A picture of drought: ND ecologist matching NASA images with field data to measure forest health
Nate Swenson strides so quickly through the Wisconsin forest while carrying a large pole clipper that postdoctoral researcher Vanessa Rubio usually follows the 40 feet of rope dragging behind him.
When they reach the designated plot, Swenson extends the clipper about 30 feet high and pulls the rope to snip off a leafy twig from the canopy of a tall, tagged tree. The twig floats down through the dappled sunlight and lands in his hand.
It would be a majestic scene but for the mosquitoes. Hundreds and thousands of them, swarming everything that smells like warm blood.
Swenson cuts twigs from nine sample trees in each plot where the reflection of light from the leaves could show up in a space-based image. Rubio selects one leaf from each twig, folds it into a labeled test tube, and drops it in a metal canister of liquid nitrogen.
This flash freezing will preserve its RNA, which degrades quickly otherwise. Later in his campus lab, Swenson can study the leaf’s gene expression, which changes as it is stressed by drought later in the summer.
Latest Colleges & Schools
- ‘Prebunking’ false election claims may boost trust in electionsIn recent years, democracies worldwide have seen a growing erosion of trust in election outcomes and institutions, driven in part by fears of widespread fraud. New Notre Dame research finds that “prebunking” — providing accurate information before false claims spread — boosts trust in elections more effectively than traditional fact-checking.
- Justice Amy Coney Barrett to deliver Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government lectureAmy Coney Barrett, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, will speak at the University of Notre Dame at 4 p.m. Sept. 12 in the Leighton Concert Hall of the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center.
- Three Notre Dame researchers win NEH grants for humanities-based projectsDavid Hernandez, the Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Associate Professor of Classics, and Morgan Munsen, senior research and partnerships program manager at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs, have each won an NEH Collaborative Research grant. Thomas A. Stapleford, associate professor in the Program of Liberal Studies, is leading a team that has been awarded a Humanities Research Center on Artificial Intelligence grant.
- Open-access database offers insights into U.S. congressional candidatesEach election cycle, thousands of candidates vie for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Until now, there has been no comprehensive, publicly available resource cataloging what those candidates say about who they are or what they stand for. A new open-access database called CampaignView, created by researchers at the University of Notre Dame, offers researchers, journalists and educators a powerful tool to understand congressional elections.
- First impressions count: How babies are talked about during ultrasounds impacts parent perceptions, caregiving relationshipPsychologist Kaylin Hill studied the impact of a parent’s first impression of their baby during an ultrasound exam. The words used by the medical professional to describe the baby (positive or negative) influence how the parents perceive their baby, relate to them after they're born and even how that child behaves as a toddler. The research has broad implications for how we train medical professionals to interact with expectant parents, as well as how we care for parents during the perinatal period when they are most susceptible to depression.
- Prioritizing prenatal care may decrease low birth weight outcomes in The Gambia, Notre Dame research findsA new study co-authored by University of Notre Dame researchers highlights the importance of prenatal care for improving the health of mothers and newborns, providing evidence that can inform policy.
