Extreme weather affects bees, too

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Unusually hot spring temperatures in 2012 gave Michigan State University researchers a glimpse of how global warming could impact future bee populations. Rufus Isaacs, a professor in the Department of Entomology, and his team were in the middle of a 15-year study (2004-2018) monitoring 162 wild bee species in Michigan when a spring heat wave event occurred in 2012. This event created a unique opportunity for the researchers to study how bee populations would react and recover from this warm spell. Initially, the researcher found there was a 61% decline in the number of bees. The blueberry specialist bee, Andrena carolina, had a slow recovery after the extreme heat. The researchers also noticed that the weather event had more of an impact on bee populations than pesticide use.

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The perfect red cherry

Did you know that a cherry’s perfect shade of red lies in its genes? Michigan State University’s Amy Iezzoni in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources is the nation’s only tart cherry breeder, and she knows the secret to growing bright fire-engine red Montmorency tart cherries. By mapping the tart cherry genome, Iezzoni and her team identified the specific gene that controls the shade of a cherry’s red color. Now, Iezzoni and her team can screen the genomes of new cherry tree varieties and choose the breeds that will produce the perfect ruby red cherry color.

Staying a step ahead of heart attacks

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Sometimes, trying to help only makes things worse. When our bodies sense a problem in our blood vessels, they’ll send immune cells to scope things out. But if that problem is a fatty blockage known as an atherosclerotic plaque, the immune cells can become trapped and make the blockage unstable. These unstable plaques have an elevated risk of rupturing, leading to strokes and heart attacks. Now, thanks to Michigan State University’s Bryan Smith, this doesn’t have to be the end of the story. His team in the Department of Biomedical Engineering has taken this well-meaning immune response and turned it into a new way to detect unstable plaques. The team has developed ultra-tiny tubes that do two things. One, they naturally seek out immune cells in the plaque. Two, they can convert sound waves into light. This means doctors could send sound in with an ultrasound to spot unstable plaques. The team showed that the tubes revealed plaques in mice, an important first step in bringing this technology into the clinic.

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Turning residents into researchers

Michigan has over 3,000 miles of coastline tracing the outline of the state and almost half of the state’s population lives in a coastal area. Recently, increased severe storms and changing lake levels have caused significant erosion to the coast but there are not enough researchers to be able to monitor all of Michigan’s shorelines before and after every storm.

To solve this problem, Michigan State University’s Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences, MSU’s Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems Research and Outreach Services and the Michigan Sea Grant held a series of workshops held in Iosco County, South Haven, and Manistee to train residents on how to fly drones and take high-resolution aerial photographs of the shoreline before and after storms. These images will help MSU researchers identify any changes to the landscape caused by erosion.