038 - NatSci News Rewind August2022 Transcript

You're listening to NatSci News Rewind a podcast that counts down the monthly news headlines in the world of NatSci. Let's take a look back at the news for August 2022.

Number 5:
Kicking off our top 5 this month - MSU's first-ever W.M. Keck Foundation award will show life in a new light
The W. M. Keck Foundation has awarded MSU’s Marcos Dantus and Elad Harel $1.3 million to start a new revolution in the way we use optical microscopes to understand the living world. Dantus’ and Harel’s research will push the limits on what light-based or optical microscopes can see, which would bring benefits to a range of scientific and engineering fields.

Number 4: 
Our number 4 story - A gut reaction: MSU's Robert Quinn lands gut health grant for novel research
MSU biochemist Robert Quinn’s recent discovery related to bile acids produced by gut microbes represents a paradigm shift of 170 years of research in the field. Quinn, an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the College of Natural Science, received a one-year, $100,000 grant from the Global Grants for Gut Health to dig deeper into this discovery and how it changes scientists’ understanding of the human gut microbiome.

Number 3:
Coming in at Number 3 - Ph.D. student joins prestigious cohort of Gilliam fellows
Cristina Rivera Quiles a second year Ph.D. student at Michigan State University, has received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study. The award, totaling $53,000 per year for up to three years will support Rivera Quiles's research to identify what role the peptide, Neuromedin S, might have in morphine behaviors. Gilliam fellowships are awarded to student-adviser pairings; Rivera Quiles and her advisor, Michelle Mazei-Robison, were selected as a team. They are among 51 advisor-student pairs selected for the 2022 cohort.

Number 2: 
At Number 2 - Forecasting the future to protect monarchs
The outlook for monarch butterflies isn’t great right now. In fact, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature just added North America’s monarchs to its list of endangered species. With news like this, it can be easy to overlook reasons to be hopeful that we can protect these iconic insects from extinction. Now, there is a model to help guide conservation efforts, thanks to MSU’s Elise Zipkin and her colleagues. The team has forecast monarch butterfly population sizes throughout the Midwest to help identify where the greatest opportunities to support monarch conservation may be.

Number 1:  
And our top news story for August - Michigan State science returns to space with NASA
The Brandizzi lab at MSU is sending seeds to space aboard NASA’s Artemis I mission to explore how humanity can sustain itself outside of Earth. In previous experiments, scientists have learned that plants grown in space make lower levels of amino acids that keep their seedlings strong on Earth. The same amino acids would also be nutritious for people who eat the plants. Brandizzi’s lab has selected seeds that are enriched with those amino acids and is sending those into space along with regular seeds, allowing them to see if fortifying the seeds on Earth could create a more sustainable path to growing healthier plants — and food — in space.

And that will wrap up the rewind for the month of August 2022. To read more about these stories, head on over to our website at natsci.msu.edu/news. You can also stay up to date by following us on social. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @msunatsci. Thanks for tuning in and be sure to check us out next month.