It may sound like the Olympics, but you don’t have to go to extremes to get benefits that could last a lifetime. Regular exercises can raise or maintain bone mass in children and adults, reducing fracture risks as they age. Those are the conclusions of studies by Kathy Gunter and her team of undergraduate and [...]
Category » Spring 2011
June 8, 2011
Biotech Partnership
Focus on flowering genes
Research into tree biotechnology has gotten a boost through a new agreement between Dow AgroSciences LLC and Oregon State University. The wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company will make its EXZACT™ Precision Technology available to Steve Strauss, distinguished professor of forest biotechnology in the College of Forestry. EXZACT™ provides a versatile and comprehensive [...]
June 8, 2011
Free-Choice Science
Study confirms benefits of learning centers, museums
In a world confronted with greenhouse gases, emergent diseases, energy shortages, natural disasters, habitat loss, species extinctions and a thousand other urgent issues, public understanding of science is more essential than ever. Now, an OSU study reveals a powerful vehicle for enhancing science literacy in local communities: science museums. Science museums like the Oregon Museum [...]
June 3, 2011
Cultural Designer
Contemporary images respect Ojibway traditions
Neebinnaukzhik means “summer evening” in the Ojibway (also known as Chippewa) language of the Great Lakes region. When Neebinnaukzhik Southall was growing up, she made handcrafts — friendship bracelets, dream catchers and beaded animals — and sold them to family and friends. She called her business Summer’s Specials.
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 [...]
May 31, 2011
Good Impressions
How do we size each other up?
Call it gut instinct, intuition, street smarts or sixth sense. Good poker players need it. Success in business, politics and athletics demands it. Psychologists call it emotional intelligence, but unlike the myriad tests available to assess verbal and quantitative intelligence, a well-validated test for emotional intelligence has yet to be established, according to Frank Bernieri, [...]
May 31, 2011
One Less Child
Reproductive choices affect long-term carbon emissions
If you’re concerned about sustainable living, you probably pay close attention to your “carbon footprint.” We all have one: the amount of climate changing carbon we emit to the atmosphere through our energy intensive lifestyles. Some of us even calculate our household’s footprint with one of the many carbon calculators available online. It helps to [...]
May 31, 2011
Building a Better Student
One research project at a time
When undergraduate students do hands-on research with eminent professors on projects that matter, everyone wins. Students become better thinkers and citizens; the professors who mentor them become better teachers and researchers. Employers get access to employees with critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills that are so important in an economy increasingly dependent on innovation [...]
May 31, 2011
How Do You Know That?
“It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known but to question it.”
— Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man
As an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University in the 1970s, I immersed myself in learning about my field of choice, oceanography. I spent plenty of time in class studying the leading texts of the day. But my real education came from first-hand research experiences.
May 31, 2011
The Birth-Weight Factor
Small babies may face lifelong problems metabolizing meds
Among the questions you may be asked someday by doctors who prescribe your medications is one that few people can probably answer: What was your birth weight? Research by Ganesh Cherala of the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy suggests that when physicians prescribe drugs ranging from Tylenol to cancer chemotherapies, they may need to [...]
May 31, 2011
The Gamma and the Beta
Nuclear detection improves monitoring
Fast, accurate, affordable detection of radiation — whether it’s from Japan’s damaged Fukushima plant, long-buried waste at Hanford’s WWII weapons site, or secret underground testing by rogue nations — is a pressing need internationally. Now, detection technology has taken a notable leap forward. A newly patented invention from Oregon State University uses “phoswich” technology (short [...]
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 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 [...]
