Monthly Archives: April 2016

James and the Giant Beetle Question

A very handsome beetle. credit: Carabidae of the World

James Pflug, fourth year PhD student, grew up in rural Missouri turning over rocks, catching and collecting insects. Messin’ with bugs is his favorite activity, and his parents encouraged him to pursue this passion as a career. Good thing too, because James is now working at Oregon State University Department of Integrative Biology with advisor David Maddison. In the Maddison Lab, James studies carabid beetles (ground beetles), specifically vivid metallic ground beetles. According to James, this beetle group is composed of the “most handsome” beetles. James is one of many scientists, phylogeneticists, around the world working to sort out the family tree of this group. This is not just a who-is-related-to-who question, but really a how is subgroup A of beetles related to subgroup B, and how do subgroups A and B related to other beetle subgroups?

James spends many days identifying boxes of ground beetles.

James spends many days identifying ground beetles.

How do you figure out how beetles are related to each other? Well, DNA of course! Just as you could have your own genome analyzed to understand your ancestry, James is collecting beetles from around the world, analyzing their genomes, and interpreting their ancestry. Scientists have already developed a variation assay to tell you what percent European, Asian, or Native American you may be, and James is working to develop the same thing for ground beetles! This will be a huge step forward for beetle phylogenetics AND think of all the beetles who will now know where their family originates! Just kidding about the latter, but you get the idea.

James started getting serious about bug study during his time as an undergraduate working in the Enns Entomology Museum at the University of Missouri. Almost as though he was in the right place at the perfect time, a position presented itself in the research lab of the museum’s curator, Robert Sites. Together with Arabidopsis researcher, Chris Pires, Sites was interested in the phylogenetics of biting water bugs, and they needed James to work in the lab. James got hands on experience extracting DNA from insects and performing next-generation genome sequencing and analysis. This experience, in time, was his ticket into the Maddison Lab at OSU where he is currently using next-generation sequencing techniques to understand the evolutionary history of ground beetles.

James performing DNA Isolation in the lab.

In addition to unpacking and reassembling the genome of ground beetles, James is committed to science communication. James knows that good science communicators are good teachers and they attract people to science and instill excitement for topics that might seem a bit dull on the surface, like beetle family trees. From personal experience, James is a captivating speaker who makes beetle phylogenetics thrilling and aesthetically pleasing. Fuzzy carabid beetles are handsome. Check out James’ blog, Beetlefacts.org, to learn more about this stunning group of beetles. They are truly diverse in habitat, appearance, and diet!

Tune you radio to 88.7 FM KBVR Corvallis this Sunday, May 1 at 7 PM to hear more about James’ research and journey to graduate school. Not from ‘round here? Stream the show live!

The Future of Farming Comes in a Container

As the number of acres used for agricultural production continues to grow annually, so too does demand, especially for out of season fruits and vegetables that often have to be flown in from around the world so that consumers in places like the Pacific Northwest can have a delicious banana or orange for breakfast in the middle of the winter. But with each passing season, the future of agricultural production in containerized form grows increasingly possible, a development that could allow local production of a variety of fruits and vegetables year round.

Here at Oregon State University Patrick Kingston, a student in Horticulture, is studying blueberries, which turn out to be very picky fruit. Like Goldilocks with her porridge, blueberries need their soil to be just right in order to grow, and in the Pacific Northwest conditions are often too rainy, and ideal soil is largely restricted to the Willamette Valley, limiting potential growing space. Working underneath a group of three closely allied advisors– Bernadine Strik, David Bryla, and Carolyn Scagel— Patrick has a wealth of knowledge at his fingertips about fruit fertility, irrigation, and container research (in other words, studying how to best pot your plants).

By growing fruits like blueberries under controlled conditions, potted in the ideal substrate and treated with vitamins and nutrients to aid growth, containerized plants have shown the potential for production in areas where growing them in the soil simply would not be possible, and some have even grown at up to three times the expected growth rate. Patrick hopes to accomplish the same with his blueberries, working with everything from peat moss and pine chips to coconut husk as potential substrates for his plants.

Coming from his own life of experience in the garden, the lab, and on the farm; Patrick has found that communication between researchers and growers is key. The importance of specific technologies and techniques for the farms of the future is at stake, and Patrick is here to tell us all about it this Sunday night, at 7PM on 88.7 KBVR FM, Corvallis!

Workshop-Around the World

Twenty years in the future, U. S. A.

Civilization has changed dramatically in the aftermath of a plague. Communication is limited and travel is prohibited for most. Two sisters are separated by thousands of miles, one in San Francisco and one in Pittsburgh. They want desperately to reunite, but traveling across the country is nearly impossible nowadays.

Brooke, or Book-book as her sister Lane calls her, just wants to go, anywhere, a step forward is a step closer to Lane. She can’t get a travel permit, what will she do? She boards a train west, an unauthorized passenger on a train going…somewhere. Conditions on the train are inhospitable to say the least, but what did she expect. She arrives at her destination, a labor camp. This train was not restricting passengers, and now Book-book is a prisoner. Forward yes, but now Brooke is trapped and no closer to reaching Lane.

Conditions are worsening in San Francisco. People are desperate to the point of violence. Lane is not alone; not alone like Book-book. Now she has a choice. Does she follow her partner and flee the city for their own safety? How will Book-book find her?

The above was inspired by conversation with Mackenzie Smith about her novel-in-process.

A group photo of some of the writers who participated in the creative writing workshops at the National University of Timor-Leste in Dili. Mackenzie Smith (center).

We are hanging in suspense this week on Inspiration Dissemination as our guest, Mackenzie Smith, first year M. F. A. in Creative Writing, briefly described novel she is writing, tentatively titled, The Clearest Way into the Universe. For Mackenzie, this novel, which she plans to use as her thesis project, started out as a short story she wrote before coming to OSU. Now she is wrapped in this novel, “chewing” over the fine details as she rides her bike, browses the grocery store, and chats with colleagues at workshop. Her message for students and young writers is, “writing is a process of thinking.”

A “kudos wall” at the launch party and reading in Timor-Leste where audience members left compliments and words of encouragement for the writers.

Mackenzie really is writing all the time and she is no stranger to workshops. She is a former Luce Scholar in India and Fulbright Fellow in Montenegro where she ran writing workshops and hosted story clubs. She just returned from Timor-Leste where she co-organized a writing workshop that resulted in an online zine featuring original compositions from Timorese writers. Additionally, Mackenzie is the Non-fiction editor for a literary magazine Print-oriented Bastards.

Belina Maia Do Rosario reads her work in Dili, Timor-Leste at the launch party and reading for the zine, Writing Around Memory and Place.

Mackenzie likes that creative writing allows you to expand upon your interests and experiences. In her novel, Mackenzie brings her experience traveling and conveys the human emotion of uncertainty when making big decisions that affect your future and your familial relationships. Mackenzie writes because, “when people consume a piece of art, they change the way they think, the way they act, and the way they feel. Art can change their lives and a little at a time – art can change the world.”

You won’t want to miss this interview. Hear an except from The Clearest Way into the Universe read by the author and learn more about Mackenzie’s unique and adventurous journey to graduate school by tuning into 88.7 FM KBVR Corvallis or stream the show live at 7 pm on Sunday April, 17.

Kean on Science!

This evening on our special pre-Inspiration Dissemination interview, we had a wonderful conversation with Kelsey Kean, a PhD candidate in the department of Biochemistry & Biophysics. While discussing the Tsoo King Lecture series, we stumbled into a myriad of tangential topics including CRISPR/Cas9 and Peter Walter’s discovery machine. As promised, we’re including some links to more information here. Click away for some awesome reading, watching, and listening!

Tsoo King Lectures with Peter Walter; Vilcek Award winner on the unfolded protein response

CRISPR-Cas9, revolutionary tool for genome editing.

Hungry, Hungry Microbes!

Today ocean acidification is one of the most significant threats to marine biodiversity in recorded human history. Caused primarily by excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the decreasing pH of the world’s oceans is projected to reach a level at which a majority of coral reefs will die off by 2050. This would have global impacts on marine life; when it comes to maintaining total worldwide biodiversity, coral reefs are the most diverse and valuable ecosystems on the planet.

Unfortunately, there is reason to believe that ocean acidification might proceed at levels even faster than those predicted. Large resevoirs methane hydrates locked away in deep sea ice deposits under the ocean floor appear to be melting and releasing methane into the ocean and surrounding sediments due to the increasing temperature of the world’s oceans. If this process accelerates as waters continue to warm, then the gas escaping into the ocean and air might accelerate ocean acidification and other aspects of global climate change. That is, unless something– or someone– can stop it.

The area of the seafloor Scott studies lies several hundred to a few thousand meters below the surface–much too deep (and cold!) to dive down. Scott gets on a ship and works with a team of experienced technicians who use a crane to lift a device called a gravity corer off the ship deck and into the water, lowering it until it reaches the bottom, capturing and retrieving sediment.

This is where methanotrophs and Scott Klasek come in. A 3rd year PhD student in Microbiology at Oregon State University, Scott works with his advisor in CEOAS Rick Colwell and with Marta Torres to study the single celled creatures that live in the deep sea floor and consume excess methane. Because of their importance in the carbon cycle, and their potential value in mitigating the negative effects of deep sea methane hydrate melting, these methanotrophs have become a valuable subject of study in the fight to manage the changes in our environment occurring that have been associated with anthropogenic climate change.

Here Scott is opening a pressure reactor to sample the sediment inside. Sediment cores retrieved form the ocean floor can be used for microbial DNA extraction and other geochemical measurements. Scott places sediment samples in these reactors and incubates them at the pressure and temperature they were collected at, adding different amounts of methane to them to see how the microbial communities and methane consumption change over weeks and months.

Most people don’t wake up one morning as a kid and say to themselves, “You know what I want to be when I grow up? Someone who studies methanotrophs and the threat of warming arctic waters.” Scott Klasek is no exception, in fact, he went into his undergraduate career at University of Wisconsin, Madison expecting to pursue an academic career path in pre med. To learn all about Scott’s research, and the twists and turns that led him to it, tune in this Sunday, April 10th, at 7pm to 88.7 KBVR FM or stream the show live!