chatroom for a different kind of “expert” opinion — that of ordinary people who have “been there, done that.” In this brave new world of “e-health,” there are bounteous benefits, says Kristin Barker, a sociologist at Oregon State University.
October 4, 2011
Birth Knowledge
Master's student aims to solve devastating maternal health problem in Uganda
As a midwife in Eugene, Ore., Bonnie Ruder has overseen more than 150 successful homebirths. When she leaves for Uganda with her family in November, she will be investigating circumstances when things don’t go so well.
September 23, 2011
Carbon Sink
Forests can absorb more U.S. carbon than previously thought
Oregon State University forestry scientists have a habit of redefining the conversation about carbon and forests. Professors Beverly Law, Mark Harmon and their colleagues have demonstrated that old-growth stands on the west side of the Cascades store as much carbon or more than that held in tropical rain forests. In 2009, Law reported that forests [...]
September 23, 2011
On Call in Earthquake Country
Learning from devastation takes rapid response
When a severe earthquake strikes a distant community, Scott Ashford gets on a plane. He travels light but packs enough to be self-sufficient. He is, after all, going into a disaster zone where emergency personnel don’t need another mouth to feed. The head of the Oregon State University School of Civil and Construction Engineering is [...]
July 5, 2011
The Secret Life of Honeybees
Ramesh Sagili investigates the causes of honeybee decline
Strapped into a small holding device, the honeybee amiably wiggles its antennae. Like a toddler in a highchair, it seems to reach greedily for the dropper with sugar water that appears over its head. As its mouth opens, its tongue darts out for a taste of the sweet liquid.
June 1, 2011
Canines to the Rescue
Dogs with cancer point scientists to treatments for people
The similarities are uncanny. Bone tumors, whether from a teenager’s leg or the paw of the teen’s pet dog, look virtually identical. If you biopsy those tumors and examine them under a microscope, you’d be hard pressed to tell one from the other. That’s why oncology research at Oregon State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine [...]
June 1, 2011
Saving Orion
OSU's cutting-edge oncology clinic offers hope for one family's dog
Unlike humans, whose hair falls out during chemotherapy, dogs don’t lose their fur. I didn’t learn that when I was training to be an oncologist. I know it now because my dog has cancer. My 9-year-old golden retriever Orion, who is undergoing a pioneering cancer treatment at Oregon State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, still [...]
May 28, 2011
Holding Out Hope
A tenacious scientist's quest for the causes of Lou Gehrig's disease
He hit .295 with 29 home runs and 114 RBIs that last year in 1938 — a season most baseball players could only dream about. They called him the “Iron Horse” because he was known for his durability. But even in 1938, he was feeling tired by mid-season. And for him, a season like that was considered mediocre.
May 28, 2011
Blood Lines
Ishan Patel found his niche in biomedical engineering
It wasn’t the most elegant way to enter a lab. Ishan Patel had just met his mentor for the summer of 2009, Dr. Owen McCarty at Oregon Health & Science University. The OSU bioengineering student wanted to make a good impression, and when McCarty told him to go across the hall and meet his research [...]
May 27, 2011
Natural Defense
Plant-based diabetes treatment shows promise
“I’m not one that is easily deterred,” Anneke Tucker says with a disarming smile. It’s a good thing. The 23-year-old Oregon State University senior from Lakeview, Oregon, has fixed her sights on nothing less than improving health care in rural communities. And along the way, she might throw in a new treatment for one of the nation’s most serious health threats, Type 2 diabetes.
May 27, 2011
Growth Factors
High alcohol consumption inhibits bone healing
Feeding the rats was just the beginning. To get to the bottom of questions about the effects of alcohol consumption on bones, Cyndi Trevisiol learned how to remove the living cells from a femur and a tibia (purchased frozen from a biological supply house). She then removed the minerals — calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, silicon [...]
May 24, 2011
Pathfinders
Have you ever shot an electron beam through a molecule? Undergrads in Ken Hedberg's lab take aim and discover how matter is arranged.
Robert Johnson gets a lot of strange looks when he tells his friends what he does in Ken Hedberg’s lab. The senior from Salem and another student, Luke Costello from Corvallis, shoot beams of electrons through clouds of gasses and use the results to analyze molecular structure. “People ask ‘why?’” says Johnson. “I just say, [...]
April 26, 2011
Optimizing Energy
Simulations and modeling help to boost a fuel cell's energy output
Imagine a black box with knobs on the outside that you can turn. If you add fuel, the box produces electricity. By adjusting the knobs, you can change the power output, but there’s a catch — you’re not sure how far to turn the knobs to produce the most power. For researchers at Oregon State [...]
April 22, 2011
A Slippery Slope
Warm rains and glacial melting trigger dangerous debris flows
Grinding over ancient layers of lava and ash, the glaciers of the Cascade Range act like supersized sheets of shrinkwrap. Stretched taut across tons of pulverized rock, these blankets of frozen snow hold sand, gravel and boulders in place — that is, until they start to melt. Then the sediments, unlocked from the glaciers’ icy [...]
