Research Roundup at Montana State University (#240), Fort Peck beef,

Fort Peck beef

More than 100 people – most of them American Indians — raise livestock on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, estimates Vince Smith, professor of agricultural economics/economics at Montana State University. How do they market their beef? What are some alternatives that may be more profitable than auctions? Those are questions that Smith and other MSU professors are researching in a two-year project with Jodie Smith of Fort Peck Community College. The researchers have designed a survey that will be given to American Indian producers, probably from May through July. Results will be shared in a series of programs expected to be given during the summer of 2006.

Too big for Earth

Some projects are just too big to do on Earth, says William Hiscock, head of the MSU physics department. NASA wants to observe and measure gravitational waves, for example, so it plans to launch a giant antenna into space around 2014. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA, will hardly look like the antenna on your car. It will consist of three spacecrafts shooting lasers at each other. The spacecrafts will be arranged in a triangle with each side measuring about three million miles. Hiscock, Neil Cornish and Ron Hellings of MSU are working on a portion of the project. The entire project is a joint effort of NASA and the European Space Agency.

Think like an animal

How does the bear cross the road? It depends on the type of bear, says Tony Clevenger, research scientist for MSU’s Western Transportation Institute. When it comes to man-made structures, grizzly bears prefer overpasses or really large underpasses that give them lots of light and a wide field of vision. (So do wolves, elk, deer and moose). Black bears and cougars favor culverts or underpasses that are long, dark and narrow. Clevenger is working on a project to develop guidelines for wildlife crossing systems in North America. Besides asking every state about the structures they use, he conducts research in Banff National Park. The Canadian park has 24 wildlife crossings along 30 miles. All but two are underpasses.

Begging nurses

Begging was common for Catholic sisters who nursed the sick in the early days of Montana, Mary Anne Sladich-Lantz said at MSU’s latest conference on medical history of the West. Sister Joseph, for one, visited mining camps and bars to ask for donations. She was also an architect who literally built hospitals in Missoula and Great Falls. Sister Joseph came west after an earlier group of nurses disappeared at sea. Presumed to be dead, they actually blew off course and landed in Chile. Their whereabouts weren’t learned for 100 years. Sister Joseph and other nurses took a ship from Montreal to the West Coast, then rode horses over the Bitterroot Mountains to St. Ignatius. It was their first time on horses, and they wore habits.

Evelyn Boswell, (406) 994-5135 or [email protected]