004 - NatSci News Rewind October 2019 Transcript

You're listening to NatSci News Rewind a podcast that looks back at the monthly news headlines in the world of NatSci. Let's take a look back at the news for the month of October, 2019.

Eight MSU faculty members named to fourth cohort of STEM Fellows
Eight MSU faculty members were named to the fourth cohort of the STEM Teaching and Learning Fellowship this fall. The fellowship focuses on teaching practices that engage students in three dimensional (3-D) learning—core ideas, science practices and crosscutting concepts—across all class levels.

Hyena expert Kay Holekamp receives Distinguished Animal Behaviorist Award
MSU integrative biologist Kay Holekamp, one of the world's leading behavioral ecologists, has been awarded the 2019 Distinguished Animal Behaviorist Award from the Animal Behavior Society, in recognition of her outstanding career in animal behavior.

Can solar technology kill cancer cells?
Scientific breakthroughs don’t always happen in labs. For Sophia and Richard Lunt, Michigan State University researchers, many of their breakthroughs happen during neighborhood walks. The married couple’s step-by-step approach has revealed a new way to detect and attack cancer cells using technology traditionally reserved for solar power.

NatSci's Kaitlin Peterson named MSU outstanding new academic advisor
Kaitlin Peterson, human biology and preprofessional advisor in the Michigan State University College of Natural Science (NatSci), received the 2019 Outstanding New Academic Advisor Award from the MSU Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education. 

MSU hosts symposium, unveils $5 million Cryo-EM Facility
More than 100 scientists—faculty, postdocs and graduate students—recently gathered at MSU to attend the 2019 Molecular Biophysics Symposium, which highlighted the opening of MSU’s $5 million Cryo-EM Facility. Cryo-EM is an imaging technology that allows scientists to study cells, viruses and protein structures at the atomic level and capture them in action.

Richard Lenski receives prestigious interdisciplinary research, mentoring award
Michigan State University experimental evolutionary biologist, Richard Lenski, has been awarded the 2020 D.C. White Award by the American Society for Microbiology in recognition and honor of his distinguished accomplishments, not only in interdisciplinary research but also in mentoring.

Scientists find gender-distinct circuit for depression
Depression affects women nearly twice as much as men, but unraveling the brain’s blueprint that regulates this behavior, let alone identifying specific molecular differences between sexes, has proven difficult.
Michigan State University researchers, however, have found and flipped a switch in the brain, revealing a single circuit in mice that activates during stress and is controlled by testosterone. The results, published in Biological Psychiatry, focus on the activity between neurons in the ventral hippocampus, which become active under stress and emotion, and their activation of nucleus accumbens neurons, critical players in reward and motivation.

MSU's Liangliang Sun lands NSF Early CAREER Award
MSU chemist Liangliang Sun has received a 5-year, $670,000 NSF Early CAREER Award to develop a novel mass spectrometry-based analytical method to identify and to quantify protein molecules that cannot currently be detected in biological samples.

And that will wrap up the rewind for the month of October, 2019. 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 @msu_natsci, on Facebook @MSUCNS, and on Instagram @msunatsci. Thanks for tuning in and be sure to check us out next month.