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Welcome to the NatSci news page! Check back often to learn about the latest innovations, discoveries and accomplishments of our faculty, staff, students and alumni.
April 29, 2022
Seven MSU College of Natural Science (NatSci) students and alumni are among 15 recipients selected university wide for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program—the country’s oldest fellowship program that supports graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. NSF Graduate Research Fellows benefit from a three-year annual stipend of $34,000, along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees.
April 29, 2022
A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found changes to Earth’s climate in every region of the world, noting the unprecedented scale and speed in warming of the planet’s surface over the past 200 years. To help address this problem, a report, "Microbes and Climate Change: Science, People, & Impacts," was issued by the American Society for Microbiology. It is the outcome of ASM’s November 2021 colloquium meeting, which brought together 30 experts, including MSU’s Jim Tiedje, who provided multifaceted perspectives and insights.
April 28, 2022
Six Michigan State University College of Natural Science faculty members– Jeffrey Conner, Victor DiRita, Gemma Reguera, Jetze Tepe, Christopher Waters and Marjorie Weber – and one graduate student – Nicholas Rekuski – have received 2021-2022 All-University Awards in recognition of their outstanding contributions to education and research. The MSU Awards Convocation for 2022 will be held on May 11, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., in the Big Ten Rooms at the Kellogg Center.
April 27, 2022
Michigan State University’s Seth Jacobson and colleagues in China and France have unveiled a new theory that could help solve a galactic mystery of how our solar system evolved. Specifically, how did the gas giants — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — end up where they are, orbiting the sun like they do?
April 27, 2022
Thanks to a lesser-known feature of microbiology, Michigan State University researchers have helped open a door that could lead to medicines, vitamins and more being made at lower costs and with improved efficiency. The international research team, led by Henning Kirst and Cheryl Kerfeld, have repurposed what are known as bacterial microcompartments and programmed them to produce valuable chemicals from inexpensive starting ingredients. The team recently published its work in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
April 26, 2022
Classes Without Quizzes (CWQ) was back—in a classroom—for the first time since 2019. The event, hosted by the Michigan State University College of Natural Science , had been held virtually the past two years due to COVID-19 restrictions. On Saturday, April 23, more than 100 alumni, friends and guests attended the event (a hybrid of in-person and online), which was held in the new STEM Teaching and Learning Facility.
April 26, 2022
Working with tiny bacteria, MSU researchers led by Lee Kroos have made a discovery that could have big implications for biology. The scientists revealed a new way that nature can inhibit or switch off important proteins known as intramembrane proteases, which the team reported April 26 in the journal eLife. The finding could help fight recalcitrant bacteria and lead to new treatment candidates for Alzheimer’s disease.
April 26, 2022
Nearly 100 individuals attended the Michigan State University College of Natural Science annual awards program on April 22 to acknowledge alumni, faculty and students for outstanding achievements and excellence. The event was held at MSU’s Wharton Center in the Jackson and Christman Lounges.
April 25, 2022
Wildlife policy and management decisions often rely on estimates of animal abundance, so inaccurate counts can have negative consequences. Aerial surveys are an efficient survey platform; however, they can yield unreliable data if not carefully executed. Despite a long history of aerial survey use in ecological research, problems common to aerial surveys have not yet been adequately resolved. MSU Ph.D. student Kayla Davis and integrative biologist Elise Zipkin recently published a paper in the journal Ecology and Evolution that outlines the three-pronged approach their team used to tackle the problem.
April 25, 2022
The National Science Foundation has awarded a $399,865 Campus Cyberinfrastructure Planning Grant to Michigan State University to create the MSU Data Machine—an accessible supercomputer optimized for such data-intensive research as machine learning and artificial intelligence applications. Several MSU College of Natural Science faculty members—Brian O’Shea, Matthew Schrenk and Phoebe Zarnetske—are playing key roles in the project, dubbed the MSU Data Machine.