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Research to develop a gluten-free children’s snack made of millet and quinoa has earned doctoral student Gabriela John Swamy the Gerber Endowment in Pediatric Nutrition Graduate Scholarship.

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Over the next decade, 800,000 tons of rock will be excavated from the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, to accommodate a particle detector filled with 70,000 tons of liquid argon cooled to -300 degrees Fahrenheit to study neutrinos beamed from Fermilab in Illinois. It’s called the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.

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Developing probiotics and nutraceuticals that improve the health of animals and human will be part of the research accomplished through the new South Dakota Center for Biologics Research and Commercialization.

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Use insect repellent and wear protective clothing when we’re outside in the evening— even when it doesn’t feel like mosquitoes are biting. It’s West Nile Virus season!

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David Palmer has been named director of the Ness Division of Management and Economics at South Dakota State University. The division serves as a cross-college, interdisciplinary entity comprising faculty from academic programs that share a commitment to education and research in management, economics and data analytics.

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Determining E. coli levels in sediments and its ability to attach to sand and silt and float downstream will help scientists figure out what needs to be done to decrease bacterial levels in streams.

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The durability of an asphalt road depends on the bonding of the layers—that’s why research on tack coat selection and application will help make highways in the Midwest last longer.

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As part of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s International Wheat Yield Partnership Program, researchers aim to improve wheat yields by increasing grain size and weight using a precise gene-editing tool known as CRISPR/Cas9.

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Researchers have identified the SUR2 gene as playing a key role in the production of auxin, a hormone that affects soybean nodule development. The work is part of a National Science Foundation project to identify the genetic mechanisms that direct and coordinate formation of the soybean nodule.

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Culturally relevant, research-based, hands-on teaching and learning had the greatest impact on recruiting and retaining Native American engineering students. Those are some of the lessons learn through NSF’s Pre- Engineering Education Collaborative.

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A photo of a cup plant teaming with insects led a better understanding of the biology of Acanthocaudus wasps which inject their eggs into aphids that eat the plant. The adult wasps burst out of the aphids like an alien movie.

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Whether people view a college education as an opportunity to increase their earning power or a means of improving social connections varies based on their age, according to a 2014 survey of 1,000 adults, ages 18 to 54, who have student loans.

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Wildfire experts predict that by 2041, there will be four large, high-intensity forest fires for every three that occur now, with the number of days when conditions are conducive to fires increasing.

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Encouraging more high school students to pursue careers in agriculture—that’s the idea behind USDA iLEARN professional development workshops for science and ag teachers.

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It’s all about the layers! Encapsulating a drug in corn protein nanoparticles and then covering with them milk protein can make children’s medications better tasting and safer.

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Tiny air bubbles compressed within a polar ice core make some sections brittle to the touch, but one ice core lab knows how to handle this delicate part of the chemical analysis, thus making the dating of the entire ice core possible.

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College freshmen and sophomores interested in agriculture can learn about precision livestock production through a new training program aimed at recruiting minority students to the field.

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Modeling blood flow through a stent graft put graduate student John Asiruwa on the path to a career in biomedical engineering, doing work that “can be life changing for patients.”

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Precisely meeting a pregnant sow’s protein needs, specifically amino acid requirements, will improve the health of the sow and piglet—and help protect the environment by utilizing resources wisely.

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Dairy scientists are evaluating integrating sprouted barley grown indoors without soil, known are hydroponic feed, into the diets of dairy heifers and lactating cows.

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Turning cattle out to graze in harvested fields was once a common practice. It’s something that researchers would like to see used again—and improved by planting cover crops, such as such as oats, sorghum, turnips, radishes or millet. These have the potential to improve the soil health and utilize any remaining nutrients, thus preventing runoff that pollutes lakes and streams.

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A research team at the South Dakota State University Image Processing Laboratory has completed the first worldwide search for new satellite calibration sites through a partnership with Google Earth. The discovery of more sites may make daily satellite calibration a possibility.

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Using 20 years of data from federal and state agencies, a fisheries biologist and Fulbright scholar are tracking how land use changes have impacted the water quality and aquatic life in lakes and streams in northeastern South Dakota. These environmental impacts can put pressure on aquatic ecosystems that, in the short term, can have a more dramatic effect than climate change.

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An incentive program that shifts electricity usage for low-priority activities to nonpeak times could help balance the demand for electricity and ease pressure on aging transmission lines. Utilities can then pass those energy savings on to consumers through discounted rates for those who agree to alter their energy usage habits.

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Grafting, a standard way of propagating grapes worldwide, combines a hardy rootstock with a desirable variety of grapes in the scion. Through National Science Foundation project, researchers will unravel how the genotype of the rootstock impacts the characteristics expressed in the stem, leaves and fruit, known as the phenotype. What they discover may help plants adapt to a changing climate.

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Health disparities research typically controls for socioeconomic status in analyses, but the We RISE study looks at changing those socioeconomic variables. The six-month intervention targets young Native American mothers willing to work toward an income-related or education goal using community resources and support. Once the women have achieved one goal, the hope is that they gain the skills and confidence to ask themselves, “What other potential do I have that I have not yet uncovered?”

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High yields and an excellent disease resistance package—these are qualities producers can expect from Oahe, the new winter wheat cultivar released by the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station. From 2013 to 2015, Oahe ranked No. 1 in mean grain yield among hard red winter wheat trials in the North Regional Performance Nurseries, which has test plots from northern Kansas through Montana and into Canada.

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The applied science team for the recently established SERVIR West Africa will develop tools to use NASA satellite-based Earth imaging data to monitor natural resources. The first priorities are critical regional issues, such as food security, water resources and land use change, in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger and Senegal. Professor Michael Wimberly will utilize Landsat images to track the changes in forest reserves, while professor Niall Hanan will use Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, images to evaluate grazing lands.

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Scientists and consumers recognize the cholesterol-lowering power of oats, but what few know is that most of the oats American milling companies use comes from Canada. To increase oats production in the Midwest, researchers are developing methods to speed up selection of breeding material to improve the nutritional and milling qualities of new oat varieties—that includes developing ways to increase beta-glucan.

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A new influenza virus that affects cattle has an official name. influenza D. The executive committee of the International Committee of Taxonomy of Virus approved a new genus, Orthomyxovirdae, with a single species, Influenza D virus, because of its distinctness from other influenza types—A, B and C.

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Setting and achieving goals related to income and education may improve the overall health of Native Americans--that’s the premise behind a new research project, We RISE—raising income, supporting education—targeting young mothers on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in north central South Dakota. Health disparities research typically controls for socioeconomic status in analyses, but this study looks changing those socioeconomic variables.

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Using inexpensive biochar to coat electrodes and a new method to create the porous surface needed to capture electricity may reduce the cost of supercapacitors. Activating the biochar using plasma processing takes only five minutes with no external heating or chemicals needed.

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Adapting a weight management program to the client’s personality may help improve success rates. This is one of the preliminary findings of a research study to identify factors that help and hinder clients enrolled in the Profile by Sanford weight management program, which has more than 50,000 members at 27 locations in 10 states.

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The secret ingredient is in the flour, but its impact lies within the gut. Adding resistant starch to the diets of people with metabolic syndrome can improve bacteria in the gut, according to research from South Dakota State University. These changes help lower bad cholesterol and decrease inflammation associated with obesity.

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When it comes to baking bread, the bigger the loaf, the better. But to determine the baking performance of wheat flour, food scientists had to bake a loaf of bread. That may not be necessary, thanks to a new mathematical model that uses specific dough parameters to predict loaf volume. That saves time and money.

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“It’s the diarrhea that can kill you,” noted professor emeritus David Francis, an expert on colibacillosis, an intestinal disease that affects newborn and weanling pigs. The toxin-producing E. Coli bacterium that causes the swine disease is similar to the organism responsible for traveler’s diarrhea in humans. Francis will speak at the 24th International Veterinary Conference in Dublin, Ireland, June 7-10.

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Strategically timed planting and using resistant wheat varieties help decrease virus incidence, according to virologist Marie Langham. The South Dakota State University plant science professor has been working on wheat viruses for more than 25 years. The major culprit in South Dakota is wheat streak mosaic virus.

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Jumping up a 2-foot waterfall is an impossible task for small fish like minnows and shiners. Such an obstacle can inhibit their ability to feed and spawn upstream. But state and federal wildlife agencies may soon be able to install fish ladders on the downside side of culverts to prevent this from happening.

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Soybean roots are under attack from two culprits, a parasitic round worm called the soybean cyst nematode, feeds on the roots, and a fungal disease called sudden death syndrome, which inhibits root growth. Soybean fields affected by both feel the greatest impact on yields. Planting resistant varieties and rotating crops are essential.

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When it comes to reducing the number of walleye, anglers take a back seat to Mother Nature. That’s the one of the insights on harvest dynamics emerging from a research project to assess movement, mortality and the impact of anglers on walleye populations along the Missouri River from the Oahe Dam near Pierre, South Dakota, north to the Garrison Dam near Riverdale, North Dakota.