News Releases

The latest DNA sequencing technology is burying researchers in trillions of bytes of data. Iowa State's Srinivas Aluru is leading a team of researchers who will develop high performance computing tools to help researchers analyze all that data. The work is supported by a $2 million grant from the BIGDATA program of the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Onalie Ariyabandhu's essay about her family’s harrowing experience during the Sri Lanka tsunami in 2004 won her a $2,500 essay from the 2012 International Student Voice magazine sponsored by International Student Protection. She is a sophomore majoring in economics, international studies and environmental studies. More than 700 international students studying abroad entered the competition with essays about an experience from their lives and how it influenced who they are today.

Iowa State University researchers are helping to advance new techniques that allow scientists to site-specifically mutate and edit the genes of living organisms. The innovation could have sweeping applications in agriculture and the study of human disease.

Iowa State University's Alan Wanamaker studies the growth increments in clam shells to learn about past ocean temperatures, growing conditions and circulation patterns. Wanamaker says a better understanding of the ocean's past can help researchers understand today's climate trends and changes.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has added $12 million and another three years of support to the NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals based at Iowa State University. The continuing support brings federal investment in the center up to $30.5 million over eight years. The center's vision is to transform the industrial chemical industry from one based on petroleum to one based on biorenewable resources.

2012 World Food Prize laureate Daniel Hillel will present the Norman Borlaug Lecture at Iowa State. His presentation, "Soil, Water, Energy and Ecosystems in a Changing Climate," will be at 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 15, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. Hillel was honored by the World Food Prize for developing and implementing micro-irrigation systems that deliver water more efficiently to crops in dry lands. These precision watering systems have revolutionized agriculture in the Middle East and other arid regions around the world for more than 50 years. A reception and display of student posters that address world food issues will precede the lecture at 7 p.m.   

The proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline has raised concerns for Native Americans, ranchers and environmentalists. Two leading opponents will present "The Keystone XL Pipeline and the Protection of American Lands" at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. Tom Poor Bear is vice president of the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Nation and leader of the Native American opposition to the pipeline. Randy Thompson is a Nebraska farmer and rancher whose lands were threatened by the original pipeline plan. Their talk is part of the university's National Affairs Series and is free and open to the public.

Paul Wapner, an author and expert on global environmental politics and activism, will present "Environmentalism Without Nature" at 8 p.m., Wednesday, Oct.3, in the Memorial Union Sun Room. Wapner wrote "Living Through the End of Nature: The Future of American Environmentalism," which is a call for environmentalists to regroup and refashion the American environmental movement to be more politically relevant in the 21st century. He is the 2012-13 Helen LeBaron Hilton Endowed Chair in Human Sciences. His presentation is free and open to the public. 

An Academy Award-nominated film that shows the human face of climate change will be presented at Iowa State on Tuesday, Sept 25. "Sun Come Up, " a film about the relocation of a community of South Pacific islanders threatened by rising sea levels, will be shown at 7 p.m. in the Memorial Union Sun Room. "Sun Comes Up" chronicles the organized relocation of the 2,500 Carteret Islanders, who were forced to move because their ancestral home is expected to be uninhabitable by 2015. A discussion about climate change and the questions it raises will immediately follow the 38-minute film. The presentation is free and open to the public.

The latest government crop yield predictions may give grain farmers cause for optimism as the harvest season reaches its crescendo in Iowa. Although slightly lower than previous projections, last week’s crop yield report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture is a far cry from the worst-case scenarios many farmers braced for earlier this summer as a withering drought took hold of much of America’s prime farmland.