New technology explores Earth’s Tectonic Hot Spots

New technology explores Earth’s Tectonic Hot Spots

By: Veronica Pineda

Acting as a historian, an observer, and futurist of our planet's movements, University of Utah Researcher Marie Green uses Magnetotelluric (MT) data to map out the thermal structure and fluidity underneath the surface of the US Pacific Northwest Region.

The Pacific Northwest Region is the most geologically diverse and active area of our continent to observe due to the dynamics of plate tectonics.

According to J. Figge’s publication Evolution of the Pacific Northwest, “The unique characteristic of this region is that it did not exist prior to Mid-Jurassic time. It consists of
 volcanic island belts and scraps of
 ocean floor rocks, which have been
 added to the edge of the continent
 over the past 200 million years, and
 overprinted by several episodes of 
volcanism and mountain building.”

This area is situated at the junction of three major tectonic plates (the Gonda, the Pacific, and the North American plate), otherwise known as the Mendocino Triple Junction, that slide, sub duct and collide in relation to one another.

“Prior to the breakup of Pangea and migration of subsequent land masses, Idaho defined the coastline of what became the North American Plate,” said Green.

As one continental plate clashes into the next, it sets off a chain reaction of geological transformation. The Cascadian Mountain Range, the Cascadian Volcanoes, the Columbia Basin, the geysers of Yellowstone, and the San Andreas Fault among many other geologic spectacles are evidence of these interactions

MT data allows scientists to see the anatomy of these features. It acts as a super detector of oil, mineral deposits, and the physical process of volcanic and earthquake eruptions.

“For such a complex region, definitive structural interpretation based purely on siesmological data may not be sufficient for reliable study of the deep earth interior,” said Green.

The obtained MT data can actually look at the changes of Earth’s substructure due to heat, molten fluidity, and other factors that fluctuate the resistivity.  

Green’s research with the Consortium for Electromagnetic Modeling and Inversion at the U consists of placing temporary stations that measure the electric and magnetic field variations from solar winds at any particular time and location.

These stations record how long that electric signal takes to reach the receptor, measuring the rate of decay on the field of that area’s subsurface.

The time at which it takes the signal to reach the other receptor determines how resistive the rocks are in the crust and upper mantle.

If the layer underneath shows low-resistivity, the rock underneath probably has enough fractures to have had fluid transport.

This fluid, or molten rock, would act as a lubricant for the tectonic plates to slide and push against each other causing earthquakes, volcanoes and other hiccups in Earth’s cycle.

Organizations such as; Earth Scope, US Array, National Science Foundation as well as Oregon State University are funding this worldwide project to observe and measure the motions of the Earth's surface, revealing the Earth’s geologic evolution. Also, over 300 stations have been deployed 70 km apart in a grid-like pattern to map the thermal structure of the crust and upper-mantel from the Pacific Coast to the Rocky Mountain range.

Recently Green’s Group has found evidence that the heat source of Yellowstone is not directly underneath. Instead, this channel of heat called a plume is located 40 to 80 km beneath the Snake River Plain and slowly moving further northwest.

"It’s migrating in the subsurface and is helping break up the crust all through here,” said Green.

The Snake River Plain extends 400 miles westward from Northwest Wyoming to the Idaho-Oregon border.  It is a broad, flat bowed depression that covers one quarter of the states. 

http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/north_america/yellowstone.html

According to Green, the crust is moving over the upwelling mantle, causing expressions of basalt, a porous black igneous rock from volcanic activity that cools rapidly after lava drizzles on the surface.

Under the measured area, scientists can see the plume’s path as it breaches the Earth’s crust.

"It has these wormlike confutes coming from the surface of Yellowstone,” She said.

Scientists believe that these plumes are the driving mechanism for continental plate movement.

“From the data we're analyzing, it now seems like a regional phenomenon,” said Green.

The images from the MT data systems have mapped the Snake River Plane as the continuous source of magma from the mantle to Yellowstone—one that continues to be moving into other fault lines, changing the structure of our earth.

MT data research has only been around since the 1950s, and as it and alternative geological technology develops, scientists can catch another glimpse into the events that that make up the present world we live in.

This poster explains in depth the Green's MT research.

Salt Lake City Bridges the Gap Between Science and Art

By Fiona Marcelino

Science and art are often positioned at opposite ends of a spectrum; science or art. There exists the common combination of science with medicine, technology or nature; and art with literature, culture, and music; but rarely do people collaborate art with science.

It is that cultural divide that hinders art and science from gaining new insights and perspectives.

The idea that artists and scientists can collaborate, inspire and improve each other’s fields is one that Salt Lake City is running with.

The Leonardo is a contemporary museum that explores the unexpected ways that science, technology, art and creativity connect by holding themed activities that combine art and science.

Previous projects have consisted of creating temporary water art, exploring the science of bubbles, creating lenses out of gelatin to see how it affects light, and drawing with light using a camera, lasers and light bubs.

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts has also found ways to incorporate science with art by collaborating with the Clark Planetarium, The University of Utah’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the Utah Museum of Natural History. They have also organized Art and Science Artful Afternoons, where families could enjoy a month of art and science by learning about various science related topics through a series of free family art-making festivals.

Often times the reaction of the science world is that art is too imprecise for the scientific process, but science and art both ask the same questions. What is everything? Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?

String theorist, Brain Greene, recently wrote that the arts have the ability to “give a vigorous shake to our sense of what’s real, jarring the scientific imagination into imagining new things.” He also expressed his thoughts on how artists can make the metaphors of physics tangible, which can provide new mathematical meanings from a different perspective.

In a recent NPR interview with Cormac McCarthy (novelist), Werner Herzog (filmmaker) and Lawrence Kruass (physicist) the idea of how science can be inspiration for art was examined.

Herzog and McCarthy both described their involvement in science as inspiration for their films or novels. Both men explore themes of science in arts and culture and each spoke of how they create an imaginary world related to a real world.

The potential influence that art and science could have on each other seems endless. The combination of these two fields could help answer the world’s deepest questions by providing a broader view of the world.

Sports Blend Science and Technology

Sports Blend Science and Technology

By Kenneth Morley

When someone visits the golf course on a perfect weekday afternoon, they often don’t realize how much high-tech science goes into playing the game they love.

Sports, such as golf and surfing are being transformed by the induction of these high-tech science and technologies.

When one thinks of technology and sports, ideas such as the engineering of football helmets or advanced scoring systems may come to mind. However, the sports world is seeing more scientific advancements and gadgets that were not even dreamed of five years ago.

The Shaka Company will release one of these scientific advancements with their new anemometer, which is a device for measuring wind speeds, later this year.

Although, an anemometer is not a rare instrument, meteorologists all over the world often use it. However, what makes Shaka's version unique is that it is designed for use with Apple's Iphone. The Shaka Anemometer plugs directly into the Iphone's headphone port and according to their website, will give an accurate reading of the current wind speed

Shaka is marketing this product to surfers who need to know wind speeds to try and catch the perfect wave, and golfers who want to know the wind speed in order to hit an accurate shot.

Other extreme sports enthusiasts, such as hangliders or paragliders could also find this anemometer useful.

Other companies are also trying to make their mark in sports and the multi-billion dollar golf industry has become a flashpoint for new technologies.

The Sensosolutions Company has developed a sensor-filled golf glove that is designed to give the golfer instant feedback on how he or she is gripping the golf club.

This glove includes a battery powered sensor box complete with Light Emitting Diode (LED) screen and pressure sensors that tell the golfer if he or she is holding the club too firm or too light.

The Sensoglove, as it is being dubbed, will set a golfer back $89, but most struggling weekend warriors will more likely tell you the price is worth it if they are able to fix their game and cut off a few strokes.

As fans and competitors place a higher value on sporting glory, so will the available funds for new technological advancement.

Currently, research is being conducted using microchips in balls as well as on digital sensors all along the boundaries on fields. These could also be used in baseball to indicate a ball or strike call or even determine if a ball has gone fair or foul. These chips could also be used on the soccer field or in the hockey arena to determine if a goal is scored.

The possibilities surrounding technology and sports seem endless. As long as sports are played and money is to be made, science and technology will be at the forefront of enhancing performance and fair play.   

Bridging the Gap: Using academic research to stimulate the economy

By Krystal Brown

The National Science Foundation (NSF) reports that the state of Utah spent $2.3 billion on research and development (R&D) for science and engineering in 2007.

Utah has a thriving academic research community which has generated a highly educated work force; however, its spending on R&D ranks 28^th in the nation with above average dependence on federal funding. The state is looking to bridge this divide between industry and academia in order to capitalize on existing strengths and grow the economy.

The Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) initiative, chaired by Dinesh Patel of Signal Peak Ventures, aims to use academic research to stimulate economic growth via start-up companies, patents, and eventually large companies.

Cynthia Burrows, Ph.D. and member of the USTAR governing authority, said that USTAR is meant “to bring in the rainmakers… researchers who know how to translate ideas into businesses.”

In its first five years, USTAR has brought 43 “rainmakers” to the University of Utah and Utah State University resulting in 194 patents and 17 start-up companies or industry partnerships. USTAR professor Rajesh Menon of the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Utah credits the reliable funding and collaborative culture fostered by USTAR with this initial success.

Professor Menon, who joined USTAR in 2009 after 10 years at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), emphasized the difficulty in starting companies. There needs to be “a good ecosystem to help build companies” and USTAR is beginning to create that by injecting creativity and building research resources.

It will be years before this translates to a significant number of industry jobs as bridging the gap between business and academia is no small feat.

Cynthia Burrows explained this disconnect through the origination of the modern university from ancient monasteries. Traditionally, monks were sequestered with their scholarly work in order to investigate life’s basic questions, whether it be “what a star is or how to grow better peas.” The motivation for this work was knowledge.

Although today’s universities are far more complex, research of fundamental importance is rewarded by continued federal funding and academic accolade. Consequently, basic research accounted for 75 percent of the work done at universities and colleges in 2008 according to the NSF. Conversely, motivation for better products at lower cost resulted in 95 percent of research done in industry in 2008 being applied or development.

While this divide between applied and basic research is the norm, schools like MIT and Stanford have a proven history of applying academic research. According to Professor Menon, these schools break down departmental boundaries. “That’s the future. That’s where you get the most interesting research,” He said.

USTAR has begun to do just this by hiring faculty in a range of departments including bioengineering, chemistry, and psychiatry at both the University of Utah and Utah State University. Both schools boast new USTAR buildings where research labs are grouped by interest rather than department.

James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building at the University of Utah (photo courtesy of USTAR)

According to Professor Menon, the initial success of USTAR has states like Nevada looking to it as a model for their own research structure.

With the creative research base being fairly well established in this first phase of USTAR, Cynthia Burrows said she’d like to see a shift in focus to nurture the existing researchers and further encourage collaboration. With this, USTAR could cultivate the ecosystem necessary to grow the economy from homegrown ideas.

University of Utah Isotope Facility Draws International Interest

University of Utah Isotope Facility Draws International Interest

By Allison Chan

We have all learned that an isotope is a form of an element with a different number of neutrons and the same number of protons. While isotopes may have seemed a dry topic in high school chemistry, they are in fact an incredibly valuable tool for research in disciplines spanning from anthropology to atmospheric science. 

Unbeknownst to many, a world-class isotope ratio analysis facility is housed here at the University of Utah.

The Stable Isotope Ratio Facility for Environmental Research (SIRFER) was started in 1986 and has since been providing sample analysis for departments around campus and around the world. 

SIRFER is a re-charge facility, meaning that there is a fee charged for each sample that is run.  The revenue from samples is used to maintain the day-to-day operations of the facility. SIRFER has the capability of analyzing stable isotope ratios of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), and sulfur (S) from organic solids, water samples, or trace gases. 

But the real question is, why are isotopes useful? 

Stable isotopes can be used to track the movement of materials through a system, whether from an individual plant or an entire ecosystem. For example, ecologists used isotopic analysis following the British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. By examining how the isotopic composition of microorganisms was changing, they were able to determine to what extent they were picking up the isotopic signature of the oil.

Brad Erkkila, manager of SIRFER, is in charge of running the samples that are sent into the lab and maintaining the instruments. Samples are run against quality control standards in order to ensure good data. In this way, although he does not always know the source of the samples he is analyzing, he can still evaluate whether the instrument is functioning properly and if he is getting correct results.  

Erkkila finds the most exciting part of his job is developing new methods by which to run samples.

The facility that he runs, tries to meet the analysis needs of the faculty members on campus, so sometimes that means having to change the way in which a particular instrument is calibrated or how a sample is treated.

As new technologies become available, SIRFER is continually striving to provide the most up-to-date analysis methods. However, in addition to providing quality isotope analysis, SIRFER is also interested in education and outreach. 

Employees at SIRFER have worked with junior high and high school students through the Salt Lake Center for Science Education. One recent project has been helping high school students on a science fair project to analyze the diet of hawks by examining the stable isotope composition of their feathers. The project was recently selected to continue on to the international science competition. 

Perhaps the biggest educational endeavor that SIRFER undertakes each year is running an intensive two-week long summer course called “IsoCamp.” Graduate students and post-docs from universities across the U.S. and internationally apply for a spot in this highly selective course. About 80-100 students apply, but only 25-30 students gain admission into the course. 

Students in the course have varied academic backgrounds and come from many different departments. 

Danielle Marias, a first-year graduate student in the Forestry department at Oregon State University, is one of the students who will be participating in this summer’s Isocamp.  She explained, “I wanted to come to IsoCamp because it is a unique opportunity to learn about such a versatile tool in ecology and collaborate with and meet others who are also using isotopes in their research. Also, Isocamp's lab portion is appealing to me because OSU’s isotope course does not offer that.”

 

Olivia Miller, a graduate student in the geology department at the University of Utah, corroborates Marias’ excitement to meet new people who share an interest in stable isotopes.

Another geology student at the U, Glynis Jehle, said, “I'd like to know more about what my results mean in terms of ecology and paleoecology, which is basically what this class involves--how to interpret the different isotopic signatures environmental materials give.”

Students in the course will receive lectures from a wide range of experts who use isotopes in their research. The diversity of speakers provides students with a comprehensive perspective of the ways in which isotopic research has been employed. In addition to the lecture portion of the course, students also get the opportunity to spend time working with the instruments in the SIRFER lab. 

They will get hands on experience with the entire process of sample analysis including sample collection, preparation, and interpretation of results.  Importantly, the close-knit community fostered by the IsoCamp course encourages future collaborations among students.  

SIRFER’s commitment to quality isotope analysis, education, and outreach has introduced a diverse group of people to the world of isotope research and has provided the infrastructure needed for today’s researchers to analyze samples with the most up-to-date technologies.

While the SIRFER lab may seem an unassuming space, they are quietly churning out world-class isotopic analysis everyday.  

Inside the SIRFER lab.

Brad Erkkil, SIRFER lab manager.

What Do Women Really Think? Profiles of Female Scientists at the University of Utah

What Do Women Really Think? Profiles of Female Scientists at the University of Utah

By Kirstin Roundy

In the science, technology, engineering and mathematical (STEM) fields, career progression is similar to the steps of a ladder; you have to climb the lower steps if you want to advance to the top. However, according to statistics from the National Science Foundation (NSF), most female scientists don’t make it to the top of the academic ladder. Although women represent 41 percent of awarded STEM doctoral degrees, female scientists occupy only 28 percent of full-time professor positions.

In an academic setting, the basic steps of the ladder are undergraduate student, graduate student, post-doctoral fellow, assistant professor and professor. This series of articles profiles female scientists, at various points in their careers, striving to climb the ladder in the Department of Pathology at the University of Utah.

Janis Weis – Professor

In the eyes of the NSF, Janis Weis is one of the survivors, a female scientist who was able to make it through the gauntlet of an academic scientific career. Weis, however, doesn’t see it as such a miraculous feat.

Janis Weis

“You just have to say ‘Well, this is what I want to do, this is my passion,’” Weis stated. “And then go through and do it.”

For Weis, her scientific career began like many others, with her formal education. “I took a microbiology class that I just really loved,” she said. “I thought it was really cool. I had a great Intro to Micro teacher.”

Weis also received guidance from an unexpected source. “I was taking all the science classes but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do,” she said. “My mother had a friend who had been a nurse and, as a probably 50 year old woman, she went to graduate school and got a PhD and was doing research. I went into the lab to visit her and she told me ‘Molecular Biology.’ I said, ‘Oh, this is a vision. This is something I can do.’”

This moment of inspiration led Weis to complete a bachelor’s degree in microbiology.

After completing her bachelor’s degree, she decided to go on to graduate school after spending her summer break in a research lab.

“I was supposed to be reading papers and then talking to the mentor about the things that I read, and I knew I was not the one to just sit and do the experiments,” Weis said. “I had to be designing the experiments. I had to be planning the experiments. I knew very early on from that experience that I had to go to graduate school.”

After graduating with doctoral degree in microbiology, Weis continued her pursuit of an academic scientific career. For her that choice of careers was a natural extension of the work that she had been doing.

“All of my role models were my professors. And so that seemed like that’s what you wanted to do,” Weis stated. “I also saw it as an opportunity to have so much more control over my life, to choose where I wanted to live.”

Weis’ scientific interests have remained true to the subject that inspired her in the first place. “I like thinking about host/pathogen interactions. From the very beginning, it’s the bugs that make it exciting. That’s the thing that I think is interesting,” she said.

Her laboratory currently studies the development of Lyme arthritis. “We’re interested in how Borrelia burgdorferi causes arthritis and we’re interested in it because not everybody who gets infected gets arthritis. So we are interested in understanding how the bacterium causes arthritis and how the host regulates the response,” Weis stated. “If we can understand what regulates Lyme arthritis, we may get insights for other inflammatory diseases.”

With regards to the NSF statistics, Weis’ career has overlapped with the increase in the number of women pursuing scientific careers.

“There were lots of women in my program in undergraduate…but when I went to graduate school, I was the only woman in my class. Things were just opening up,” she said.  “[But] I knew what I wanted to do…If I got sidetracked, it wouldn’t have worked.” 

Weis also dealt with making the decision of when to start a family while still progressing in her scientific career. “Then we had kids. And that definitely is a sidestep. But I had a six year grant before we had children,” she said. “And definitely that was a very difficult time. It’s just really difficult to have kids, to have children.  But you just do it.” 

However, she also points out the need for continued vigilance if one wants to have a scientific career and a family.

“The science moves on. If you’re not there to do it, then either somebody else steps in to do it or your competitors catch up with you,” Weis stated. “Those are just things that you have to decide. ‘Well, my job is important to me, my family is important to me so I’m going to do it all.’”

As for the success rates of students and post-docs in her own laboratory, Weis said that “for the most part, the women have been just as successful as the men at getting through.” Also, Weis has failed to see a female scientist be hired at the University of Utah and not achieve a tenured faculty position.

For Weis, the issue is not the difference between the number of male and female scientists at an institution. The problem is having enough funding available for individuals who wish to pursue scientific careers.

“We’re hesitant to encourage anybody to enter science right now when everybody is so worried about funding,” she said. “So I guess one thing to encourage people to do, as a scientist, is to engage the public in the importance of science to continue the support.” 

Drug Delivery Design: Industry versus Academia

By Krystal Brown

How often do you take ibuprofen? How often do you think about how it works to provide relief?

As a common over-the-counter drug, ibuprofen inhibits cyclo-oxygenase enzymes in tissues to diminish their inflammatory response. Though ibuprofen has been used for more than 50 years to ease pain and stiffness, it would be worthless without an effective delivery system. Oral drug delivery provides a convenient method of drug administration whose ease promotes patient comfort and compliance.

According to Professor David Grainger, chair of the department of pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Utah, 86 percent of drugs on the market are taken orally, mainly relying on drug dissolution in the stomach or upper intestine and then passive absorption through cell membranes to enter the bloodstream. Using long-established methods, several chemical and physical drug benchmarks are used to predict whether a drug will be efficiently absorbed orally.

Due to their long history of use, little fundamental research is currently done on oral delivery methods; consequently, many standard measurement methods for oral drug delivery, dosing and uptake, have remained largely unchanged.

Professor Grainger stated that researchers competing for federal grants are expected to focus on new, cutting edge delivery methods. Oral delivery vehicles and drug delivery strategies are often considered low innovation, often not supported by federal monies, leaving academia without research and training mechanisms in an area of high priority with the pharma industry. 

One way around this is to develop new methodologies that improve current standard measurement capabilities.

One such standard, the partition coefficient, estimates how well a drug molecule will insert into cell membranes by measuring its equilibrium partitioning in solution between immiscible bulk phase water and octanol. Despite widespread use of this water/octanol model, its significant divergence from cell membrane properties makes the corresponding partition coefficient a purely correlative measure, often only one of several variables determining a drug’s cell entry potential. 

Dr. Grainger cited this “poor correlation between drug in vitro properties and in vivo efficacy” as a major problem for applying basic research tools to actual drug delivery design. Synthetic lipid bilayers are a superior cell membrane model to the water/octanol system and can be customized to incorporate different types and ratios of lipids, cholesterol, proteins, and ligand molecules for modeling drug uptake. 

Despite many desirable properties, the challenges associated with studying such lipid membrane interfaces have led to the continued preference of the water/octanol system in pharmaceutical industry; however, research in the Professor John Conboy group in the department of chemistry at the University of Utah aims to change that. 

Recently, Trang Nguyen of the Conboy group has demonstrated the use of deep ultraviolet–visible sum-frequency generation (UV-vis SFG) to measure the partition coefficients of several drug molecules, including ibuprofen, in lipid bilayers.

As a coherent laser technique, UV-vis SFG has an inherent surface sensitivity and utilizes the native electronic transitions of the molecule of interest. This allows the drug partitioning into lipid bilayers to be monitored without chemical modification and with low limits of detection—two major obstacles in studying these interfaces. This enables a kind of retrofit to existing drug delivery designs seeking cell membrane absorption, allowing researchers to evaluate possible drug molecules in screens with more biologically relevant information.

With this, the Conboy group has provided a new method for assaying one property long-recognized as important to oral drug delivery efficacy. Nonetheless, the pharmaceutical field is changing to offer more significant challenges to delivering new drug classes. Ten years ago, most of the top 10 drugs on the market were small molecules taken orally; however, Professor Grainger says that by 2014, eight of the top 10 drugs on the market are predicted to be proteins—biologic drugs currently incapable of effective oral delivery and thus delivered via injection.

Since many of these drug activities will still involve cell membrane penetration, the lipid bilayer model can still offer valuable information. Additionally, biologics are expensive and often suffer from stability and shelf-life issues. Their interactions with lipid membranes could offer hints for new methods to stabilize and preserve the protein-based drugs in their formulations using membranes. 

Researchers in the Conboy group have already used UV-vis SFG to quantify protein-ligand interactions in model bilayers. This is an example of how fundamental research methods may continue to have relevance to the developing pharmaceutical industry.