“I’ll never forget the day I read a book,” Jimmy Durante sang, with an aside: “My house is loaded with books. And believe me, they’re not just there for appearances: I’ve pressed an awful lot of butterflies!” We hope you’ll let the butterflies stay on the flowers this summer and spend some time yourself in [...]
Category » Features
June 23, 2009
The OSU Readers Summer Collection
Whether on a beach towel or a deck chair,
immerse yourself in the wonderful world of words
June 23, 2009
Summer of Opportunity
Students plug into research
experiences at home and abroad
Ah, summer vacation. Time to kick back, right? Not so much for OSU students who are discovering opportunities to expand their horizons. They’re modeling blood flow, studying wildlife conservation in Africa, surveying Oregon’s old-growth forests and teaching entrepreneurship.
June 23, 2009
Determined To Succeed
Mario Magaña inspires young Latinos to make a difference
When Mario Magaña was 15, he made a tough decision: quit middle school and return to his family’s farm so his younger siblings had a chance for an education. Magaña loved school, which was 30 miles from his home in Los Horcones, Michoacán, Mexico, but he sacrificed anyway. His father could no longer afford the [...]
June 23, 2009
Camps Build Confidence and Sharpen Minds
Kids engage their brains in cool ways —
and get empowered at the same time
From Corvallis labs to Newport tidepools to Salem campgrounds, OSU experts are challenging K-12 kids to stretch their thinking and deepen their understanding of the natural and built environments. This summer, hundreds of Oregon children are limbering up their synapses in subjects as diverse as math and fine arts, engineering and journalism. They’re building brain [...]
June 23, 2009
Explore Oregon Through OSU Research
When you're out in the wilds and wonders of Oregon
this summer, let OSU's research and scientific discoveries enhance your adventure
From the state’s ancient forests to its briny oceans, from its prehistoric landscapes to its fertile fields, OSU scientists are studying the complexities of nature and the impacts of human activity. They invite you to stop and visit awhile: View Oregon State University Summer of Science in a larger map Feel the soft skin of [...]
April 24, 2009
Cut to the Bone
Wendy Baltzer's surgical technique does the trick for an old dog
The surgical suite in OSU’s small animal clinic bristles with crisp efficiency. A masked med tech wearing scrubs of sea-foam green unpacks sterile instruments from stainless-steel carts, treading lightly on puffy blue booties. Above the operating table, a state-of-the-art Stryker scope hangs like a giant jointed bug with shiny hooded eyes. The scene suggests an [...]
April 23, 2009
Climate by the Numbers
Modelers explore future states of the planet
You can’t just walk into the data center in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS). The sign on the door says you need a pass card. There should be another sign too: Caution, planetary experiments in progress. Inside, computer clusters churn 24/7, spinning out information about ocean currents, winds, air temperatures, ice [...]
April 23, 2009
Stage Kiss
Romance, history and science converge in OSU theater production
Arianne Jacques pondered the graphs projected on the screen and listened intently to Professor Ken Krane’s explanations – Newton’s First Law of Physics, Chaos Theory. She filled her notebook with scribbles about thermodynamics, algorithms, fractals and cosines. But at “iterative process,” the 21-year-old junior exclaimed, “I don’t get it!” and tossed down her pen. She [...]
April 23, 2009
Power Surge
New nuclear technologies meet needs
for electricity and safety
Last winter, the cavernous vault housing OSU’s nuclear test facility was base camp for a team of elite scientists from Shanghai and Beijing. For six months, the Chinese engineers studied every bolt, tube and plastic elbow in the scale-model reactor. They ran accident simulations and analyzed the data. They posited every scenario under the sun, [...]
January 23, 2009
Wired Watershed
Fiberoptics bring new precision to ecosystem sensing
It took a potato launcher, a canoe and a helium-filled balloon to propel a high-tech scientific enterprise during an international workshop at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest.
January 23, 2009
Lessons from the Magic Planet
Researchers are engaging the curious in meaningful inquiry
Researchers are engaging the curious in meaningful inquiry
January 23, 2009
Lunging for Life
Next year, a class for 90-year-olds
The risk of falling rises as we get older, but researchers and fitness instructors have a prescription: Better Bones and Balance. Even if you’re 88 years old, there’s a class for you.
September 23, 2008
Strong Medicine
In 2005, the Terri Schiavo drama riveted the nation with a cast of thousands: a feuding family, legions of lawyers and judges, dueling neurologists, irate clergymen and rowdy picketers. Politicians plotted and offered legislation, and President George W. Bush flew from Crawford, Texas, to Washington, D.C., in the middle of the night to sign emergency [...]
September 23, 2008
Air Beneath Their Wings
Five undergraduates — five dreams. Blake Kelley sees a bright future for nuclear power and is learning all he can about reactor designs. For Hiromi Omatsu, the future is in technology that enables elderly people to stay in their own homes. Writing is Stephen Summers’ love. He publishes poetry and fiction in OSU’s student literary [...]
September 23, 2008
Pipeline to Science
Strange, alien environments — far–away planets, fathomless seas, shadowy forests — figure in countless daydreams. What child hasn’t imagined herself at the controls of a futuristic spacecraft? Or at the prow of a wave–tossed vessel? Or on the trail of a secretive beast? Exploiting kids’ universal yen to explore remote and exotic places, a noted [...]
September 23, 2008
Fear and Loading
Whether you venture onto a few wooden planks over a trout stream, a steel colossus over a swift river or a concrete viaduct carrying bumper–to–bumper commuters, you trust the beams and girders to hold you up. This act of faith, made daily by millions of motorists on U.S. highways, was shaken last summer when a [...]
July 19, 2008
“Like Looking Over His Shoulder”
Scholars pore over Pauling Papers for insights into a genius and his times When OSU librarian Cliff Mead leads you into the collected life history of one of America’s greatest minds, you step into the vortex of the last century. The Valley Library, where the papers of Linus Pauling reside, opens up a first-person portal [...]
July 19, 2008
No Barriers
Access to mass transit opens the world to people with disabilities At night when she dreams, Marlene Massey hikes the Cascades on sturdy legs. But when she gets up in the morning, a four-inch curb can stop her cold. That’s because the 50-year-old Corvallis woman is in a wheelchair after losing a big chunk of [...]
July 19, 2008
One to One
As students explore opportunities, mentors provide personal support Most students come to college as works in progress, their interests only partially identified, their potential still to be realized. And as they explore and develop that potential, many students find something equally important: a mentor. OSU offers an “opportunity-rich environment” for mentoring; at the same time, [...]
July 19, 2008
Hallie Ford spent a lifetime advocating for youth and families
Her work will continue to inspire research in the new Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families at OSU. Prompted by an $8 million gift from her estate, the OSU College of Health and Human Sciences will build on existing strengths of the faculty and anticipate the needs and challenges of children and families. [...]
July 19, 2008
From Risk to Relationship
Youth development focuses on the positive, but the most vulnerable still face long odds
Youth development focuses on the positive, but the most vulnerable still face long odds In 1998, Michelle Inderbitzin decided to conduct a study of youth in a detention center for violent offenders. Almost every Saturday morning for 15 months, the University of Washington graduate student in sociology made the 90-minute drive from Seattle to an [...]
July 19, 2008
From Risk to Relationship
Youth development focuses on the positive, but the most vulnerable still face long odds
In 1998, Michelle Inderbitzin decided to conduct a study of youth in a detention center for violent offenders. Almost every Saturday morning for 15 months, the University of Washington graduate student in sociology made the 90-minute drive from Seattle to an “end-of-the-line training school” for boys convicted of multiple property crimes, armed robberies, violent and/or [...]
June 30, 2008
Out of the Depths
Voracious “red devil” squid are on the move
It was like a scene from a grade-B horror film. On a gently rocking vessel in the warm waters of the Sea of Cortez, a young oceanographer earnestly watches her computer screen while colleagues lower a cable into the water.
May 23, 2008
Sacred Landscape
Tribes confront the cultural risks of contaminant exposure
The traditions of native cultures — making reed baskets, eating wild foods, participating in sweat lodges — sustained people for centuries. Now those cultures are threatened by contamination. Researchers from the Umatilla reservation and OSU show why.
May 23, 2008
Expedition to the Edge
An OSU scientist braves an uncharted rainforest in a search for rare and endangered species
A love of bugs led Chris Marshall to take a white-knuckle flight into a remote South American rainforest. With an eye on cataloging the diversity of these rich ecosystems before they vanish, he returned with species never seen by scientists.
May 23, 2008
The Proboscis Hypothesis
Were dinosaurs bugged to death?
Was the mighty dinosaur done in by a midge? Very likely, argues OSU zoologist George Poinar in his new book, What Bugged the Dinosaurs? Insects, Disease and Death in the Cretaceous. Midges, together with millions of other Cretaceous insect species, may well have landed the “final knockout blow” to the giant reptiles by infecting them [...]
April 30, 2008
Musical Panache
OSU steel drum ensemble taps into Caribbean rhythms
OSU percussionist Bob Brudvig is leading a five-person ensemble in a practice session on the second floor of historic Benton Hall. It may be winter in Corvallis, but the music makes you forget the drizzle outside. It evokes palm trees, Caribbean sun and pre-Lenten carnivals. Brudvig works the melody on his chrome-plated steel drum, tapping [...]
April 23, 2008
Windows on Watersheds
A clear look at industrial forests
Old-style logging left scars on the landscape, but nearly 40 years ago, research in Oregon changed tree-cutting practices. Now researchers are joining landowners to update the science behind modern forest management.
April 23, 2008
From Oppression to Religious Freedom
By Renée Roman Nose
It took centuries for religious practices of American Indians to receive full protection under U.S. law. Until 1994, when President Clinton signed legislation granting Native Americans the right to use peyote for ceremonies without fear of losing their jobs, tribes suffered oppression and even death for their spiritual beliefs. Most notorious was the massacre at [...]
April 23, 2008
Baskets of Concern
Food is only the most obvious way contaminants enter the human body. Poisons also come in through the pores of the skin and the lobes of the lungs. Living in intimate contact with the landscape, as many indigenous peoples do, raises the risks of exposure. Traditional practices of the Umatilla members of the Columbia Basin [...]
