From the Media

A growing number of scientists are backing laws recognizing that nature has inherent rights and intrinsic value. That includes political science professor Craig Kauffman. Kauffman founded the Eco Jurisprudence Monitor in 2022 to track rights of nature developments. Analyzing more than 450 examples worldwide, he tells Inside Climate News that he found a major commonality: They all treat nature, whether a river, forest or individual species, as part of a larger web of life.

In a Buzzfeed article, College of Arts and Sciences professor Ulrich Mayr offers insight into some of the “red flags” of memory loss in old age. “One really telltale sign might be getting lost in your hometown, just not finding your way,” said Mayr, a professor of neuroscience.

As WNBA players negotiate their labor contract, the commissioner of the women’s basketball league is under scrutiny. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation spoke with Courtney M. Cox, an associate professor in the Department of Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies, about the negotiations. “Officiating is connected to labor, to shared governance of this league and speaks to what is important for multiple unions,” she said. “The frustration is not isolated but rather compounded by a sense of stagnation on several key issues.”

Scientists have a more detailed look at the process of glacial calving thanks to a fiber-optic cable on the seafloor. “It’s always impressive for people to get any observations near the glacier front,” agreed David Sutherland, a physical oceanographer at the University of Oregon in Eugene who did not contribute to the new paper. Researchers working at the front, he explained, risk losing expensive equipment and have to navigate the mélange, a closely packed mix of sea ice and icebergs.

Legal hurdles around the country are making it difficult for Democrats to counter the president’s red-state gerrymandering, reports POLITICO. Political science assistant professor Chandler James says that fair redistricting laws fall in line with other “good governance” laws popular in the West like universal mail-in voting, non-partisan and open or semi-open primaries, ranked choice voting, citizens initiatives and ballot measures.

In the latest episode of Deep Green, created in partnership with Momentum, Avi Rajagopal sits down with University of Oregon physicist Richard Taylor, whose research underpins our understanding of fractal patterns’ impact, and Anastasia and Martin Lesjak of 13&9, who apply this research in their designs—including a new wallcovering collection for Momentum called Renaturation.

Dr. Christopher Hendon, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon and co-author of the book Water for Coffee: Science Story Manual, talks with Serious Eats about coffee. He says that the specific compounds you lose over time depend on the coffee itself, but you're generally losing aromatics (the things that make coffee smell good): "If you like the smell of the coffee when you grind it, that's what you're losing [when you allow it to cool]."

A Newport, Oregon resident accidentally became interested in fossil hunting; now, he likely holds the largest private fossil collection in the state. Kent Gibson’s dog, Bart, found a rock while hunting in the late ‘90s that turned out to be a porpoise skull. Now, Gibson’s amassed thousands of fossils, a treasure trove of significant importance to the state. “Kent is an excellent Oregonian and deserves respect and admiration for the work he has done to conserve our fossil history,” said Edward Davis, an associate professor of earth sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. “A lot of times, people who approach me like that are mistaken, and they have rocks that look kind of like fossils,” Davis told The Statesman Journal. “(Gibson) showed me the back of the truck and there was just skull, skull, skull, skull.”

The US has recently begun to lead the way in sustainable metal-making. Green steel firms have found environmentally-friendly ways to produce steel, including removing contaminants from iron ore itself. Companies are also using electric arc furnaces, which allow scrap steel to be melted and recycled. However, there have been some setbacks in the growing green-steel business, pointing towards the niche that these firms fit in. Paul Kempler, an expert in electrochemistry and electrochemical engineering in the College of Arts and Sciences, told BBC that “it looks a lot like how we make iron and steel today – it's a lot easier to conceive how that would get to scale [as a result].”

The Libre Initiative was a powerful voice during the 2024 presidential election. Libre empowered conservative Latino voices to share their beliefs and values, something they hadn’t been asked to do before. Libre was founded and funded by the Koch brothers and is part of their libertarian advocacy organization, Americans for Prosperity. Despite the Koch brothers’ history of aiding right-wing candidates and projects, Libre maintains that it is “party agnostic” and welcoming to anybody. Laura Pulido, a professor of geography and Indigenous, race and ethnic studies, disagreed. She shared with Prism, “They are very, very disciplined” about sticking to the Koch brothers’ libertarian ideologies.

PSYCHOLOGY - Adolescence isn’t a time of dysfunction; it’s a peak period of brain development, adaptability, and growth. Jennifer Pfeifer, a psychology professor at the College of Arts and Sciences, discusses at the 2025 TEDxPortland that it’s time to flip the script and recognize that young people are acting exactly as they’re wired to, and are capable of far more than we’ve been led to believe.

Since the beginning of the Trump administration, Oregon immigrant communities have faced increased fears of deportation. Recently, a study done by University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences sociology professor Isabel Garcia Valdivia found that immigrants over 50 don’t experience as much fear as the younger members of their communities. Why is there less stress among older community members? “It’s always present, but they also have other fears and day-to-day responsibilities,” Valdivia told KGW8. “One of their biggest fears with deportation was what will happen to my children?"

In Skagway, Alaska, many tourists and community members have faced frustrations due to concerns over rockslides impacting cruise docks. These worries have not only inconvenienced cruise-goers, but have caused economic damage as well. However, research performed by University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences geologist Josh Roering might provide answers to a concerned community. How? “We identify that there are parts of this valley that are much more susceptible to rockfall runout than others,” Roering told Alaska Public Media. “The more wiggly these rocks are, the more sort of decoupled they are from the underlying mountain, so that is a relative measure of how potentially unstable they may be.”

Trump’s public call for Tan’s resignation is similar to how he’s treated political rivals, according to Chandler James, an associate political science professor at the University of Oregon. Trump is taking a more aggressive approach to interacting with businesses — and most organizations — than is often seen from the highest office, James said. “This is not an isolated incident of Trump pressuring this one individual,” James said, “but a part of a pattern of activity that seeks to use the power of the presidency — and all the resources of the government to — bring pressure on individuals and businesses, and groups such as universities or law firms, to change their policies in a way that Trump sees fit.”

Early Wednesday morning, a powerful earthquake, one of the largest ever recorded, struck off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. Tsunami centers along the Pacific coastline quickly sprung into action, issuing warnings for the potential of colossal ocean waves that are often generated by big earthquakes. Why wasn't it a larger tsunami? “Not all earthquakes are created equal,” University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences geophysicist Diego Melgar told the New York Times. “We’re still untangling the details. It’s going to take weeks to months of research to figure out exactly what happened.”