News | The Huck Institutes (en-US)

Lizards increasingly rely on camouflage to avoid predators as you move southward across their range, but the presence of invasive fire ants reverses this pattern. IMAGE: LANGKILDE LAB, PENN STATE

Nov 29, 2018

Lizards quickly adapt to threat from invasive fire ants

Some lizards in the eastern U.S. have adapted to invasive fire ants — which can bite, sting and kill lizards — reversing geographical trends in behavioral and physical traits used to avoid predators.

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A blue Acroporid coral in Lizard Island lagoon off the coast of Australia. New research shows that corals and their microbiomes have coevolved for hundreds of millions of years. IMAGE: F. JOSEPH POLLOCK, PENN STATE

Nov 29, 2018

Corals and their microbiomes evolved together

Corals and the microorganisms they host have evolved together for hundreds of millions of years. Understanding this long-term relationship could add fresh insight to the fight to save the Earth’s embattled coral reefs, the planet’s largest and most significant structures of biological origin.

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Jordan Hughey has been awarded a scholarship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Minority Ph.D. (MPHD) program.

Nov 28, 2018

BG Student Wins Sloan Foundation Scholarship

Jordan Hughey has added the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Minority Ph.D. award to an impressive list of accolades.

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Farmers in Angonia, Mozambique, happy with the performance of new varieties of common bean developed by an international partnership of plant scientists that included researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, pose among plants in a bean field. Plant breeding field trials have been conducted with bean growers in multiple regions of the country in southeast Africa. IMAGE: JIMMY BURRIDGE

Nov 28, 2018

Penn State root research results in breeding of improved bean plants for Africa

In the culmination of more than a decade of research on root traits conducted by Penn State plant scientists, about three tons of seed for common bean plants specifically bred to thrive in the barren soils of Mozambique will be distributed there Dec. 11.

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Nov 27, 2018

Katriona Shea Named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Katriona Shea, professor of biology and Alumni Professor in the Biological Sciences has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

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Jian Yang with Ph.D. student Chuying Ma displaying a bendable citrate-based material for bone repair. IMAGE: WALT MILLS / PENN STATE

Nov 26, 2018

Citrate-based biomaterial fuels bone healing with less rejection

A material based on a natural product of bones and citrus fruit, called citrate, provides the extra energy that stem cells need to form new bone tissue, according to a team of Penn State bioengineers.

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Wood frogs rely on sound to find mates and reproduce, but many breeding ponds are located near noisy roads. A new study reveals that traffic noise is stressful to frogs and impairs the production of antimicrobial peptides — an important defense mechanism against pathogens like the chytrid fungus. IMAGE: LINDSEY SWIERK

Nov 21, 2018

Traffic noise stresses out frogs, but some have adapted

Frogs from noisy ponds near highways have altered stress and immune profiles compared to frogs from more quiet ponds — changes that reduce the negative effects of traffic noise on the amphibians.

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Sreenidhi Srinivasan with her award-winning poster "Development of a peptide-based skin test for the diagnosis of Bovine Tuberculosis"

Nov 16, 2018

MCIBS student wins poster awards at conference

Sreenidhi Srinivasan won Best Poster and the Brenda Love Bacteriology Award at the 2018 AAVLD Conference.

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Representation of colored stimuli used in conditioning trials. IMAGE: MOLLY HIGGINS / PENN STATE

Nov 15, 2018

Color coded — matching taste with color

Color can impact the taste of food, and our experiences and expectations can affect how we taste food, according to Penn State researchers, who suggest this may have implications for how food and beverage industries should market their products.

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Soybean was a logical crop on which to conduct the research. It is the most widely grown legume in the world. The research is important because it portends how crop yields and tolerance for conditions such as drought and extreme heat will be enhanced in the future, according to lead researcher Sally Mackenzie, professor in the departments of Biology and Plant Science at Penn State. IMAGE: STEPHEN KIRKPATRICK / USDA NATIONAL RESOURCE CONSERVATION SERVICE

Nov 13, 2018

'Scaring' soybeans into defensive mode yields better plants a generation later

By temporarily silencing the expression of a critical gene, researchers fooled soybean plants into sensing they were under siege, encountering a wide range of stresses. Then, after selectively cross breeding those plants with the original stock, the progeny "remember" the stress-induced responses to become more vigorous, resilient and productive plants, according to a team of researchers.

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