MSU Research roundup -Weed sightings – Montana’s health -Big gray monster-Learning biology

Weed sightings

Three years ago, MSU students used global positioning equipment
to map the spotted knapweed and leafy spurge they saw while
hiking near Virginia City and Twin Bridges. This spring, Shana Wood
received her master’s degree for comparing that information with
data collected from airplanes. Airplanes carrying two kinds of
digital imaging systems flew over the same areas the students
covered. Wood found that hyperspectral imagery was accurate 61
percent of the time when it came to identifying leafy spurge and
74 percent for spotted knapweed. Multispectral imagery was 41
percent accurate with leafy spurge and 45 percent for spotted
knapweed. Wood’s project was part of an effort to see if it’s
possible to use remote sensing technologies to detect and manage
noxious weeds.

Montana’s health

Montana is first in the nation when it comes to certain aspects of
health, according to MSU’s health information web site at
http://healthinfo.montana.edu. The state leads in the use of
smokeless tobacco by adolescent males, for example. Montanans
have the longest average stay in community hospitals (10.5 days
in 2000). Montana is first in the estimated death rate by liver
cancer. Those and other statistics are available at HealthInfo, a
web site maintained by the Montana Office of Rural Health, the
Montana Area Health Education Center (AHEC) and the College of
Nursing, all at MSU. Besides statistics, the web site reports health
news, upcoming events, and resources for health care researchers
and others.

Big gray monster

The MSU physics department, known for owning some pretty hefty
equipment such as 1-ton optical tables and 4-ton magnets, now
owns a 5,400-pound steel vacuum chamber. Donated to MSU by
NASA, the 14-foot cylindrical chamber can simulate the
atmospheric conditions of outer space. That’s what MSU assistant
professor of physics Charles Kankelborg and graduate students
Melissa Cirtain and Lewis Fox need to calibrate a telescope they’re
building to view the sun. The big gray monster arrived last month
and took a sizeable crew to get it off the back of a flatbed truck,
into the freight elevator and into a second-floor laboratory in the
Engineering/Physical Sciences Building. The telescope it will test is
planned for launch in 2004.

Learning biology

Citing a "revolution" in biology education, the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute awarded grants to MSU and 43 other universities
that are revamping their undergraduate biology curricula. MSU will
use the $1.9 million to overhaul how students learn about
biological systems from single cells up to elements as complex as
the human brain or an entire ecosystem. Another portion will boost
support for female and minority students majoring in biomedical
sciences. Program director John Miller said the changes primarily
will affect the 300 students majoring in biomedical sciences within
the cell biology and neuroscience department. However, students
in other majors that require biology classes also will benefit.

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