GROWing Healthy Kids and Communities

Physical activity has many benefits for health and wellness. Physical activity can help us control our weight, reduce our risk of diseases including many cancers and type 2 diabetes, help to strengthen our bones and muscles, and improve our mental health. Yet despite the benefits, many don’t get the recommended amount of physical activity. Our guest this week, Evan Hilberg from the College of Public Health and Human Sciences and the Department of Kinesiology, is investigating factors that influence physical activity of children in rural communities. Research focused on physical activity in children disproportionally centers around children in urban communities. Children in rural communities may have different limitations to physical activity. For example, rural children are more likely to take the bus to school instead of walking and commutes may take up to two hours each way. This leaves little time for physical activity outside of school hours. With his advisors, John Schuna and Kathy Gunter, Evan is analyzing data collected as part of the Generating Rural Options for Weight- Healthy Kids and Communities (GROW HKC) to better understand when children are active during the school day and factors that might limit their physical activity.

Recess and Wellness

Evan taking blood samples for cholesterol and glucose testing at a Community Wellness Fair.

One area of interest for Evan and the GROW HKC project are the variables that may predict changes in Body Mass Index (BMI) over a three-year period. Through this longitudinal study that involves over 1000 rural Oregon elementary school children, Evan will identify correlates of BMI change such as physical activity levels, age, sex, teacher, and school. Additionally, Evan is analyzing data that will hopefully provide more insight into specifically what times during the school day children are active. By obtaining a classroom schedule from teachers and measuring activity with accelerometers and pedometers, Evan can infer if children are physically active during recess, P.E., classroom activity breaks, or other times during the school day. Finally, Evan’s data will examine the reliability of different objective measures of physical activity, such as pedometers and accelerometers. The ability to compare outputs from different devices is limited by changes in device hardware and software, as well as the ways in which data is processed within those devices. The examination of these devices may inform procedure for future physical activity research for children and adults to help comparability across different devices and different studies.

A School of Thought

A clear understanding of the factors effecting physical activity in rural school children will aid in structuring the school day to maximize each child’s opportunity to be physically active. Data generated through GROW HKC my reveal patterns that younger children are more active during unstructured play during recess, whereas older children prefer sports-focused activity in P.E.. This type of research could inform recommendations for state-mandated physical activity at schools such that school day structure and physical activity opportunities are tailored to the diverse needs of kids in rural communities.

Full Circle

Evan grew up as an active kid and selected a college where he could play baseball. He landed at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon where his interest in Exercise Science grew through volunteering in community health outreach and research with his advisor, Janet Peterson. Evan learned that his education went beyond the classroom through his interactions with the community. Evan decided to pursue graduate school and earned a Master’s degree in Exercise Physiology from Eastern Washington University. During his Master’s, Evan gained more experience with community and public health research as an AmeriCorps employee with “Let’s Move, Cheney”, a local coalition inspired by Michelle Obama’s national campaign. Thereafter, Evan volunteered with the GROW HKC project, and applied to graduate school at Oregon State. Since beginning his doctoral studies with a concentration in physical activity and public health, Evan has completed a Master’s in Public Health in Biostatistics and maintains a full-time job as a Medical Policy Research Analyst with Cambia Health Solutions.

Tune in to 88.7 FM KBVR Corvallis this Sunday November, 12 at 7 pm to hear more about Evan’s research and background in Exercise Science. Click here to stream the show live.

You can download Evan’s iTunes Podcast Episode!

Evan at the California-Oregon border on a self-supported bike trip to San Francisco down the coast.

Secrets of the Black Cottonwood

Ryan cultivated his interest in plants at a young age while checking wheat fields with his dad on the family farm near Beltrami, MN.

Growing up on a family farm in North Dakota, Ryan Lenz loved learning about wheat – specifically the things that made wheat varieties different. Why were some taller or shorter than others? Why did some have more protein? After gaining skills in molecular biology at North Dakota State University with a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology, Ryan interned with a biotech company where he was finally able to make the connection between wheat varieties and the genes that make them different. This experience sparked his interest and led him to earn a Master’s degree in Plant Sciences at his alma mater and eventually brought him to OSU’s Department of Botany & Plant Pathology to study host-pathogen interactions as a PhD student with Dr. Jared LeBoldus.

Using black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa) – a native tree to the western US – Ryan is working to reveal the genes responsible for making woody plants susceptible to fungal disease and those that give the fungus the ability to infect trees. The fungus of interest, Sphaerulina musiva, causes leaf spot and stem canker on cottonwood trees – the latter disease being more severe as it girdles the trees and causes the tops to break off.

Ryan tending to his tissue culture plants in the LeBoldus Lab.

The fungal pathogen was first found in the eastern United States in association with the more resistant eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides), but has worked its way westward putting the susceptible black cottonwood at risk. This fast-growing cottonwood is a foundation species in riparian areas and provides erosion control. Not only are these trees important ecologically, they are also important in forest agriculture for their uses in making pulp for paper, biofuels, building materials, windbreaks, and for providing shade.

Ryan and his wife, Rebecca, enjoying the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

To learn how the tree and fungus interact, Ryan employs advanced molecular techniques like the CRISPR-Cas9 system to edit genes. To put it simply, he tries to find the important information in the plant and fungus by making changes in the genetic code and then seeing if it has a downstream effect. The implication of his work has two sides. On one hand, Ryan is trying to provide cottonwood breeders with insight to make a more resistant tree to be grown in the western US. While on the other hand, he is working to establish the black cottonwood as a model system for other woody hosts susceptible to necrotrophic fungi – those that feed on dead tissue. As a model system, the secrets of the black cottonwood would be unveiled, providing a blueprint of valuable information that could be applied to other woody trees.

 

One day, Ryan hopes to move back to the Midwest to be a plant researcher near his family’s farm.

Join us on Sunday, November 5, at 7 PM on KBVR Corvallis 88.7 FM or stream live to learn more about Ryan’s love for plant genetics and his journey to graduate school.

You can download Ryan’s iTunes’ Podcast Episode!

Tracing Goethe’s influence on botany and plant morphology

As a History of Science PhD student in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, Andy Hahn studies how botanists and plant morphologists in the 20th century were influenced by Goethe, a famed German writer and naturalist during the 19th century. Goethe is well known for his rendition of Faust, as well as his novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. Although historians and philosophers have studied Goethe extensively, his influence on subsequent generations of botanists and plant morphologists has not been fully explored. Goethe wrote a book called Metamorphosis of Plants, which provided early foundational insight into morphology, the study of plant structure and appearance of plant features such as leaves and petals. For his PhD work, Andy has visited institutional archives in Switzerland, England, and Scotland to study the letters and writings of 20th century botanists and other scientists influenced by Goethe’s science.

Goethe’s science was characterized by taking account appearance and structure of plants as a whole entity, as opposed to focusing only specific parts of the plant, a method employed in the taxonomy of Linnaeus, a prominent 18th century natural historian. As the 19th century progressed, Goethe’s approach towards morphology was well-integrated in botanical science in Germany, France, and England. However, the rise of Darwinism, genetics, and experimental methods in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was accompanied by a decreased role for Goethe’s style of morphology. In the early 20th century, plant morphologist community split into two groups: new morphology based in Darwinian thought, and old morphology based in Goethe’s principles. The influence of Goethe’s writing can be seen among botanists in the 20th century, including Agnes Arber, a plant morphologist who translated Goethe’s Metamorphosis of Plants into English.

Andy was introduced to Goethe’s scientific work as he continued to follow his interests that arose from his as an undergraduate in philosophy. He appreciated Goethe’s and current Goethean scientists’ approach to plant morphology as a means to understand the natural world. By visualizing a plant through the course of its life, he was able to develop a stronger connection to the natural world, awakening his own senses by meditating on the form of plants. Andy found himself wondering what happened to the ideas of Goethe, and why Goethe’s ideas weren’t recognized more commonly in biological education. He became interested in philosophical questions surrounding why we think the way we do, as well as the accumulation of knowledge; in particular, how we produce scientific knowledge, and how we can be certain about it. During his Masters studies at OSU, Andy first began researching the botanical work of Goethe, and has continued to study the influence of Goethe on 20th century botanists for his PhD work. Following completion of his graduate studies, Andy would like to teach history of science at the university level and pursue science writing.

To hear more from Andy about the influence of Goethe’s science on botany and plant morphologists, tune in to Inspiration Dissemination on Sunday, October 22 at 7pm on 88.7 KBVR Corvallis. Or stream it online here!

You can download Andy’s iTunes Podcast Episode!

The Breathing Seafloor

In the cold, dark depths of the seafloor across the world, microbes living in sediments and on rocks are quietly breaking down organic material and sucking dissolved oxygen out of the seawater. The continental shelf off of Oregon’s coasts, home to a fishing industry that brings in over a hundred million dollars of revenue per year, is no exception. Does oxygen consumption, and therefore carbon cycling, vary by location, or across seasons? Setting a baseline to investigate these patterns of oxygen drawdown is crucial to understanding habitats and distributions of fish stocks, but will also establish what “normal” oxygen consumption looks like off our shores. Measurements like these are also used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to estimate global patterns of carbon burial. If any forces were to shift these patterns in the future, we’d at least have a baseline to allow us to diagnose any “abnormal” conditions.

Peter Chace is a third-year PhD student of Ocean Ecology and Biogeochemistry in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS). Peter’s research focuses on developing a technique of measuring fluxes of oxygen across the seafloor called Eddy covariance. This technique takes high-resolution time measurements of three-dimensional velocities of water moving in turbulent whorls, or random circular patterns, within the boundary layer of a fluid like air or water. Eddy covariance has been employed to measure fluxes across air layers on land for decades, but has only recently been applied in marine systems. A point-source oxygen measurement within this turbulent layer is measured with a microelectrode and combined with the velocity data to develop a flux. Why go through all this trouble? Other ways to measure oxygen fluxes, like putting chambers over an area of seafloor and waiting to measure an oxygen drawdown, require a lot of work and give little temporal resolution.

Workers on the RV Oceanus, Oregon State’s largest research vessel, deploy a benthic (seafloor) oxygen sensor.

Peter can calibrate his microelectrodes to measure other chemicals and obtain their fluxes across the seabed, but he is mainly focused on oxygen. To measure fluxes off the Oregon coast, Pete and his advisor, Dr. Clare Reimers, will head to sea on the RV Oceanus several times this fall and winter to deploy their sensor on the seafloor for days at a time. The desk-sized seafloor lander and the microelectrode attached to it are fragile, and the rough seas offshore Oregon in fall and winter will make it a challenging endeavor. We hope they pack enough seasickness medication and barf bags!

You get right up close and personal with the ocean when you send down these instruments… and this is on a clear day with calm seas!

Since growing up as a child in New Jersey, Peter has always wanted to learn about the ocean. While studying chemistry and marine biology at Monmouth University (in New Jersey) as an undergraduate, he completed a summer REU (Research Experience as an Undergraduate) with his current advisor, Clare Reimers, here at Oregon State University. He also interned for NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association), analyzing the chemistry of hydrothermal vent fluids with Dr. David Butterfield. Pete revisited a hydrothermal system on a cruise to the East Pacific Rise off of Central America where he got a remarkable opportunity to dive in Alvin, the submersible that discovered the wreckage of the Titanic.

Here’s Pete in the submersible Alvin just before the dive, checking his microelectrodes.

To hear more about Peter’s research on sensor development and his seafaring expeditions, tune in to Inspiration Dissemination on Sunday, October 15th at 7pm on 88.7 KBVR Corvallis. Or stream it online here!

Clean Meat, Clean Conscience

Some may say, “there is nothing like a juicy hamburger,” and here is the USA we are fortunate to have access to affordable meat. While the cost of your next hamburger may not weigh too heavily on your pocket, the quantity resources required to produce one pound of beef may surprise you. One pound of meat is fed by nearly 7 pounds of grain, 53 gallons of water, 70 square acres of land, and 1,000 BTU of energy(The Meat Revolution- Mark Post). Additionally, animal agriculture produces 5 times the amount of greenhouse gasses than other food sources (Smithsonian Mag). Finally, 56 billion land animals are killed every year solely for food. The impacts on marine animals are high as well but difficult to estimate. More information about the impacts of animal agriculture. But what can be done? Is there a better way to grow meat that uses less resources and reduces animal suffering?

From the petri dish to the plate

Bjørn on the Oregon State University campus

Yes, our guest this week, Bjørn Kristensen from the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, studies the ethics behind cultured meat or clean meat. Similar scientific advances in muscle tissue culture that have led to lab grown human organs are now being harnessed to grow animal muscle for human consumption. Clean meat is made from cells that can be obtained with no harm to the animal donor. One company, Hampton Creek Foods, has cultured chicken muscle with cells from a chicken feather. Hampton Creek Foods and Finless Foods are focused on producing clean meat with zero animal suffering. Clean meat is literally clean because it is grow under 100% sterile conditions. This means no natural parasites or other infections, and no need for antibiotics nor artificial growth hormones. While Bjorn maintains that the best option for the both purposes of sustainability and reduction in animal suffering is eliminating animal products from one’s diet, within the next year or two, companies such as Hampton Creek and Finless Foods will be introducing clean meat which is structurally identical to meat coming from mainstream animal agriculture. This means that even those who choose not to stop eating meat will have options that do not require an animal to be killed for their food.

The best part: by some estimates a few animal cells can be used to grow 10,000 kg of meat (The Meat Revolution- Mark Post). Practically speaking, clean meat could reduce the number of cows in animal agriculture from half a billion to thirty thousand. This reduction animal agriculture would free up land and resources for other food sources such as vegetable crops, lessen the amount of greenhouse gasses being emitted by animal agriculture, and it would lower animal suffering.

When practicality meets ethics

Bjørn with a resident of Green Acres Farm Sanctuary in Silverton, Oregon where he volunteers.

Animal agriculture is an ethical issue. The intersection occurs when humans act as mediator and place the needs of one species over the needs of another. Bjorn studies this ethical conundrum. In the case of animal agriculture,we have placed our desire for meat over the needs of the individual animals within the current food system. For these animals, their entire life is planned for their death, process, and consumption, and this planned “life” comes with emotional consequences for the animals. Check out this video about chickens, considered one of the most abused animals. Clean meat could alleviate the need for so much animal suffering to feed humans and other non-human animals.

Not convinced?

Bjørn with his dog, Thor.

Consider this: humans are not the only animals on the planet that consume meat from animal agriculture. While humans can actually survive and thrive on a plant-based diet, other carnivorous animals must consume flesh to survive. Pets, zoo animals, and wildlife in rehabilitation also require animal proteins, and the animals that are harvested to produce pet food are at the bottom of the food chain. Removing small fish or small rodents from natural ecosystems means that animals in the wild have to get energy from other sources. For some wild animals, such as marine mammals, this is simply not possible. Few have considered that clean meat could become an alternative protein source for pets and other wildlife that have been removed from their natural habitat. Bjørn explored the ethics of “captive predation” or feeding captive animals with other animal protein sources in a recent paper that he presented at the International Conference on Cultured Meat in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

Because it’s who you are

Receiving the award for outstanding philosophical essay from his undergrad professor, Antony Aumann.

Bjørn’s “when I grow up” career choice was a veterinarian, and although not a vet now, his concern for animals has not dwindled. During college, Bjørn started out as a Human Services major at Finlandia University, but switched his focus after taking some philosophy and religious studies classes. Eventually, he transferred to Northern Michigan University and found a connection between concern for animals and philosophical study, particularly in animal ethics.  Bjørn began to consider graduate school after his professor in existentialism, Anthony Aumann, encouraged him to apply. Bjørn applied toOregon State University, and began to develope his thesis concerning inter-species justice with Robert Figueroa his major advisor.

Hear more about clean meat and Bjørn’s work and journey to graduate school this Sunday October, 8 at 7pm on 88.7FM KBVR Corvallis. Listen live online anywhere!

Continue the conversation with Bjørn and learn more about clean meat ethics and research:

 on twitter

kristenb@oregonstate.edu

You can also download Bjorn’s iTunes Podcast Episode!

 

Safe nuclear power and its future in our energy portfolio

Humanity’s appetite for energy is insatiable. The US Energy Information Administration projects almost a 30% increase in world energy demand by 2040. The fastest expansion of energy production is projected for renewables, whereas coal demand is expected to flat line. By 2040, the world will also practically double electricity production from nuclear fission, and for good reason: nuclear power is a reliable source of carbon free energy. In the United States, for instance, about 60% of carbon free electricity is generated by nuclear power.

Dylan Addison recently earned a Master’s degree from OSU’s Materials Science program.

However, significant barriers exist to making nuclear energy a stable and lasting piece of the puzzle. The way things are going, most new nuclear power in the coming decades will be installed in China, which has recognized the societal costs of air polluting fossil fuels, and is taking massive corrective action. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is hesitating when it comes to the nuclear option.

Our guest this week hopes to change that, by helping to qualify the world’s first small modular nuclear reactor design. Dylan Addison recently received his Master’s Degree in Materials Science from OSU. His focus was high temperature crack propagation in a nickel superalloy that is slated for use in a Generation IV reactor. Dylan transitioned to work with NuScale Power here in Corvallis, where he’ll continue to study the safety of materials exposed to high temperatures and pressures.

There are many reasons why you should keep track of NuScale Power in the coming years. In addition to being a local company, they stand to solve two key issues facing the nuclear energy industry: (1) NuScale stands to alter the economics of nuclear energy by radically reducing the upfront capital investment and time associated with plant construction, and (2) the passive safety features built into NuScale’s design will quell the fears of even the most skeptical among us.

The NuScale Power Module takes advantage of natural convection to circulate water through the nuclear core, eliminating a host of safety concerns.

Dylan’s Master’s thesis work was in performing high temperature crack growth experiments. Shown here is a sample at 800 °C!

Like many of us, Dylan’s meandering path through higher education took him longer than expected, and through several fields. While studying rhetoric at Willamette University, he started selling health-products over the phone from his dorm room. After dropping out of Willamette, he put in two years as a line cook at a thai food restaurant to see what life would look like in the service sector (his conclusion? It wasn’t for him). Then he decided to return to school and study engineering at OSU. While at OSU, he maintained the web presence of a marketing firm that continued to employ him after graduating with a Bachelor’s of Mechanical engineering in 2014. However, he wasn’t satisfied with the impact he was making by selling stuff on the internet, and entered graduate school in 2015 with a firm resolve to apply his technical knowledge to problems that have real weight. Working under Dr. Jamie Kruzic, Dylan was introduced to the field of fracture mechanics, which qualified him to apply for a job with NuScale upon graduation. Now, a few months into an engineering job, he gets to share his story on this week’s episode of Inspiration Dissemination!

Be sure to tune in Sunday October 1st at 7PM on 88.7FM or live to hear more about how Dylan’s schooling at Oregon State has positioned him to help bring reliable carbon free energy to all the world’s people.

You can also download Dylan’s iTunes Podcast Episode!

Studying skeletal muscle physiology to better understand diseases such as type II diabetes

Harrison in the lab.

Our guest this week on Inspiration Dissemination, Harrison Stierwalt a PhD student in Kinesiology, studies the cellular mechanisms of skeletal muscle physiology. Harrison and other members of the Translational Metabolism Research Laboratory, research the cause of skeletal muscle insulin resistance and how exercise acts against insulin resistance. In particular, Harrison currently studies the activity of a protein called Ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 1, or more commonly known as Rac1. Rac1 plays an important role in the regulation of blood sugar in response to insulin being released from the pancreas following a meal. Insulin is a hormone that triggers the uptake of sugar from the blood stream into skeletal muscle cells where it can be stored or metabolized into energy. In states of insulin resistance, individuals still produce insulin, but eventually insulin resistance leads to chronically increased blood sugar levels. Insulin resistance puts individuals at predisposition for cardiovascular disease, cancer, and type II diabetes. Previous research has demonstrated decreased Rac1 activity in states of insulin resistance but the cause for its decreased activity is unknown.

Harrison working with the oxygraph doing high resolution respirometry (used to measure mitochondrial respiration).

Studying Rac1

The activation of Rac1 causes reorganization of cell components creating “highways” that allow other proteins such as glucose transport 4 or GLUT4 to relocate to the cell membrane and allow sugar from blood to enter skeletal muscle cells for processing. Consequently, Rac1 shows increased activity in response to insulin and exercise promoting the metabolism and storage of sugar in skeletal muscle. Harrison suspects that the dysfunction of Rac1 may play a large role in  insulin resistance, and his lab is looking to better understand the dysfunction of skeletal muscle physiology that may contribute to insulin resistance. To study insulin resistance, Harrison is currently comparing Rac1 activity in skeletal muscle cells and skeletal muscle tissue of lean and obese mice. Learn more about Rac1, GO TO ARTICLE.

Harrison has always been drawn to human health, and is particularly intrigued by how adaptable the human body is. He completed his undergraduate degree and Master’s in Exercise Science at Florida State University. After, he worked as a strength and conditioning coach, testing physical performance. While this work was challenging, Harrison decided to pursue a PhD so that he could ask his own research questions about human health and investigate cellular mechanisms therein.

Harrison encouraging a participant during an exercise test.

With a growing interest in metabolism and physiology, Harrison began looking for Kinesiology PhD programs. He discovered the work of his co-advisors, Sean Newsom and Matt Robinson. For Harrison, Oregon State is a good fit that encapsulates his interested: exercise science, molecular cellular biology, and human health. Harrison is starting the second year of his PhD in the College of Public Health and Human Sciences.

If you are interested in participating in human health research, visit the Newsom-Robinson lab webpage.

Tune in this Sunday September 24 at 7 PM to learn more about Harrison and his research with insulin resistance and sugar metabolism. Not a local listener? No sweat! Stream the show live!

You can also download Harrison’s iTunes Podcast Episode!

Mountain biking at Black Rock in Falls City, Oregon.

Harrison at the peak of South Sister, 2017.

Breaking the Arctic ice

 

Thermal AVHRR image with land masked in black. Can see the lead coming off of Barrow Alaska very bright. The arrows are sea ice drift vectors.

Cascade over mossy rocks near Sol Duc Falls, Olympic National Park, WA.

When you hear about fractures in sea ice, you might visualize the enormous fissures that rupture ice shelves, which release massive icebergs to the sea. This is what happened back in July 2017 when a Delaware-sized iceberg broke off from the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica. However, there are other types of fractures occurring in sea ice that may be impacted by atmospheric conditions. Our guest this week, CEOAS Masters student Ben Lewis investigates how interactions between the atmosphere and sea ice in the Beaufort Sea (north of Alaska in the Canadian Archipelago) impact the formation of fractures. His research involves mapping atmospheric features, such as wind and pressure, at the point in time when the fractures occurred and provides insight into the effect of the atmosphere on the formation and propagation of fractures. Utilizing satellite imagery compiled by the Geographical Information Network of Alaska from 1993 to 2013, Ben has conducted a qualitative analysis to determine the location and time when these ice fractures occurred and what type of physical characteristics they possess.

Southern Alps from the summit of Avalanche Peak, New Zealand.

While fractures appear small on the satellite image, the smallest fractures that Ben can observe by are actually 250 meters wide. Fractures can span hundreds of kilometers, and the propagate very quickly; Ben cites one example of a fracture near Barrow, Alaska that grew to 500 kilometers within 6 hours!

Fractures are potentially deadly for people and animals hunting in the Arctic. As weather flux in the fragile Arctic ecosystem has become more erratic with climate change, it has been difficult for people to predict when it was safe to hunt on the ice based on patterns observed in prior seasons. Additionally, it has been problematic to track weather in the Arctic because of its harsh conditions and sparse population. A well-catalogued record of weather is not available for all locations. Modeling atmospheric conditions, such as pressure and wind, based on what has been captured by satelliteimagery, will facilitate better prediction of future fracture events.

Sunset over Sandfly Beach, New Zealand.

While pursuing an undergraduate degree in physics at the University of Arkansas, Ben was able to study abroad James Cook University in Australia, where he gravitated towards environmental physics, while taking advantage of incredible opportunities for nature photography. He also did a semester abroad in New Zealand, where he studied geophysical fluid dynamics and partial differential equations. Ben came to OSU as a post-baccalaureate student in climate science, and while at OSU, he became acquainted with his future PI, Jennifer Hutchings,  and his interest in Arctic research grew. He cites learning about snowball earth, glaciology, and the cryosphere, as providing the basis for his desire to pursue Arctic climate research. Eventually, Ben would like to pursue a PhD, but in the immediate future, he plans to keep his options open for teaching and research opportunities.

 

The Grape Depression: Powdery Mildew in Willamette Valley Vineyards

Brent at the Foliar Pathology Lab research vineyard where the small plot field trials in his project were conducted.

Viticulture is the science, production, and study of grapes, and when growing grapes for wine both quantity and quality matter. One challenge facing farmers in the Willamette Valley is a plant pathogen: grape powdery mildew. This pathogen can live in a field year-round and emerges to infect grape leaves, flowers and fruits annually. Grape plants infected with powdery mildew suffer low berry yields and mildew may affect the taste of wine. In the Willamette Valley, where vineyards abundant, grape powdery mildew is a big problem. Brent Warneke, a Master’s student in the department of Botany and Plant Pathology, is studying the effect of fungicide application timing on the reduction in severity of powdery mildew on grapes, and he is our guest on Inspiration Dissemination this week.

Moldy Grapes

A grape bunch severely infected with powdery mildew. Note the berry cracking, powdery appearance, and poor color accumulation.

Brent works at the USDA Horticultural Crops Research Lab with Walt Mahaffee, and his research tests the effect of fungicide application timing on grape powdery mildew control. Timing fungicide applications is especially crucial during the one to three-week window of grapevine flowering. Optimal fungicide application timing can slow the mildew epidemic allowing grape berries to mature and become less susceptible to powdery mildew. Across the Willamette Valley, fungicide application to grapes is a well-known prevention solution for powdery mildew, but less is known about the best fungicide to use and when to spray plants during berry development. The findings of his research are now being validated at a larger scale in commercial vineyards. In the lab, Brent is also studying the mobility of fungicide “through the grapevine,” from tissue to tissue through the air and xylem, and Brent is helping with a project to identify strains of mildew resistant to commonly used fungicides.

 

The Grape State of Colorado 

Brent with a harvest of varnish conk (Ganoderma oregonense), Lobster mushroom (Hypomyces lactifluorum).

Brent hails from Colorado where he spent his early years outside gardening, snowboarding, and hiking. During undergrad at Colorado State University (CSU), Brent majored in Horticulture and held research positions at the Center for Agricultural Resources Research and the Bioenergy Lab. Among his many projects during undergrad, Brent completed a senior thesis project, under the direction of Dr. Courtney Jahn, developing a LAMP-PCR to diagnose Canada thistle rust on infected plants that were not displaying symptoms.

Wine Not?

While at CSU, Brent also began studying viticulture. He liked the challenge and complexity of growing grapes for wine. Brent chose to pursue graduate school at Oregon State because his current program blends plant pathology with viticulture. He’s happy with his decision because Oregon is similar to Colorado for outdoor recreation, not to mention its world class Pinot Noir!

Hear more from Brent this Sunday September, 10 at 7PM on KBVR Corvallis, 88.7FM! Not a local listener? Not sweat! Stream the show live.

Brent on top of South Sister (10,363 ft). Middle and north sister can be seen in the immediate background. In the far background the small peak to the left without snow is Mount Washington , then Mount Jefferson behind north sister and Mount Hood in the background to the right of North Sister.

To code or not to code: the way forward for machine learning

In a rapidly changing word of technology and engineering advancements, we’re reminded of Charles Darwin’s words it’s not the strongest that survive, but the most adaptable. For humans this means learning from our errors, one painful mistake at a time, and fixing our approach so we do not stumble again. We’re limited by our personal experiences so we can only adapt once we approach a problem; but by then it may be too late. Imagine having the collective wisdom and understanding of everyone’s experiences so that you know how to solve problems you’ve never seen before. This is the beauty of machine learning.

 

Behrooz hanging out in front of the Magnolia’s in the MU

If you haven’t heard of machine learning, then it’s just a matter of time. These techniques are already involved in highly complex board games, advertising optimization, and especially self-driving cars. It’s difficult to say how impactful machine learning will be to our everyday lives because the applications of this field are still being discovered. One of the primary foundations of machine learning is researching how computers interpret visual information so computers can make on-the-fly adjustments to stop for a pedestrian or speed up to merge on the freeway.

Behrooz Mahasseni recently finished his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science where his research focused on how computers interpret video recordings. As part of his research, he worked on a project to analyze football videos to identify specific patterns like huddles, punts, and special teams plays. This is specifically useful for football recruiters who don’t have time to watch 3.5-hour football games when they’re looking for a good wide-receiver for their team. Behrooz’s work helps the computer understand when passing plays occurred so the football recruiter can watch the ‘highlights’ reel for five minutes and get all the information they need to make a hiring decision. This seems rather easy, but Behrooz worked on this for high school football games where the video is not in high definition, from an oblique angle instead of a birds-eye-view, and probably has a very excited parent-videographers jumping up and down for major plays. Obviously teaching a computer to understand videos is easier said than done, but Behrooz was able to get all this accomplished with a high degree of accuracy that helped him land a job with Apple. He’s described this job as research and development using the skills he learned in graduate school (that’s about all he can say) but it took him many years of school to finally realize he had the skills to act as the spearhead of technological innovation.

Behrooz’s family including his wife Mitra and Behrad celebrating the Persian New Year March 2016

There is so much more to discuss with Behrooz, especially about where the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence is moving. We will also discuss his first experience with a robotic competition in Tehran, his decision to move to the United States, and his never-ending drive for finding and solving new problems. Be sure to listen in Sunday September 3rd at 7PM on 88.7 KBVR Corvallis!