Researchers from the Department of Microbiology have shed new light on the mechanisms of carbon cycling in the ocean, using a novel approach to track which microbes are consuming different types of organic carbon produced by common phytoplankton species.
Oregon State University chemistry professor May Nyman has been selected as one of the leaders of a $24 million federal effort to develop technologies for combating climate change by extracting carbon from the air. The work by Nyman, OSU computational chemist Tim Zuehlsdorff and Argonne’s Ahmet Uysal and Michael Sinwell is part of a nine-project carbon capture and storage mission being funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Researchers from Oregon State University say ecological data gathered during a recent low-flow experiment in the Grand Canyon is a key step toward understanding Colorado River ecosystems as the amount of water in the river continues to decline.
Biden tapped the celebrated Oregon State marine biologist Jane Lubchenco as one of his top advisers. Lubchenco is deputy director for climate and environment at the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
With expertise spanning marine ecology, biofuel development, new modes of energy capture, evolutionary genetics and the microbiomes of coral reefs, OSU is committed to research that puts the environment first.
Leaders of 14 major maritime nations announced their commitment to achieve 100% sustainable ocean management of their national waters by 2025, acting on recommendations of a group of global experts co-chaired by OSU marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco.
A pivotal National Science Foundation award will enable Oregon State scientists to investigate how microbes influence their wildlife host’s sensitivity and resilience to disruptive changes in the natural environment.
The discovery of the first active methane seep in Antarctica is providing scientists new understanding of the methane cycle and the role methane found in this region may play in warming the planet.
Two Ph.D. students in the College of Science— Grace Deitzler in microbiology and John Stepanek in integrative biology — are among three OSU students to receive prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) awards in 2020.
An international research collaboration, led by Kyriakos Stylianou, an assistant professor of chemistry at Oregon State University, has taken an important step toward the commercially viable manufacture of biobutanol, an alcohol whose strong potential as a fuel for gasoline-powered engines could pave the path away from fossil fuels. The researchers are now looking to partner with industry to try to scale up the separation method using the new metal organic framework, says Stylianou, the study’s corresponding author. If it scales well, it could be an important milestone on the road toward non-reliance on fossil fuels.
For the first time, scientists have taken a winter sampling of phytoplankton in the North Atlantic. The results revealed that the carbon-absorbing cells were smaller than what scientists expected, meaning a key weapon in the fight against excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may not be as powerful as previously believed.
