#udresearch

[udelaware]

Equatorial bloodlines

University of Delaware undergraduate student Blair Schneider spent time in Brazil earlier this year getting samples from chickens to help with research looking to see if there is something genetically that allows the Brazilian birds to better deal with heat stress than American broiler chickens.

The research is being led at UD by Carl Schmidt, professor and genome scientist in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and is part of a five-year, $4.7 million National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) climate change grant for a project titled “Adapting Chicken Production to Climate Change Through Breeding,” which includes Iowa State University and North Carolina State University, as well. Read more

[xmuhistory]

@UDResearch: Two #UDel marine science students get a taste of research aboard Xiamen University's vessel R/V Tan Kah Kee in #China. https://t.co/OyjBBo6nS3 @udceoe @atekwanae https://t.co/PgsviZZ3re

from http://twitter.com/UDResearch via IFTTT

[udelaware]

It figures: Math could help make bones stronger

What happens when a biologist and a mathematician put their brain power together? Innovation!

When University of Delaware biologist Anja Nohe showed that a new treatment could restore healthy bone density in mice with osteoporosis, colleague and mathematician/engineer Prasad Dhurjati figured out the dosage levels that would be effective for humans. And that could add up to great news for the more than 10 million humans in the United States who live with osteoporosis. Read more

[udelaware]

Botanical bodyguards

Plants in peril have some decidedly heroic tendencies, a Delaware high school student discovered recently while working in the lab of his mentor, University of Delaware botanist Harsh Bais.

Connor Sweeney was surprised to see that plants, when wounded, sent out chemical signals to warn their neighbors. The neighbors, being plants, couldn’t run away. But they could - and did - beef up their defenses by sending out longer, stronger roots. Read more

[udelaware]

Methane detectives get the goods on tree trunks

They were just standing around, not saying much, trying to look like innocent bystanders. We are just trees, they said, stately sentinels of the forest, dignified darlings that dwell off the beaten paths. Do we look like methane gas factories?

Busted! Researchers at the University of Delaware have tapped into one of the mysteries of methane - a powerful greenhouse gas - in one of the first studies in the world to show that tree trunks in upland forests actually emit methane rather than store it. They are a previously unaccounted for source of this gas, which is about 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide. Read more

[udelaware]

The chummy side of sharks

So they may not be schooling anyone on Fangbook or Finstagram, but it turns out sharks can be quite a social bunch - except when they’re not. University of Delaware researchers have been tracking about 300 sand tiger sharks along the Eastern Seaboard, collecting information about thousands of their interactions. Snapchat that! Read more.

[udelaware]

Night moves on the research radar

A pair of University of Delaware researchers have birds on their radar. Sergio Cabrera-Cruz, a student in the Fulbright Program, has spent many a night collecting information about how streetlights affect bird migratory patterns. He is working with UD wildlife ecologist Jeff Buler, using the unique tracking capacity of a World War II-era device to understand bird behavior during this critical part of their life cycle. Read more.

[udelaware]

Zero-emission face-off

There’s a fork in the road to zero-emission vehicles - one that leads to battery-powered electric cars like the Tesla and the other that leads to fuel-cell-powered automobiles like the Toyota Mirai. Take the fuel-cell option, says University of Delaware researcher Yushan Yan. Those vehicles best preserve the advantages of gasoline-powered engines - with low upfront cost, long driving range and fast refueling. Read more.

[udelaware]

Preventing arthritis after knee surgery

Every year, thousands of people have surgery to repair ligament damage in their knees - and many of them wind up with osteoarthritis a few years later. Even if everything seems fine, X-rays show evidence of early-stage osteoarthritis in young adults, 20-30 years old. Two University of Delaware researchers - Thomas Buchanan (mechanical engineering) and Lynn Snyder-Mackler (physical therapy) - are looking for ways to change that. Read more.

[udelaware]

First choice: Clean water, not cleaned water

Given an option, people would much rather pay to protect and conserve water supplies than pay for water treatment plants, according to a study led by University of Delaware Professor Kent Messer, Read more.

[udelaware]

Reversing the effects of mistreatment

Research has shown that adversity can produce damage long after the bleeding has stopped or the traumatic event has ended. Mistreatment by a caregiver early in life, for example, is related to greater risk for cognitive impairment and psychiatric disorders later in life. Now University of Delaware researcher Tania Roth, a pioneer in the field of behavioral epigenetics, and other scientists are exploring the idea that changes in gene regulation and activity triggered by such mistreatment may be the cause of those later problems. Read more.

[udelaware]

Strategic defense for species and their spaces

The U.S. Department of Defense can defend the threatened and endangered species on its military bases and save a lot of money while still ensuring the finest military training for American troops. University of Delaware Professor Kent Messer led a recent study that shows how. Read more

[udelaware]

Circuits in space

Tingyi Gu, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received an Early Career Faculty (ECF) Award from NASA for her research using integrated photonic devices for low power space photonic communication and sensors for space weather observations.

Gu is developing lightweight silicon photonic chips that can withstand harsh atmospheric conditions in space, monitor gamma ray and UV radiation, and send communication signals between space and the ground.

Silicon photonics is still a relatively new field—its infancy dating back to just the 1980s. There’s plenty of room for innovation, especially when it comes to the devices Gu is working on.

[udelaware]

From farm to road

Synthetic rubber and plastics – used for manufacturing tires, toys and myriad other products – are produced from butadiene, a molecule traditionally made from petroleum or natural gas. But those manmade materials could get a lot greener soon, thanks to the ingenuity of a team of scientists from three U.S. research universities.

The scientific team – from the University of Delaware, the University of Minnesota and the University of Massachusetts – has invented a process to make butadiene from renewable sources like trees, grasses and corn. Read more

[udelaware]

Bullying's lasting harm

Peer victimization in fifth grade increases health risks later on Kids, don’t let the bullies in school ruin your life.

Being kicked or shoved intentionally by a schoolmate, being hurt by constant taunting — such instances of aggression, which psychologists refer to as “peer victimization” — can have lasting, harmful impacts.

A new study led by the University of Delaware and involving researchers from universities and hospitals in six states analyzed data collected from 4,297 students on their journey from fifth through tenth grade. The findings, published online in the medical journal Pediatrics, document the disturbing associations between peer victimization, depression and substance use. Read more

[udelaware]

Mapping deep reefs produces valuable data for researchers, conservationists

A study authored by University of Delaware professor Art Trembanis and colleagues reveals new details about deep sea reefs — known as mesophotic reefs — near the island of Bonaire in the Dutch Caribbean.

While coral reefs worldwide are in decline, the waters surrounding Bonaire comprise a marine park known as a scuba “diver’s paradise” because it contains some of the most well-preserved coral reefs in the Caribbean basin.

Trembanis and colleagues used autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to map these deep sea reefs, situated 100 to over 500 feet (30 to over 150 meters) below the ocean surface, which are considered a lifeline for shallow reef recovery due to stressors like warming (bleaching), ocean acidification, over fishing and other deteriorations. Read more