Helping People, Help Rhinos

Left to Right: Andrea, Kyle Armstrong, and Karissa Bernoth blow off some steam during a particularly tough day in the field.

The path to one’s dreams is never a straight line. Along the way, we often run into speed bumps, detours, and of course, roadblocks. The people who make it to their final destination in life are often those who just can’t forget about that childhood dream. Andrea Kuchy is certainly that kind of person. From a young age, Andrea dreamed of traveling to Africa to study the wildlife that roam there. Unfortunately, most American universities don’t have an African wildlife major, so Andrea had to pave her own path. Her route through undergraduate involved multiple schools and a lot of time spent outside of the classroom. Throughout this multitude of experiences, Andrea was able to get involved in travel abroad in Africa to study wildlife and conservation in Tanzania. Then she got a job as undergraduate field researcher in Alaska studying climate change. It was these non-traditional experiences that really brought out Andrea’s passion for the natural world and eventually, brought her back to Africa for a post-graduate diploma in Johannesburg. Andrea was finally on the path she always felt she belonged on.

A rhino capture in a game reserve

It’s a good thing that Andrea never gave up on her dream of studying African wildlife because they could really use some help lately. Today, Andrea is working with Mark Neeham in the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, trying to understand the motivations of people involved in rhinoceros poaching, and those trying to stop it, in South Africa. Over the past eight years, rhinoceros poaching has been on the rise despite newly implemented policies and interventions. In this case, the rhinoceros aren’t the only ones in danger; many park rangers, police officers, workers at reserves, and even farmers have come under attack by poachers looking for weapons and rhino horns. Andrea is hoping that a scientific approach can bring the situation under control. She is compiling data on poaching, interviews with people involved, and conducting a thorough review of the history on rhinoceros poaching. For the sake of the all the people involved and the rhinoceros, Andrea’s research results can’t come soon enough.

Tune in this Sunday, May 29th at 7pm PST to hear Andrea tell us all about the plight of the rhinoceros on 88.7 KBVR.

Go play in the dirt!

Shannon harvesting potatoes in Corvallis, OR

Over the last five years the modern agricultural economy has become a hot topic to debate. As the population continues to grow, so to will the need to produce more food to feed the world. There are many ideas about how to meet this demand including organic farming, GMOs, hydroponics, among others. When most people discuss the pros and cons of different farming practices, the conversation usually centers around human health. How much pesticide is making it into my body? Are there more nutrients in organically grown produce? Was Monsanto involved? These are just some of the questions you’ve probably heard at your grocery store or local farmer’s market. Shannon Andrews has spent the last ten years working and researching in many disciplines within the agriculture industry and she’s asking a different question; how can we increase agronomic value and reduce the negative environmental impacts of agricultural production?

Corn harvest crew in Klamath Falls, OR

As it turns out, that is a very important question to be asking. Many of the farming practices that have enabled improvements in crop yield are also detrimental to the environment, specifically the soil. In an attempt to combat these ill effects, soil scientists are studying the effects of tilling, organic vs conventional farming, and nutrient retention in the soil, among other things. If we can better understand the impact of our farming practices, then we can potentially change or curtail them to generate a more sustainable agricultural economy. Shannon, and other soil scientists, are hoping to make further improvements to sustainable agriculture by creating recycled fertilizers that have reduced environmental impact and don’t affect crop yield.

Potatoes growing in Madras, OR. Crops in the front are growing without Nitrogen added, while the crops in the back are growing in algae fertilizer

With a diverse background of undergraduate studies in marine biology, wildlife biology, agricultural studies, and animal science, as well as work experience on a beef ranch and with trading commodities in the feedstock industry, Shannon has the knowledge to create these fertilizers of the future. All of these different experiences have led to a trifecta of exciting new ideas on how to improve the fertilizers used in farming. Through her master’s work, and now into her doctoral research, Shannon is working to optimize the soil chemistry for maximum crop growth and minimal environmental impact. Her early graduate school work with Dr. Dan Sullivan, studying soil pH showed that the use of sulfur in compost fertilizer makes it possible to grow blueberries, which turn out to be quite a fickle fruit. Shannon then turned her attention to another recycled fertilizer, algal meal, a waste product from algae-based biodiesel production. During her work in Dr. David Myrold’s lab, Shannon showed that algae based fertilizer has a reduced environmental impact while maintaining corn yields. Shannon is now finishing up her doctoral research by studying the water absorption properties of soil with Dr. Marcus Kleber and Dr. Maria Dragila.

After all her research and work experience, Shannon is uniquely positioned to study the agriculture industry. It will be important to consider perspectives from people like Shannon so that we can quantify and improve farming practices as we move forward in the 21st century. After all, agriculture is one of the most important industries in the world and that’s not about to change as the global population, and the need for food, increases.

We’ll talk with Shannon about her crop soil research and how she got into this field, Sunday May 22nd at 7pm PST on 88.7 KBVR-FM.

Finding your way to a better brain

Above: Paul setting up the LiDAR to image Austin Hall. Below: A human field of vision represented as a solid 3D object, as created by LiDAR

If someone dropped you in a new city and took away your smart phone, could you find your way to the nearest coffee shop? What if there was construction on your usual route to work and your phone battery was dead? Could you navigate a detour for yourself? The crop of students now entering college have lived all of their young adult lives constantly connected to the internet and all of the information contained within it. This means they have never had to remember any information, phone numbers, addresses, or directions for themselves. Technology has made our lives easier and more efficient in so many ways and turn-by-turn directions is most definitely near the top of that list of improvements. Yet, one rarely discussed aspect of these technological advances is the impact our phones and the internet may be having on our brains. Paul Platosh, and other researchers, have taken notice and are working to understand the relationship between technology and our brains.

Working in Seunghae Lee‘s lab in the department of Human Environment and Design, Paul hopes to improve our understanding of how the brain responds to different navigational stimuli, but with a unique twist. Paul’s background is in design, meaning he has a rather unusual perspective on this research compared to most neuroscientists and psychologists. In a previous life, Paul worked to redesign the containers used at a grocery store and was even a Buckminster Fuller award finalist for this work. Now he hopes to bring some scientific rigor to the field of design and potentially improve human health using the world around us. To do this, Paul is combining his expertise in design, mapping technology from GIS, and psychology-based study methods.

An image of Paul generated by LiDAR

The basic premise of Paul’s research is simple. Give a college student some directions to follow via smart phone versus a head-up display and finally ask the student to re-draw the directions in as much detail as possible. The idea here is the head-up display will lead to more interaction with the real world environment and stimulate parts of the brain that are important to wayfinding. As it turns out, these same parts of the brain tend to accumulate protein aggregates in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Building on this link, Paul hopes to use the world around us, and how we interact with it, to improve the outcomes of the many people suffering from diseases of the brain.

To hear more about Paul’s journey from studio art to the hippocampus, tune in Sunday, May 15th at 7pm PST on 88.7 KBVR.

Intertidal Interdependence and Environmental Change

Low tide in the rocky intertidal ecosystem, near Depoe Bay Oregon. At the edge of the water is the “low zone”, where plants and algae thrive. Photo: Allie Barner

When you say “ecosystem”, most people think of a food chain. There are links in the chain, and each species is a link that keeps the chain together. This encourages a view of the world in which we see the importance of individual species. Traditionally, this means that when we try to understand how an ecosystem might react to a sudden environmental change we look at how individual species might react.

For Allie Barner, however, an ecosystem is more like a web. Each strand in the web is supported not just by one or two others, but by every other strand. In an ecosystem, the relationships between all species present are often just as important as any individual species’ role. This view, focusing on the ways in which species rely on one another to survive in their environment, is called community ecology. To better understand what it takes to keep an ecosystem healthy, Allie believes we need to move past a “who eats who” perspective and start thinking about communities of species as a whole. Losing even one species due to environmental change might destabilize an entire ecology.

While the tide is out, Allie and company rush to install an experiment that excludes all herbivorous animals to try to understand how animals that graze on plants and algae affect entire ecosystems. Photo: J. Robinson/PISCO

Allie, a graduate student in Oregon State’s Integrative Biology program studying under Bruce Menge and Sally Hacker, explores this at the Oregon coast. Out at the beach, Allie inspects the intertidal zones, the areas that are sometimes submerged at high tide and sometimes exposed to the open air at low tide. Here a wide array of species are dependent on one another for survival, and they form an ecological web that is very sensitive to changes in the environment.

The rocky intertidal ecosystem in Oregon is incredibly diverse: in this picture there are dozens of species, from the greenish-yellow sponge, to the lettuce-like leafy red algae, to the large drooping kelp. Photo: Allie Barner

Today a pressing issue, especially in marine environments, is climate change. Ocean acidification, caused by excess Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere, is having a profound effect on many species and increasing water temperatures are quickly altering ecosystems that have existed in relative stasis for many thousands of years.

Allie’s goal is not only to understand how climate change might affect intertidal ecologies, though. Allie hopes to use her data to understand how ecosystems react to change in a more general sense. By seeing the similarities across ecosystems, even from something as small as an intertidal kelp bed and as large as a tropical forest, Allie believes we can begin to understand the deeper rules that govern the environment we live in. Only then can we begin to more deeply understand our impact on it.

To learn more about Allie’s research and her journey to graduate school, tune in this Sunday at 7PM, PST! You can stream the show live online, or listen to the interview live on the air at 88.7 KBVR FM, Corvallis!

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!

How to make grass greener on the other side

Clint is showing us how his field trials are set up and the major benefits his applications are having on the grass.

Turfgrass managers are responsible for the beautiful playing surfaces you are accustomed to seeing for sports including football, soccer, tennis, baseball, rugby, lacrosse, golf, well you get the picture!

The smell of freshly cut grass can lead an unlucky bunch to reach for Kleenex and the allergy meds, while others get a smile on their face as they prepare for game time. Little did you know, those ‘wet-green’ smells are organic compounds to help the grasses (among many other functions) recover from decapitation and fungal infections. Minimizing fungal infections on your lawn are manageable, but what if you were in charge of keeping an entire golf course in perfect shape all year long? This week our guest is Clint Mattox who has worked in Europe and the US in pursuit of managing turfgrass to its highest potential while also being cognizant of the environmental and economic impacts of pesticides and fungicides. Clint is now a PhD student in the College of Agricultural Sciences working with Dr. Alec Kowalewski in the Department of Horticulture focusing on turfgrass management in the Pacific Northwest. You can also follow Clint on Twitter @mattoxgolf.

Clint Mattox does integrated pest management and fungicide research on turfgrass at Lewis Brown Horticulture Research Farm in Corvallis, Oregon.

If growing a perfectly uniform surface wasn’t hard enough, a constant hurdle turfgrass managers are facing are the detrimental impacts of a fungal pathogen, commonly called Microdochium Patches, that can have an annual cost of approximately $20,000 for each golf course! To add insult to injury, certain areas limit the type and quantity of fungicide than can be applied forcing turfgrass managers to seek new solutions.

Clint recently finished a Masters of Science with some promising results for how we can effectively manage the infection of Annual Blue Grass (the primary grass for golf courses in this climate) from this formidable fungus while also moving towards organic methodologies. Using a combination of old and new practices he’s fine-tuning current management strategies with the hopes of being able to eliminate the use of fungicides on golf courses.

Tune in on Sunday April 3^rd at 7PM on 88.7FM, or online, to hear about the pursuit of fungicide-free turfgrass management.

**All photos are credited to Steven Ward from the OSU Extension Service.