CAS Connection - December

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Strange New Worlds

Could life exist elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy? A group of undergraduate planet hunters are helping NASA discover unknown worlds beyond our solar system.

By Nicole Krueger

 

In Focus  |  Around CAS  |  Liberal Arts at Large  |  Q&A  |  In the News  | Student Spotlight  |  Faculty Spotlight  |  Page Turners  |  Past Issues

Student standing in a field operating a drone

Around CAS

Drones Defying Gravity

Are flying robots taking over? Not in this geography class, where students learn how to control the drones that will help map our future. 

By Henry Houston

two people working at a microscope

Around CAS

Tiny Invisible Universes

In UO’s materials characterization labs, researchers are pushing the boundaries of what can be observed through a microscope.

By Nicole Krueger

Spaceship flying over futuristic city

Faculty Spotlight

Learning from
Aliens

Professor Phil Scher uses science fiction and alien cultures to teach anthropology—and to challenge assumptions about humanity.

By Jenny Brooks

Student wearing safety glasses working in a lab

Student Spotlight

Engineering the Future

Could engineered bacteria be the answer to antibiotic resistance? Undergrad researcher Favour Foday is working on it.

By Grace Connolly

A space probe floating above a frozen moon with Jupiter in the background

Liberal Arts at Large

A Journey to Jupiter’s Moon

Is there a habitable environment beneath the moon Europa’s icy crust? CAS Professor Carol Paty is helping NASA find out.

By Nicole Krueger

Around CAS

Learn Today, Change Tomorrow

Research and scholarship in the College of Arts and Sciences are so forward-thinking at times, they almost feel like science fiction. That’s what real innovation looks like—and our undergraduate students are getting in on the action through experiential learning opportunities that prepare them for cutting-edge careers.

Discover what Dean Chris Poulsen has to say about how experiential learning propelled him toward a career as a climate scientist.

CAS News

a three panel from a comic book
New graphic novel uses nostalgia as a superpower
CREATIVE WRITING – Creative writing professor Mat Johnson's new graphic novel, "Backflash," deals with loss and grief in a wild, time-traveling thriller where nostalgia is a superpower. Portland-based artist Steve Lieber provided the illustrations that mix humor and heart.
Octopus under sea
Octopuses have some of the oldest known sex chromosomes
BIOLOGY - University of Oregon researchers have identified a sex chromosome in the California two-spot octopus. This chromosome has likely been around for 480 million years, since before octopuses split apart from the nautilus on the evolutionary tree. That makes it one of the oldest known animal sex chromosomes. Doctoral students Gabby Coffing, Andrew Kern and their team described the findings Feb. 3 in the journal Current Biology.
two people in a lab setting, person on the left holding a cylinder as a person on the right looks at it
Bad bacteria can trigger gut pain, new research shows how
BIOLOGY, PHYSICS - A new study published in the journal mBio shows how one kind of bacteria, Vibrio cholerae, triggers those painful contractions by activating the immune system. The research also finds a more general explanation for how the gut rids itself of unwanted intruders, which could also help scientists better understand chronic conditions like inflammatory bowel disease. The research was led by Julia Ngo, a now-graduated doctoral student in Karen Guillemin and Raghu Parthasarathy’s labs.

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From the Media

an illustration of a woman sitting at a top of a flight of stairs in the heavens
So You Reached Your Goal. Now What?
The comedown after an accomplishment is normal. What to do next? CAS Psychology Professor and Natural Science Divisional Dean Elliot Berkman is quoted in the New York Times, saying it’s important to ask yourself what drove you to set a particular goal. If your ambitions are rooted in your values, there’s a greater chance you’ll stay motivated, he added.
a baby and a tractor
Common Herbicide Linked to Low Birth Weights in Rural Areas
Newsweek featured work by CAS economics doctoral student Emmett Reynier. "We had heard some pretty broad claims about the effects of pesticides on health that seemed to be based more on correlations than on causal effects," Emmett Reynier—an author of the paper and a doctoral candidate at the University of Oregon, supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—said in a statement.
a mountain in the sunset
The Cascade Mountains Have Been Hiding a Precious Natural Resource. A Research Team Just Found It.
Popular Mechanics covered the recent finding by CAS researchers of water in the Cascade Mountains. “It is a continental-size lake stored in the rocks at the top of the mountains, like a big water tower,” UO’s Leif Karlstrom, a co-author of the study, said.

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CAS Connection is produced by the CAS Communications Department and edited by Nicole Krueger.

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