Tags: Earth

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New Unscripted: Expedition to Antarctica

The new episode of our interview podcast Unscripted focuses on Patricia Yager, professor of marine sciences, and her recent experience co-leading a research expedition to the Amundsen Sea Polynya in western Antarctica. While many research projects on the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration were focused on sea level rise and the physical processes related to the melting, Yager served as co-chief scientist and lead P.I. on the project…

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Antifungal resistance: From “Big Chicken” to Big Tulip

The Genes to Genomes blog reports on recent research by UGA fungal biologists Michelle Momany and Marin Brewer, who reported in their findings that Aspergillus fumigatus isolated from clinical settings is resistant to agricultural fungicides. Infections have long been a deadly problem for hospital patients. Though modern medicine has an impressive array of antimicrobial drugs at its disposal, pathogens continue to evolve resistance,…

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Crafting a career through nature and art

Colorful leaf patterns imprinted on fabric, along with the wool fibers that create its structure, weave the story of Franklin College/Warnell School double major Jay Reddish. Kristen Morales of the Warnell School shares the story: The blending of art and nature on the dress represent how Reddish is also combining aspects of their dual major at UGA: parks, recreation and tourism management at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources…

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Sarmiento receives Fulbright Global Scholar award

Fausto O. Sarmiento, professor of mountain science and director of the Neotropical Montology Collaboratory in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ geography department, has received a Fulbright U.S. Global Scholar award to Austria, Japan and Chile. The U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced that Sarmiento will research and lecture at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research of…

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Schmitz nominated for Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists

University of Georgia faculty member Robert Schmitz was recently chosen as a finalist for a national award for young scientists. The Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists is the world’s largest unrestricted prize honoring early career scientists and engineers. Schmitz is a plant biologist who performs groundbreaking research on plant epigenetics—the chemical modifications to DNA and associated proteins that alter gene expression—to…

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Two UGA students awarded Hollings Scholarships

Two University of Georgia students have been awarded the Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Hollings Scholarship Program is designed to increase undergraduate training in oceanic and atmospheric sciences. The scholarship provides two years of financial support, a 10-week, full-time paid summer internship to any NOAA facility nationwide, and support to participate in…

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UGA’s Tejas Reddy named 2022 Udall Scholar

Tejas Reddy’s focus on coastal ecosystems has earned him a 2022 Udall Scholarship. The University of Georgia undergraduate is one of 55 students across the nation being recognized for leadership, public service and commitment to issues related to the environment. A third-year Honors student from Rome, Georgia, Reddy is majoring in ecology in the Odum School of Ecology and biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. The Udall…

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Bioexpression & Fermentation Facility: BFF to Georgia’s bioeconomy

Biomanufacturing has been around for thousands of years, though it wasn’t called that when our ancestors were making beer, wine, cheese, bread and vinegar. Mankind has long understood the value of fermentation, the metabolic process of converting things like sugar or starch into alcohol or acid. At the University of Georgia, biomanufacturing is based at the on-campus Bioexpression and Fermentation Facility, which has been churning out…

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Noted and Quoted, April 2022

Racial disparities and COVID, personality traits of 'difficult' people, the war in Ukraine, and faster cheaper COVID tests headline Franklin faculty expertise in the media during the month of April. A sample of the recent news featuring our colleagues: How war in the world’s breadbasket “changes everything” – Scott Reynolds Nelson, Georgia Athletic Association Professor in the department of history, interviewed by  Ad Age, …

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Alumnus Robert Gilliard, chemistry groundbreaker

“The thing about synthetic chemistry that I really love,” said Robert Gilliard, who earned his doctorate from the University of Georgia in 2014, “is being able to make molecules that the world has never seen before. When you develop new fundamental chemistry, you inevitably discover significant properties you never could have predicted.” Gilliard, who is currently assistant professor at the University of Virginia, first became known for his…

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Math department receives Regents' Teaching Excellence Award

The University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of mathematics has received the 2022 Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award for Department or Program from the University System of Georgia. The award showcases an outstanding department or program—selected from among all 26 institutions within the university system—that promotes, supports and recognizes excellence in teaching and service to students. The University…

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Waste management can reduce greenhouse gasses

Earth Day 2022 – Make it Count The cycle of producing, consuming and eliminating waste in a closed system (a.k.a. Earth) is the primary challenge of our time. Sustainable stewardship of the products and processes common to everyday life is increasingly coming the fore as we reach limits on waste management practices and recycling capacity, and witness the changing conditions these limits precipitate. Scientists, governments and private industry…

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New study shows resilience of early coastal communities in Georgia

Archaeologists have hypothesized that more than 4,500 years ago, communities on barrier islands along the southeastern coastlines of the North America were abruptly abandoned due to a sudden shift in climate. But new research from the University of Georgia Laboratory of Archaeology indicates that environmental change was happening both during the settlement of these island villages and—over centuries longer than previously…

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New study: Microbial metabolites in the marine carbon cycle

A new study led UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor in the department of marine sciences and member of the National Academy of Sciences Mary Ann Moran describes the current 'state of the art' of studying microbial metabolites, and sets out some new approaches for further investigation. The new paper was published last week in the journal Nature Microbiology: One-quarter of photosynthesis-derived carbon on Earth rapidly cycles through a set of…

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Chemistry student takes unlikely path to Ph.D.

Five years ago, Brianna Garcia was getting up at 3 a.m. to report to her job as a corrections officer at a women’s county jail in California. Today she’s several thousand miles away and getting up later while writing her dissertation in chemistry. The distance between the two experiences is not as wide as one might think, according to Garcia, who will graduate with a Ph.D. in May. “I don’t think anyone who has known my past would ever…

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National Academies Gulf of Mexico report

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says that assessing the success of the nation’s largest ecological restoration investment effort will require continued improvements in data collection and synthesis and coordination across the Gulf of Mexico region. The April 2010 Deepwater Horizon platform explosion and oil spill seriously damaged Gulf of Mexico ecosystems from Texas to Florida…

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Noted and Quoted, March 2022

Electric vehicles, phosphorescent waters, the war in Ukraine, and how exercise changes your brain are just a few of the stories that featured comment and expertise from Franklin College faculty over the month of March. Read all about it: We teach our son to be empathetic. Are we just setting him up for heartbreak? Keith Campbell, professor of psychology, quoted in The Washington Post Honoring a pioneer in broadcast meteorology, June…

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Shepherd wins SEC Faculty Achievement Award

J. Marshall Shepherd, the Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been named winner of the 2022 SEC Faculty Achievement Award for the University of Georgia, the SEC announced on Wednesday. A leading international weather-climate expert, Shepherd is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and American…

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Does studying abroad delay graduation?

Studying abroad in college can be a glamorous, once-in-a-lifetime learning opportunity. But is it also a distraction that slows students from completing degrees and moving on with careers? According to a new study from the University System of Georgia, not at all. The study compiled semester-by-semester records from 221,981 students across 35 U.S. institutions. Of those students, more than 30,000 had studied abroad. The analysis found…

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UGA Skidaway Institute Hawaii research resumes

After a pandemic-induced delay of nearly two years, scientists at the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography have started their 4-year research project to study how dust in the atmosphere is deposited in the ocean and how that affects chemical and biological processes there. The research team of [department of marine sciences faculty] Clifton Buck, Daniel Ohnemus and Christopher Marsay had originally planned to begin…

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Kudos, February 2022

Students lead our roundup of Franklin College awards, accolades, and achievements announced during February – though not to be outdone by our outstanding alumni!  Congratulations all: Shannon Rodriguez, Ph.D candidate in linguistics, studies a dialect of English spoken by Latinos born in Georgia, a particular blend of Southern drawl. She recently presented her dissertation on the topic “Latino English in Georgia: a sociophonetic…

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Noted and Quoted, February 2022

A month with heavy traffic in current events means Franklin faculty were broadly visible in media around the world. Expert insights plus new research findings lead our news highlight for February – a sample: With $900K Falcons grant, Georgia Organics revamps food insecurity fight – associate professor of geography Jerry Shannon quoted by the AJC Quantum computing 2.0: How a UGA physicist builds on a century of knowledge to…

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Shepherd attends White House climate event

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy holds a first-of-its-kind roundtable with some of the nation’s leading scientists on Thursday, including UGA atmospheric scientist J.Marshall Shepherd, to discuss the urgent need to combat the climate crisis and to counter arguments for delaying climate action: The event, which has not previously been reported, will bring together a diverse group of 17 climate scientists, social…

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When pollen comes of age

New research from the University of Georgia has determined when pollen comes of age and begins expressing its own genome, a major life cycle transition in plants. Each grain of pollen is actually its own multicellular organism – with two to 40 cells, depending on the species. Pollen expresses its own genome and is genetically distinct from its parent plant. That means pollen grains from a single flower can have different traits and…

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Artemis project update

Scientists from around the world continue their work in Antarctica near the Thwaites Glacier. Marine sciences professor Patricia Yager and her team are keeping us updated with great images and details about their progress and ongoing challenges to the work. Unstable sea ice and a large iceberg broken off from the deteriorating Thwaites Glacier are blocking two research ships with dozens of scientists from examining how fast the crucial ice shelf…
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