Life Sciences Commons^™

Species Invasion Vs. Abundance In The Northern And Southern Regions Of Lake Powell, Amanda Lebarge, Mark Belk

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

Lake Powell is a dynamic system, evidenced by its yearly fluctuations in water level. In the last 20 years, this reservoir has experienced invasions from two different invasive species: the gizzard shard, and quagga mussel. Due to the unique nature of Lake Powell, our research seeks to understand if there were catastrophic effects of these invasions on fish biomass and abundance patterns, and do these impacts vary based on region? We hypothesize that both species will have a major impact in all regions on the native species in Lake Powell; however, the southern region will be more catastrophic.

A Ketogenic Diet Enhances Hippocampal Mitochondrial Efficiency, Cali E. Warren, Erin R. Saito, Benjamin T. Bikman

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

Mitochondrial dysfunction and cognitive impairment are common symptoms in many neurologic disorders, as well as in nonpathological aging. Ketones have been suggested as therapeutic for their relevance in epilepsy and other neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder.

Timber Talk, Vol. 60, No. 1, March 2022

Timber Talk: Nebraska Forest Industry Newsletter

Lumber market reports

Hardwood lumber prices

Log matchmaking program launch, Heather Kingery

Save the date! – “Managing CarbonThrough Healthy Forests in theSouthern Great Plains”

Upcoming NFS cedar managementand utilization workshop series

Timber sales

Trading post

Backcountry Equestrian Camping Online Course, Gillian Larson

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This AGED 539 project describes the creation of a Backcountry Equestrian Camping online course, including the goals of the course, an outline of the topics, and a summary description of the module contents. The course itself consists of material designed to provide participants with the necessary information to successfully travel and camp overnight on backcountry trips with a horse or mule, which is presented in a series of modules that include videos, written material, and downloadable PDFs. There is also an evaluation and acknowledgments segment.

Isolation Of The Mustard Napin Protein Allergen Sin A 1 And Characterisation Of Its Antifungal Activity, Giulia Mignone, Laila N. Shwaiki, Elke K. Arendt, Aidan Coffey

Department of Biological Sciences Publications

Proteins and peptides belonging to the plant immune system can possess natural antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral properties. Due to their broad range of activity and stability, they represent promising novel alternatives to commonly used antifungal agents to fight the emergence of resistant strains. An isolation protocol was optimised to target proteins found in plants’ defence system, and it was applied to white mustard (Brassica hirta) seeds. Firstly, a ∼14 kDa protein with activity against S. cerevisiae was extracted and purified; secondly, the protein was identified as the mustard Napin protein named Allergen Sin a 1. Napin is the name given …

Peak Chlorophyll A Concentrations In The Lower Mississippi River From 1997 To 2018, R. Eugene Turner, Charles S. Milan, Erick M. Swenson, James M. Lee

Faculty Publications

Large and turbid rivers have varying temperatures, light conditions, nutrient availability, and nutrient ratios that may affect phytoplankton communities and occur within a changing world of point and nonpoint source nutrient loadings. We investigated how these physical and chemical factors affect Chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentrations in the Mississippi River, the largest river in North America, by sampling 878 times from February 1997 to December 2018 near its terminus at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We hypothesized that nutrient concentrations and ratios were significant factors limiting phytoplankton biomass accumulations in this turbid river. The Chl a concentrations were in the "poor" water …

Drivers Of Flight Performance Of California Condors (Gymnogyps Californianus), Sophie R. Bonner, Sharon A. Poessel, Joseph C. Brandt, Molly T. Astell, James R. Belthoff, Todd E. Katzner

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Flight behavior of soaring birds depends on a complex array of physiological, social, demographic, and environmental factors. California Condors (Gymnogyps californianus) rely on thermal and orographic updrafts to subsidize extended bouts of soaring flight, and their soaring flight performance is expected to vary in response to environmental variation and, potentially, with experience. We collected 6298 flight tracks described by high-frequency GPS telemetry data from five birds ranging in age from 1 to 19 yr old and followed over 32 d in summer 2016. Using these data, we tested the hypothesis that climb rate, an indicator of flight performance, …

You Can’T Betray A Fish: One Reason Eating Fish May Cause Less Harm Than Eating Cows, Ronald G. Oldfield

Faculty Scholarship

In The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat?, Bohanec (2013) proposed that farmed animals raised humanely may experience betrayal when slaughtered. I argue based on personal experience that humans often betray trust relationships with farmed animals. Using published scientific literature, I find that typical farmed animals (mammals) and farmed fishes are both cognitively capable of a rudimentary experience of betrayal. However, the manner in which fishes are typically maintained does not present opportunities for human-fish trust relationships to develop. Eating farmed fishes presents fewer ethical implications than eating cows, at least in some cases.

This article was featured in …

Untangling The Placentome Gene Network Of Beef Heifers In Early Gestation, Wellison J.S. Diniz, Lawrence P. Reynolds, Alison K. Ward, Pawel P. Borowicz, Kevin K. Sedivec, Kacie L. Mccarthy, Cierrah J. Kassetas, Friederike Baumgaertner, James D. Kirsch, Sheri T. Dorsam, Tammi L. Neville, J. Chris Forcherio, Ronald R. Scott, Joel S. Caton, Carl R. Dahlen

Department of Animal Science: Faculty Publications

The cotyledon and caruncle tissues provide a functional bridge between the fetus and the dam. However, the relationship between these tissues and the transcriptomic profile that underlies the tissue functions remains elusive. Herein we investigate the expression profile of cotyledon and caruncle from nulliparous beef heifers carrying female fetuses at day 83 of pregnancy to identify changes occurring across tissues that contribute to placental function and their tissue-specific roles. We identified 2654 differentially expressed genes [padj ≤ 0.05, abs(log2FC) ≥ 1], including nutrient transporters and paternally imprinted genes. We found key regulators of tissue function and differentiation, including FOXO4, GATA2, …

The Coastal Monitor: Vol. 8 No. 4, John Tanacredi Ph.D.

The Coastal Monitor

The original five acre of land portion of the historic Blue Points Oyster Company is located at the southern end of Atlantic Ave in West Sayville, Islip Town, Suffolk County, New York on the shore of Great South Bay. The Center for Environmental Research and Coastal Oceans Monitoring (CERCOM) is the science field station serving Molloy College’s BCES programs in Earth & Environmental Sciences and Biology. Our mission is to provide unique hands-on educational opportunities in the physical and life sciences, in collaboration with a host of Federal, State, and local and NGO groups, to bolster students’ career path. Great …

Current Water Quality Guidelines Across North America And Europe Do Not Protect Lakes From Salinization, Matthew Schuler

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Human-induced salinization caused by the use of road deicing salts, agricultural practices, mining operations, and climate change is a major threat to the biodiversity and functioning of freshwater ecosystems. Yet, it is unclear if freshwater ecosystems are protected from salinization by current water quality guidelines. Leveraging an experimental network of land-based and in-lake mesocosms across North America and Europe, we tested how salinization—indicated as elevated chloride (Cl²) concentration—will affect lake food webs and if two of the lowest Cl² thresholds found globally are sufficient to protect these food webs. Our results indicated that salinization will cause substantial …

Analysis Of Livestock Movements And The Benefits And Costs Of Livestock Standstills In Australia As Part Of The Response To Foot-And-Mouth Disease, Ann Seitzinger, Graeme Garner, Richard Bradhurst, Walter Okelo, Michelle Rodan

Animal production and livestock published reports

This project involved analysis of livestock movements and used epidemiological modelling and cost analysis to estimate the benefits and costs of implementing livestock standstills in response to a foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in Australia. This was done in four steps: 1) assessing the extent of livestock movement, 2) conducting a cross sectional analysis of the impact (reduction of outbreak size and economic cost) of implementing a national standstill/movement control, 3) use of case specific studies to estimate impact of state/territory level implementation of standstill, and 4) cost analysis and comparison of national standstill with the state/jurisdictional level and risk-based approach …

Instructional Models For Course-Based Research Experience (Cre) Teaching, David I. Hanauer, Mark J. Graham, Rachel J. Arnold, Mary A. Ayuk, Mitchell F. Balish, Andrea R. Beyer, Kristen A. Butela, Christine A. Byrum, Catherine P. Chia, Hui Min Chung, Kari L. Clase, Stephanie Conant, Roy J. Coomans, Tom D'Elia, Jason Diaz, Arturo Diaz, Jean A. Doty, Nicholas P. Edgington, Dustin C. Edwards, Elvira Eivazova, Christine B. Emmons, Kayla M. Fast, Viknesh Sivanathan, And About 50 Others

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

The course-based research experience (CRE) with its documented educational benefits is increasingly being implemented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. This article reports on a study that was done over a period of 3 years to explicate the instructional processes involved in teaching an undergraduate CRE. One hundred and two instructors from the established and large multi-institutional SEA-PHAGES program were surveyed for their understanding of the aims and practices of CRE teaching. This was followed by large-scale feedback sessions with the cohort of instructors at the annual SEA Faculty Meeting and subsequently with a small focus group of expert …

Forage News [2022-03], Department Of Plant And Soil Sciences, University Of Kentucky

Forage News

No abstract provided.

A Longitudinal And Cross-Sectional Study Of Plasma Neurofilament Light Chain Concentration In Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease, Alexander Martin Rossor, Mahima Kapoor, Henny Wellington, Emily L Spaulding, James N. Sleigh, Robert W. Burgess, Matilde Laura, Henrik Zetterberg, Alexa Bacha, Xingyao Wu, Amanda Heslegrave, Michael E. Shy, Mary M. Reilly

Faculty Research 2022

Advances in genetic technology and small molecule drug development have paved the way for clinical trials in Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT); however, the current FDA-approved clinical trial outcome measures are insensitive to detect a meaningful clinical response. There is, therefore, a need to identify sensitive outcome measures or clinically relevant biomarkers. The aim of this study was to further evaluate plasma neurofilament light chain (NFL) as a disease biomarker in CMT. Plasma NFL was measured using SIMOA technology in both a cross-sectional study of a US cohort of CMT patients and longitudinally over 6‚Äâyears in a UK CMT cohort. In addition, …

A Novel Superabsorbent Material Based On Soybean Straw: Synthesis And Characterization, Jun Gau, Jingsong Huang, Tingguo Liu, Jianbin Chen, Srinivas Janaswamy

Dairy Science and Food Science Faculty Publications: 2022 to Present

A novel superabsorbent copolymer (SAP) was developed by grafting acrylic acid onto the pretreated soybean straw (PSBS) using gamma-ray irradiation. The structure of soybean straw, treated soybean straw, and SAP were characterized through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermo- gravimetric analysis (TG), and scanning electron micro- scopy (SEM). The effect of irradiation dose, the dosage of cross-link agent, and the monomer ratio of the graft copolymer on the water absorbency of the SAP was inves- tigated. The highest water absorbency of 1,489 g/g in dis- tilled water and 56 g/g in 0.9 wt% NaCl solution was obtained, …

Annual Color Photo Section

Nebraska Bird Review

The next seven pages show examples of this year's theme: cavity nesting birds. A cavity nest can be in a birdhouse, a hole in a tree, a hole in a stream bank, a burrow in the ground, or even a mud nest the birds construct themselves.

Female Yellowbellied Sapsucker, photographer's residence, Garfield Co., 5 Jan 2022. Photo by Bob Gerten.

Louisiana Waterthrush with young at nest under bank overhang, Rock Creek Station State Historical Park, Jefferson Co., 18 May 2016. Photo by John Carlini.

Pygmy Nuthatch, GilbertBaker WMA, Sioux Co., 11 July 2021. Photo by Colleen Childers.

Winter Wren, Platte …

2021-2022 Christmas Bird Counts, Don Paseka

Nebraska Bird Review

With the addition of the new Fort Niobrara circle, 19 counts were run during the 2021-2022 CBC season. Thirteen of them were run from December 14 through December 21 and the other six were done December 27 or later. The weather was mild to start the count period with almost all water open. As the count period progressed, the weather became more seasonable and much of the standing water froze, but conditions remained fairly benign with the exception of the Lake McConaughy count on January 2. Though it was cold but sunny on that day, the previous day’s snow and …

New Treatment For Multiple Sclerosis Could Halt Disease Progression Without Weakening Immune System, Carter Helquist, Dario Mizrachi

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

• Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating neurological and autoimmune disease in which immune cells cause demyelination of axons in nervous tissue.
• Current treatments for the disease are principally aimed at weakening the immune system to therefore weaken the autoimmune attack on the brain. This leaves patients prone to other sicknesses.
• We seek a treatment that prevents the immune cells from entering the central nervous system (CNS) thereby protecting its cells.
• We can prevent immune cells from entering the CNS by strengthening the blood brain barrier through targeting claudin 5 proteins in the tight junctions.
• This new treatment could mean increased …

Chimeric Claudins Reveal Role In Neural Tube Defects, Wesley Allen, Nathan Beckett, Emma Brenchley, Jacob Wengler, Lauren Hall, Cailey Winn, Meredith Mann, Sion Jung, Spencer Thacker, Rachel May, Dario Mizrachi, Micheal Stark

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

Claudins (CLDN), a family of proteins found in the tight junction, play a major role in membrane permeability. While claudin disruption is known to contribute to the formation of neural tube defects (NTD), current research methods rely heavily on a non-specific toxin, CPE, when exploring the importance of CLDNs within neural tube formation. This makes it difficult to identify individual CLDN’s contribution to NTD formation, creating a need for a more specific method.

Potential Regulation Of Breast Cancer Invasion By Thymidine Kinase 1, Eliza E. Bitter, Rachel M. Morris, Toni O. Mortimer, Kai Barlow, Abigail Schekall, Michelle H. Townsend, Jonathan Skidmore, Brett E. Pickett, Kim L. O'Neill

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and is largely treatable within the early stages of the disease. However, patient mortality drastically declines as the tumor begins to invade other tissues and metastasize, making aggressive phenotypes especially problematic to treat. Such treatment typically requires an aggressive and decisive multidisciplinary approach. The recent expansion of immunotherapy as a viable treatment option has greatly improved treatment outcomes, especially with aggressive breast cancer phenotypes. Thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) is a DNA salvage pathway enzyme that is highly expressed during S phase and involved in cell cycle repair. Past studies indicated that …

Ancestral State Reconstruction Of Oviposition Techniques In New World Stick Insects, Ellie Mcgregor, Jackson Linde, Michael F. Whiting

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

Phasmids, commonly known as stick bugs, are unique and interesting creatures, both phenotypically and genotypically. Their cryptic abilities are what draws most people to them, but their oviposition techniques, or how they disperse eggs, has become a new source of interest. While most phasmids are known to flick or drop their eggs from the canopy, there are several other techniques including inserting the eggs into the soil or gluing them to a substrate. New world phasmids have not been thoroughly studied, especially in understanding which technique was ancestral. The purpose of this paper was to construct a phylogenetic tree to …

Rising Recess Temperatures: Quantifying The Cooling Effect Of School Parks, Nicholas Kendall, Xuhui Lee

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

Many schools in the US are currently placed in urban heat islands. Children attending these schools are thought to be at greater risk to heat stress related health concerns. We used mobile heat sensors to see if there was a quantifiable difference between the playgrounds and parks within and between two schools with differing park sizes.

Rangeland Legacies Of Utah, Ethan Ostraff, Amber Johnson, Samuel Knuth, Rebecca Black

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

In the heart of Utah lies a rich history of rangeland sciences and land use. Ephraim, Utah and the surrounding mountains and valleys have long been a valuable source of shelter and food for the peoples that have inhabited the region. Bands of Paiute and Ute Native Americans called this valley home until the 1850’s when Scandinavian pioneers began settling it. European settlers brought farming techniques that transformed the landscape.

Hsp90 Inhibitors Modulate Sars-Cov-2 Spike Protein Subunit 1-Induced Human Pulmonary Microvascular Endothelial Activation And Barrier Dysfunction, Ruben Manuel Luciano Colunga Biancatelli, Pavel Solopov, Betsy W. Gregory, Yara Khodour, John D. Catravas

Bioelectrics Publications

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused more than 5 million deaths worldwide. Multiple reports indicate that the endothelium is involved during SARS-Cov-2-related disease (COVID-19). Indeed, COVID-19 patients display increased thrombophilia with arterial and venous embolism and lung microcapillary thrombotic disease as major determinants of deaths. The pathophysiology of endothelial dysfunction in COVID-19 is not completely understood. We have investigated the role of subunit 1 of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (S1SP) in eliciting endothelial barrier dysfunction, characterized dose and time relationships, and tested the hypothesis that heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) inhibitors would prevent and repair such injury. S1SP …

The Pseudomonas Syringae Type Iii Effector Hopg1 Triggers Necrotic Cell Death That Is Attenuated By Atnhr2b, Catalina Rodriguez-Puerto, Rupak Chakraborty, Raksha Singh, Perla Rocha-Loyola, Clemencia M. Rojas

Entomology and Plant Pathology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The plant pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pst DC3000) has become a paradigm to investigate plant-bacteria interactions due to its ability to cause disease in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Pst DC3000 uses the type III secretion system to deliver type III secreted effectors (T3SEs) directly into the plant cytoplasm. Pst DC3000 T3SEs contribute to pathogenicity by suppressing plant defense responses and targeting plant’s physiological processes. Although the complete repertoire of effectors encoded in the Pst DC3000 genome have been identified, the specific function for most of them remains to be elucidated. Among those effectors, the mitochondrial-localized …

Evaluation Of Pd-L1 Expression On Circulating Tumour Cells In Small-Cell Lung Cancer, Emmanuel Acheampong, Afaf Abed, Michael Morici, Isaacs Spencer, Aaron B. Beasley, Samantha Bowyer, Du Bois Asante, Chris Lomma, Weitao Lin, Michael Millward, Elin S. Gray

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: Antibodies against the programmed death-1 (PD-1) receptor and its ligand (PD-L1) have been recently approved for small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) treatment. Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) have emerged as an appealing liquid biopsy candidate that could enhance treatment decision-making in systemic therapy for SCLC patients. Several current technologies enrich CTCs using specific surface epitopes, size, rigidity, or dielectric properties. However, they are hampered by the heterogeneity of the enriched cells from blood samples. Methods: We evaluated two CTC enrichment systems: EpCAM conjugated to magnetic beads and a microfluidic device (Parsortix, Angle plc). PD-L1 expression was evaluated on the isolated CTCs. …

Brain Barriers Virtual: An Interim Solution Or Future Opportunity?, Brianna M. Holder, Shaina E. Tolan, Kaleb K. Heinrich, Kaitlin C. Miller, Natalie Hudson, Geetika Nehra, Michelle E. Pizzo, Steffen E. Storck, William F. Elmquist, Britta Engelhardt, Irena Loryan, Michal Toborek, Bjoern Bauer, Anika M. S. Hartz, Brandon J. Kim

Biology Faculty Publications

Background: Scientifc conferences are vital communication events for scientists in academia, industry, and government agencies. In the brain barriers research feld, several international conferences exist that allow researchers to present data, share knowledge, and discuss novel ideas and concepts. These meetings are critical platforms for researchers to connect and exchange breakthrough fndings on a regular basis. Due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, all in-person meetings were canceled in 2020. In response, we launched the Brain Barriers Virtual 2020 (BBV2020) seminar series, the frst stand-in virtual event for the brain barriers feld, to ofer scientists a virtual platform to present …

Mytrials: Clinical Trial Application Concept, Katie Hollister

Graphic Communication

A clinical trial’s success is dependent upon whether a patient attends their highly-structured clinical trial visit schedule, which may include both in-person clinic visits and virtual check-in visits. MyTrials is a clinical trial journey app prototype that enables patients to schedule, reschedule, and attend join their in-person or virtual clinic visits. This product seeks to reduce the burden that scheduling places on the patient, and provides trial-provided resources and a daily and weekly timeline to help patients navigate their clinical trial journey.

Glutamic-Oxaloacetic Transaminase 2 (Got2) Reverse Reaction Could Act As A Possible Relief Valve For Mitochondrial Substrate Overload Induced By Glucocorticoids, Humza Pirzadah

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.