The University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum has received a grant of nearly $127,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The grant enables a two-year project to locate and assess at-risk plant communities growing on the four properties managed by Matthaei-Nichols. The project runs through May 2013. Part old-fashioned fieldwork, part high-tech information-gathering, the project is contemporary natural history for the long term. Pivotal to the project is the use of technological recording and tracking tools to create an in-depth accounting of existing natural communities, said Matthaei-Nichols director Robert Grese. Read More
Natural Sciences
U-M’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum receives grant to assess at-risk plants
Ancient whale skulls and directional hearing: A twisted tale
Skewed skulls may have helped early whales discriminate the direction of sounds in water and are not solely, as previously thought, a later adaptation related to echolocation. University of Michigan researchers report the finding in a paper published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read More
A brain training exercise that really does work
Forget about working crossword puzzles and listening to Mozart. If you want to improve your ability to reason and solve new problems, take a few minutes every day to do a maddening little exercise called n-back training. UM psychologist John Jonides presented new findings to the Association for Psychological Science that showed that practicing this kind of task for about 20 minutes each day for 20 days significantly improves performance on a standard test of fluid intelligence—the ability to reason and solve new problems, which is a crucial element of general intelligence. And this improvement lasted for up to three months. Read More
Invasive mussels causing massive ecological changes in Great Lakes
The ongoing spread of non-native mussels in the Great Lakes has caused "massive, ecosystem-wide changes" throughout lakes Michigan and Huron, two of the planet's largest freshwater lakes, according to a new University of Michigan-led study. The blitzkrieg advance of two closely related species of mussels—the zebra and quagga—is stripping the lakes of their life-supporting algae, resulting in a remarkable ecological transformation and threatening the multibillion-dollar U.S. commercial and recreational Great Lakes fisheries. Previous studies have linked the mussels to far-reaching changes in Lake Michigan's southern basin. Now a paper by two UM ecologists and a colleague shows that the same dramatic changes are occurring in northern Lake Michigan and throughout Lake Huron, as well. Read More
Next Generation Learning Challenge grant to U-M prof for ECoach physics aid
UM professor Timothy McKay has been awarded a grant from the Next Generation Learning Challenge, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates and William and Flora Hewlett Foundations. The grants were awarded to 29 institutions for projects that improve learning and graduation rates through the use of technology. McKay, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Physics, will use new software to provide individualized expert coaching for thousands of students in large introductory physics courses. Known as ECoach, the system will provide thousands of undergraduate physics students with the advice, training and encouragement that they need to achieve at the highest levels. The one-year pilot program will be launched during the winter 2012 semester. The grant was for $249,000. "Too few students come to see me when I have office hours," McKay said. "This is what I would tell them if they were sitting in front of me, and I would like to reach them all." Read More
Biodiversity improves water quality in streams through a division of labor
Biologically diverse streams are better at cleaning up pollutants than less rich waterways, and a University of Michigan ecologist says he has uncovered the long-sought mechanism that explains why this is so. Bradley Cardinale used 150 miniature model streams, which use recirculating water in flumes to mimic the variety of flow conditions found in natural streams. He grew between one and eight species of algae in each of the mini-streams, then measured each algae community's ability to soak up nitrate, a nitrogen compound that is a nutrient pollutant of global concern. Read More
Quest for designer bacteria uncovers a Spy
Scientists have discovered a molecular assistant called Spy that helps bacteria excel at producing proteins for medical and industrial purposes. Bacteria are widely used to manufacture proteins used in medicine and industry, but the bugs often bungle the job. A research team led by James Bardwell, who is a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and of biological chemistry, as well as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, at the U-M, developed a way to coerce bacteria into making large quantities of stable, functional proteins. Then, in exploring why these designer bacteria were so successful, the scientists discovered the molecular helper, Spy. Read more
Early-career researchers receive Sloan fellowships
Two U-M professors are among the 118 researchers across the nation chosen as 2011 Alfred P. Sloan research fellows. Volker Elling, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics, and Anne McNeil, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, each receives a $50,000 fellowship. Elling is working on partial differential equations and fluid dynamics, an important area of applied mathematics. McNeil's research focuses on creating new and useful organic materials and exploring the basic mechanisms involved in their synthesis, assembly and operation. Read More
Global warming may reroute evolution
Rising carbon dioxide levels associated with global warming may affect interactions between plants and the insects that eat them, altering the course of plant evolution, research at the University of Michigan suggests. Researchers Rachel Vannette and Mark Hunter investigated whether different genetic "families" of the common milkweed from a single population in Northern Michigan would respond differently to increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and if so, how those responses might affect the plants' chances of being eaten by insects. Read More