020 - NatSci News Rewind February 2021 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 February 2021.

Probing how plants deal with drought
The National Science Foundation has awarded Michigan State University researcher Polly Hsu a $1.2 million grant to probe plant genetics at a new level to better understand how crops cope with drought. This work could help farmers and scientists better protect plants as water scarcity is projected to affect more and more people over the next century.

MSU's Richard Lenski receives lifetime achievement award
During his ground-breaking E. coli Long-Term Evolution Project,  MSU experimental evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski has witnessed the beginning and end of more than one lifetime—73,000 bacterial lifetimes and counting, to be exact. Now, the Society for the Study of Evolution is honoring Lenski’s extraordinary life to date with the prestigious 2021 SSE Evolution Lifetime Achievement Award.

MSU Students Receive Martin Luther King Kr. Scholarship Award
Four College of Natural Science undergraduates were among five MSU students who received a 2021 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Award from the MSU Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives. Mikayla Cooper, a human biology sophomore; Angel Edwards, a chemistry senior and Drew Science Scholar; Ayo Ifaturot, a physiology junior and Drew Science Scholar, and Breanna Williams, a human biology sophomore and Drew Science Scholar were all recognized with the award for their stewardship and leadership by actively engaging in building inclusive communities in ways that fight injustice and promote equality for all on every possible level.

Uncovering how some corals resist bleaching
Climate change is bleaching and killing corals, but researchers from MSU and the University of Hawaii are investigating how some can stand up to a warming world. According to research published Feb. 8 in Nature Ecology & Evolution, the scientists discovered biochemical clues following an extreme high temperature event in Hawaii's Kaneohe Bay that could help reefs better weather warming waters in the future.

IceCube Collaboration awarded 2021 Bruno Rossi Prize
The international IceCube Collaboration, which includes several researchers from MSU, was awarded the 2021 Bruno Rossi Prize by the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society, for the discovery of a high-energy neutrino flux of astrophysical origin. Experimental high energy physicists Claudio Kopper, and Nathan Whitehorn, were the two lead authors of the 2013 analysis that discovered the neutrino flux for which IceCube received the prize.

Decreased insect collecting by amateur collectors could impact research
According to a paper recently published in BioScience by MSU entomologist Anthony Cognato and master's student Erica Fischer, collaboration between amateur butterfly collectors and entomology researchers has never been so critical to ensuring that critically important large-scale contemporary and future ecological, conservation, and evolutionary hypotheses concerning insects can be tested.

Spartan plays a role in manufacturing the COVID vaccine
As COVID-19 vaccines roll out, Spartans continue their work on the front lines, testing, treating, and even manufacturing the vaccine. Addyson Ives, a biomedical laboratory science major from the Biomedical Laboratory Diagnostics Program in the College of Natural Science at MSU, is part of the biological operations team for Pfizer. She and her unit are on the front lines, manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine.

Fields of breeders' dreams: A team effort toward targeted crop improvements
MSU plant biologist David Lowry is part of a study that examines the use of switchgrass in fighting climate change to improve crop growth. As reported in a recent issue of Nature, the team has produced a high-quality reference sequence of the complex switchgrass genome, and is exploring improvements to switchgrass through more targeted genome editing and customization of the crop for additional end products.

And that will wrap up the rewind for the month of February 2021. 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.