Tags: research

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New research connects peach reach to indigenous communities

Long before there was a Peach State, indigenous communities saw the promise of peaches – originally introduced to North America by Spanish explorers. A new study published in Nature Communications shows that Indigenous political and social networks and land use practices played key roles in the peach’s adoption and dispersal across the continent: The researchers analyzed historical documents that mentioned peaches, such as the travel writings of…

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Franklin hosts inaugural faculty research mixer

The Franklin College hosted the first-ever faculty research mixer on Nov. 14 at Normal Bar in Athens, bringing together faculty across the university who share research affinities to build multidisciplinary research and teaching teams. The evening featured seven brief research presentations and a social mixer of faculty interested in collaborating on areas related to "Health, Gender, & Equity." "There was an energy  about collaboration…

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Comedy sends a message: Exploring "9 to 5"

Pour yourself a cup of ambition and come to life with this fascinating research by Dyllon Glaze and the 9 to 5 movement. Theatre and history come together in a hilarious and inspiring production of "9 to 5: The Musical." Dyllon Glaze, a second-year Theatre and Entertainment & Media Studies major, is not only the Dramaturg for UGA’s fall production of "9 to 5: The Musical" but is also conducting undergraduate research through UGA’s Institute…

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Fish oil supplements bring a variety of health benefits

A new UGA study suggests the far-reaching benefits omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids may extend to lowering the risks of developing a variety of cancers: The study relied on data from a United Kingdom-based study of over 250,000 people who were followed for more than a decade. Of those participants, almost 30,000 developed some form of cancer during the study period. Some earlier research drew connections between levels of fatty acids and risk of…

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Ancestry of Sanford Stadium hedges goes into the lab

In a terrific story combining genome analysis, a love for the hedges and UGA history— a Franklin College faculty member and his students found that the same family of hedges have stood tall for nearly 100 years: Plant biology professor and hedges researcher James Leebens-Mack decided to sequence the genome of the Sanford Stadium hedges. His goal was to combine service-learning with his own areas of research, comparative genome biology and the…

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Protecting India’s tigers and wolves through art, collaboration and conservation

Integrative conservation starts with a paintbrush and glides its way between India’s tiger reserves and its indigenous communities.  Amit Kaushik, a PhD student in the Integrative Conservation and anthropology, is working on tiger conservation in India. He presented his work earlier this month at an Arts Collaborative Conversation at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, "The Gond Art and the Tiger: A Dialogue on Conservation, Displacement, and…

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Sensing a new understanding of the world

Since 1985, the UGA Center for Geospatial Research has been dedicated to advancing remote sensing, mapping, and geospatial research. Along with the technological changes over that nearly 40 year history, the center's technical capacities have grown to reflect the advanced capabilities of today in environmental remote sensing and GeoAI, photogrammetry, small satellite development, and graduate and undergraduate training. In service of promoting…

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New study details open-source vision-language model for biomedical applications

The potential of applications using Artificial Intelligence is quickly venturing into the medical field, with implications for patients and practitioners. A new study published in Nature Medicine presents an open-source multimodal vision-language foundation model, BiomedGPT, for various biomedical applications. AI techniques have also demonstrated potential in solving a wide range of biomedical tasks, including radiology interpretation…

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PBS series Weathered features UGA's Shepherd

A new PBS production WEATHERED: EARTH’S EXTREMES, a six-part docu-series debuts in October on YouTube, and PBS stations (check local listings). In 30-minute episodes, audiences follow host and science communicator Maiya May as she delves into the impacts of climate change and meets with the people inside communities on the frontline of extreme weather events. Throughout the series, Maiya May introduces audiences to scientists and community…

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Holland named Shellebarger professor in Geology

Steven Holland, paleobiologist and expert in stratigraphy, has been selected as the Shellebarger Professor in Geology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. The professorship is supported by a gift from Sydney (BSHE ’79) and Jeff (BS ’78, MS ’80) Shellebarger, former president of Chevron’s North American exploration and production operations. Jeff Shellebarger currently serves on the executive committee of the UGA Geology Alumni Board.…

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Election 2024: four million disenfranchised due to felony convictions in the US

A new report published by the Sentencing Project documents the four million people who are disenfranchised due to felony convictions in the United States. Locked Out 2024 reports these Americans will be unable to vote in the upcoming 2024 election due to felony disenfranchisement laws: Laws in 48 U.S. states ban people with felony convictions from voting. In 2024, an estimated 4 million Americans, representing 1.7% of the voting-age population,…

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NSF grant to explore philosophical perspectives of human and machine translation

A new interdisciplinary project at the interface of philosophy, linguistics, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence seeks to explore the complicated relationship between human and machine translation. The project, led by professor of philosophy Yuri Balashov, is supported by an NSF Scholar's Award. "Translation from one language into another is a difficult and cognitively intense process requiring a broad set of linguistic and non-…

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Noted and Quoted, September 2024

Fantastic start to the fall semester, with excellent research stories and expert comment alike finding purchase in media around the world. Great job by Franklin College scholars in a wide range of disciplines, prepared with authority, ready to share. A sample of stories from recent weeks: There might be more than one way to make a planet – The New York Times reports on new research from Cassandra Hall, assistant professor of computational…

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Where the ocean meets the air

A National Science Foundation collaborative project between researchers from the University of Delaware and the University of Georgia to better understand how nutrients, pollutants and organic matter are exchanged between the air and the sea recently conducted a research cruise in the North Atlantic Ocean. The cruise aboard UD’s Research Vessel Hugh R. Sharp to study the sea surface microlayer was designed to better understanding the role it…

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Psychology professor embodies interdisciplinary approach

Drew Abney, associate professor in the department of psychology, has blended his interests in statistics and engineering to forge a multifaceted psychology research career. Our colleagues in UGA Research Communications share the story of how Abney's journey informs his scholarship: While working on his master’s in education, Abney took a statistics class that, surprisingly, made his passing interest in psychology seem like a possible career…

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CyanoTRACKER partnering on algal blooms across the U.S.

The CyanoTRACKER project, a collaboration between University of Georgia researchers, collects and integrates community reports, remote sensing data and digital image analytics to detect and differentiate between regular algal blooms and Cyanobacyerial Harmful Algal Blooms (CyanoHABs). As the frequency and magnitude of CyanoHABs have grown, particularly in the summer months, CyanoTRACKER offers accurate, cost-effective, and targeted…

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UGA Volcanologist to serve as Geological Society of America Distinguished Lecturer

Mattia Pistone, assistant professor of Petrology and Volcanology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of geology will serve as the 2024-2025 Distinguished Lecturer of the Continental Scientific Drilling Division of the Geological Society of America. Director of the MAGMA MIA Laboratory, Pistone is one of the seven PIs leading the ICDP DIVE (Drilling the Ivrea-Verbano zonE) project, and an enthusiastic researcher investigating…

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Mitigating urban heat islands in Augusta

UGA atmospheric sciences alumnus and the Georgia Climate Project have teamed with stakeholders to find solutions to mitigate urban heat islands in Georgia's Garden City: “I was actually really surprised at the urban heat island effect that we found in Augusta,” said Max Appelbaum, UGA masters alum and Wyoming doctoral student. Appelbaum wrote his masters thesis on the urban heat island effect in Augusta while attending the University of Georgia…

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New research challenges long-standing paradigm on planet formation

Two theories of planet formation have long-dominated astronomy - the first theory, “core accretion,” posits that planets grow slowly from particles of dust ultimately forming pebbles, then boulders, which coalesce to form planets over tens of millions of years.  The second theory – “gravitational instability,” in which planets form quickly from direct collapse of gas and dust, requiring hundreds to thousands of years instead – received new…

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NSF CAREER Awards for three Franklin faculty members

Three Franklin College scholars are among five UGA faculty selected to receive 2024 Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) foundation awards from the National Science Foundation for their research and potential as academic role models. Our colleagues in Research Communications share the details: The awardees are assistant professors Melanie Reber (Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Department of Chemistry), Christopher Newton (…

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Fish oil may counteract genetic leaning toward high cholesterol

New research from the department of genetics attends to the complex relationship between diet, cholesterol, and disease. While fish oil has long been associated with heart health benefits for some people, the question of whether it's right for everyone with high LDL cholesterol continue to be a point of contention – and the focus of new findings: And a new study from the University of Georgia might encourage a new population to start looking…

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Oceanographer Foukal joins SkIO

Nicholas Foukal, physical oceanographer most recently at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), has joined the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography faculty. Foukal will begin his role as an assistant professor on August 1, 2024. “I am excited to join the faculty at Skidaway and get started,” said Foukal. “In many ways, I will be continuing what I began at WHOI and will keep the positive momentum going that I had built there on the…

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Joye expedition investigates hydrothermal systems

Supported by a National Science Foundation grant, marine sciences faculty member Samantha Joye led an interdisciplinary team in Spring 2024—composed of researchers from Montana State University, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Wisconsin—to the Gulf of California aboard the research vessel Atlantis, a U.S. Navy ship operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Our colleagues in UGA Research Communications share a terrific…

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NIH renews support of studies of bacterial metabolism and physiology

The National Institutes of Health awarded $3.5M to UGA faculty member Jorge Escalante to continue his studies of the metabolic capabilities of prokaryotic cells.  The award is known as the ‘Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award’ (MIRA), which has a duration of 5 years. Escalante, UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of microbiology, received his first MIRA in 2019 and successfully…

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Cohen named 2024 Simons Early Career Investigator

Marine sciences faculty member Natalie Cohen has received a multi-year grant from the Simons Foundation to support her phytoplankton research investigations off the Georgia coast: Cohen, assistant professor of marine sciences in the University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been named a 2024 Simons Early Career Investigator. The three-year grant provides $810,000 to fund her work tracking shifts in phytoplankton…
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