News
2019
In the new study, a team of multi-institution scientists led by Hong An at the University of Missouri challenged prior theories of the origins of three vegetables — canola, rutabaga and Siberian kale — by mapping the genetic family tree of these leafy greens.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Human genetic testing has evolved over the recent decades, allowing people to find their ancestors and even determine specific percentages of their heritage. Much like the advances in human genetic testing recently popularized by commercial organizations have allowed people to gain a better understanding of their ancestry, scientists are now a step closer to determining a genetic family tree for vegetables by linking biology with computer science.
The instrument is designed to analyze the quality of liquids using the photoacoustic effect, or the generation of sound waves after light is absorbed in a material. The MU scientists believe this might be the first use of this technology to analyze such small liquid samples.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Ping! The popular 1990 film, The Hunt for Red October, helped introduce sonar technology on submarines to pop culture. Now, nearly 30 years later, a team of scientists at the University of Missouri is using this same sonar technology as inspiration to develop a rapid, inexpensive way to determine whether the drinking water is safe to consume.
Associate Professor Libby Cowgill in the Department of Anthropology, Associate Professor Jerry Frank in the Department of History, and Professor Manuel Leal in the Division of Biological Sciences have each been named to the 2019-2020 class of Presidential Engagement Fellows.
Three faculty members in the College of Arts and Science have accepted invitations to become 2019-20 University of Missouri System Presidential Engagement Fellows.
Stuart Kenderes and Brenna Halverson, doctoral students in the MU Department of Geological Sciences, field test "volcano pants" created by Abby Romine, a master's student in Textile and Apparel Management, during a recent research trip to Colorado.
What do you wear when exploring a volcano?
This is a question that professors and students in the MU Department of Geological Sciences face regularly.
Not everyone gets to have a career epiphany, but when you do, it’s probably best to heed it.
Senior Mikhayla White graduated in May after only three years at Mizzou, and she makes it sound almost easy to pull off a double major of economics and statistics in a year (or two) less than most.
A team of researchers including Gavin King is challenging prior theories about how material leaves the inside of an E.coli cell. This discovery could have important implications for how we treat diseases.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – The flow of traffic through our nation’s highways and byways is meticulously mapped and studied, but less is known about how materials in cells travel. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Missouri is challenging prior theories about how material leaves the inside of an E.coli cell. This discovery could have important implications for how we treat diseases.
Students in Professor Jerry Frank's "Acts of God: An Environmental History of Natural Disasters" class volunteered to assist in the cleanup following the May 22 tornado in Jefferson City. The group includes Saige Bexten, Alexandra Cappetta, Noah Carroll, Marigrace Heinze, Skylar Irwin, Peter Leipold, Tianyu Liu, Olivia McKee, and Erin O'Connor and Prof. Frank.
As they approached Jefferson City to assist in the cleanup from the May 22 tornado, a group of MU students say they were shocked to see houses submerged in what looked like a lake surrounding Highway 63.
The College of Arts and Science awarded degrees to nearly 1,350 undergraduate students during its spring 2019 commencement exercises at Mizzou Arena on Sunday, May 19. Dean Patricia Okker served as the master of ceremonies and U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, BA ’79 economics, was the keynote speaker.
U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia says he is looking forward to speaking to graduates at the College of Arts and Science graduation ceremonies May 19 in Mizzou Arena, especially since this year marks his 40th anniversary as a Mizzou alumnus.
Mateo Mateo says one of the most important lessons he learned at Mizzou during his freshman year is to pay attention in class.
David Schulz, a professor of biological sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science, and a team of scientists at the University of Missouri have discovered that a neuron’s own electrical signal, or voltage, can indicate whether the neuron is functioning normally. If that voltage is absent, scientists say everything is “out of whack.”
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Nerve cells, or neurons — specifically the “workhorse cells” involved in walking, breathing and chewing — can adjust to changes in the body, but they never stop working unless there is an fatal injury. What exactly signals neurons to keep acting and operating normally has not been known until now.
The College of Arts and Science will hold its spring 2019 commencement exercises in Mizzou Arena on May 19. Before seniors and graduate students walk across the stage to accept their degrees, we sat down with five of them to talk about what they learned during their time at Mizzou and what the future holds for them.
Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences David Geary says his approach may be useful for identifying genetic and environmental influences on the development of intelligence and the rate of age-related declines in cognition.
Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences David Geary’s research focuses on sex differences and sex-specific vulnerabilities. For example, prenatal exposure to toxins and other stressors can affect girls differently than boys, or vice versa.
The University of Missouri Reserve Officer Training Corps will hold its annual Joint Services “pass in review” ceremony celebrating more than 150 years of military officer training at MU. Cadets and midshipmen from the Army, Air Force, Navy and the Marine Corps ROTC programs will participate in the ceremony, a long-standing U.S. military tradition that dates back to 1778 and serves as a way for a newly assigned commander to inspect the troops.
The University of Missouri’s actuarial mathematics program requires students to complete courses in mathematics, statistics, economics, and finance; undergraduates are encouraged to pass at least two of the rigorous exams required to become an associate of the Society of Actuaries; and it is recommended students complete a summer internship prior to their senior year.
If you are a high school student who enjoys mathematics and has an aptitude for it, if you would like to work with the most advanced tools and big data, and if you are creative and intuitive, you should consider becoming an actuary.
The Department of Economics and the Truman School of Public Affairs within the College of Arts and Science at the University of Missouri are pleased to announce the Missouri Data Fellows program.
It is an answer to the current data crisis that many states — including Missouri — are facing. There is simply too much available data and not enough qualified data analysts.
This apparatus, designed by Prof. Suits and graduate student Chandika Amarasinghe and fabricated in the Department of Physics & Astronomy Machine Shop, allows his team to study collisions in molecular beams in vacuum. The beams are going almost the same direction so that the relative velocity between them can approach zero, like two cars moving the same direction on the highway. Reseachers can then take “pictures” of the scattering patterns when the collision happens. The team's current experiment uses four different powerful lasers to prepare the molecules in a single quantum state and then detect them after the collision.
The University of Missouri recently was awarded two highly coveted Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) awards from the Department of Defense (DoD), making MU one of only three higher education institutions in the nation to receive more than one award. The University of Washington and Massachusetts Institute of Technology also received two of the 24 MURI grants awarded this year from a pool of 295 proposals.
Marjorie Skubic, left, Giovanna Guidoboni and a team at the University of Missouri are currently working to develop a standardized model to interpret the results of a ballistocardiogram that could provide an additional approach for early detection of various cardiovascular diseases.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Every heart beat sends blood flowing throughout the human body. While an electrocardiogram uses a contact approach to measure the electrical activity of the heart, a ballistocardiogram is a non-contact way of measuring the mechanical effect of the blood flow through the cardiovascular system.
College of Arts and Science Senior Associate Dean Cooper Drury, a professor of political science, has been named the Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) Distinguished Scholar of 2019 by the International Studies Association (ISA). The award was presented to Drury at the ISA’s annual conference, held in Toronto in March. ISA, founded in 1959, has over 6,500 members worldwide and is the most respected and widely known scholarly association dedicated to international studies.