029 - NatSci News November 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 November 2021.

MSU scientist catches subatomic glimpse into 3-D structure of all matter
Over the past century, physicists have pieced together the basic building blocks of the universe like a giant jigsaw puzzle, one experiment at a time, inventing highly advanced instruments such as MSU’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory and Facility for Rare Isotope Beams to test their theories. Research conducted by MSU high-energy particle theorist Huey-Wen Lin has just provided a major piece of the puzzle. For the first time, Lin used advanced calculations in lattice quantum chromodynamics to directly measure the momentum of quarks inside the center of an atom and to generate 3-D images of the proton’s structure. Her results were recently published in the journal  Physical Review Letters.

No more mucus
In a partnership between MSU and Spectrum Health called the Cystic Fibrosis Translational Research program, a team of researchers including MSU biochemist Robert Quinn, is studying the effectiveness of a promising FDA approved treatment called Trikafta that is a combination of three different drugs. The new treatment is proving to be life-changing for people with cystic fibrosis. The research was published Nov. 24 in the Journal of Cystic Fibrosis.

Zooming in on the future of microscopy
When physicist Tyler Cocker joined MSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy in 2018, he had a clear goal: build a powerful microscope that would be the first of its kind in the United States. Having accomplished that, it was time to put the microscope to work. With the novel microscope, Cocker’s team is using light and electrons to study materials with an unparalleled intimacy and resolution. The researchers can see atoms and measure quantum features within samples that could become the building blocks of quantum computers and next-generation solar cells. Their research was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

When fiction and real life collide: MSU's role in planetary defense
On December 10, Netflix will debut the movie “Don’t Look Up,” a fictional comedy about MSU scientists who try to warn the government about a giant asteroid’s impending collision with Earth. In the story, no one from the government or press is paying attention, but in real life, NASA and MSU are very much engaged in the serious and important science of planetary defense. MSU planetary scientist Seth Jacobson is part of a multi-disciplinary research team working on this project.

2021 annual awards ceremony honors NatSci faculty, staff and students
Thirty-seven outstanding MSU College of Natural Science faculty, staff and students were recognized for their achievements and contributions at the NatSci Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony, held on Nov. 19 at the new STEM Teaching and Learning Facility.

Got Data? Instructors surveyed on using, teaching data science in life science courses
MSU Academic Specialist Nathan Emery and collaborators recently published a study in BioScience in which they surveyed college/university educators from around the globe on teaching practices related to data science as well as how scientists use data science in their own research. Their work offers a window into how data science is currently taught and how to best empower instructors to incorporate data science into future biology and environmental science courses.

Studying plant's protective hair reveals metabolic innovation
Plants are master chemists, producing a dazzling array of molecules that are valuable to humans, including vitamins, pharmaceuticals and flavorings. In a paper published in Science Advances, a team of MSU scientists from the College of Natural Science followed up on their observation that the common black nightshade makes an unusually large number of different acylsugar protective compounds in their trichome hairs. A surprise finding from this study is that black nightshade acylsugars have distinct types of compounds not found together in other plants.

Learning how nature 'dances'
Long ago in Earth’s history, individual cells began to communicate and coordinate with one another. Thanks to this and a few billion years of evolution, humans can now gather in lecture halls to share ideas about how to study this communication and its wide-ranging implications.  MSU scientists Lee Kroos and Yann Dufour now have a paper, published online Nov. 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which they took a deep look at how single cells work together to choreograph collective behavior. In particular, the team looked at a bacterial species to tease out the basic rules of the dances bacteria do to survive, thrive and impact humanity, for better or worse.

Through the nuclear looking glass
About 20 years ago, MSU's B. Alex Brown had an idea to reveal insights about a fundamental but enigmatic force at work in some of the most extreme environments in the universe. Brown’s theory laid the blueprints for connecting the properties of nuclei to neutron stars, but building that bridge with experiments continued to be challenging. That is until 2017 when he said he started thinking about the precision experimentsat the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, or NSCL, and in the near-future at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB. The goal of this new idea, which was recently published in the journal Physical Review Letters, was the same as his earlier theory, but it could be tested using what are known as “mirror nuclei” to provide a faster and simpler path to that destination.

Three NatSci graduate students chosen to study at national laboratories
The Department of Energy’s Office of Science has announced its selection of graduate students for the Office of Science Graduate Student Research program’s 2021 Solicitation 1 cycle, three of whom are Michigan State University College of Natural Science doctoral students: Caleb Richard Hicks and Gabriel Given in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Scott Essenmacher in the Department of Chemistry.

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