News
- Research indicates that baby’s sleep position is the major factor in
‘flat-headedness’
TEMPE, Ariz. – A baby’s sleep position is the best predictor of a misshapen skull condition known as deformational plagiocephaly – or the development of flat spots on an infant’s head – according to findings reported by Arizona State University scientists in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics. more...
- Bacterial ‘ropes’ tie down shifting Southwest
Tempe, AZ -Researchers from Arizona State University have discovered that several species of microbes (cyanobacteria), at least one found prominently in the deserts of the Southwest, have evolved the trait of rope-building to lasso shifting soil substrates. more...
- SOLS Magazine Fall 2009
This issue deals with technology and the challenges ahead. more...
- Do we still have pristine mountain lakes? ASU research shows ecological impacts from airborne nitrogen
The impact of airborne nitrogen released from the burning of fossil fuels and wide-spread use of fertilizers in agriculture is much greater that previously recognized and even extends to remote alpine lakes, according to a study published Nov. 6 in the journal Science. more...
- SOLUR undergraduate researcher to help fight cancer
Julie Furmick is going places. A senior-year life sciences major in Arizona State University’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, the Peoria student is headed to the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS). She’s on her way to being published in the prestigious Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. more...
- Two grants to ASU for transformational research will help change the way the U.S. generates and consumes energy
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Arizona State University two grants for alternative energy research that are part of a special DOE program to pursue high-risk, high-reward advances with the potential to change the way the nation generates and consumes energy. more...
- With venom and vigor bugs vie to be crowned ’ugliest’
"The Shocker," a paper wasp whose sting can cause anaphylactic shock and "The Stinger," a scorpion that crushes it’s prey with pincers and injects them with a neurotoxic venom, are just two of the 10 contenders in this year’s Ugly Bug Contest. more...
- Ronald Rutowski receives Distinguished Faculty Award
Ronald Rutowski is an internationally recognized researcher, scholar and undergraduate educator. more...
- Honey bee scientists, social roles and sex featured in ‘Science’
Two Arizona State University researchers, Robert Page and Gro Amdam, are the subject of a feature article in the Oct. 25 issue of the journal Science, which traces their collaboration, discoveries and extensive published works on the reproductive traits and social life history of honey bees. more...
- Two ASU Entities Nominated for Innovator of the Year Award
Two ASU entities – the College of Technology and Innovation on the Polytechnic campus and the School of Life Sciences on the Tempe campus -- are finalists for the 2009 Innovator of the Year Award for Academia, which is given out as part of the Arizona Governor’s Celebration of Innovation. more...
- 30 years and thousands of finches give evolutionary theory life
Peter and Rosemary Grant, Princeton professors emeritus and winners of the 2009 Kyoto Prize for Lifetime Achievement, come to Arizona State University on Oct. 28 to join in ASU’s Darwinfest, as part of the Darwin Distinguished Lecture Series. more...
- Regents’ Professor: James Elser
His early desire to discover answers to deep questions took him into a career in science. As a professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, Elser has taken fields of study in new directions, both physically and experimentally. more...
- Talking about where the wild things are
The goal of community-based wildlife management is to integrate wildlife conservation and rural development and improve outcomes in both. Arizona State University will host lecturers on Oct. 1 - 2 whose working life experiences testify to the challenges inherent in such wildlife conservation in Africa. more...
- Arizona State University and Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust tap Nobel Prize winner Dr. Lee Hartwell to lead major health initiative
Arizona State University announces the appointment of Nobel Prize winner Leland “Lee” H. Hartwell to lead an expansive effort addressing two of today’s top concerns: improving the effectiveness of health care while reducing its costs, and advancing science education. more...
- Cockroaches advance student’s study of ancient life
Have you ever seen a three-foot dragonfly? Where such gigantic insects once dominated the Earth, now only diminutive cousins remain. What created these differences? Elyse Munoz, a junior majoring in biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, had the rare opportunity to directly investigate this question this summer... more...
- Feathers color research on nutrition
The wings of many ducks are decorated with intense bands of color, while some finch plumage is downright drab. Have you ever stopped to think about the significance behind the coloration of birds? more...
- SOLS 5-year report: a vision of excellence
This 5-year report touches on some of the many accomplishments that the School of Life Sciences achieved since 2003-2004. The journey, however, is just beginning... more...
- Distinguished Alumni reprograms STEM career and stem cells
Arizona State University alumna Barbara Knowles’ long list of professional accomplishments can be traced back to a pivotal night course in genetics in 1962. more...
- Finding ourselves:
a history of exploration launched Apollo 11If you are of a certain age, you remember with clear memory the intensity of seeing man’s first steps on the moon in black and white. However, in his incisive article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Arizona State University professor Stephen Pyne reminds us that “try as we might to make anniversaries into occasions that look ahead, the impulse to look back is overwhelming” more...
- Ants more rational than humans
In a study released online on July 22 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, researchers at Arizona State University and Princeton University show that ants can accomplish a task more rationally than our - multimodal, egg-headed, tool-using, bipedal, opposing-thumbed - selves. more...
- Water webs: connecting spiders and residents in the Southwest
If you are a cricket and it is a dry season on the San Pedro River in Arizona, on your nighttime ramblings to eat leaves, you are more likely to be ambushed by thirsty wolf spiders, or so a June 19 study suggests, published in the journal Ecology, and featured in the journal Science. more...
- Outsmarting swine flu pandemic: North American researchers gather at ASU to put 21st century science and technology to the test
Mathematicians, biostaticians and public health officials from Canada, Mexico and the United States will gather at Arizona State University this week to focus on understanding, possibly mitigating the spread of the H1N1 flu virus. They are planning to take up the challenge of proposing science-based strategies that can slow the spread of pandemic flu. more...
- New "Timetree of Life" Initiative Illuminates the Antiquity of Life on Earth
Sudhir Kumar and Penn State colleague Blair Hedges have published a book and Web resource that explores the history of life on Earth. The Timetree of Life book and TimeTreeWeb debut this week. more...
- ASU researcher is among authors of new U.S. global climate change report
Arizona State University professor Nancy Grimm is one of the authors of a new and authoritative federal study assessing the current and anticipated domestic impacts of climate change. more...
- ASU honey bee expert joins German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
The oldest scientific academy of science, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, has elected Arizona State University scientist Robert E. Page, Jr. into its august ranks. more...
- Scientists name ‘diving beetle’ for Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert
“What has six legs and is way cooler than a spider?” asks a riddle on the cover of a birthday card sent to Stephen Colbert by entomologists Quentin Wheeler at Arizona State University and Kelly Miller at the University of New Mexico. more...
- Five outstanding faculty members named Regents´ Professors
Five exceptional ASU professors at the top of their careers have been named as ASU Regents´ Professors for 2009 by President Michael Crow and Elizabeth D. Capaldi, executive vice president and provost. Their selection will be ratified by the Arizona Board of Regents on May 1. more...
- Students choose inspiring teachers to give ‘Last Lectures’
Three talented faculty members who are known for their ability to inspire students have been chosen for the 14th annual Last Lecture Series this month. Every year students nominate their favorite teachers, those who make them want to attend every class and strive to excel, though their courses are often the most difficult. more...
- Renowned primatologist Sarah Hrdy to speak at ASU
Hrdy comes to ASU as part of Darwinfest’s Darwin Distinguished Lecture Series on April 30, at 6 p.m., in room 170 of Coor Hall on ASU’s Tempe campus, with a book signing to follow. more...
- Engineers use ‘HUNTing’ skills to seek out bio-inspired solutions
ASU and Pratt hosted engineers, computer scientists, biologists and social scientists at a recent workshop - Heterogeneous Unmanned Networked Teams (HUNT) - that focused on developing bio-inspired solutions to engineering problems. more...
- ‘Smad’ scientists discover new target for anti-cancer drug screening
Smad4 is one of a suite of Smad proteins that facilitate cell-to-cell communication in all animals. Mutations of these proteins have been linked to numerous diseases, including cancer. more...
- Take a walk with ASU life sciences faculty
This year, “School of Life Sciences (SOLS) Takes a Hike” will take place very close to home. On Saturday, April 4, SOLS faculty will lead three hour-long hikes at the Desert Botanical Garden more...
- ASU Alumni Association honors world-changing innovators at Founders’ Day
The Arizona State University Alumni Association honored faculty members and alumni involved in solving challenges with world-changing consequences at Founders’ Day Awards Dinner on March 3 at The Buttes, a Marriott Resort, 2000 Westcort Way, Tempe. more...
- Science women honor ASU discoverer of ‘skinny’ gene
Geneticist Winifred Doane, professor emerita of Arizona State University and a respected researcher and educator, was one of eight Fellows honored Feb. 15 for “commitment to the achievement of equity for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics” by the Association for Women in Science (AWIS). more...
- Award to transform babble to benefit
What comes to mind when you look across grasslands? That they are major components of “drylands,” regions that cover more than 40 percent of the world’s land area and home to more than 25 percent of the global human population? Or, rather, lyric phrases, such as “Leaves of Grass” and “Amber waves of grain?” more...
- Science minds gather for ‘origins’ symposium
CLAS Newsfeed: A public symposium that will convene some of the greatest minds in science, including six Nobel Laureates, to discuss the origins of everything, from the universe to humanity, will be held Monday, April 6, in ASU Gammage. more...
- PhotoGraphy workshop visualizes urban ecology as art
Arizona State University graduate students are bringing top researchers of deserts from around the world to ASU and presenting science in a way that’s unexpected - as art. Students have created the PhotoGraphy Workshop as part of the three-day conference “Dynamic deserts: resource uncertainty in arid environments” held Feb. 26-March 1 in Old Main’s Carson Ballroom on the Tempe campus. more...
- Polly Wants A Pigment: ASU Researchers Investigate Bird’s Carotenoid Circle of Life
“What you see is what you get” often is the mantra in the highly competitive life of birds, as they use brilliant displays of color to woo females for mating. Now researchers are finding that carotenoids -- the compounds responsible for amping up red, orange and yellow colors of birds -- also may play a role in color perception and in a bird’s ability to reproduce, making it a cornerstone in birds’ vitality. more...
- Philosopher Dennett to lecture on Darwinism
“Darwin’s Strange Inversion of Reasoning” is the topic of this year’s signature lecture presented by the BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University. The lecture will be given by philosopher and author Daniel Dennett at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18 in Galvin’s Playhouse on ASU’s Tempe campus. more...
- ASU scientist shows that culling whales will not boost tropical fisheries
For decades there has been a controversy about whales eating fish in the tropics. The “whales eat fish” debate has been at the heart of policy decisions about culling of whales and is pivotal to the future of commercial whaling in the region. Today, however, chalk one up for the whales. The controversy appears to be nothing more than a whale of a tale, according to research by Arizona State University scientist Leah Gerber. more...
- Arizona environmental economist says invasive species is part of the price of doing business
In the rush to market, products also bring hitchhikers: invasive species. These exotics often overtake native species, ravage agriculture, fisheries and forestry, and damage ecosystems and, ultimately, economics. Disproportionately so in developing countries’ economies, Perrings says. more...
- ASU Darwinfest offers Arizona teachers support for science
ASU remembers Darwin, the power of risk-taking and how bold ideas can change worlds with Darwinfest, Feb. 4-13. Bringing in some of the top evolutionary scientists and philosophers, planners from ASU´s School of Life Sciences and their university colleagues have designed a creative scientific enterprise that features acclaimed authors and filmmakers, as well as a Darwin look-alike contest, beagles, and a Darwin birthday party. more...
- Hydrocarbon afterglow reveals reproductive cheaters
An ‘honest indicator’ has been discovered by a scientific team at Arizona State University that reveals reproductive cheating. But before you run out to buy an infidelity identification kit, know that it only works for ants. more...
- Eight ASU Faculty Elected as AAAS Fellows
Eight Arizona State University faculty members are among the 486 newly elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a prestigious international scientific society. more...
- ASU professor ’follows the elements’ to understand evolution in ancient oceans
In the search for life beyond Earth, scientists ’follow the water’ to find places that might be hospitable. However, every home gardener knows that plants need more than water, or even sunshine. more...
- ASU biogeochemist selected for national board of AWIS
Susanne Neuer, an oceanographer who studies carbon flux and planktonic diversity at Arizona State University, has been selected by the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) to serve on the national executive board, as councilor. Her term will start January 1, 2009. Neuer, an associate professor in the School of Life Sciences more...
- ASU researcher nets HHMI Collaborative Innovation Award: Fountain of Youth to be found in the anthill?
Aging – we are all doing it. It is relentless and terminal. Auguries and alchemists, mendicants and magicians, philosophers and science fiction writers, researchers and plastic surgeons have employed all their various arts in the pursuits of “turning back the clock.” Yet, we stand in modern times with a span of a century to our name, at most. more...
- 2008 CLAS Distinguished Faculty Award Recipient: Professor James Elser
Ecosystem ecologist James Elser is at the leading edge of an integrative research field known as biological stoichiometry, the study of the balance of energy and multiple chemical elements in living systems. By counting atoms of carbon, nitrogen and other key nutrient elements, Elser examines how environmental nutrient limitation shapes the growth of organisms, alters ecosystem structure and influences long-term evolution. more...