Mark Whitham’s know-how is a sought-after commodity for small canners hoping to kick-start or upgrade their facilities.
Stories
June 1, 2012
“They Never Tasted Fish Like This Before”
A Coos Bay entrepreneur teamed up with an Oregon Sea Grant seafood specialist to create a new business and local jobs.
May 30, 2012
Life-Saving Science
At a recent meeting of the American Meteorological Society in New Orleans, I participated in a discussion of early warning systems that give the public time to take cover from tornadoes and to prepare for hurricanes. Today, we have hours or days to get out of harm’s way. Contrast that with the hurricane in Galveston, [...]
May 30, 2012
Running Clear
Gary Klinkhammer turned water analysis into environmental protection
The Arctic Ocean, 1997. Gary Klinkhammer had strapped a water chemistry analyzer onto the hull of a retired U.S. Navy nuclear submarine to measure carbon. He had come to this bleak and desolate place looking for organic matter, fertile detritus dumped into the ocean by massive rivers in Siberia and North America. “The Arctic in [...]
May 30, 2012
Battling the Superbugs
Science wages war on bacteria that are resisting modern drugs
This story has echoes of heroes tramping the Earth (or the galaxy) on a quest to defeat the forces of darkness. Along the way, the travelers encounter strange creatures with remarkable powers. They endure harrowing tests of mental strength and technological prowess. In the end, they prevail, bringing down the enemy and discovering a truth [...]
May 30, 2012
Turncoat Proteins
Scientists scope out the earliest signs of disease
It’s one of life’s little ironies. The proteins in our bodies fight infection, carry messages, ferry oxygen and build tissue. But then, like double agents in a spy novel, they can betray us. They overreact to a virus and attack our own organs. They promote cancer, help clog arteries or set up roadblocks in the [...]
May 30, 2012
Business Partners
Entrepreneurs leverage OSU research in startup companies
One sunny spring afternoon, friends sat together in the backyard of a Corvallis home sipping wine, bemoaning the recent hike in gas prices to $3.50 per gallon. Among them were a former product-development specialist for Hewlett-Packard and an Oregon State University chemist. Perhaps inspired by the bioethanol in their glasses, what might happen, they wondered, [...]
May 30, 2012
From Wood to Watts
Forest-based fuels could fire up rural development, but at what cost?
About a million years ago in South Africa, a Homo erectus cave dweller used fire on purpose, and some charred bones at the site suggest it may have been for cooking. Thus was born the biofuels industry — and also the first known barbecue. The name of that cave, Wonderwerk, means “miracle” in the Afrikaans [...]
May 30, 2012
Plates of Honor
Julie Green memorializes final meal choices by death-row prisoners
In 1997, Julie Green had just moved to Norman, Oklahoma, when she sat down to read the local paper with her morning tea and toast. As she was looking at the column of news from around the state, she was riveted by an item describing an execution that had happened the previous night. The column [...]
May 30, 2012
Sowing seeds for business
Startup companies and entrepreneurs work hand-in-hand with researchers
New startup companies are emerging from Oregon State research. Here are three young companies just getting their feet on the ground.
May 29, 2012
Bits & Pieces
News briefs from OSU
A geologist who once helped discover rock-eating microbes a mile beneath the ocean floor soon will be looking for rocks in the other direction: up.
May 29, 2012
The Exercise Gender Gap
Men are more active than women
Men exercise more than women do — 18 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity for women versus 30 minutes for men, on average — a study has found. This is bad news for women, who are more prone to “metabolic syndrome” — a cluster of risk factors including so-called “stubborn belly fat” often targeted in diet ads. [...]
May 29, 2012
Of Predators and Herds
Big meat-eaters mean healthy ecosystems
The health of any ecosystem starts with razor-like teeth and an appetite for meat. The “apex” predators — big carnivores like bears and wolves at the top of the food web — keep things in balance, OSU researchers have found in study after study in the western United States. Now, the findings have been confirmed [...]
May 29, 2012
Hail Oceanus!
Marine research vessel switches coasts
It was a beautiful day for a shakedown cruise off the Oregon coast. For a crew based at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, March 7, 2012, was also a good day to get to know their new ship, the research vessel (R/V) Oceanus. Scientists and crew took Oceanus, the sister ship to OSU’s [...]
May 29, 2012
The Oh! Zone
Far-out findings from science
Ancient Blood Brothers Like the “sloth moth,” which lives only in the fur of the ambling two-toed and three-toed mammals, the “bat fly” exists only in the fur of the winged, cave-dwelling mammals. Now scientists know that the flea-like, blood-sucking fly has been hanging around with bats for at least 20 million years. That’s because [...]
May 29, 2012
Parents Should Chill Out
Toddlers whose parents anger easily tend to throw more tantrums and become upset, a new study shows. Looking into the nature-versus-nurture question long debated in childrearing, researchers found a clear link between over-reactive parenting and negative emotions in young children. “You set the example as a parent in your own emotions and reactions,” says researcher [...]
May 29, 2012
Infectious Science
The National Institutes of Health is supporting OSU researchers with $4.5 million spread across 16 active projects. Among them: Jon Furuno, College of Pharmacy, studies the incidence and severity of MRSA in hospitals and long-term care facilities. Margaret Dolcini, Department of Public Health, studies the behaviors and attitudes of urban African-American youth at risk of [...]
May 29, 2012
The Power’s in the Purple
A new type of tomato that’s “as black as an eggplant” is being touted for its health-enhancing properties. Poetically named “Indigo Rose,” the new variety was bred at OSU as a powerful source of antioxidants — micronutrients known to fight the harmful “free radicals” implicated in cancers and other diseases. It’s the purple pigment, in [...]
May 29, 2012
Tracking the Titans
A whale named Varvara is following in the fluke-path of a whale named Flex, who surprised scientists last year by taking an unexpected migratory route from Russia to Oregon. Scientists led by Bruce Mate at the Marine Mammal Institute are following Varvara’s incredible journey via satellite signals from an electronic “tag” she received in September. [...]
May 26, 2012
Data Driven
Chris Patton uses computer modeling to help build world-champion racecars
When Chris Patton was helping his Formula SAE team design a racecar for international competition, he made an unusual suggestion: angle the rear wheels outward in relation to the car. Common knowledge would warn against that move. Turning the rear tires outward makes the car less stable. But Patton, a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering [...]
May 25, 2012
Resistance Times Ten
Pathogens resistant to one or more drugs are on the rise. Below are 10 diseases associated with antimicrobial resistance identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 1. Anthrax. Occurs rarely in humans. Caused by exposure to infected animals or animal products. Also has been used in [...]
May 25, 2012
Evidence for Change
Rigorous climate science trumps our senses
Some people take a dim view of the idea that Oregon, as well as the rest of the world, could be expected to continue warming in coming decades. They may cite March snowfall in the Willamette Valley or unpublished comparisons of mean temperatures over a given time period in specific places. Appealing as it is, [...]
May 25, 2012
From Bedside to Public Square
Drug-resistant staph infections go viral
Most of Portland is still punching the snooze button when morning rounds begin on Pill Hill. By 6 o’clock, teams of doctors, residents and medical students have draped their stethoscopes around their necks, collected their clipboards and greeted their first patients at OHSU’s teaching hospital. Joining one of the white-coated clusters, the family-medicine team, is [...]
May 25, 2012
Green mulch
More veggies and more fruit = more plastic mulch on farms. Oregon State students look for alternatives.
Bear with me; here’s the problem. Plastic mulch — those shiny sheets spread across row upon row of veggies, strawberries and other crops — enables farmers to produce more types and greater quantities of food. It makes farming more profitable, preserves soil moisture, reduces weeds and saves on labor costs. But this type of mulch [...]
May 24, 2012
X-ray vision
Discarded data may hold the key to a sharper view of proteins and other molecules
There’s nothing like a new pair of eyeglasses to bring fine details into sharp relief. For scientists who study the large molecules of life from proteins to DNA, the equivalent of new lenses has come in the form of an advanced method for analyzing data from X-ray crystallography experiments. Reported in this week’s issue of [...]
May 23, 2012
Wood or Oil?
“The world is a complicated place and there are consequences for every choice we make,” says Hal Salwasser, dean of the Oregon State University College of Forestry. “The research cited here (in From Wood to Watts) shows what some of those consequences, good and bad, might be when we transform wood, a carbohydrate renewable over [...]
May 8, 2012
New Corvallis microtechnology firm launches line of industrial micromixers
Company aims for $2 billion microreactor life-sciences market
Microflow CVO (www.microflowcvo.com), a new company spun off from research in the Oregon State University Microproducts Breakthrough Institute (MBI), has launched its first product line of stainless steel micromixers. Inside the precision-engineered devices are a multilayer network of channels designed to meet manufacturer needs in the pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, personal care products and other industries. Dime-sized [...]
April 20, 2012
You don’t have to look like Einstein
Oregon girls get hands-on science and engineering experience
The lecture hall overflows with middle-school girls and their parents one Saturday morning in February. Images flash across three big screens at the front of the room. Suddenly, a giant face of Albert Einstein pops up, filling the screens with the scientist’s wild white hair and huge, fuzzy mustache. “A lot of people think you [...]
April 11, 2012
Toward a scholarly embrace
Environmental Humanities Initiative brings science and the humanities together
Ambling along the oaky trails at Finley Wildlife Refuge last Saturday morning — one of the first days without rain in a long, long time — my two friends and I paused at the edge of a pond along Woodpecker Loop. Just under the murky surface, several rough-skinned newts were swimming in slow motion, their [...]
March 18, 2012
From concert hall to lecture hall
How music set the stage for a life in science
James Cassidy doesn’t fit the stereotypical image of a scientist. Two star-shaped earrings dangle from his left ear. A fetching fedora is perched on top of his head. He’s swapped his white lab coat for a charcoal sports jacket. A chic checkered shirt peeks out underneath. His alert grey eyes are framed by dark glasses. [...]
