(Oct. 10, 2013) — When you eat could have as much impact on your health as what you eat. That's the conclusion reached by researchers in an ongoing series of papers and studies funded as part of a major grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Vincent Cassone, University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences professor and chair of the Department of Biology, has published more than 100 papers in leading academic journals on the internal timekeeping functions of the body.

"Biological rhythms are a fundamental property of all living things," said Cassone, who has extensively studied biological clocks in animal models and cites high rates of gastrointestinal illnesses and cancer that can be impacted by, among other things, eating patterns and digestion.

Cassone began working on body clocks and digestion as part of a collaboration with a

By Victoria Dekle

Salamanders, one of the oldest lineages of extant animals, are beloved by biology Ph.D. student, Paul Hime. Some of Hime’s research subjects, however, may not be on the top of everyone’s cute animal list. Take, for instance, the North American hellbender salamander – an aquatic amphibian, largely unchanged since before the age of dinosaurs, that can grow over two feet long. “They’re in the water. They’re slimy. They’re big,” Hime said with a grin.

These large and nearly endangered amphibians live in many of Kentucky’s cool rivers and Hime is working with his laboratory director and adviser, David Weisrock, to study the hellbenders in their native environments and to assess species boundaries in this group.

by Allison Elliot-Shannon, Allison Perry

(Sept. 30, 2013) — Manasi Malik has just begun her junior year at the University of Kentucky, but the 19-year-old biology major has already been published as a lead author on a paper in a prestigious scientific journal.

A native of Massachusetts, Malik came to UK with the intention to become involved in research, and has found success working in the lab of Alzheimer's disease researcher Steve Estus of the UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging. Malik's paper, written in conjunction with Estus and other researchers, is titled "CD33 Alzheimer's Risk-Altering Polymorphism, CD33 Expression, and Exon 2 Splicing," and 

by Allison Elliot-Shannon, Mallory Powell, Allison Perry



(Sept. 27, 2013) -- The "Triple Crown" is a term reserved for the greatest accomplishment in thoroughbred racing -- winning the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. It's a feat that has been achieved only 11 times in history.

The University of Kentucky recently accomplished the equivalent of “triple crown” in the academic medical world, becoming only the 22nd medical center in the country to have a National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation (at the Markey Cancer Center), a federally funded Alzheimer's Disease Center (ADC, at the UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging), and a Clinical and Translational Science Awards grant (at the Center for Clinical and Translational Science ).

With the new NCI designation and the existing ADC and CCTS federally-funded programs, UK joins

by Sarah Geegan & Grace Liddle

 The College of Arts and Sciences is offering 13 courses that begin in the middle of the fall 2013 semester. For students who may have recently dropped a class or hope to pick up some extra credit hours, these courses provide flexibility after the regular registration period.

Course topics range from the science of what we eat, archaeology and history of ancient Mexico, an introductory course on the city of Lexington, and a study on the culture and economics of local and global food systems.

The "Global Food & Local Agriculture" course explores questions associated with why people eat what they do and what that implies about society. To answer these questions, the class

by Jenny Wells

Last week, the University of Kentucky Chellgren Center for Undergraduate Excellence honored its newest class of Chellgren Fellows.  Benefactor Paul Chellgren and his wife Deborah, along with Chellgren Endowed Chair Philipp Kraemer, UK Provost Christine Riordan, and UK President Eli Capilouto, recognized and congratulated the students on being named Fellows.

The Chellgren Fellows Program is for students with exceptional academic potential and aspirations, who are eager to participate in a special learning community designed to cultivate extraordinary achievement. Outstanding faculty members from across campus serve as individual mentors for the Fellows.

The

By Alicia Gregory

In 2009, the Virtual Observatory And Ecological Informatics System (VOEIS) project was launched. Funded by an NSF EPSCoR grant, VOEIS united researchers at five universities in Kentucky and two universities in Montana to develop a cyber infrastructure system to monitor, analyze, model, and forecast the consequences of environmental changes in freshwater ecosystems.

Real-time sensor readings from lakes and streams are sent to laboratories at Flathead Lake Biological Station in Montana and Hancock Biological Station in Kentucky and go into a database management system.

Barbara Kucera, principal

By Victoria Dekle

Professor Bruce O’Hara in the Department of Biology is interested in the overall quality of your sleep. In his research laboratory in the Thomas Hunt Morgan Building, O’Hara investigates sleep patterns and circadian rhythms within the brain.

Not all of his test subjects, however, are human.

Mice are a common organism used in many experimental laboratories, but O’Hara and two University of Kentucky colleagues have developed some new methods to expedite the research process and to provide a more humane data collection process.

O’Hara, Professor Kevin Donohue in the Department of Electrical and

Dr. David Westneat has been awarded a four year grant from the National Science Foundation for $305,000. The grant, which begins August 2013, will fund his project "Parental care and the integration of personality and plasticity at multiple levels of phenotypic variance". The project will examine the constituent components of variance in parental behavior of house sparrows to determine why birds that diligently care for offspring are more flexible.  The project is being conducted in collaboration with Dr. Matthew Schofield in the Statistics Department. More information about Dr. Westneat's research can be found on his lab website.

By Jacob Most

University of Kentucky Wildcats from all eight of UK’s spring sports teams combined to earn a total of 71 spots on the Southeastern Conference Spring Sports Academic Honor Roll, Commissioner Mike Slive announced this week.

UK’s honorees included 16 women’s track and field team members, 14 from baseball, nine from softball, seven women’s tennis players, eight men’s track and field team members, six each from men’s golf and men’s tennis and five women’s golfers.

A total of 1,247 student-athletes from around the league earned spots on the honor roll, which is based on grades from the 2012 summer, 2012 fall and 2013 spring terms.  In order to make the SEC Academic Honor Roll, a student-athlete must have a 3.0 grade-point average for the preceding academic year or his/her entire collegiate career, be at least a sophomore in academic

by Whitney Hale

Fifteen graduates of the University of Kentucky will head back to the classroom this fall as part of a new class of corps members in Teach for America. The UK group is among thousands of new teachers chosen this year for the national program, which is known for selecting outstanding college graduates to commit to teach for two years in disadvantaged urban and rural public schools.

Teach for America places its recruits in the nation's highest-need elementary and secondary schools in many of the country's lowest income communities, both rural and urban, in an effort to close the achievement gap between economically advantaged and disadvantaged children.

Currently, around 10,400 first- and second-year corps members instruct more than 750,000

By Ellyce Loveless

Few students have the kind of passion for world news that recently-graduated International Studies major MeNore Lake has. Two years ago she sought to fulfill a need at the University of Kentucky through this passion. She wanted to create an online news publication that would publish monthly articles written by students about international politics, economies, science, sports, and culture, and thus The World Report was born.

Lake comes from a family that values the knowledge of international affairs, where discussing the culture of other countries is customary dinner conversation, and traveling out of the country is always an exciting yet familiar adventure. When she came to UK, she noticed a void in student interest concerning international issues.

 “

By Sarah Geegan

University of Kentucky student Brooke Stewart has been selected to participate in an inaugural leadership program for GEAR UP alumni in Washington, D.C. in June. The Covington, Kentucky native and Holmes High school graduate is among 30 former GEAR UP students selected from across the nation.

GEAR UP, or Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, is a federally funded college access and readiness program.

Stewart was actively involved with GEAR UP while she attended Holmes High School. She attended a three-week GEAR UP Summer Academy at Eastern Kentucky University in 2009, was heavily involved in GEAR UP Students Give Back community service projects, and was a recipient of the GEAR UP Drive

By Sarah Geegan

How do young college-age scientists spend their summer?  They do research, of course.  And two University of Kentucky undergraduate students have received prestigious American Physiological Society (APS) Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowships to conduct their work this summer.  Only 24 undergraduates nationwide were selected to work in laboratories of established APS investigators.

Kyeong Ran (Rachel) Jang, a biology major from Louisville who just finished her freshman year, and Audra Stacy, a senior biology major from Elkhorn City, Ky., received $4,000 each to conduct their research over a 10-week period this summer.  Each of them also received $1,300 to travel to the APS annual Experimental Biology meeting, a broad-

By Jake Most

The University of Kentucky's Chelsea Oswald has added to her already impressive collection of awards both on and off the track, as she has been named Southeastern Conference Track and Field Women’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year.



Oswald was named 2013 SEC H. Boyd McWhorter Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year recipient earlier this season. The McWhorter Award goes to the conference’s top scholar-athlete across all sports.



Oswald was also named First Team All-SEC, having won two conference championships – at 5,000 and 10,000 meters – last weekend at the SEC Meet.



She set the SEC 10K record, and was fewer than two

By Jenny Wells

The Kentucky Girls STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Collaborative, in partnership with the STEM-H Institute at Eastern Kentucky University, will hold its fifth annual conference "Reaching for the Stars!" Friday, June 7, at the Eastern Kentucky University campus.

Educators, counselors, business and community leaders, parents and girls are invited to come meet others with a strong desire to see girls discover opportunities available to them within the STEM fields. Conference attendees will explore up-and-coming career opportunities in the STEM disciplines and learn proactive steps to help girls

By Whitney Hale

Five University of Kentucky students and one recent graduate have been selected to receive government-funded National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships. The fellowships will present the students with more than $100,000 to use toward research-based master's or doctoral degrees.

The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program helps ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in the U.S. and abroad. NSF fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $30,000 along with a $12,000

By Alicia Gregory.

Schyler Nunziata is a first-year Ph.D. student in biology at the University of Kentucky, and she’s the first success story highlighted in a new video series.

Nunziata is a young scientist who can testify to the impact of Kentucky's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, known as Kentucky EPSCoR. Two grants from the National Science Foundation through EPSCoR kept Nunziata in science and in Kentucky. The first $5,000 grant, while she was a masters student at Eastern Kentucky University, funded her entire thesis project, which involved collecting two lined salamanders, developing genetic markers, and genotyping the salamanders. The second grant, as a Ph.D. student at the University of Kentucky, allowed her to prepare a pilot study.

"EPSCoR helps get students into

By Sarah Geegan

English professor Erik Reece and Biology professor James Krupa recently released a book that brings to life the history and ecology of one of Kentucky's most important natural landscapes —the Robinson Forest in eastern Kentucky.

"The Embattled Wilderness" depicts the fourteen thousand acres of diverse forest region-- a haven of biological richness-- as endangered by the ever-expanding desert created by mountaintop removal mining. The authors, alternating chapters that focus on the natural and cultural history of the forest, combine their professional knowledge of the area to persuasively appeal for its protection.

Erik Reece, an environmental writer,

By Jenny Wells. Video by Reveal Research Media.

The UK Office of Undergraduate Research, along with SPUR (the Society for the Promotion of Undergraduate Research), and the UK Student Government Association, will host the eighth annual Showcase for Undergraduate Scholars 3 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 24, in the ballrooms of the UK Student Center. 

Each year, the showcase brings together undergraduates from all disciplines, their faculty mentors, and members of the community to learn about the various types of research being done by undergraduate students at UK. This occasion provides these students the opportunity to demonstrate and discuss their specific projects and the professional advancements the projects helped