Spring 2014

Jul 11, 2014

Putting bacteria to work

Ask most undergraduates if they’re interested in factory work, and you’ll get puzzled looks. But what if the “factory” was E. coli bacteria and the “work” involved creating libraries of enzymes to lower antibiotic resistance or fight cancer? Welcome to Dr. Gavin Williams’ lab, where students get hands-on research experience the moment they walk through…

Jul 11, 2014

Dinosaur Discovery

A newly discovered species of carnivorous dinosaur — one of the three largest ever discovered in North America — prevented tyrannosaurs from taking their place atop the food chain nearly 100 million years ago. Siats meekerorum, named after a cannibalistic, man-eating monster from Ute tribal legend, was the top predator of its time. Siats is…

Jul 11, 2014

Learning how we learn

Dr. Karen McNeal uses high-tech tools to explore how humans understand what they’re taught about earth systems. Her recent research in geocognition and geoscience education has broken new ground determining how various audiences learn effectively about climate change. “Geoscience education is a pretty new field,” she says. “We’re still learning how people are grappling with…

Jul 11, 2014

When is a ball a ball?

Ever wonder why a pitch is called a “strike” against one hitter, and a “ball” against the next? Many baseball fans have long suspected home-plate umpires of bending the rules of the strike zone. But new research from NC State is putting hard numbers behind fans’ hardball assumptions. “Have you watched a game, saw a pitch…

Jul 11, 2014

Your data, your treatment

The advent of the genomic era has made the prospect of “personalizing” treatment for individual patients more tantalizing than ever. Media accounts abound of discoveries that tie a patient’s genetic and other characteristics to disease prognosis. Such revolutionary advancements could help determine not only which treatment a patient should receive, but spur the development of…