News

Sometimes making a brand-new type of box requires outside-the-box thinking, which is exactly what Michigan State University chemists used to create an eight-atom, magnetic cube. That tiny box is at the heart of a new magnetic molecule that could power future technologies for data storage, quantum computing and more. MSU chemist Selvan Demir and her team recently published their work in the journal Chem, which featured the research on the cover of its March 10 issue.

Climate change doesn’t just mean warmer weather. Cold spells can hit unusual lows, too, and the fluctuations between warm and chilly are becoming more extreme. MSU’s David Kramer is interested in resilience as it relates to photosynthesis because the process by which plants are powered by the sun is particularly sensitive to temperature swings. This knowledge could one day help certain crops grow in more places and help growers decide when to plant crops so they can harvest before the most severe stresses from heat and pests. The work of Kramer and his team was recently published online in the journal Plant, Cell & Environment. 

MSU mathematician Keith Promislow was named a 2022 SIAM Fellow for his contributions to rigorous asymptotic reductions, development of novel models and their applications, and service to the industrial and applied mathematics community by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM).

Dead bacteria can still make their presence felt in the land of the living. New research led by Michigan State University integrative biologists is showing that this could have big implications for antibiotic resistance on farms. The results were recently published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Five Michigan State University researchers from the College of Natural Science—Julia Ganz, Huan Lei, Mohammad Maghrebi, Elizabeth Munch and Johannes Pollanen—have received 2022 NSF Early CAREER Faculty Awards. One of NSF’s most prestigious grants, it is awarded to faculty who demonstrate leadership in research and education and have a passion for integrating the two. Collectively, over the next five years (2022-2027) they will receive more than $3.7 million in National Science Foundation funding.

MSU’s Ben Orlando is a structural biologist who studies some of nature’s smallest machines, sees how they are put together and figures out how they work. He’s currently focused on proteins that bacteria use to survive antibiotic treatments so that he can help decommission these biological machines and fight potentially deadly infections. Orlando’s team has now taken new, atomically detailed snapshots of a bacterial protein that helps many germs sense and evade antibiotics. The researchers recently published their work in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Samuel Sottile, an MSU junior majoring in advanced mathematics in the College of Natural Science’s Department of Mathematics, is among three MSU undergraduate students who are recipients of the nationally competitive Goldwater Scholarship for 2022. Each year, the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation seeks scholars committed to a career in science, mathematics or engineering who display intellectual intensity and who have the potential for significant future contribution in their chosen field. Since the scholarship program began in 1989, 52 MSU students have been recognized with the honor.

Michigan State University Assistant Professors Jonas Becker and Tyler Cocker were each honored as a Jerry Cowen Chair of Experimental Physics in the College of Natural Science’s Department of Physics and Astronomy at an investiture ceremony held March 24 in the Christman and Jackson Lounges of MSU’s Wharton Center.