Life at OSU

Without sound decision-making, responses to seeming environmental tragedies can often make matters worse, according to ethicists who analyzed a controversial goat removal program on an Australian island.

Matthew Betts, a professor of landscape ecology in Oregon State University’s College of Forestry, will talk about the movement of hummingbird species across tropical forest landscapes and the pollination of plants within those landscapes Monday, May 13, at Science Pub Corvallis. The presentation will start at 6 p.m. at the Old World Deli, 341 2nd St. in Corvallis.

Oregon State University researchers deployed chemical-sampling wristbands to individuals on three continents and found that no two wristbands had identical chemical detections – but the same 14 chemicals were detected in more than 50 percent of the wristbands.

An Oregon State University scientist is part of a $10.7 million National Institutes of Health grant to develop a vaccine for gonorrhea.

Findings by a team led by an Oregon State University geotechnical engineer are paving the way toward engineering techniques that could keep Pacific Northwest residents more safe during the eventual Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake.

A groundbreaking two-year study in southern Oregon found greater abundance and diversity of wild bees in areas that experienced moderate and severe forest fires compared to areas with low-severity fires.

The plant that adds flavor, color and bitterness to beer also produces a primary compound that thwarts cancer cells, and two important derivatives of the compound do as well, new research at Oregon State University shows.

David Wrathall, an assistant professor in Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, will talk about how climate change affects human migration Monday, April 8, at Science Pub Corvallis. 

Chemistry researchers at Oregon State University have patented a method for making anti-leukemia compounds that until now have only been available via an Asian tree that produces them.

A newly discovered parasitic cycle, in which ocean bacteria keep phytoplankton on an energy-sapping treadmill of nutrient detoxification, may offer a preview of what further ocean warming will bring.

Oregon State University has named Clare Reimers, Mas Subramanian and Virginia Weis as its 2019 Distinguished Professor recipients, the highest academic honor the university can bestow on a faculty member.

Survey results show that the vast majority of Oregon’s school districts have implemented key integrated pest management practices, including reduced pesticide use, through training provided by Oregon State University.

Encasing insecticides in microscopic plastic capsules – a common formulation for many pest sprays on the market – could lead to unintended consequences.

By tapping nutrients from bedrock, red alder trees play a key role in healthy forest ecosystems.

A collaborative effort among the fishing industry, scientists and resource managers has led to a significant reduction in seabird bycatch in Alaskan longline fisheries since 2002, a new study documents, but researchers say that bycatch incidents are now increasing.

Researchers have documented a group of tanner crabs vigorously feeding at a methane seep on the seafloor off British Columbia – one of the first times a commercially harvested species has been seen using this energy source.

A new study found that Oregon's population of "resident" gray whales actually travels quite a bit, though they have strong preferences for certain locations.

The experimental extreme draining of a reservoir in Oregon to aid downstream migration of juvenile chinook salmon is showing benefits but also a mix of unintended consequences, including changing the aquatic food web and releasing potential predators downstream.

Twenty-five years into a 100-year federal strategy to protect older forests in the Pacific Northwest, forest losses to wildfire are up and declines in bird populations have not been reversed, new research shows.

The changing climate is having a significant impact on Oregon, a new report concludes, with the state growing progressively warmer, experiencing more severe wildfires, and undergoing a shift of seasons resulting in less snowpack and lower summer stream flows.

One hundred forty-three species of large animals are decreasing in number and 171 are under threat of extinction, according to new research that suggests humans’ meat consumption habits are primarily to blame.

Populations of coastal cutthroat trout and coastal giant salamanders in the Pacific Northwest show the ability to rebound quickly from drought conditions, new research by Oregon State University suggests.

Alaskan wildlife management that prioritizes reducing bear and wolf populations so hunters can kill more moose, caribou and deer is both backward and lacks scientific monitoring, ecologists say.

A groundbreaking study of more than two dozen rescued dogs, some aggressive and some not, showed a clear link between aggressive behavior and the microbes that live in the dogs’ guts.

Scientists have published a novel method for counting Pacific salmon – analyzing DNA from the slime the fish leave behind in their spawning streams.

Scientists have long struggled to explain how tropical forests can maintain their staggering diversity of trees without having a handful of species take over – or having many other species die out. The answer, researchers say, lies in the soil found near individual trees, where natural “enemies” of tree species reside. These enemies, including fungi and arthropods, attack and kill many of the seeds and seedlings near the host tree, preventing local recruitment of trees of that same species.

Researchers using artificial intelligence and “big data” plan to develop new algorithms that they say will enable them to identify, locate – and eventually predict – crimes committed in the world’s oceans, from illegal fishing off the Patagonia shelf to drug smuggling in Central America to slave labor and human trafficking in the Indian Ocean.

Nanosized cages may play a big role in reducing energy consumption in science and industry, and machine-learning research at Oregon State University aims to accelerate the deployment of these remarkable molecules.

Older adults who added hazelnuts to their diet for a few months significantly improved their levels of two key micronutrients, new research at Oregon State University indicates.

Scientists have documented a two-part climatic connection between the North Atlantic Ocean and Antarctica, a fast atmospheric channel and a much slower oceanic one, that caused rapid changes in climate during the last ice age – and may again.

OSU scientist Jeffrey Barnes and colleagues helped NASA scientists and engineers plan for the tricky landing of Mars InSight, and have been involved with the Mars 2020 mission as well.

The next generation of high-tech adhesives could take some design cues from the tongues of frogs, according to new research led by the Oregon State University College of Engineering.

The discovery of a new gene in zebrafish could lead to a better understanding of how exposure to chemicals leads to disease in humans.

Forests in the Pacific Northwest will be less vulnerable to drought and fire over the next three decades than those in the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada, computer modeling by researchers in Oregon State University’s College of Forestry shows.

In the first study of its kind, research by Oregon State University scientists shows that the return of large terrestrial carnivores can lead to improved stream structure and function.

Construction of a new Oregon State University-bound research ship that will advance the science of coastal environments, and support research on topics such as ocean acidification, hypoxia, and sea level rise, officially began today in Louisiana.

Oregon State University scientists have found a resource to increase agricultural production on dry, unirrigated farmland—solar panels.

Actively managed conifer forests may also provide important habitat for the pollinators that aid in the reproduction of food crops and other flowering plants around the globe.

Scientists studying the valuable, but vulnerable, black cottonwood poplar have identified the genetic mechanism responsible for the species’ inability to resist a pervasive and deadly disease.

An Oregon State University researcher analyzing debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami has discovered two new species of red algae – one that attaches to plastic debris, the other is found only on glass.

A team of researchers has documented a recent volcanic eruption on the Mariana back-arc in the western Pacific Ocean that is about 2.8 miles below the ocean surface, making it the deepest known eruption on Earth.

Oregon State University President Ed Ray Wednesday named Irem Tumer as interim vice president for research.

Economists have found that in the United States, watershed groups have had a positive impact on their local water quality. 

Oregon State University’s James Watson, an assistant professor who specializes in marine resource management, published a study this week in which he and others outlined the need for aquaculture producers in developing countries to use financial risk management tools to protect their investment.

Oregon State University recently received a four-year, $1.1 million grant from the NOAA Coastal Hypoxia Research Program to work with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, crabbers and other fishermen to map and track the extent of the hypoxia, identify “hotspots” and potential refuge areas, and develop predictive models of when and where low oxygen will occur – and affect Dungeness crabs and fishes.

Scientists have determined for the first time that Amazon’s waterlogged coastal mangrove forests, which are being clear cut for cattle pastures and shrimp ponds, store significantly more carbon per acre than the region’s famous rainforest.

Oregon high school and community college students and teachers will join Oregon State University scientists on the research vessel Oceanus this month to gain at-sea research experience as part of a project to enhance STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills.

Scientists using drones have discovered new behaviors by gray whales off the West Coast, including headstands and swimming upside down.