Redirecting Macrophages

The quest: to produce reliable implantable glucose sensors for diabetics. A major obstacle: the hostile reaction of the immune system's macrophages. Julia Stenken's research group is learning to guide these cells into a healing state.

Cruel and Unusual

What happens when juvenile accomplices to murder receive the same sentence as the murderer? Brian Gallini examines the collision between mandatory juvenile sentencing and the Eighth Amendment.

Complex Intelligence

In his biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, historian Randall Woods revealed a man of vision and omnivorous intelligence who supported the most marginalized Americans — poor people and racial minorities

Responding to Climate Change

Looking back on the record heat of 2012, Research Frontiers asked a cross-section of University of Arkansas faculty to look forward to the mid-21st century. How is climate change affecting their field of study and their own research? Taken together, their responses offer a glimpse at how diverse disciplines are addressing a more turbulent future.

Remembering Rohwer

See history in a data point cloud. A landscape architect and geospatial specialists are mapping what remains of a World War II internment camp for Japanese-Americans. In 1945, the camp covered 500 acres in the Arkansas Delta. Today, a small cemetery in the midst of cotton fields holds monuments and memories.

Surviving a Meat-Sweet Desert

Obesity is just one of the things that happen to people who don’t have ready access to a grocery store. At a Science Café, a nurse, a dietitian and a food science researcher brought their expertise to a discussion of the American diet and what can be done.

Seeking Multicellularity

Have you ever wondered why biologists should think about sex all the time? Hint: It’s not just so they can spy on the sex life of slime molds. Rather, it’s all part of understanding the complexity of multicellularity. Let us explain.

From Vision to Secret Sauce

Follow five entry-level entrepreneurs with a vision through long nights in stuffy rooms as they prepare for the business plan competitions that could bring investors their way. In their corner is a powerful ally and mentor, Carol Reeves, director of the Walton College entrepreneurship program.

Dwindling Delicacy: Tuna

Over the past seven years, University of Arkansas professor of classical studies, Daniel Levine, has dived into the ocean of knowledge to catch the story of the tuna during the time the Greeks dominated the Mediterranean.

Along the way, he found something else swimming in his nets: a plight that is causing this one-time king of the sea to be on the verge of collapse.

Peeking at the Cretaceous

Often, the synergy generated by researchers from different disciplines provides a better and more complete research product. This research is crucial in order for our university to lead in research productivity and to stay on the cutting edge of new discoveries.

Dates or Dangerous Liaisons?

Whether it’s dating, drinking or drugs, teenagers make choices that have consequences, some fleeting and some lifelong. Jacquelyn Wiersma investigates the nexus between dating and risky behaviors to better understand the complex task of mate selection in adolescence and young adulthood. 

Hands On

Whether contemplating how animal myths have survived in our culture or spinning algae into biofuel, the research of Honors College students explores questions and offers solutions. This story walks inside three student projects to show the thinking and imagination of a new generation of researchers.

Talking Objects

Three engineers design products that allow people to control energy. In this story they discuss sensors and systems that store medical data, speed disaster relief and monitor “green” homes. Theirs is a world in which “everything is alive, and objects talk to each other,” and it is right around the corner. 

Political Genome

Four political science researchers use a comprehensive poll to study traditionally underrepresented groups, including Latinos and African-Americans in both the South and non-South. The result is a wealth of information about the country’s attitudes towards the political, social and economic issues facing the country today.

Logical Logistics

The newly formed transportation and logistics department examines what makes some businesses succeed in making sure what consumers want is stocked on the shelves. They thrive in Northwest Arkansas, an incomparable locus of logistics knowledge and experience. (also look at how those same logistics can be used in times of crisis, such as a natural disaster.)

Lyric Graphics

Poetry, novels and short stories are not the only forms that literature can take. Two education researchers employ music lyrics and graphic novels in the classroom to teach teachers — and their students — about the richness of literature.

Material Man

A physicist sets out on the ultimate quest to find room-temperature superconductivity. His quest teaches scientists many new things about materials along the way.

Creating Companies

A lab on a chip, nanocrystals in solution and miniaturized power modules probably don’t mean much to the average person. But testing for traumatic brain injury on the spot, developing more energy-efficient lighting and more economical hybrid electric vehicles might, and that’s exactly what each of the innovations above has become, thanks to the hard work of many scientists and support from the Arkansas Research and Technology Park. The following pages contain three profiles of up-and-coming companies in different stages of creating products based on research findings.

Bench to Bedside

David Zaharoff, the first engineer ever to work in the tumor immunology and biology lab at the National Cancer Institute, had just finished a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, where he had received his doctorate in biomedical engineering. While there, Zaharoff had worked on methods to improve the way pieces of DNA are delivered within the human body for gene therapy applications. Some of this investigation involved physical mechanisms, and some of it involved biomaterials.

Making Memories

If you talk very long to psychologists who study memory, big questions arise:  Do we make our memories or do our memories make us? Those vivid memories that we all have – did they actually happen? What about false memories?

Batting Battle

Since 1973, Major League Baseball has seen its two leagues, the American League and the National League, play a slightly different form of the same game. The source of this discrepancy is the designated hitter rule. In the National League, the pitcher does his own batting. In the American League, a skilled hitter takes the place of the pitcher in the batting lineup.

Evolving Exercise

To a three-year-old child it may mean crying ‘no’ and running down the hall. In a few more years, the child may feel the joy of independence the first time he can ride his bike all the way to a friend’s house or the day she takes the subway alone.

Shaky Ground

Civil engineer Brady Cox subscribes to a free notification system, offered by U.S. Geological Survey, that sends an e-mail or text message containing considerable seismic data within minutes of an earthquake anywhere in the world. Cox has set his own parameters – magnitude 6 and above for quakes outside Arkansas, magnitude 2 and above for activity inside the Natural State. While in his lab on the evening of Jan. 12, about 20 minutes after the Earth ruptured in Haiti, Cox received one of these e-mails.“I always look at the most basic information first – magnitude, depth of the hypocenter and distance from the epicenter to the nearest city,” he said. “When these basic facts sunk in – and knowing that Haiti was an impoverished country with many poorly constructed or un-engineered buildings – I knew it would be bad, very bad.”

Stimulating Research

University of Arkansas researchers have been awarded more than $9 million in federal funding for the fiscal years 2009 and 2010 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The “stimulus funds” were primarily intended to provide a short-term boost to the American economy by creating or preserving jobs and improving the nation’s infrastructure. University researchers say their ARRA grants, mainly from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, did create jobs. However they expect the real impact of these grants will be felt in the results of their research in a broad range of areas.

Bankrupt Business

In 2005, when the economy hummed like Dallas traffic and citizens argued about how tall Fayetteville should grow, Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, ran into a contractor working on a building that had sparked the skyscraper debate. She told him that she had qualms about the financial viability of the project. Fayetteville didn’t seem capable of supporting it.

More than Homeless

A professor of sociology and a professor of art work with homeless people in two different ways to show the human side of what for many remains a collection of statistics.

Code Confusion

Industrial engineers explore ways for health care companies to share vital data about their products, which could lead to greater efficiency in the health care industry and savings all around.

Space to Earth

Four young astronomers and planetary scientists explore the origins of our solar system, our neighboring planets and the universe itself.

Legal and Moral

Law professor and book author Steve Sheppard talks about the meaning of justice and how legal professionals can uphold it.

Organic Orchard

Researchers use chafing dishes, leaf blowers and hawk perches to show commercial farmers how to successfully grow organic and sustainable fruit.

Transportation Twist

Professors and students create a vision for the future of light rail in Northwest Arkansas and show how it fits into a greener future.

Virtual Pompeii

What do gaming and Bernini have in common? What is a classicist doing at a gaming conference? Researchers from computers to classics have teamed up to get a better look at what life was like in an ancient Roman city.

Copyright Conundrum

A law professor argues that current copyright law inhibits free speech on the Internet by putting the burden of proof on the user.

Financial Crisis

Economists and financial researchers guide the average reader through the history of the current economic crisis.

Darwin Deciphered

“When on board H.M.S. Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America….”

Evolved Research

In the 150 years since Charles Darwin’s landmark book, the knowledge that species evolved through natural selection has opened the door to tremendous advances in science. University of Arkansas professors discuss evolution in a variety of fields.

Shrinking Science

Science’s tiniest materials pack a potential wallop against mankind’s most feared diseases. We work at the boundaries of physical, chemical, biological and medical sciences.

Living Fiction

“Teaching students how to see requires the experience of having seen clearly and vigilantly. And that experience has helped me be a better writer. In every class session I have learned something new from the students about the ways of looking at art and at the world.”

Reaching Rehabilitation

Multiple sclerosis is a frightening disease, in part because it’s unpredictable. It attacks the central nervous system, usually striking young to middle age adults, many of whom were otherwise healthy. A person with multiple sclerosis may feel numbness in the limbs, experience blurred vision or lose balance while walking. Those symptoms may disappear after a few days, but they will likely reappear later, along with others. Whether to continue working is just one major decision people diagnosed with MS must make.

Public Politics

Every four years on January 20, the president-elect stands in the noon-day sun in front of the U.S. Capitol and promises to “faithfully execute the office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” That Constitution defines who can be president and how to elect the president, but offers only a brief job description for the nation’s chief executive. How does he — or she — know what issues or policies to pursue on January 21?

Juvenile Justice

“A world which abandons its children in the streets has no future; it no longer renders it possible to create and develop a project of life…” — Judge A.A. Cancado Trindade, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights

Small Scale Sustainability

Freshwater macroinvertebrates don’t get a lot of credit; many people would have a hard time naming more than a few of these backboneless creatures, which include crayfish, snails, mollusks, aquatic worms and mayfly nymphs. Yet these animals act as the middlemen of the smorgasbord of life, serving as food for fish while also consuming algae, shredding leaves and eating other types of organic matter in the water. They perform critical functions in streams, rivers, small ponds and large lakes.

Consider the Source

When it comes to considering a sustainable world, what we do with water has to be a central concern. Just one agency of the United States government spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to predict when water will fall from the sky and how much will fall. We spend many more millions on flood insurance to deal with the consequences of that rain when it falls on human-built structures and infrastructure and suddenly becomes too much water in the wrong place. And none of those millions of dollars has any influence on when, where or how much rain falls.

The Business of Sustainability

"Environmental sustainability is a business imperative at Wal-Mart." — Lee Scott, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. president and CEO

Sustainability

An essential principle of sustainability addresses the reality that the earth’s resources, which provide basic ne-cessities such as water, heat and shelter — not to mention luxuries such as electricity and fuel for automobiles — are not infinite and perpetually giving. They aren’t even abundant, in an economically feasible sense. For example, most of the earth’s remaining oil reserves will be difficult — and therefore extremely expensive — to physically access and exploit. Water is no different. As our insatiable thirst for it rapidly drains aquifers, millions of people in developing countries must walk half a mile or more to reach water fit to drink or bathe in, and tens of thousands of people die from water-borne illnesses every day.

Health How-To

In the Center for Innovation in Health Care Logistics, researchers strive to help health care professionals at hospitals work safely and efficiently so they can focus on the essential patient care that they provide.

Educating Educators

Learning science by what a scientist does:  A team of scientists and education researchers work with middle school teachers to help them learn to engage students of science and mathematics with hands-on learning projects and experiments.

Protein Powerhouse

Most health problems can be traced back to proteins.  In the Center for Protein Structure and Function, biologists and chemists are studying the fundamental nature of these essential building blocks of life.  They look at what happens when proteins work well and when they go wrong.

Inspirational Integrator

Law professor Judith Kilpatrick has written the first biography of Wiley Branton, the African American lawyer who brought the case to court that allowed nine students to become the first to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957.  Her book was published this fall by the University of Arkansas Press.

Probing Pathogens

At the Center for Food Safety and Microbiology, University of Arkansas researchers work to be sure the food we eat is safe.

“Boomer” Buildings

As Baby Boomers edge into retirement, their housing needs will change. Professors in architecture and rehabilitation are working to create safe, affordable housing that will meet the needs of the aging population.

Workplace Worries

Researchers in management uncover the hidden cost of domestic violence in the workplace and help employers begin to understand this complex phenomenon.

Translation Tactics

A translation must do more than transform words into another language – they must also convey a sense of time, place and culture. Two pro-fessors of translation discuss their techniques for transforming Italian poetry and prose into English.

Clarifying Cheating

In The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead, author David Callahan argues that cheating has become so common and culturally pervasive that ordinary citizens, people who do not think of themselves as cheaters, will inflate here or exaggerate there to achieve a beneficial outcome.

Finding Flora

Researchers cataloging the plant wealth of Arkansas find plants with anti-cancer compounds and cattle toxins as well as invasive species.

Past Preservation

The J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is responsible for the prehistoric collections, most of which were amassed by zoologist Sam Dellinger. The collection contains more than 7,500 whole vessels from the Mississippi period.

Greening of Education

Right now, somewhere in the United States a newspaper or television show is talking about Jay Greene’s education research. And, what he would consider even more important, it’s safe to say that right now somewhere a researcher is replicating, criticizing or citing Greene’s research.

Water Rights

Water Rights When water is abundant it is taken for granted, but when it becomes scarce, arguments erupt around the issue of who has the rights to water for irrigation, recreation and other purposes. A law professor lays out the issues and calls for a water code to help regulate water usage in the state.

Water Ways

Water Ways Engineering and architecture researchers are collaborating to re-engineer streams to mitigate flooding and allow communities to reclaim the water for recreation and aesthetic purposes. They also are working to create stream-friendly communities from the ground up.

Water Quality

Water Quality Four engineers are working on three different projects that address water quality issues in different ways. First, an engineer has developed a biosand water filtration system for a small village in Colombia. Second, a researcher has developed a real-time, computer-based decision support system designed to look at nutrient loads on Beaver Lake. Third, two engineers have developed an oxygenation system that can help remove excess nutrients and organic matter from water.

Addressing Aquifers

Addressing Aquifers Researchers from all corners of campus—geosciences, civil engineering, biological sciences, soil sciences, chemical engineering, biological and agricultural engineering, and more study the water that lies beneath the earth’s surface to help determine how human use of this precious underground resource affects the future of these aquifers.

Taste Test

Panels of trained taste testers and a host of untrained consumer panelists try food in the name of bringing better products to the kitchen table. Food scientists try to tease out the elements of taste - including texture - that make people say "yum" or "yuck".

Hot Spot

In Yellowstone National Park, the earth seems to breathe beneath the tourists' feet. Geoscientists examining lakeshore processes at Yellowstone Lake believe that the lakeshore maybe exhibiting this swelling and shrinking, and they have spent the last two summers investigating this possibility.

Grandmother Love

A School of Socialwork researcher studies the challenges African-American grandmothers face when they raise their wn children's children - often facing obstacles from the state and federal government.

Informed Ingestion

When people order fast food, they often get more then they bargained for in terms of calories and fat, say two marketing professors. Their research has demonstrated that nutrition information, when provided on the spot, can influence consumers'  decisions when it comes to ordering food from the menu.

Mathematical Muddles

Mathematics professor Chaim Goodman-Strauss studies the mathematical possibilities - and impossibilities - of shapes, and how these fit into everyday life. And he throws in some crocheted vegetables along the way.

Firefighter Fears

Why do firefighters die 10 years earlier than the average man? It is not due to workplace deaths – instead, firefighters have a high risk of heart attacks. UA researchers are working with fire departments to study workplace stress and develop programs to mitigate it.

Under Mine

Panels of trained taste testers and a host of untrained consumer panelists try food in the name of bringing better products to the kitchen table. Food scientists try to tease out the elements of taste - including texture - that make people say "yum" or "yuck".

Playful Palindromes

Steve Chism, reference librarian at Mullins Library, likes to play with his words – so much, in fact, that he created an entire dictionary of palindromes. The Library of Congress created a new subject area just for his book and one other.

Chicken Clues

Chickens that lose their color may provide the best model yet of an auto-immune disease that affects millions of people worldwide.

Strange TV

Are popular television shows planting subversive ideas in viewers’ heads? Probably not. English professor Keith Booker talks about how subversive television undermines its own counter-culture reputation to become mainstream and why that might be a bad thing.

Food Function

Researchers know what vitamins, minerals and antioxidants contained in plants are good for your health. But they don’t know exactly where the good stuff resides. Researchers are using engineering tools to discover the location of the nutrients in plants.

Data Driven

How can you predict changes in a watershed? Or the risk of a beetle infestation in oak trees? Or map the poorest regions of a state? Researchers work with the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies to do these things and much more.

Gambling House

Architecture professor Kim Sexton traces the role of the loggia in gambling, usury and other community practices in 13th century Italy.

Balancing Act

Through the Mack Blackwell Transportation Center, researchers strive to make traveling safe, cheap and efficient whether by land, water or air.

Whales Tales

Anthropology professor Allen McCartney has devoted his career to tracing the history of whaling and its influence on Arctic cultures. His insights into historic whaling practices have influenced modern-day whaling practices in the north.

Adventure Tourism

You’re riding a roller coaster, cresting a rapid on a class IV stretch of river, stepping from an airplane door into a 13,000-foot plummet toward earth. A University of Arkansas researcher says, if you’re up for it, you’re in for it: Adventure Tourism.

Textile Test

One University of Arkansas researcher tests the mettle of a potential cash crop using boiling liquids, dyes, crochet hooks, glue and a lot of ingenuity.

Middle Ground

Is it the lush land of harems, hashish and belly dancing or the region of religious strictures and social oppression? Studies of Arab popular culture, including film, music and poetry, tell the real tale.

Intuitive Impossible

Technology can make people’s lives easier, but only if they use it. A University of Arkansas researcher studies why people accept technology, and why they don’t.

Making Memories

The immune system is the only thing that stands between us and microbial armageddon. One University of Arkansas researcher is working to understand the immune system so we can give it a boost.

Recipe Research

Archivists at the University of Arkansas are cooking up a project that will have history buffs and nutritionists alike hungering for more.

Cow Consequences

The story of how one sick cow caused an international ban on U.S. beef, plunging beef prices, concern among consumers about the safety of the meat supply, and how the National Agricultural Law Center is helping to shape the aftermath.

Everyday Urbanist

Architect Stephen Luoni wants to change the world we live in—one strip mall at a time.

Slime Mold

Like the Terminator prototype, some slime molds can accomplish an incredible feat: if blasted into bits, the pieces will slowly find one another and ooze back together.

The Future is Now

How do retail outlets track a four-pack of toilet paper from the time it leaves a warehouse until a consumer buys it? Researchers at the Information Technology Center are using new technologies to help businesses keep track of millions of items they store, move and sell every day.

Fruit of the Vine

Almost every aspect of grape growing requires intensive hand labor. Researchers at the Institute of Food Science and Engineering have created a total vineyard mechanization system that will change the way farmers grow grapes.

Digital DNA

Imagine that all of the information on the Internet could be stored in a drop of liquid. UA researchers are helping to make this idea become a reality using DNA. They are peering into the blueprints of life to see how the complex molecules might be used for computing.

Rohwer

Art professor John Newman explores the landscape, history and culture of a world war II japanese internment camp in Arkansas and how its inhabitants related to the mostly African-American community that surrounded it.