Sloan Research Fellow

March 11, 2021

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Luisa Whittaker-Brooks is one of the recipients of the prestigious 2021 Sloan Research Fellowship, given to researchers “whose creativity, innovation, and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of scientific leaders.”

The awards are open to scholars in eight scientific and technical fields: chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience and physics. Candidates must be nominated by their fellow scientists, and winners are selected by independent panels of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate’s research accomplishments, creativity and potential to become a leader in his or her field. More than 1000 researchers are nominated each year for 128 fellowship slots. Winners receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship which can be spent to advance the fellow’s research.

Whittaker-Brooks, a 2007 Fulbright fellow, earned her doctorate from the State University of New York at Buffalo before a L’Oreal USA for Women in Science Postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University. Among other awards, Whittaker-Brooks has received a Department of Energy Early Career Award, a Cottrell Research Scholarship, a Marion Milligan Mason Award for Women in the Chemical Sciences and was named one of C&EN’s Talented 12 in 2018.

“I was very excited as this award is a testament to all the great work that my students have accomplished throughout these years,” Whittaker-Brooks said. “I am happy to see that their endless creativity and research work ethics are highly recognized in the field.”

Her research studies the properties and fabrication processes of nanomaterials for potential applications in solar energy conversion, thermoelectrics, batteries and electronics. She and her research group are also testing hybrid concepts to simultaneously integrate multiple functions, such as a nanosystem that scavenges its own energy.

The Fellowship is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a not-for-profit dedicated to improving the welfare of all through the advancement of scientific knowledge. Founded in 1934 by industrialist Alfred P. Sloan Jr., the foundation disburses about $80 million in grants each year in four areas: for research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and economics; initiatives to increase the quality and diversity of scientific institutions and the science workforce; projects to develop or leverage technology to empower research and efforts to enhance and deepen public engagement with science and scientists.

Since the first fellowships were awarded in 1955, 44 faculty from University of Utah have received a Sloan Research Fellowship.

Sea Ice Science

February 28, 2021

A sheet of floating Arctic or Antarctic ice probably isn’t the setting in which you’d expect to find a mathematician. But that’s exactly where distinguished professor Ken Golden trains students and carries out experiments, as explained in a video introduction to Golden’s Frontiers of Science lecture, hosted by the College of Science and held on Feb. 18.

“It’s one thing to sort of sit in your office and develop theorems and theories and models about as complex a system as sea ice,” Golden says. “It exhibits all kinds of fascinating phenomena and behavior that you wouldn’t necessarily expect or think is important until you actually get down there and see it in action.”

Watch the full video introduction, produced by University Marketing & Communications, below or find the video here. Golden talks about his experiences in the Arctic and Antarctica and about what he and his students have learned from bringing the principles of mathematics into some of Earth’s most remote and most vulnerable environments.

Golden studies how sea ice forms and melts using mathematical models. He’s logged 18 trips to the Arctic and Antarctic, and is a Fellow of the Explorers Club. He is also a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and an Inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

The Frontiers of Science lecture series was established in 1967 by University of Utah alumnus and Physics Professor Peter Gibbs. Today, Frontiers of Science is the longest continuously running lecture series at the University of Utah. The 2020-2021 Frontiers of Science lectures, featuring University of Utah faculty, are online only.

In Golden’s lecture, he discusses his research, his Arctic and Antarctic adventures and how mathematics is currently playing an important role in addressing these fundamental issues and will likely play an even greater role in the future. Watch the full video of the presentation below, or find the video here.

Ken Golden’s Recent Research

Golden and U mathematics professor Elena Cherkaev review significant recent advances in sea ice modeling. (November 2020)
A 100-year-old physics model captures patterns of Arctic melt pond formation (June 2019)
Golden explains how the ice on which Olympic speedskaters compete is formed. (February 2018, featuring content from 2014)
Melt ponds form when ice pores get clogged (January 2017)

COVID-19 Vaccine Panel

February 8, 2021

U of U panel of experts will answer COVID-19 vaccine questions at free event.

Depending who you ask, the COVID-19 vaccine could be the miraculous answer to worldwide prayers. Others may think it's an ill-tested, reckless way to control increasingly desperate people. Suffice to say, there's no shortage of opinions on whether the vaccine is safe, effective or even ethical—all while the list of myths surrounding it continues to grow.

Fortunately, University of Utah's College of Science is clearing up much of the confusion surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines in its quarterly virtual lecture series, "Understanding the Science". This quarter's installment, currently scheduled for Feb. 17, tackles one of the hottest topics not only in the community but in the entire world: COVID-19 vaccines.

Moderated by Tom Thatcher of Intuitive Funding, which is sponsoring the event, this free, virtual panel includes experts from both the University of Utah campus and across the state, including Dr. Fred Adler of the university's Department of Mathematics, Jennifer Dailey-Provost, Utah State Representative, and Dr. Ryan Looper of the University of Utah's Department of Chemistry.

Together, panelists will address the science behind the COVID-19 vaccine, information on community spread, policy insight on vaccine rollout schedules and how the vaccine will impact the economy and the future—right here in Utah and around the world.

Additionally, attendees will have the opportunity to pose questions regarding the vaccine when they register for the event, which may be discussed during the webinar. So, whether you're worried about any of the myths circulating around the vaccine—like the claim that it impacts fertility or that its speedy development undermines its safety and effectiveness—you can pose these topics for discussion by the panel.

Discussing the COVID-19 vaccine is a natural topic for the Understanding the Science lecture series, which brings scientific experts, government leaders and community advocates together to discuss major issues facing Utahans today. And since the Utah Health Department reports more than 337,000 Utahans have contracted COVID-19 so far—with more than 1,600 dying from the disease and an entire state living under regulations to slow the spread—this is one issue affecting every Utah resident.

"Understanding the Science: COVID-19 Vaccine" will be held virtually Wednesday, Feb. 17 from 7-9 p.m. If you plan to attend, please register. While the College of Science's Lecture Series has historically been an in-person event, COVID-19's social distancing practices have necessitated the shift to virtual webinars.

That said, with a vaccine now available to at-risk populations and wider availability on the horizon, the University of Utah College of Science hopes to return to in-person events later in 2021.

COVID-19 has dramatically shifted Utahan's way of life. With vaccines becoming available for more and more Utahans, it's important to understand its risks, the myths surrounding them and the possible impact on the future. Find out more about the free webinar, register and submit your questions for discussion at the University of Utah.

Priyam Patel

January 6, 2021

Visualizing the Topology of Surfaces

Imagine a surface that looks like a hollow doughnut. The “skin” of the doughnut has no thickness and is made of stretchy, flexible material. “Some of my favorite mathematical problems deal with objects like this–surfaces and curves or loops on such surfaces,” said Priyam Patel, assistant professor of mathematics, who joined the Math Department in 2019. “I like how artistic and creative my work feels, and it’s also very tangible since I can draw pictures representing different parts of a problem I’m working on.”

Patel works in geometry and topology. The two areas differ in that geometry focuses on rigid objects where there is a notion of distance, while topological objects are much more fluid. Patel likes studying a geometrical or topological object extensively so that she’s able to get to know the space, how it behaves, and what sort of phenomena it exhibits. In her research, Patel’s goals are to study and understand curves on surfaces, symmetries of surfaces, and objects called hyperbolic manifolds and their finite covering spaces. Topology and geometry are used in a variety of fields, including data analysis, neuroscience, and facial recognition technology. Patel’s research doesn’t focus on these applications directly since she works in pure mathematics.

Challenges as a Minority

Patel became fascinated with mathematics in high school while learning to do proofs. She was fortunate to have excellent high school math teachers, who encouraged her to consider majoring in math in college. “When I was an undergraduate at New York University (NYU), I had a female professor for multivariable calculus who spent a lot of time with me in office hours and gave me challenging problems to work on,” said Patel. “She was very encouraging and had a huge impact on me.”

As a woman of color, Patel often felt out of place in many of her classes at NYU. Later, she was one of a handful of women accepted into a Ph.D. program at Rutgers University. Unfortunately, these experiences led to strong feelings of “impostor syndrome” for her as a graduate student. Eventually, she overcame them and learned to celebrate her successes, focusing on the joy that mathematics brings to her life. She has also worked to find a community of mathematicians to help support her through the tough times. “I’ve received a lot of encouragement from friends and mentors both in and outside of my math community,” she said. “I feel especially fortunate to have connected with strong women mentors in recent years.”

Mentors and Outside Interests

Feng Luo, professor of mathematics at Rutgers, was Patel’s Ph.D. advisor, and he played an active role in the early years of her math career. “Talking about math with Dr. Luo is always a positive experience, and his encouragement has been pivotal to my success as a mathematician,” said Patel. Another mentor is Alan Reid, chair and professor of the Department of Mathematics at Rice University. Patel notes that there are many aspects to being a mathematician outside of math itself, and these mentors have helped her navigate her career and offered support, encouragement, and advice.

Patel loves mathematics but makes time for other things in life. She enjoys rock climbing, yoga, dancing, and painting. Music is also a huge part of her life, and she sings and plays the guitar.

Future Research

Patel is currently working on problems concerning groups of symmetries of certain surfaces. Specifically, she has been studying the mapping class groups of infinite-type surfaces, which is a new and quickly growing field of topology. “It’s quite exciting to be at the forefront of it. I would like to tackle some of the biggest open problems in this area in the next few years, such as producing a Nielsen-Thurston type classification for infinite-type surfaces,” she said. She is also interested in the work of Ian Agol, professor of mathematics at Berkeley, who won a Breakthrough Prize in 2012 for solving an open problem in low-dimensional topology. Patel would like to build on Agol’s work in proving a quantitative version of his results. Other areas she’d like to explore are the combinatorics of 3-manifolds and the theory of translation surfaces.

Lake of Dust

December 10, 2020

Is Utah’s great lake turning to dust?

The flat dry lakebed (also called a playa) surrounding Utah’s Great Salt Lake is more than 750 square miles—an area bigger than Houston. The wide-open landscape is surprisingly varied and is the realm of coyotes, bison, and a few hardy plants. It’s probably safe to say that no one knows the Great Salt Lake playa better than University of Utah atmospheric scientist Kevin Perry.

From June 2016 to August 2018, Perry traversed the playa by bike, researching how it contributes to dust in the Salt Lake Valley’s air. In a report prepared for the Utah Department of Natural Resources and Utah Division of Facilities Construction and Management, Perry details the current dust source regions on the playa and explains how declining lake levels, as well as damage to the playa, could make the problem worse.

“A lot of the lake is being protected by a relatively fragile crust,” Perry says. “Only 9% of the lake right now is blowing dust. If the crust were to erode or be destroyed, then a maximum of 22% of the lake would actually have enough silt and clay particles to become dust sources. We know where those sources are. We know what needs to be protected.”

photo: Kevin Perry

A solitary journey
Perry has decades of experience studying how dust is transported through the air. He first delved into the topic as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at Davis where he used National Park Service measurements of particle composition to prove that high concentrations of mineral dust in the air over the eastern United States during summer originated from Africa. Later, he used these same techniques to track Asian dust originating in the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts as it traversed the Pacific Ocean. “As I’ve lived here in Utah longer,” he says, “I eventually became more interested in the local dust sources.” As the Great Salt Lake water level has declined from its historic high in the 1980s, more and more of the playa is exposed to wind, and dust storms in the Salt Lake Valley have become more frequent. Perry secured funding to study the playa, determine where the dust was coming from and analyze the sources to see if elements present in the dust might pose a health hazard to Wasatch Front residents.

Perry decided he would traverse the playa on a preset grid system, to make sure he wasn’t biased in selecting sampling locations, and to ensure he captured the different kinds of terrain present on the lakebed. He also decided that he would do the survey by himself and do it on a bicycle.

Biking had practical advantages—it was far less costly than operating an ATV, and was much less likely to damage the playa surface. Also, bicycles don’t get stuck in the mud as much as ATVs—Perry says it took him all of 20 minutes to free the bike in his worst incidence of getting stuck.

But Perry also had personal reasons for choosing a bicycle. “I turned 50 during the experiment,” he says, and biking allowed him to revisit his preferred mode of transit for many years when he was younger. “I felt like this was probably my last chance to go do something to really push myself physically,” he says.

photo: Kevin Perry

Surprising variation
So, on days that he wasn’t teaching, including weekends and summers, Perry set off on his bike, trailer in tow, to survey the playa. His colleagues were a bit skeptical. “They thought I was crazy,” Perry says. “They said, ‘Why would you spend two years of your life doing this?’”

But once he got past the edges of the playa, everything, including the bugs, went quiet and he found a terrain full of surprising variation. “You could look 15 yards off to the right and it would look very different than where you’re standing,” he says.

He used a classification system to describe each location. Was there vegetation? How thick was the surface crust and how erodible was it? Were there any other features, such as mineral crystals, sand dunes or, cryptically, rocks with long trails in the playa suggesting they had moved over time? He also took samples to take back to the lab and analyze for percentages of silt and clay.

Perry saw wildlife too: porcupines, pelicans, coyotes, bison—even the tracks of a cougar. “They come out onto the lake bed looking for things,” he says, “I don’t know what they’re looking for, but I was just amazed by the variety in the wildlife that I saw.”

Dust sources
Only about a quarter of the lakebed could potentially generate dust, Perry found. That’s because most of it is covered with a crust that prevents the wind from lofting the dust and carrying it into the Salt Lake Valley. Vegetation, when it is present, can also help to anchor the dust.

How did Perry determine if a location was generating dust? Active dust sources were identified as areas with little or no vegetation, no crust or an erodible shallow crust, and high silt and clay fractions. The “boot test” —kicking the ground several times to see if the surface was susceptible to wind erosion—was a great way to identify these spots in the field. Four dust-generating hotspots were identified: the extreme northwest corner of the playa, the northern Bear River Bay area, Farmington Bay east of Antelope Island and Carrington Bay, on the west shore.

“We now know the elevation of all of those dust sources,” Perry says. “In Farmington Bay, if the lake level were increased to 4,200 feet, it would cover up 75% of the dust hotspots.” Conversely, further reductions in lake levels will likely expose more dust-generating regions. And the destruction of the crust—by ATV activity, for example, would further expand the dust sources.

Perry also analyzed the soil samples for elemental composition to see if dust from the playa might possibly be carrying toxic heavy metals. For most elements, the soil contained too little to be of any health concern. Perry did find elevated levels of arsenic in the soil, but it’s not clear yet how frequently Salt Lake Valley residents are exposed to the dust.

Becoming an advocate
The expansive data set Perry brought off the playa has other applications as well. Researchers studying the effects of dust on snowpack in Utah’s mountains can use the chemical signatures in soil samples to determine where the dust comes from. Ecologists can assess the effects of both nutrients and toxic elements in the dust on near and distant ecosystems. And dust can now become part of the conversation about conserving and protecting the Great Salt Lake.

“I started off as a scientist and I’m starting to feel more like an advocate for the preservation of the lake,” Perry says. “Most people think that any water that goes into the lake is wasted water because it turns salty and we can’t drink it or use it through irrigation. So, there’s this mindset locally that we should use all the water before it gets to the lake because once it gets to the lake, it’s useless.” But each drop, he says, adds to the unique interconnected environment supported by the waters of the Great Salt Lake.

“I’ll look back on this project with fondness,” Perry says. “While you’re actually doing it, it’s hot, it’s unpleasant, it’s a lot of physical work. But just knowing that there’s this resource out there that we need to protect—I’m glad I’ve done it.”

Find the full report, “Results of the Great Salt Lake Dust Plume Study,” here.

Giant Poisonous Rats

December 9, 2020

The African crested rat (Lophiomys imhausi) is hardly the continent’s most fearsome-looking creature—the rabbit-sized rodent resembles a gray puffball crossed with a skunk—yet its fur is packed with a poison so lethal it can fell an elephant and just a few milligrams can kill a human. In a Journal of Mammology paper published today, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, University of Utah and National Museums of Kenya researchers found the African crested rat is the only mammal known to sequester plant toxins for chemical defense and uncovered an unexpected social life—the rats appear to be monogamous and may even form small family units with their offspring.

Sara B. Weinstein and Katrina Nyawira.

“It’s considered a ‘black box’ of a rodent,” said Sara Weinstein, lead author and Smithsonian-Mpala postdoctoral fellow and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Utah. “We initially wanted to confirm the toxin sequestration behavior was real and along the way discovered something completely unknown about social behavior. Our findings have conservation implications for this mysterious and elusive rat.”

People in East Africa have long suspected the rat to be poisonous. A 2011 paper proposed these large rodents sequester toxins from the poison arrow tree (Acokanthera schimperi). A source of traditional arrow poisons, Acokanthera contains cardenolides, compounds similar to those found in monarch butterflies, cane toads and some human heart medications. Cardenolides, particularly the ones in Acokanthera, are highly toxic to most animals.

“The initial 2011 study observed this behavior in only a single individual. A main goal of our study was to determine how common this exceptional behavior was,” said co-author Denise Dearing from the University of Utah.

When threatened, the African crested rat lives up to its name and erects a crest of hair on its back to reveal a warning on its flanks—black and white stripes running from neck-to-tail on each side of its body. The 2011 study hypothesized that the rats chew the Acokanthera bark and lick the plant toxins into specialized hairs at the center of these stripes.

In the new study, researchers trapped 25 African crested rats, the largest sample size of the species ever trapped. Using motion-activated cameras, they documented nearly 1,000 hours of rat behavior. For the first time, they recorded multiple rats sequestering Acokanthera toxins and discovered many traits that suggest they are social, and likely monogamous.

“Everyone thought it was a solitary animal. I’ve been researching this rat for more than ten years, so you would expect there to be fewer surprises,” said Bernard Agwanda, curator of Mammals at the Museums of Kenya, co-author of this study and the 2011 paper. “This can carry over into conservation policy.”

A rich social life

As a postdoctoral fellow at the Mpala Research Centre, Weinstein first searched for the rats with camera traps, but found that they rarely triggered the cameras. Weinstein was then joined by Katrina Nyawira, the paper’s second author and now a graduate student at Oxford Brookes University. Together, they spent months experimenting with live traps to capture the elusive rodents.

“We talked to rangers and ranchers to ask whether they’d seen anything.” said Nyawira. Eventually they figured out that loading the traps with smelly foods like fish, peanut butter and vanilla, did the trick. “Out of 30 traps, we finally got two animals. That was a win. This thing is really rare.”

Those two animals changed the course of the study. They first caught an individual female, then caught a male at the same site two days later.

The African crested rat.

“We put these two rats together in the enclosure and they started purring and grooming each other. Which was a big surprise, since everyone we talked to thought that they were solitary,” Weinstein said. “I realized that we had a chance to study their social interactions.”

Weinstein and Nyawira transformed an abandoned cow shed into a research station, constructing stalls equipped with ladders and nest boxes to simulate their habitat in tree cavities. They placed cameras in strategic spots of each pen and then analyzed every second of their footage, tracking the total activity, movement and feeding behavior. The aim was to build a baseline of normal behavior before testing whether behavior changed after the rats chewed the toxin cardenolides from the poison arrow tree.

“They’re herbivores, essentially rat-shaped little cows,” Weinstein said. “They spend a lot of time eating, but we also see them walk around, mate, groom, climb up the walls, sleep in the nest box.”

The footage and behavioral observations strongly support a monogamous lifestyle. They share many of the traits common among monogamous animals: large size, a long life span and a slow reproductive rate. Additionally, the researchers trapped a few large juveniles in the same location as adult pairs, suggesting that offspring spend an extended period of time with their parents. In the pens, the paired rats spent more than half of their time near each other, and frequently followed each other around. The researchers also recorded special squeaks, purrs and other communicative noises making up a wide vocal repertoire. Further behavioral studies and field observation would uncover more insights into their reproductive and family life.

After the researchers established a baseline of behavior, they offered rats branches from the poison arrow tree. Although rats did not sequester every time the plant was offered, 10 rats did at least once. They chewed it, mixed it with spit, and licked and chewed it into their specialized hairs. Exposure to the Acokanthera toxins did not alter rat behavior, and neither did eating milkweed, the same cardenolide-enriched plant used as chemical defense by monarch butterflies. Combined, these observations suggest that crested rats are uniquely resistant to these toxins.

“Most people think that it was a myth because of the potency of the tree,” said Nyawira. “But we caught it on video! It was very crazy.”

The rats were selective about using Acokanthera cardenolides, suggesting that rats may be picky about their toxin source, or that anointed toxins remain potent on the fur a long time, just like traditional arrow poisons from the same source.

African crested rat conservation

The African crested rat is listed as IUCN species of least concern, but there’s little actual data on the animals. Agwanda has studied African crested rats for more than a decade—and sees indications that they’re in trouble.

“We don’t have accurate numbers, but we have inferences. There was a time in Nairobi when cars would hit them and there was roadkill everywhere,” said Agwanda, who continues to monitor the populations. “Now encountering them is difficult. Our trapping rate is low. Their population is declining.”

The research team is planning future studies to better understand their physiology and behavior. “We are particularly interested in exploring the genetic mechanisms that allow the crested rats and their parasites to withstand the toxic cardenolides” said co-author Jesús Maldonado of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and Weinstein’s Smithsonian-Mpala Postdoctoral fellowship co-advisor.

“We are looking at a broad range of questions influenced by habitat change. Humans have cleared forests to make farms and roads. We need to understand how that impacts their survival,” Agwanda said. Additionally, Agwanda is building an exhibit at the Museums of Kenya to raise awareness about this unique poisonous animal.

About the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute leads the Smithsonian’s global effort to save species, better understand ecosystems and train future generations of conservationists. As Washington, D.C.’s favorite destination for families, the Zoo connects visitors to amazing animals and the people working to save them. In Front Royal, Virginia, across the United States and in more than 30 countries worldwide, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists and animal care experts tackle some of today’s most complex conservation challenges by applying and sharing what they learn about animal behavior and reproduction, ecology, genetics, migration and conservation sustainability to save wildlife and habitats. Follow the Zoo on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

About the National Museums of Kenya

National Museums of Kenya (NMK) is a state corporation established by an Act of Parliament, the Museums and Heritage Act 2006. NMK is a multi-disciplinary institution whose role is to collect, preserve, study, document and present Kenya’s past and present cultural and natural heritage. This is for the purposes of enhancing knowledge, appreciation, respect and sustainable utilization of these resources for the benefit of Kenya and the world, for now and posterity. NMK’s mutual concern for the welfare of mankind and the conservation of the biological diversity of the East African region and that of the entire planet demands success in such efforts. In addition, NMK manages many Regional Museums, Sites and Monuments of national and international importance alongside priceless collections of Kenya’s living cultural and natural heritage. As an institution that must respond to the growing needs of the society, NMK is striving to contribute in a unique way to the task of national development.

Media Contacts

Sara Weinsteinpostdoctoral researcher at the University of Utah; postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian-Mpala
batrachoseps@gmail.com

Denise Dearingdistinguished professor and director, School of Biological Sciences
denise.dearing@utah.edu

Lisa Potterresearch/science communications specialist, University of Utah Communications
Office: 801-585-3093 Mobile: 949-533-7899 lisa.potter@utah.edu

Next-Gen Astronomy

November 3, 2020

Gail Zasowski

Next-gen astronomical survey makes its first observations.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s fifth generation collected its very first observations of the cosmos at 1:47 a.m. on October 24, 2020. As the world’s first all-sky time-domain spectroscopic survey, SDSS-V will provide groundbreaking insight into the formation and evolution of galaxies—like our own Milky Way—and of the supermassive black holes that lurk at their centers.

Funded primarily by member institutions, along with grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Heising-Simons Foundation, SDSS-V will focus on three primary areas of investigation, each exploring different aspects of the cosmos using different spectroscopic tools. Together these three project pillars—called “Mappers”—will observe more than six million objects in the sky, and monitor changes in more than a million of those objects over time.

The survey’s Local Volume Mapper will enhance our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution by probing the interactions between the stars that make up galaxies and the interstellar gas and dust that is dispersed between them. The Milky Way Mapper will reveal the physics of stars in our Milky Way, the diverse architectures of its star and planetary systems, and the chemical enrichment of our galaxy since the early universe. The Black Hole Mapper will measure masses and growth over cosmic time of the supermassive black holes that reside in the hearts of galaxies, and of the smaller black holes left behind when stars die.

“We are thrilled to start taking the first data for two of our three Mappers,” added SDSS-V spokesperson Gail Zasowski, an assistant professor in the University of Utah’s Department of Physics & Astronomy. “These early observations are already important for a wide range of science goals. Even these first targets provide data for studies ranging from mapping the inner regions of supermassive black holes and searching for exotic multiple-black hole systems, to studying nearby stars and their dead cores, to tracing the chemistry of potential planet-hosting stars across the Milky Way.”

A sampling of data from the first SDSS-V observations. Center: The telescope’s field-of-view, with the full Moon shown for scale. SDSS-V simultaneously observes 500 targets at a time within a circle of this size. Left: the optical-light spectrum of a quasar, a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy, which is surrounded by a disk of hot, glowing gas. The purple blob is an SDSS image of the light from this disk, the width of a human hair as seen from about 21 meters (63 feet) away. Right: The image and spectrum of a white dwarf –the left-behind core of a low-mass star (like the Sun) after the end of its life.

The newly-launched SDSS-V will continue the path-breaking tradition set by the survey’s previous generations, with a focus on the ever-changing night sky and the physical processes that drive these changes, from flickers and flares of supermassive black holes to the back-and-forth shifts of stars being orbited by distant worlds. SDSS-V will provide the spectroscopic backbone needed to achieve the full science potential of satellites like NASA’s TESS, ESA’s Gaia, and the latest all-sky X-ray mission, eROSITA.

As an international consortium, SDSS has always relied heavily on phone and digital communication. But adapting to exclusively virtual communication tactics since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic was a challenge, along with tracking global supply chains and laboratory availability at various university partners as they shifted in and out of lockdown during the final ramp-up to the survey’s start. Particularly inspiring were the project’s expert observing staff, who worked in even-greater-than-usual isolation to shut down, and then reopen, the survey’s mountain-top observatories.

“In a year when humanity has been challenged across the globe, I am so proud of the worldwide SDSS team for demonstrating—every day—the very best of human creativity, ingenuity, improvisation, and resilience.” said SDSS-V director Juna Kollmeier, of the Carnegie Observatories. “It has been a challenging period for SDSS and the world, but I’m happy to report that the pandemic may have slowed us, but it has not stopped us.”

Anil Seth

The University of Utah will actually operate as the data reduction center for SDSS-V, supported by the U’s Center for High Performance Computing. Joel Brownstein, a research associate professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, is the head of data management and archiving for SDSS-V. “As we see the first observations streaming to Utah from the mountain observatories, we are just starting to grasp the amazing potential of this ambitious data set. We are fully and proudly committed to making our results more accessible to the larger community by introducing new tools that enable a dynamic, user-driven experience.”

SDSS-V will operate out of both Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, home of the survey’s original 2.5-meter telescope, and Carnegie’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, where it uses the 2.5-meter du Pont telescope.

SDSS-V’s first observations were taken in New Mexico with existing SDSS instruments, in a necessary change of plans due to the pandemic. As laboratories and workshops around the world navigate safe reopening, SDSS-V’s own suite of new innovative hardware is on the horizon—in particular, systems of automated robots to aim the fiber optic cables used to collect the light from the night sky. These robots will be installed at both observatories over the next year. New spectrographs and telescopes are also being constructed to enable the Local Volume Mapper observations.

Dr. Anil Seth, the University of Utah’s representative on the Advisory Council that oversees SDSS’s operations, highlighted the impact of the project’s open data policies and worldwide collaboration. “SDSS’s 20-year legacy has touched nearly every astronomer in the world by this point. It has become the go-to reference for astronomy textbooks on galaxies, made the most precise measurements of how our Universe is expanding, and showed us how powerful shared data can be. I look forward to see what new results SDSS V will reveal!”

For more information, please see the SDSS-V’s website at www.sdss5.org.

11 Billion Years

August 5, 2020

Professor Kyle Dawson

11 billion years of history in one map: Astrophysicists reveal largest 3D model of the universe ever created.

(CNN) A global consortium of astrophysicists have created the world's largest three-dimensional map of the universe, a project 20 years in the making that researchers say helps better explain the history of the cosmos.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a project involving hundreds of scientists at dozens of institutions worldwide, collected decades of data and mapped the universe with telescopes. With these measurements, spanning more than 2 million galaxies and quasars formed over 11 billion years, scientists can now better understand how the universe developed.

Image courtesy of SDSS

"We know both the ancient history of the Universe and its recent expansion history fairly well, but there's a troublesome gap in the middle 11 billion years," cosmologist Kyle Dawson of the University of Utah, who led the team that announced the SDSS findings on Sunday. "For five years, we have worked to fill in that gap, and we are using that information to provide some of the most substantial advances in cosmology in the last decade," Dawson said in a statement.

Here's how it works: the map revealed the early materials that "define the structure in the Universe, starting from the time when the Universe was only about 300,000 years old." Researchers used the map to measure patterns and signals from different galaxies, and figure out how fast the universe was expanding at different points of history. Looking back in space allows for a look back in time.

"These studies allow us to connect all these measurements into a complete story of the expansion of the Universe," said Will Percival of the University of Waterloo in the statement.

The team also identified "a mysterious invisible component of the Universe called 'dark energy,'" which caused the universe's expansion to start accelerating about six billion years ago. Since then, the universe has only continued to expand "faster and faster," the statement said.

Image courtesy of SDSS

There are still many unanswered questions about dark energy -- it's "extremely difficult to reconcile with our current understanding of particle physics" -- but this puzzle will be left to future projects and researchers, said the statement.

Their findings also "revealed cracks in this picture of the Universe," the statement said. There were discrepancies between researchers' measurements and collected data, and their tools are so precise that it's unlikely to be error or chance. Instead, there might be new and exciting explanations behind the strange numbers, like the possibility that "a previously-unknown form of matter or energy from the early Universe might have left a trace on our history."

The SDSS is "nowhere near done with its mission to map the Universe," it said in the statement. "The SDSS team is busy building the hardware to start this new phase (of mapping stars and black holes) and is looking forward to the new discoveries of the next 20 years."

HIV Microscopy

July 20, 2020

Ipsita Saha, graduate research assistant

Pioneering method reveals dynamic structure in HIV.

Viruses are scary. They invade our cells like invisible armies, and each type brings its own strategy of attack. While viruses devastate communities of humans and animals, scientists scramble to fight back. Many utilize electron microscopy, a tool that can “see” what individual molecules in the virus are doing. Yet even the most sophisticated technology requires that the sample be frozen and immobilized to get the highest resolution.

Now, physicists from the University of Utah have pioneered a way of imaging virus-like particles in real time, at room temperature, with impressive resolution. In a new study, the method reveals that the lattice, which forms the major structural component of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is dynamic. The discovery of a diffusing lattice made from Gag and GagPol proteins, long considered to be completely static, opens up potential new therapies.

When HIV particles bud from an infected cell, the viruses experience a lag time before they become infectious. Protease, an enzyme that is embedded as a half-molecule in GagPol proteins, must bond to other similar molecules in a process called dimerization. This triggers the viral maturation that leads to infectious particles. No one knows how these half protease molecules find each other and dimerize, but it may have to do with the rearrangement of the lattice formed by Gag and GagPol proteins that lay just inside of the viral envelope. Gag is the major structural protein and has been shown to be enough to assemble virus-like particles. Gag molecules form a lattice hexagonal structure that intertwines with itself with miniscule gaps interspersed. The new method showed that the Gag protein lattice is not a static one.

The Saffarian Lab in the Crocker Science Center

“This method is one step ahead by using microscopy that traditionally only gives static information. In addition to new microscopy methods, we used a mathematical model and biochemical experiments to verify the lattice dynamics,” said lead author Ipsita Saha, graduate research assistant at the U’s Department of Physics & Astronomy. “Apart from the virus, a major implication of the method is that you can see how molecules move around in a cell. You can study any biomedical structure with this.”

The paper published in Biophysical Journal on June 26, 2020.

Mapping a nanomachine.

The scientists weren’t looking for dynamic structures at first—they just wanted to study the Gag protein lattice. Saha led the two year effort to “hack” microscopy techniques to be able to study virus particles at room temperature to observe their behavior in real life. The scale of the virus is miniscule — about 120 nanometers in diameter—so Saha used interferometric photoactivated localization microscopy (iPALM).

First, Saha tagged the Gag with a fluorescent protein called Dendra2 and produced virus-like particles of the resulting Gag-Dendra2 proteins. These virus-like particles are the same as HIV particles, but made only of the Gag-Dendra2 protein lattice structure. Saha showed that the resulting Gag-Dendra2 proteins assembled the virus-like particles the same way as virus-like particle made up regular Gag proteins. The fluorescent attachment allowed iPALM to image the particle with a 10 nanometer resolution. The scientists found that each immobilized virus-like particle incorporated 1400 to 2400 Gag-Dendra2 proteins arranged in a hexagonal lattice. When they used the iPALM data to reconstruct a time-lapse image of the lattice, it appeared that the lattice of Gag-Dendra2 were not static over time. To make sure, they independently verified it in two ways: mathematically and biochemically.

80 nm sections of cells (2020 Biphys Journal) - Saha & Saffarian

Initially, they divided up the protein lattice into uniform separate segments. Using a correlation analysis, they tested how each segment correlated with itself over time, from 10 to 100 seconds. If each segment continued to correlate with itself, the proteins were stationary. If they lost correlation, the proteins had diffused. They found that over time, the proteins were quite dynamic.

The second way they verified the dynamic lattice was biochemically. For this experiment, they created virus-like particles whose lattice consisted of 80% of Gag wild type proteins, 10% of Gag tagged with SNAP, and 10% of gag tagged with Halo. SNAP and Halo are proteins that can bind a linker which binds them together forever. The idea was to identify whether the molecules in the protein lattice stayed stationary, or if they migrated positions.

Rendering of Gag molecules proteins diffusing across a virus-like particle - Dave Meikle/Saffarian Lab

“The Gag-proteins assemble themselves randomly. The SNAP and Halo molecules could be anywhere within the lattice—some may be close to one another, and some will be far away,” Saha said. “If the lattice changes, there’s a chance that the molecules come close to one another.”

Saha introduced a molecule called Haxs8 into the virus-like particles. Haxs8 is a dimerizer—a molecule that covalently binds SNAP and Halo proteins when they are within binding radius of one another. If SNAP or Halo molecules move next to each other, they’ll produce a dimerized complex. She tracked these dimerized complex concentrations over time. If the concentration changed, it would indicate that new pairs of molecules found each other. If the concentration decreased, it would indicate the proteins broke apart. Either way, it would indicate that movement had taken place. They found that over time, the percentage of the dimerized complex increased; HALO and SNAP Gag proteins were moving all over the lattice and coming together over time.

A new tool to study viruses.

This is the first study to show that the protein lattice structure of an enveloped virus is dynamic. This new tool will be important to better understand the changes that occur within the lattice as new virus particles go from immaturity to dangerously infectious.

Saveez Saffarian and Ipsita Saha

“What are the molecular mechanisms that lead to infection? It opens up a new line of study,” said Saha. “If you can figure out that process, maybe you can do something to prevent them from finding each other, like a type of drug that would stop the virus in its tracks.”

Saveez Saffarian, professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the U, was senior author on the paper.

Forest Futures

June 22, 2020

Given the tremendous ability of forests to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, some governments are counting on planted forests as offsets for greenhouse gas emissions—a sort of climate investment. But as with any investment, it’s important to understand the risks. If a forest goes bust, researchers say, much of that stored carbon could go up in smoke.

In a paper published in Science, University of Utah biologist William Anderegg and his colleagues say that forests can be best deployed in the fight against climate change with a proper understanding of the risks to that forest that climate change itself imposes. “As long as this is done wisely and based on the best available science, that’s fantastic,” Anderegg says. “But there hasn’t been adequate attention to the risks of climate change to forests right now.”

Meeting of Minds

William Anderegg

In 2019, Anderegg, a recipient of the Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, convened a workshop in Salt Lake City to gather some of the foremost experts on climate change risks to forests. The diverse group represented various disciplines: law, economics, science and public policy, among others. “This was designed to bring some of the people who had thought about this the most together and to start talking and come up with a roadmap,” Anderegg says.

This paper, part of that roadmap, calls attention to the risks forests face from myriad consequences of rising global temperatures, including fire, drought, insect damage and human disturbance—a call to action, Anderegg says, to bridge the divide between the data and models produced by scientists and the actions taken by policymakers.

Accumulating Risk

Forests absorb a significant amount of the carbon dioxide that’s emitted into the atmosphere—just under a third, Anderegg says. “And this sponge for CO₂ is incredibly valuable to us.”

Because of this, governments in many countries are looking to “forest-based natural climate solutions” that include preventing deforestation, managing natural forests and reforesting. Forests could be some of the more cost-effective climate mitigation strategies, with co-benefits for biodiversity, conservation and local communities.

But built into this strategy is the idea that forests are able to store carbon relatively “permanently”, or on the time scales of 50 to 100 years—or longer. Such permanence is not always a given. “There’s a very real chance that many of those forest projects could go up in flames or to bugs or drought stress or hurricanes in the coming decades,” Anderegg says.

Forests have long been vulnerable to all of those factors, and have been able to recover from them when they are episodic or come one at a time. But the risks connected with climate change, including drought and fire, increase over time. Multiple threats at once, or insufficient time for forests to recover from those threats, can kill the trees, release the carbon, and undermine the entire premise of forest-based natural climate solutions.

“Without good science to tell us what those risks are,” Anderegg says, “we’re flying blind and not making the best policy decisions.”

Mitigating Risk

In the paper, Anderegg and his colleagues encourage scientists to focus increased attention on assessing forest climate risks and share the best of their data and predictive models with policymakers so that climate strategies including forests can have the best long-term impact. For example, he says, the climate risk computer models scientists use are detailed and cutting-edge, but aren’t widely used outside the scientific community. So, policy decisions can rely on science that may be decades old.

“There are at least two key things you can do with this information,” Anderegg says. The first is to optimize investment in forests and minimize risks. “Science can guide and inform where we ought to be investing to achieve different climate aims and avoid risks.”

The second, he says, is to mitigate risks through forest management. “If we’re worried about fire as a major risk in a certain area, we can start to think about what are the management tools that make a forest more resilient to that disturbance.” More research, he says, is needed in this field, and he and his colleagues plan to work toward answering those questions.

“We view this paper as an urgent call to both policymakers and the scientific community,” Anderegg says, “to study this more, and improve in sharing tools and information across different groups.” Read the full paper @ sciencemag.org

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