Adélie Penguins and the fight for survival on the final frontier

There are very few places on the earth’s oceans that have not felt human impact. In Antarctica, just south of New Zealand, the Ross Sea is one of the most pristine marine ecosystems, host to a vast array of marine life including sea stars, jellies, Orca whales, and Adélie penguins. This final frontier, away from human influence, makes it the perfect place to study the impacts of climate change.

Adiéle penguin jumping on to an ice sheet.

http://ocean.si.edu/slideshow/trip-south-antarctica%E2%80%99s-ross-sea (4th image) Photo Credit: John Weller

On Sunday, July 12, 2015 at 7PM (PST), Peter Kappes of the department of Fisheries and Wildlife will tell us about his journey that lead him to studying Adélie penguins on the Ross Sea. From endangered suckers in the Klamath to seabirds on remote islands in the pacific, we will learn how his >10 year journey led him to his research on how the change in sea ice levels might affect the breeding success of Adiéle penguins. In Antarctica, the land is protected, but the sea is not. This research has the potential to change that.

Be sure to tune in at 7PM (PST) on 88.7FM in Corvallis or stream us on the web at http://kbvr.com/listen.

Rise of the Robots

Image from: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/2403589/Artificial-intelligence-the-future-of-robots

Tonight at 7pm Aswin Raghavan will join us on Inspiration Dissemination. Tune in at 88.7 KBVR Corvallis or stream live here to learn about his project preparing for the robotic revolution (imagine household robots and self-driving cars)! Aswin isn’t worried about these machines coming to conquer humanity, in fact he’s hoping that increased use of Artificial Intelligence can make many aspects of human society more efficient.

As a fifth year PhD student in computer science working under Dr. Tadepalli, Aswin doesn’t build robots or focus much on what the specific application of his A.I. will be- he works on ‘automated planning’. This means that Aswin develops algorithms used by computers in decision making processes. Computers running these decision making programs can more efficiently manage many human affairs, everything from coordinating traffic lights in your home town to running a loading dock full of multiple automated cranes.

From helping your local fire station more efficiently dispatch vehicle to “smart cities” that manage the provision of utilities to millions, artificial intelligence is on the rise! Join us tonight to find out how!

The Personal Computer and the Pharmacy Counter: Statistics Helps Clinical Trials Bring New Medicines and Therapies to the Market

A pharmacist counts pills into a tray as she fills a patient’s prescription. Image from Maryland Pharmacy.gov.

In the world of health care things are always changing. When you go to pick up your prescription or visit your doctor for treatment, you are relying on the work of researchers who are constantly determining new and better treatments and drugs, and testing the efficacy of those that already exist. Clinical trials that bring new drugs and therapies to the market usually involve hundreds of people and require many repeated experiments, but one Oregon State graduate student is learning how to use statistical analysis to make this process more efficient.

Statistical Analysis used in Experimental Design. Image from: http://www.specialty-tc.com/laboratory_eds.html

Joining us tonight on Inspiration Dissemination is Tim Skalland, PhD in Statistics. Tim is advised by Sarah Emerson and Paul Murtaugh in the College of Science, and he studies the design and analysis of experiments; specifically those used in the clinical trials which are required to bring new drugs and treatments to the market. Accurate statistical analysis and efficient experimental design are doubly important. By using statistical analysis during a series of experiments Tim aims to determine whether or not a drug or treatment is effective or promising. If the answer is no, then researchers can end clinical trials early, saving money and reducing costs to the health care system overall. On the other hand, Tim might also discover during the experimental process that the benefit of a drug or treatment is already obvious, and no further clinical trials are required. This allows helpful medicines and therapies to reach the pharmacy counter faster than if the trials proceeded in the traditional way.

25088303_live_band_or_dj_425_373316_0_14071244_500_xlarge

Image from: http://www.sodahead.com/living/would-you-rather-dance-the-night-away-to-a-dj-or-a-live-band/question-3811753/

Tim wasn’t always interested in statistics, or in medicine, but comes from a background in physics at William Jewell College, Missouri. Tim is also a fellow DJ here at KBVR and has produced his own dance music in California as DJ Timid. Join us tonight at 7pm at 88.7 KBVR Corvallis to learn more about Tim’s research, and to listen in as he treats us to a special set in the studio!

From Records in the Reef to Stories in the Snow: One Student’s Journey from Florida to Antarctica to Study the Geological History of the Earth

Tonight at 7 pm Pacific time Nilo Bill joins the hosts of Inspiration Dissemination to discuss his research in the Geology Program of the College of Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. Tune in to 88.7 FM KBVR Corvallis, or stream the show live, here!

Working underneath Peter U. Clark, Nilo studies paleoclimate, the ancient climate of the Earth. By examining erratic boulders in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet moved by glacial decay between 10 and 20 thousand years ago Nilo tries to understand when and why the Antarctic ice sheets began to recede. For example: How much of this change can be attributed to CO2 increases in the atmosphere? When the sea levels rose after the last ice age, what glaciers did most of the water come from?

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Image from: http://learningfromdogs.com/tag/west-antarctic-ice-sheet/

Nilo became interested in the question of ancient climate and sea level rise far from Oregon State or any ice sheets, in the geomicrobiology lab at University of Miami, where he studied coral reefs to learn how much water levels rose 10 to 20 thousand years ago during the last large scale glacial melt.

Nilo’s work on ancient climate allows us not only to better understand the history of the world, but also where we are headed, as we continue to contribute to increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. Increases in atmospheric CO2 that have been linked to global climate changes and glacial melt in the past are being seen again in our own time, but at much faster rates. Whereas in the past these changes occurred over a span of nine to ten thousand years, humans have artificially increased global CO2 by comparative levels in only one hundred years.

By understanding how the earth has behaved under similar circumstances in the past, Nilo hopes that we might better predict what will occur in our own future.

Giving the Cold Soul of a Machine a Burning Desire to Teach Your Children Well:

Tonight at 7 pm Pacific time on 88.7 KBVR Corvallis, Beatrice Moissinac comes into the studio at Inspiration Dissemination to talk about Artificial Intelligence and fire safety training. If you’re curious how those two subjects are related, tune in live or stream the episode here!

Illustration: Christine Daniloff/MIT, http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/center-for-brains-minds-and-machines-0909

A PhD student in Oregon State’s Computer Science program, Beatrice works underneath Prasad Tadepalli and collaborates with Enterprise Risk Services to design computer programs which guide students through a virtual fire safety training experience.

What kind of virtual training? As it turns out, Oregon State has an entire virtual campus dedicated to it in the online game Second Life (a virtual world that may or may not use more energy than some South American countries). Using one of the dorms in the second life version of OSU, Beatrice designs a training program that responds to individual students’ needs. Students are then immersed in a fully interactive virtual world where they learn what to do in the event that their dorm were to catch fire.

a-major-fire-involving-an-abandoned-convent-in-massueville-quebec-canada

http://www.zdnet.com/article/indoor-navigation-tracks-firefighters-in-blazing-buildings/

By analyzing what knowledge has not been learned, and by determining the best way to challenge the student, the artificial intelligence program is intended to provide a perfectly matched learning environment. This is crucial for training in something like fire safety, or other natural disasters, since training scenarios in real life could not be safely (or economically) constructed.

Beatrice is also the co-program manager for ChickTech Corvallis, a local chapter of the national non-profit group that organizes science and technology outreach and communications projects for high school girls. As a woman in computer science, a program that (at OSU) is still less than 10% female, Beatrice understands that the gender gap in science and technology studies is still very real in the United States. With here interests in both teaching and computer science combined, Beatrice continues to work for the academic benefit of the next generation. If she isn’t teaching a computer to teach people, then she’s teaching them herself!

We’ll be back after this short break!

Inspiration Dissemination will be off the air for the next two weekends, as Zhian and I will be out of town for various reasons and unable to host. But have no fear! June 7th we return, and will be interviewing Beatrice Moissinac who studies Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS). She describes her work as, “a branch of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning that looks at how a computer can learn to become an expert at a task, and then teach this task to a human using lessons and exercises designed by the computer itself.” Beatrice is working at Technology Across the Curriculum (TAC) at OSU, “to develop Virtual Learning Environments”.

She says her first application is Fire Safety: How do you teach someone how to get out of a building on fire?

She’s probably right to be worried (the rope ladder I keep under my bed is a little dated), and we can’t wait to find out what her research in artificial intelligence has to say about fire safety!

Whosits & Whatsits Galore: What do larval fish eat, and who eats them?

Tonight on Inspiration Dissemination, Miram Gleiber (a 1st year PhD student in Integrative Biology) discusses her passion for ‘le poisson’. Working underneath Su Sponaugle and Bob Cowan, Miram first got into the piscine when she was a little girl, investigating tide pools in Victoria, British Columbia. “When you take a scoop of water from the ocean you don’t realize what’s in it,” Miram muses, “… it’s a whole other world.”

Above: Larval Fish captured in the Straits of Florida (Photos by: Cedric Guigand) on the left, and on the right, Copepods captured in the western Antarctic Peninsula: Clockwise from top left are Calanus propinquus, Paraeuchaeta antarctica, Metridia gerlachei, Calanoides acutus (Photos by: Miram Gleiber)

Because Larval fish grow up to be reef fish, which are good for biodiversity and tourism, obtaining accurate numbers of wild stock that survive the larval stage and understanding what conditions promote survival is valuable knowledge. The fish first hatch and “hang out” for thirty days in the open ocean before coming back to the reef, during which time they subsist largely on patches of zooplankton and phytoplankton that float around in the open ocean. Miram’s current research at OSU aims to understand how these patches of tiny biodiversity contribute to the growth and survival of the small fishes that eventually make their way into the view of our camera lenses and photo albums, and sometimes to our plates, as well.

To learn more about Miram and her adventures on the open sea, join us at 7pm Pacific on 88.7 FM KBVR Corvallis, or stream the talk live here!

ARSV Laurence M. Gould, a 230-foot Antarctic research vessel.

From Systems Bio and Symbiosis to Nepovirus and Nematodes

There are perhaps a many as one million species of nematodes. Some parasitic varieties can grow to a meter in length, but most are microscopic in size. They inhabit almost every environment imaginable, from salt water to soil, and even human bodies. But it isn’t the symbiosis between a parasitic nematode like hookworm and a human that Danielle Tom is interested in, her research in the Department of Integrative Biology at OSU concerns a particular nematode called Xiphinema americanum.

Despite the fact that nematodes cover most of the planet’s surface and there are probably billions of them thriving on the earth at any given moment, surprisingly little is still known about the worms. Xiphinema americanum, for instance, carries a bacteria specially designed to live inside it called Xiphinematobacter. Studying the evolutionary genomics of these species can help elucidate the phylogenetic, or evolutionary, history of both. This work is important to the United States Department of Agriculture, because Xiphinema americanum is a potential carrier for nepovirus, which can infect important crops like grapes, raspberries, and tobacco via these plants’ root systems, which the worm also exists in a symbiotic relationship with. This sort of an analysis, of an animal and its relationship to its environment at multiple levels of scale and with regard to multiple other species, is called systems biology.

Danielle works under Dee Denver, associate professor and director of the the Molecular Cellular Biology program (MCB), and she will be joining us on the show tonight at 7pm pacific time.

To learn more about this exciting research and her personal journey into genomics and biology, tune into 88.7 FM to listen, or stream the show live here!

Genomics on the Farm: Breeding A More Resistant Rice

Photo courtesy the Jaiswal Lab

Tonight Noor Al-Bader of OSU’s Molecular and Cell Biology department joins us on the show to discuss her doctoral research concerning genomics and plant breeding. Working in Dr. Pankaj Jaiswal’s lab, Noor deals with large data sets of genetic information concerning varieties of Rice and Chia. The goal of her study is to determine which genes relate to the expression of traits implicated in stress resistance and nutritional content. Often the varieties of these crops grown for their value to farmers are susceptible to environmental stressors such as high salinity in water, drought, and high temperatures. These environmental concerns unfortunately promise to be increasing concerns in many areas such crops are grown due to the increasing impact of climate change. Wild types are often hardier, and genetic studies of both types hold promise for producing a “happy medium” capable of producing high yield, nutritious rice and chia that is also highly prosperous under less than desirable environmental circumstances. These new varieties are not produced via genetic modification in the lab, but bred on the farm, crossing strains generation after generation and recording the results with painstaking attention to detail- the old fashioned way. The contrast between the hands on work of horticulture and the hard science of genetics in the lab may seem a surprising pair, but in this case the genetics research is utilized to facilitate traditional methods of horticulture by simply speeding along a process that could normally take lifetimes. Just like in her research, Noor strives to have the best of both worlds.

Continue reading →

Forestry Forensics 101

Look out tropical tree thieves! Beware, Pacific pine pilferers! Kristen Finch is on the case!

Sunday April 26, Kristen joined the hosts of Inspiration Dissemination to discuss her study of wood chemistry in Douglas Fir. Kristen’s love of leafy things began in 7th grade when she realized that polyploid strawberries with more than two sets of chromosomes are really big and juicy. This amazed her, because whereas the strawberries benefit from this genetic disposition, a human being would probably die from it!

Kristen’s admiration of the plant kingdom led her to study Ponderosa Pines with her undergraduate mentor and OSU alum, Dr. Ann Willyard. After completing her degree in biology at Hendrix College in Arkansas, Kristen took some time to find out what kind of research she wanted to do in botany by interning at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden. Extracting DNA from Caribbean Mahogany, a process that can take up to ten days, gave her a sense of appreciation for other potential methods of analysis.

Continue reading →