The NatSci Chronicles

With plans to start a new revolution in the way we use optical microscopes to understand the living world, chemists Marcos Dantus and Elad Harel have received $1.3M from the W. M. Keck Foundation—the first time ever that scientists at MSU have claimed the prestigious award.

Harel’s and Dantus’ research will push the limits on what light-based or optical microscopes can see, which would bring benefits to a range of scientific and engineering fields. But the new approach is poised to deliver the greatest impact on our understanding of health and disease by revealing what life looks like in motion.

Water research has been a long-standing priority at MSU. In 2012, Michigan State launched the MSU Global Water Initiative, hiring 16 new water research scientists between 2012-2016, adding to the more than 100 water scientists already at MSU at the time.

Water research is multi-faceted, ranging from predicting the effects of climatic influences and preventing pollution to better managing natural resources, advancing sustainable agriculture, protecting groundwater and ensuring a safe and plentiful water supply.

Scientists in Michigan State University’s College of Natural Science are planted firmly at the heart of water science to harness it wisely, preserve and protect it. The effort is intertwined in the continuum of water processes along the water cycle—precipitation, surface water, ground water, the surface-groundwater intersection and the impact of human influences and needs.

In this episode, I’ll be sitting down with four College of Natural Science faculty members who were part of the original Global Water Initiative hiring cohort to hear about how they are working together to harness their collective knowledge and research efforts to illuminate and address challenges to the water cycle—an extremely important process that enables the availability of water for all living organisms and regulates water patterns on our planet.

Participants:

The world's population is expected to increase by more than 2 billion people by 2050, which will put a strain on global food production. One way to meet this challenge is to improve the resilience of crops to abiotic and biotic stresses, such as drought, heat, flooding, disease, and insect pests.

Gregg Howe is an MSU College of Natural Science researcher who is internationally known for his work on plant resilience. He recently spent a year in Japan as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar, where he collaborated with Japanese scientists on research focused on understanding and improving plant resilience traits.

In this episode, Howe discusses his research and its potential to help us meet the growing demand for food in a sustainable way. He also talks about the importance of international collaboration in agricultural research.

In this episode of The NatSci Chronicles at MSU College of Natural Science, we sit down to discuss the 10th Anniversary of the Higgs boson, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the ATLAS Experiment. (The Higgs boson was discovered on July 4, 2012.)

Guests:

In the seventh episode of The NatSci Chronicles, we sit down to discuss digital accessibility and what the Michigan State University College of Natural Science has accomplished in this area for both academics and the web.

Guests:

In the sixth episode of The NatSci Chronicles, we sit down with the 2021 NatSci Alumni Award Winners: Shannon Morey, Dr. Patrick Lukulay and Shannon Manning. (Length: 35:58)

In the fifth episode of The NatSci Chronicles, Victor DiRita and Neal Hammer discuss their research with antibiotic resistant bacteri. (Length: 27:30)

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In the fourth episode of The NatSci Chronicles, we have a roundtable discussion about the 'Sew4Science' program, a program started by a group of MSU biochemists who are serving undergraduate students by teaching and sewing. (Length: 28:34)

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In the third episode of The NatSci Chronicles, we sit down with three members of the NatSci community and discuss the transition to remote teaching for the Spring/Summer 2020 semesters during the Covid19 pandemic. (Length: 52:54)

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In the second episode of The NatSci Chronicles, we present a "Give Green Day" edition of the podcast. Give Green Day takes place on Tuesday, December 3, 2019, and NatSci is looking to raise money for the Student Emergency Assistance Fund. To date, seven students have benefited from this fund. We sit down with three of those students to learn more about their stories and how the Student Emergency Assistance Fund helped them. (Length: 21:00)

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