Research

Humboldt State University will screen two films produced for the California Environmental Legacy Project—a statewide multimedia initiative designed to raise public awareness about environmental change in California—Feb. 12 at 7 p.m. in the Van Duzer Theatre.

The California Ocean Science Trust has awarded ten grants totaling $4 million to state and local agencies to conduct marine research on the North Coast, including over $2.2 million to Humboldt State University.

Fall 2013 was a big semester for Humboldt State: the university kicked-off its Centennial year with an unforgettable celebration on the Plaza; HSU students, faculty and staff made their mark both on- and off-campus and the university continued to expand its academic offerings with new programs and majors in a variety of disciplines. From student achievements to university milestones, here are some of the highlights of Fall 2013.

Recently, a team of HSU researchers used a unique combination of citizen science and genetic sampling to estimate the number of river otters around Humboldt Bay.

*Biotechnology Research Competition*

Humboldt State’s Biology Core Facility has purchased a stereo microscope with fluorescence illumination, an advanced instrument that will better support student and faculty research in the biological sciences.

“Fenced round with snow, the headland of all rivers, where the mountains are high and the land is pure." Though spoken by an anonymous Tibetan poet centuries ago, these words continue to inspire HSU undergraduate students to explore and document the geography of the Tibetan Plateau.

Last spring, a few students in Kathryn McDonald’s _Intertidal Ecology_ class were studying sea stars at Trinidad Bay when something unusual started happening.

Humboldt State has been named a top school for Fulbright scholars by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Three HSU faculty members received awards in 2013-14, making Humboldt State a leading producer of Fulbright scholars among U.S. master’s institutions.

Humboldt State University and the University of California will co-host a biomass energy workshop Thursday, November 7 at the Humboldt Bay Aquatic Center.

On the bottom floor of Science D, a group of students sat in small groups discussing water turbidity, pH levels, mineral content and energy consumption.

Engineers at Humboldt State’s Schatz Lab are expanding their work on electric vehicle readiness to New Delhi, India.

Crows are among the most intelligent animals on the planet. But just how smart are they? A new "study":http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eth.12064/abstract;jsessioni… led by wildlife faculty member Barbara Clucas suggests that they can tell when humans are watching them and adapt their behavior accordingly.

In biology, some creatures are simply evolutionary oddities. Take the aardvark, for example, or the duck billed platypus—animals with distinct, unusual features that make them unique in the mammal world.

Lucia Boyer picked up the tiny jellyfish with tongs and dunked it into a bath of liquid nitrogen. With the cauldron still smoking and sizzling, she transferred the frozen organism into a freeze dryer, where low temperature and a vacuum would eventually transform the ice directly into gas.

Humboldt State University will host the fourth Institute for Student Success, a one-day professional event for staff, faculty and administration, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 20 on the HSU campus.

Humboldt State professor Michael Yellow Bird has co-authored a new textbook titled “Decolonizing Social Work.”

For electric vehicles to take off on the North Coast, Humboldt County would need about 43 charging stations from Orick to Garberville.

The Schatz Energy Research Center at Humboldt State University has received a $95,000 state grant to continue experiments aimed at converting biomass—slash from logging and fuel reduction efforts—into energy dense “bio-coal.”

This semester, students in Patricia DuRant’s engineering dynamics class had the chance to design and build their own robots using wheels, plastic gears and other self-designed parts.

Geography student Alina Taalman (’13) has won the Arthur Robinson Award for Best Printed Map in an annual competition hosted by the national Cartography and Geographic Information Society.

What role do native bees play in local crop pollination? And should local farmers establish better habitats to support them?

_The following was provided by the California State University Chancellor's Office_:

An international agency has adopted a new technical standard led by the Schatz Energy Research Center at Humboldt State University that harmonizes national quality assurance requirements for solar-powered light-emitting diode devices (LEDs).

Humboldt State University will host its inaugural Earth Day Symposium on Marijuana and the Environment this weekend, centering on a key issue often overlooked in mainstream analysis: marijuana’s environmental effects.