David Kenny, a professor of psychological sciences at the University of Connecticut, will receive the 2019 American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions for his research paper “The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological-research — conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations.” His research paper, co-authored by Reuben Baron who is also a professor of psychological sciences at the University of Connecticut, ranks number 33 among the 100 most highly cited research papers of all time. Citations are the primary way by which authors give credit to the source of their methods, ideas, and findings and are sometimes used to help estimate a paper’s significance. Kenny’s paper has been cited over 20,000 times since its publication. Kenny joins UConn psychology faculty Jules Rotter and Al Liberman, who are past recipients of this award from the APA.

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Gene Likens, a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, has been awarded the 2019 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science for his work in educating the public and U.S. government about acid rain and its effects, as well as his extensive research on forests, lake and stream ecosystems. Likens served a key role in solving the acid rain puzzle that categorized the 1970’s and 80’s. In the 1960s, after discovering unusually high acidity in the rainwater that fell over Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Likens began to travel the globe installing rainwater analysis stations in some of the most obscure places on Earth. Likens found that stations located in areas untouched by human industry and its pollution reported normal levels of rainwater acidity. After collecting various air samples from the skies over Ohio, Likens and his team unearthed the process by which “industrial emissions combined with water vapor create acid rain,” which had been responsible for damage to city infrastructure and environmental ecosystems.  Likens and his team also discovered that the effects weren’t exclusive to cities, and could spread miles from the emissions source. This lead to his education and advocacy efforts …

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States that have legalized marijuana for medical purposes can expect a moderate increase in birth rates, according to a new study by two UConn researchers. The study, led by UConn’s Michele Baggio and David Simon, both assistant professors of economics, along with Alberto Chong of Georgia State University, found that a birth rate increase corresponded with an increased frequency of sexual intercourse, and decreased purchase and use of condoms. “As economists, we are very interested in the overall demographic changes in population over time and how those changes eventually affect the growth of the economy and the labor supply,” says Simon. “We are also interested in how health behaviors affect risk-taking or otherwise affect decisions – and how policy can influence both of these.” The research, published as a working paper “Sex, Drugs, and Baby Booms: Can Behavior Overcome Biology?” concluded that birth rates in states that changed the law experienced an increase of four births for every 10,000 women of childbearing age. Three sets of data from all 50 states were examined in performing the study – birth certificate dates, retail scanner records, and restricted use survey data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. The retail scanner records were used to record the purchase …

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Bacteria, which are vital for the health of all animals, also played a major role in the evolution of animals and their tissues. In an effort to understand just how animals co-evolved with bacteria over time, researchers have turned to the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes. Hawaiian bobtail squid. UConn researcher Spencer Nyholm and his colleagues were the first to sequence this squid’s genome. (Mattias Ormestad, www.kahikai.com) In a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers, led by UConn associate professor of molecular and cell biology Spencer Nyholm, sequenced the genome of this little squid to identify unique evolutionary footprints in symbiotic organs, yielding clues about how organs that house bacteria are especially suited for this partnership. The first squid genome was sequenced by Nyholm, along with Jamie Foster of the University of Florida, Oleg Simakov of the University of Vienna, and Mahdi Belcaid of the University of Hawaii. The team found several surprises, for instance, that the Hawaiian bobtail squid’s genome is 1.5 times the size of the human genome. By comparing the genome of E. scolopes to its cousin, the octopus, the researchers show that the common ancestor of both the octopus and the Hawaiian bobtail …

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Now that the New Year’s Eve party is over, it’s time to lay off the balloons and glitter – both are scourges to the environment. UConn faculty members make the case for those and other personal lifestyle changes that can help protect the environment for future generations. Skip the balloons, and glitter, and coffee cups, and plastic bags … Plastics in the environment are bad news. Besides leading to immense gyres of plastics in the ocean, plastics in the environment break down into microplastics, says Michael Willig, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and director of UConn’s Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering. “Broken down by UV radiation abrasion during transport,” he says, “these plastics are transformed into microplastics that range in size from the barely visible (a few millimeters) to the invisible (within the range of nanoparticles).” Microplastics obstruct digestive tracts of animals. And, Willig, says animals can also absorb and concentrate other chemical contaminants such as heavy metals and pesticides, potentially magnifying exposure to these contaminants to species further up the food chain, potentially with significant effects on humans and top predators. Considering estimates that put actual recycling rates below 10 percent, it’s clear that using plastic and then recycling it is not a viable option. Therefore, …

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The Pacific yew tree is a fairly small and slow growing conifer native to the Pacific Northwest. The Gila monster is a lizard with striking orange and black markings from the drylands of the Southwestern US and Mexico. Two very different organisms, but with a fascinating connection. They’ve both given us drugs that have saved and improved the lives of millions of people. Paclitaxel, originally isolated in 1971 from the bark of the Pacific Yew tree, is so important for treating various cancers that it is one of the World Health Organisation’s “Essential Medicines”. This compound has been studied in more than 3,000 clinical trials. It’s safe and effective and it generates sales of around US$80-100m per year. Nature’s medicinal marvels Exenatide, a synthetic version of a compound found in the saliva of the Gila monster, is an injected treatment used by as many as two million people with type 2 diabetes. In 2014, exenatide products generated sales of US$767m. Not only that, but exenatide has also been shown to have potential in the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. These two examples illustrate how significantly compounds sourced from nature can benefit public health, but they also tell a deeper story of how we fail to protect nature. Up until fairly recently, …

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In partnership with governmental and non-governmental agencies, UConn scientists from the Center for Environmental Sciences & Engineering, Christopher Perkins and Michael Willig, have secured financial support from the Long Island Sound Futures Fund to study microplastics along Connecticut’s coast. UConn has also provided funding in support of the project. Plastics are now well recognized as pervasive pollutants of freshwater and marine systems throughout the world.  They enter aquatic ecosystems from degraded fishing nets, plastic bottles, industrial materials, exfoliants, cleaning abrasives, and clothing.  They are dispersed via ocean currents to even the most remote areas of the world where they negatively impact wildlife and fisheries. Just as a bottle eventually is reduced to sea glass, over time these plastics become microplastics due to ultraviolet radiation and abrasion during transport. Ranging in size from a few millimeters to within the range of nanoparticles, many of the microplastics are virtually invisible.  They are considered pollutants in their own right and can cause harm to animals who ingest them by blocking the digestive tracts and producing ulcers. Although Long Island Sound is a preeminent urban estuary with watersheds that support over 9 million people, experts still know very little about  the sources, transport, and fate of microplastics, or the …

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Juli Wade, who has served in a number of prestigious administrative roles at Michigan State University since 2010, has been named the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UConn. CLAS is the university’s largest college, with more than 9,800 undergraduate, 1,700 graduate students, and 750 faculty members. There are 50 undergraduate majors offered by CLAS. “I believe deeply in the missions of land grant institutions like UConn,” says Wade. “CLAS is integral to the University’s success, and its existing strengths and breadth provide tremendous potential for the future. “A liberal arts education has enormous value in the complex, changing, and ambiguous world we live in now,” she continues. “It helps students to acquire essential skills and opportunities in areas such as critical thinking, communication, ethics, and multicultural understanding. They are therefore well positioned to be lifelong learners with a sense of social responsibility, who can excel in any career.” Wade most recently has been the associate provost for faculty and academic staff development at Michigan State, a role she has held since 2017. Previously, she was chair of the psychology department for seven years. “Dean Wade will be an excellent addition to our community here at UConn,” says Craig H. Kennedy, …

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An experiment devised by researchers at UConn startup LambdaVision will be launched into space tomorrow. The company’s robotic system to manufacture films that could cure blindness will be brought to the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory by the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. Launch is set for Dec. 5 at 1:15 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. LambdaVision Inc. was based on research by Robert Birge, professor emeritus in UConn’s Department of Chemistry. He first considered using bacteriorhodopsin, a light-activated protein, more than 15 years ago to correct age-related blindness. Today, the company is commercializing its technology in the hopes of restoring vision for millions of patients suffering from retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.The experiment is one of a diverse group of research investigations intended to benefit life on Earth that the Dragon spacecraft will bring to the orbiting research platform. With more than 20 payloads, including the one from LambdaVision, the mission represents the largest number of payloads ever delivered to the ISS National Lab during a single launch. LambdaVision’s retinal implant is similar to a contact lens that is surgically placed in the back of the eye to convert light into energy. The implant doesn’t need hardware or electrodes …

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Akshayaa Chittibabu ’19 (CLAS) has been named a Marshall Scholar, one of the most prestigious honors available to undergraduate students in the U.S. She is one of 48 Marshall recipients nationwide this year, and the fifth UConn student to be so honored since the scholarship was established in 1953. Chittibabu, a resident of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, is also a STEM Scholar in UConn’s Honors Program, a 2018 Truman Scholar, a 2018 UN Foundation Global Health Fellow, a 2018 Washington Leadership Program Scholar, a 2017 Newman Civic Fellow, a 2016 Holster Scholar, and a UConn New England Scholar. She was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a junior. She says a couple of different things were instrumental in her decision to apply for the Marshall Scholarship: “I am dedicated to being a public servant in the future, and I appreciate the public service history of the scholarship,” she says. The scholarship is named after former Secretary of State George C. Marshall, and was established as a gesture of gratitude to the people of the United States for the assistance that the U.S. provided after World War II under the Marshall Plan. “The Marshall Plan aligns with my belief system of helping others unconditionally with the intention …

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