Research | College of Science

STAR-X Proposal

September 20, 2022

Daniel Wik

Astrophysicist Dan Wik proposal selected by NASA

NASA has selected four mission proposals submitted to the agency’s Explorers Program for further study. U astrophysicist Dan Wik is a member of the STAR-X Proposal Team, one of the two Astrophysics Medium Explorer missions selected by NASA for further study. The proposals include missions that would study exploding stars, distant clusters of galaxies, and nearby galaxies and stars.

Adapted from a news release by NASA

Two Astrophysics Medium Explorer missions and two Explorer Missions of Opportunity have been selected to conduct mission concept studies. After detailed evaluation of those studies, NASA plans to select one Mission of Opportunity and one Medium Explorer in 2024 to proceed with implementation. The selected missions will be targeted for launch in 2027 and 2028, respectively.

Daniel Wik, assistant professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Utah, is a member of the STAR-X Proposal Team, one of the two Astrophysics Medium Explorer missions selected by NASA for further study. For more information about Wik and the STAR-X team, visit: http://star-x.xraydeep.org/.

“The fact that STAR-X has passed this competitive milestone is a testament to the hard work and vision of both the hardware and science teams, and it has been enormous fun for me to contribute to this effort and collaborate with such a talented and convivial group of scientists. I hope this collaboration will continue for years,” said Wik.

Daniel Wik

Wik is an X-ray astronomer, who primarily works with observations conducted by the NuSTAR mission, along with data from other X-ray observatories, such as XMM-Newton, Chandra, and the soon-to-launch XRISM, studying galaxies and galaxy clusters. Before joining the U in 2017, he was a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center outside of Washington, D.C.

“NASA’s Explorers Program has a proud tradition of supporting innovative approaches to exceptional science, and these selections hold that same promise,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “From studying the evolution of galaxies to explosive, high-energy events, these proposals are inspiring in their scope and creativity to explore the unknown in our universe.”

NASA Explorer missions conduct focused scientific investigations and develop instruments that fill scientific gaps between the agency’s larger space science missions. The proposals were competitively selected based on potential science value and feasibility of development plans.

The two Medium Explorer teams selected at this stage will each receive $3 million to conduct a nine-month mission concept study. Astrophysics Medium Explorer mission costs are capped at $300 million each, excluding the launch vehicle. The selected proposals are:

UltraViolet EXplorer (UVEX)

UVEX would conduct a deep survey of the whole sky in two bands of ultraviolet light, to provide new insights into galaxy evolution and the lifecycle of stars. The spacecraft would have the ability to repoint rapidly to capture ultraviolet light from the explosion that follows a burst of gravitational waves caused by merging neutron stars. UVEX would carry an ultraviolet spectrograph for detailed study of massive stars and stellar explosions.
Principal investigator: Fiona Harrison at Caltech in Pasadena, California

Survey and Time-domain Astrophysical Research Explorer (STAR-X)

The STAR-X spacecraft would be able to turn rapidly to point a sensitive wide-field X-ray telescope and an ultraviolet telescope at transient cosmic sources, such as supernova explosions and active galaxies. Deep X-ray surveys would map hot gas trapped in distant clusters of galaxies; combined with infrared observations from NASA’s upcoming Roman Space Telescope, these observations would trace how massive clusters of galaxies built up over cosmic history.
Principal investigator: William Zhang at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland

The two Mission of Opportunity teams selected at this stage will each receive $750,000 to conduct a nine-month implementation concept study. NASA Mission of Opportunity costs are capped at $80 million each. The selected proposals are:

Moon Burst Energetics All-sky Monitor (MoonBEAM)

In its orbit between Earth and the Moon, MoonBEAM would see almost the whole sky at any time, watching for bursts of gamma rays from distant cosmic explosions and rapidly alerting other telescopes to study the source. MoonBEAM would see gamma rays earlier or later than telescopes on Earth or in low orbit, and astronomers could use that time difference to pinpoint the gamma-ray source in the sky.
Principal investigator: Chiumun Michelle Hui at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama

A LargE Area burst Polarimeter (LEAP)

Mounted on the International Space Station, LEAP would study gamma-ray bursts from the energetic jets launched during the formation of a black hole after the explosive death of a massive star, or in the merger of compact objects. The high-energy gamma-ray radiation can be polarized, or vibrate in a particular direction, which can distinguish between competing theories for the nature of the jets.
Principal investigator: Mark McConnell at the University of New Hampshire in Durham

The Explorers Program is the oldest continuous NASA program. The program is designed to provide frequent, low-cost access to space using principal investigator-led space science investigations relevant to the Science Mission Directorate’s astrophysics and heliophysics programs.

Since the launch of Explorer 1 in 1958, which discovered the Earth’s radiation belts, the Explorers Program has launched more than 90 missions, including the Uhuru and Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) missions that led to Nobel prizes for their investigators.

The program is managed by NASA Goddard for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, which conducts a wide variety of research and scientific exploration programs for Earth studies, space weather, the solar system, and the universe.

For more information about the Explorers Program, visit: https://explorers.gsfc.nasa.gov.

Research Funding

September 16, 2022

Research Funding Tops $686 Million

Growth of Research Funding

For the ninth year in a row, research funding at the University of Utah grew, totaling $686 million in fiscal year 2022, which ended on June 30. The total is a new record high for the university. The U achieved milestones of $600 million in funding the last two years and $500 million four years ago.

“Research is one of our key foundations of our university,” said Dr. Erin Rothwell, interim vice president for research. “Our students, faculty, staff and donors are continuously working together to bring solutions to some of the biggest challenges we face today as a society.”

As a member of the prestigious American Association University, the U is known for its diverse disciplines in medicines, science, social work, arts and more. This fiscal year, research grants were awarded to more than 18 colleges in diverse disciplines across campus.

Highlights from our research funding

From medicine to fine arts, research at the U spans across many studies, as growth in funding continues moving upward. The School of Medicine grew the most in funding dollars with $331 million, a 15% growth from the previous fiscal year. The College of Education has a 43% funding growth from FY2021, with $5.6 million in funding. The Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute saw an 88% growth, with $16 million in FY2021. In addition, the College of Fine Arts saw its total funding dollar grow to $1.8 million, a 23% funding growth from the previous year.

Sources of Federal Funding

Although these are some of the highlights, studies by our researchers from multiple disciplines were awarded research funding in data generation, parent-child relationships, cyberinfrastructure, and integrative health. Some of the many funding sponsors include the National Institutes of Health, the United States Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation.

U research’s impact on Utah’s economy

U research is a major contributor to our local economy. The institution has almost 8,000 employees who are compensated by research dollars.

“Research funding is not only helping make progress in the research itself, but also helping many Utahns personally and economically,” said Rothwell. “Over the last three years, research has supported $598 million in wages that contributes to the economic engine across the state of Utah.”

Economic Impact

Discovering solutions for a better future

Thanks to its dedicated researchers and generous donors, the U continues to move forward in breaking new ground, innovating, and discovering solutions to issues that impact the global community.

“Research is all about helping people,” said Rothwell. “The continued growth of our university’s research funding shows that many are excited and want to be a part of the solutions to the issues we face locally, nationally and globally.”

University President Taylor Randall said the U’s goal of reaching $1 billion in research funding annually will help the institution strive toward an objective of becoming a top-10 public university.

“Research funding at the university has increased annually for the past nine years. This is the trajectory we need to be on to have unsurpassed societal impact,” said Randall. “Through the hard work and dedication of our research community, the U is positioning itself to be a major player in developing solutions to the world’s grand challenges like climate change, mental health, cancer and more.”

NuFact 2022

September 12, 2022

Professor Pearl Sandick, Assistant Professor Yue Zhao, and Professor Carsten Rott.

Physics Department hosts NuFact International Workshop at Snowbird

Professor Carsten Rott and colleagues from the Department of Physics & Astronomy recently hosted an international workshop on neutrinos at Snowbird. Known as NuFact, the workshop brought together experimentalists, theorists, and accelerator physicists from all over the world to share their knowledge and expertise in the field. NuFact had more than 150 in-person participants and numerous virtual contributions.

A neutrino is a subatomic particle that is similar to an electron but has no electrical charge and a very small mass. Neutrinos are one of the most abundant particles in the universe, but they are difficult to detect because they have very little interaction with matter.

Professor Pearl Sandick and Assistant Professor Yue Zhao served as co-organizers of the conference. The team also included Rebecca Corley and other graduate students, who were instrumental in hosting the event.

Carsten Rott

“NuFact is one of the most important conferences in the field of neutrino physics,” said Rott. “It was an honor and a great opportunity that the scientific program committee selected Utah as the venue for the 23rd conference in this workshop series.”

One of the pre-workshops called “Multi-messenger Tomography of the Earth” encouraged experts from earth science and neutrino physics to explore the possibility of using neutrinos to understand the composition of the inner Earth. “I enjoyed the open exchange of ideas in this interdisciplinary workshop,” said Rott. “This work may one day significantly enhance our understanding of the Earth’s composition and dynamics.”

At this year’s workshop, a new working group was created called Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Education, & Outreach (IDEEO). “We’re excited to establish this as a permanent working group associated with the NuFact conferences,” said Sandick. “This year’s sessions were incredibly productive. We already see meaningful, positive changes, and I anticipate more to come as our scientific community continues to work on IDEEO.”

Dean Peter Trapa delivers opening remarks.

The conference was supported by the University of Utah (Department of Physics & Astronomy, the College of Science, the VPR Office, the National Science Foundation, Caen Technologies Inc., the Center for Neutrino Physics @ Virginia Tech, and MPDI Instruments.

At-Risk Forests

September 7, 2022

Global analysis identifies at-risk forests.

Forests are engaged in a delicate, deadly dance with climate change, hosting abundant biodiversity and sucking carbon dioxide out of the air with billions of leafy straws. They can be a part of the climate solution as long as global warming, with its droughts, wildfires and ecosystem shifts, doesn’t kill them first.

In a study published in Science, William Anderegg, the inaugural director of the University of Utah’s Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy, and colleagues quantify the risk to forests from climate change along three dimensions: carbon storage, biodiversity and forest loss from disturbance, such as fire or drought. The results show forests in some regions experiencing clear and consistent risks. In other regions, the risk profile is less clear, because different approaches that account for disparate aspects of climate risk yield diverging answers.

William Anderegg

“Large uncertainty in most regions highlights that there's a lot more scientific study that's urgently needed.”

An international team

Anderegg assembled a team including researchers from the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal and Sweden.

“I had met some of these folks before,” he says, “and had read many of their papers. In undertaking a large, synthetic analysis like this, I contacted them to ask if they wanted to be involved in a global analysis and provide their expertise and data.”

Their task was formidable –assess climate risks to the world’s forests, which span continents and climes and host tremendous biodiversity while storing an immense amount of carbon. Researchers had previously attempted to quantify risks to forests using vegetation models, relationships between climate and forest attributes and climate effects on forest loss.

“These approaches have different inherent strengths and weaknesses,” the team writes, “but a synthesis of approaches at a global scale is lacking.” Each of the previous approaches investigated one dimension of climate risk: carbon storage, biodiversity, and risk of forest loss. For their new analysis, the team went after all three.

Three dimensions of risk

“These dimensions of risk are all important and, in many cases, complementary. They capture different aspects of forests resilience or vulnerability,” Anderegg says.

Carbon storage: Forests absorb about a quarter of the carbon dioxide that’s emitted into the atmosphere, so they play a critically important role in buffering the planet from the effects of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. The team leveraged output from dozens of different climate models and vegetation models simulating how different plant and tree types respond to different climates. They then compared the recent past climate (1995-2014) with the end of the 21^st century (2081-2100) in scenarios of both high and low carbon emissions. On average, the models showed global gains in carbon storage by the end of the century, although with large disagreements and uncertainty across the different climate-vegetation models. But zooming in to regional forests and taking into account models that forecast carbon loss and changes in vegetation, the researchers found higher risk of carbon loss in southern boreal (just south of the Arctic) forests and the drier regions of the Amazon and African tropics.
Biodiversity: Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that the highest risk of ecosystems shifting from one “life zone” to another due to climate change could be found at the current boundaries of biomes – at the current transition between temperate and boreal forests, for example. The models the researchers worked from described changes in ecosystems as a whole and not species individually, but the results suggested that forests of the boreal regions and western North America faced the greatest risk of biodiversity loss.
Disturbance: Finally, the authors looked at the risk of “stand-replacing disturbances,” or events like drought, fire or insect damage that could wipe out swaths of forest. Using satellite data and observations of stand-replacing disturbances between 2002 and 2014, the researchers then forecast into the future using projected future temperatures and precipitation to see how much more frequent these events might become. The boreal forests, again, face high risk under these conditions, as well as the tropics.

“Forests store an immense amount of carbon and slow the pace of climate change,” Anderegg says. “They harbor the vast majority of Earth's biodiversity. And they can be quite vulnerable to disturbances like severe fire or drought. Thus, it's important to consider each of these aspects and dimensions when thinking about the future of Earth's forests in a rapidly changing climate.”

Future needs

Anderegg was surprised that the spatial patterns of high risk didn’t overlap more across the different dimensions.

“They capture different aspects of forests' responses,” he says, “so they wouldn't likely be identical, but I did expect some similar patterns and correlations.”

Models can only be as good as the basis of scientific understanding and data on which they’re built and this study, the researchers write, exposes significant understanding and data gaps that may contribute to the inconsistent results. Global models of biodiversity, for example, don’t incorporate dynamics of growth and mortality or include the effects of rising CO₂ directly on species. And models of forest disturbance don’t include regrowth or species turnover.

“If forests are tapped to play an important role in climate mitigation,” the authors write, “an enormous scientific effort is needed to better shed light on when and where forests will be resilient to climate change in the 21st century.”

Key next steps, Anderegg says, are improving models of forest disturbance, studying the resilience of forests after disturbance, and improving large-scale ecosystem models.

The recently-launched Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy at the University of Utah aims to provide cutting-edge science and tools for decision-makers in the US and across the globe. For this study, the authors built a visualization tool of the results for stakeholders and decision-makers.

Despite uncertainty in the results, western North America seems to have a consistently high risk to forests. Preserving these forests, he says, requires action.

“First we have to realize that the quicker we tackle climate change, the lower the risks in the West will be,” Anderegg says. “Second, we can start to plan for increasing risk and manage forests to reduce risk, like fires.”

Find the full study here.

Crystal Su

August 24, 2022

A new paper in Current Biology describes the development of a novel, synthetic insect-bacterial symbiosis.

The symbiotic bacteria express a red fluorescent protein that is visible through the insect cuticle, facilitating characterization of the mechanics of infection and transmission in insect tissues and cells. In addition, Su et al. engineered the bacteria to modify their ability to synthesize aromatic amino acids, which are used by the insect host to fuel cuticle strengthening. Correspondingly, insects maintaining bacteria that overproduce these nutrients exhibited stronger cuticles, signifying mutualistic function. The establishment of this synthetic symbiosis will facilitate detailed molecular genetic analysis of symbiotic interactions and presents a foundation for the use of genetically-modified symbionts in the engineering of insects that transmit diseases of medical and agricultural importance. The paper is titled “Rational engineering of a synthetic insect-bacterial mutualism.”

Red fluorescent proteins in a weevil.

Broader context
SBS Professor and Principal Investigator Colin Dale says, “the work described in the paper was catalyzed and conducted by Crystal Su, an extremely brave and dedicated graduate student in SBS, who took on this very high risk and transformative project and pushed through numerous roadblocks, doggedly refusing to take no for an answer.” Su engaged three additional labs–Golic, Rog and Gagnon–in SBS to assist with specialist techniques, highlighting the utility of interdisciplinary science and the breadth of talent and collaborative spirit that exists in SBS.

Dale views Su’s work as a “bucket list” accomplishment, “something I dreamed about while playing cricket games at Bristol University Vet School during my Ph.D. While Crystal dedicated six years of her life to bring this novel new biology to life, it’s also the product of foundational work by SBS graduate students in the decade prior, involving the identification, characterization, culture and development of genetic tools for proto-symbionts free-living bacteria that have the capability to establish stable, maternally-transmitted associations with insects.”

Synthetic Biology
Synthetic Biology focuses on utilizing engineering approaches to design and fabricate organisms (including associations and communities) that do not exist in the natural world. It can yield practical solutions for a wide range of problems in medicine, agriculture, materials and environmental sciences. In addition, it can be used to investigate the functions of natural systems, via replication and manipulation, as highlighted in the Su et al. paper. To understand its potential, it is useful to think of the contribution of synthetic approaches to other disciplines in science, most notably in chemistry, says Dale who also serves in the School of Biological Sciences as Section Head, Genetics and Evolution.

Read the paper in Current Biology
Read the article on Undergraduate Research in the Dale Lab

The Wilkes Center

August 24, 2022

Air Pollution

August 17, 2022

Smoke forecast, March 7, 1941.

Air you can chew: The history of Utah’s air quality

When Salt Lake City official George Snow said that the Wasatch Front’s air quality issues could not be solved “in a single day or year, not by a single group or group of persons . . . it will take a properly guided, united and continued effort to solve the problem”—it wasn’t in response to Utah’s torrential growth in recent years, nor was it during one of our recent inversions or smoke inundations from climate-driven Western wildfires. That quote is from 1917 and predates nearly everyone and everything that’s grown up in the Salt Lake Valley since then.

This quote shows that Utah’s air quality issues have been with us for a long time.

New research by Logan Mitchell, affiliated faculty in the U’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and Chris Zajchowski, who earned a Park, Recreation, and Tourism Ph.D. at the U in 2018 and is now at Old Dominion University, traces the history of air quality in Utah from the mid-19th century.

“It’s pretty clear that our air quality today is probably better than it has been at any time since about the 1880s,” Mitchell says. “We’ve been working on this for a long time, but we’re at a point in time when we really have an opportunity to make a big difference. And that’s really exciting.”

The research is published in the journal Sustainability.

The Wasatch Front shapes air quality—and vice versa
Yes, the Wasatch Front’s air today is sometimes gunky, gross and can be hazardous. But modern air problems pale in comparison to the noxiousness that poured out of smokestacks and chimneys a century ago when coal and wood burning was common and prevalent among homes and businesses.

Going back as far as the mid-1800s, early non-Indigenous explorers to the bowl-like valleys of the Wasatch Front noticed that wood smoke hung in the air, blue and hazy. Because the valleys of the Wasatch Front are shaped like mountain-ringed bowls, air pollution like smoke can settle in the valleys. In the winters, temperature inversions throw a cap of warm air on the cold valleys, trapping emissions and worsening air quality.

Early city planners understood the effect of the mountains on air pollution. If a smoky factory was built at the mouth of one of the Wasatch Mountain canyons, the canyon winds would blow the smoke through the valley. So, Mitchell found that in the 1890s factories were built on the valley’s west side. The legacy of that decision persists today: the west side of the Salt Lake Valley still bears much of the valley’s industrial activity and disproportionately exposes the majority-minority community to air pollution.

“We ought to be thinking, as we’re engaging in major development projects,” Mitchell says, “about what the environmental impacts and social impacts are, not just this year or next year or next quarter, but 50 or 100 years down the road.”

G. St. John Perrot and the sampling flasks used in the first aircraft sampling campaign to study SLC’s air pollution, 1919.

Learning about Utah’s air
Around the turn of the 20th century, Utahns spoke of the “smoke nuisance” which was also accompanied by soot. Measuring soot pollution was as easy as setting enamel jars outside that collected, in some parts of the city, 1000 tons of soot per square mile over the course of a winter. It’s an enormous amount of soot, Mitchell says. “That’s air that you can chew.”

Atmospheric scientists tried to learn all they could about the reasons for Utah’s air quality challenges. In 1919, “government smoke expert” G. St. John Perrot flew a biplane through Salt Lake’s “smoke bank” and gathered samples to test hypotheses about the temperature inversion phenomenon.

More than a century later, U atmospheric scientists are using similar methods. In an upcoming project called AQUARIUS, researchers will fly an airplane through the temperature inversion layer, studying the chemistry that forms aerosol particles from atmospheric gases. “The chemistry is not fully understood,” Mitchell says. “Somebody had that exact same study design literally a hundred years ago.”

Pushback
Mitchell and Zajchowski found that throughout the state’s history, records indicated a preference for business and industry to address air pollution without a need for government intervention. But sometimes when citizens pushed against industry, the industry pushed back.

In 1899 the first copper smelter opened in Murray, beginning a smelting and refining industry connected to Utah’s mining industry. But the smelter facilities had no pollution controls and emitted sulfur, arsenic and lead. Farmers near the smelters sued when their crops began to die from the toxic emissions. Smelter owners responded by funding research into farming practices and accusing farmers of “smoke farming,” or suing smelters for money instead of tending to their crops.

“They’re trying to say that the farmers are just bad at farming trying to pass the blame off on something other than their emissions,” Mitchell says.

Restarting the Geneva steel mill after a 13-month closure caused an increase in pollution, 1987.

In 1986 the Geneva Steel plant in Utah County closed down operations for 13 months during a labor strike. The closure provided an opportunity for a natural experiment to compare health outcomes in the area during the closure with times when the plant’s smokestacks were in full operation. Studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals showed that bronchitis and asthma hospital admissions for preschool-age children in Provo were halved during the idle year.

But a Geneva Steel-funded rebuttal study, not subjected to peer review before being released to the public, claimed that the difference in hospitalization rates was due to respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. This claim was false since the original studies had controlled for RSV rates. But, the authors write, “the disinformation effort to create misleading news coverage had the desired effect of creating an artificial controversy that muddled public understanding of the health impacts of air quality in Utah for years.”

Environmental stewardship and economic growth
In 1893, a newspaper article foresaw that Utah’s economic and social growth would be closely linked with its air quality.

“Factories that blacken the city with smoke can be as much a detriment as they are an advantage,” wrote the Salt Lake Herald-Republican, “for Salt Lake has as much to expect from the increase she will receive from persons who will select it as their residence on account of its pure air and cleanliness as it has to gain from factories.”

That interplay between environment and economy has been a persistent theme in Utah’s history, Mitchell says.

“The two are paired,” he says. “Some people will say that we haven’t done a good enough job one way or the other, but that effort to balance those two things has been there throughout our history.”

Today, the OneUtah Roadmap from Governor Spencer Cox continues addressing that relationship between environment and economy by including air quality as a part of the state’s sustainable growth and economic advancement plan.

Where we are now
What will be written about today’s chapter in Utah’s air quality history?

“We’re better positioned than we’ve ever been before,” Mitchell says. “But the question of how fast we solve these issues is up to us.”

Although Utahns have long known that air quality is a problem and that action is needed to solve it, the missing piece that we now have in our hands, Mitchell says, is clean energy technology, including zero-emission technology. “And where we’re at today is that we’re starting to see those technologies become in many cases the best option, the cheapest option.”

Because of those emerging and advancing technologies, Mitchell says that Utah’s air quality will continue to improve, even if the state doesn’t take action.

“We also have a historic opportunity to lead that conversation,” Mitchell says, adding that Utah is well-positioned to lead as a conservative state with a sizable technology industry and support from elected officials.

“We have a choice,” said Representative John Curtis recently, as reported by the Daily Herald. “We can do it here in the United States, or we can sit back, ignore the climate movement and watch the next industrial revolution take place outside of the United States. The world has sent a signal that it will buy clean energy technology. Will we sell it, or will we watch it be sold?”

Our moment in time also comes with worsening air issues due to climate change, including wildfires and increased ozone formation.

“So as we’re making progress on air quality, the climate impacts exacerbating air quality issues are getting worse,” Mitchell says. “There will be a lot of work to change the technology and the energy types that we use to get around and heat our homes. But I feel it’s an enormous time of opportunity.”

Read Mitchell and Zajchowski’s paper here.

The research is published in the journal Sustainability.

Ants of the World

August 15, 2022

Seeing the world through ants.

Known affectionately as “Ant Man” in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Utah and beyond, John “Jack” Longino is part of a globe-spanning initiative called the Ants of the World Project that aims to generate the most complete phylogenetic tree of the ant family (Formicidae) to date.

Part of that project is Ant Course, a regularly-occurring field course on ant biology and identification. After three years of accommodating the pandemic, this year the group, involving multiple research universities, is convening in Vietnam August 1-13. During the course, the world’s ant identification experts get together to teach 24 students all about ants. Beginning in 2001, the course has been staged in the United States, Costa Rica, Venezuela, French Guiana, Peru, Uganda, Mozambique, Borneo, and Australia.

“These courses have become famous,” says Longino, “with generations of students being shaped and connected by their Ant Course experience.” The Ants of the World project, he explains, integrates teaching and research. The initiative funds three new Ant Courses in locations that are poorly known, training new generations of ant biologists while they learn about the ants of these regions.

John “Jack” Longino

"These courses have become famous," says Longino, "with generations of students being shaped and connected by their Ant Course experience."

“After a long delay due to COVID, we are finally offering our first Ant Course, in Vietnam,” says Longino of their field site in Cúc Phương National Park, just south of Hanoi. “I’m really looking forward to meeting this new group of students, interacting with Asian colleagues, and experiencing first-hand the ant fauna of Southeast Asia.” Situated in the foothills of the northern Annamite Range, the national park consists of verdant karst mountains and lush valleys with an elevation that varies from 150 meters (500 feet) to 656 m (2,152 feet) at the summit of May Bac Mountain, or Silver Cloud Mountain.

It’s all part of Ants of the World Project’s attempt to survey nearly all ant genera and just under half the described species using advanced genome reduction techniques. The result will be a comprehensive evolutionary tree of ants, out to the smallest branch tips.

The resulting data set will help researchers answer questions: Are there predictable patterns of intercontinental dispersal and diversification? Following dispersal to a new region, is there accelerated filling of morphological and climate space? How have biotas responded to climate shifts in the past? Can we predict how ants will respond to current rapid climate change?

Eurhopalothrix semicapillum, named for the hairy patches on its face.

Longino and Elaine Tan, a graduate student in the Longino lab, will be meeting up with 34 other ant specialists and ant specialists-to-be. Along with “Ant Man,” course faculty include the other principal investigators of the Ants of the World Project: Michael Branstetter (USDA-ARS), Bonnie Blaimer (Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany), Brian Fisher (California Academy of Sciences) and Philip Ward (UC Davis).

Ants of the World is a collaboration of four different institutions, including the School of Biological Sciences. Ant Course is organized and run by the California Academy of Science and is designed for scholars to share information and discover together the ants of a particular region. It applies ant biology to established areas of inquiry but also encourages students to ask new questions.

Zahra Saifee is a University of Utah intern who will be accompanying the team as a scientific communications specialist. She says of Ant Course, “it really is about the ants, what new species there are in [a particular region and] where species overlap. The team discusses their observations of what they’re doing with others across the world. The core is bringing diverse people to ‘nerd out’ about it for two weeks.”

A lot of the time in Vietnam, says Saifee, is set up just to explore and see what people will find. “Curiosity is at a premium, bringing observations to the group as a sounding board. People can bring to the group ‘rough drafts’ of research and ideas.”

This open-door approach to discovery was transformative for Rodolfo Probst, PhD, a member of the Longino lab who successfully defended his dissertation just this month. His 2013 Ant Course experience in Borneo connected him to a year’s work back east following his graduation from college before he settled into graduate school as part of Longino’s lab.

Ants are the focus of that lab’s research but it’s not just about ants. The research goals of the Longino lab involve “reciprocal illumination,” in which the latest evolutionary concepts of species formation, combined with the latest genetic tools, allow the construction of a detailed “biodiversity map” of ants. The patterns revealed in the map then inform general concepts of biological diversification.

The research has the additional benefit of allowing other researchers, like those students participating in Ant Course, to more easily identify ants. To this end, Longino helps curate a large on-line specimen and image database (Antweb.org), a major resource for ant researchers worldwide.

To study the way ants network can potentially speak to the design and character of larger eco-systems, Saifee suggests, making the study of ants more than a niche science. It propels one to look at the larger picture of life—not just its wonders, but its changes and adaptations. In short, its ecology and evolution. “There are a lot of different species [of ants] and how we organize data is key to new scientific discoveries,” concludes Saifee.

Making new discoveries about ants is important because, as subject models, they are on par with vertebrates and vascular plants as key taxa for ecology, evolutionary biology, biogeography, conservation biology, and public interest. Having a solid phylogenetic history opens entire new worlds of biological exploration, and has been achieved for vertebrates and many plants. With a little more effort, much of which is being addressed by the NSF-funded Ants of the World project, the same can be true for ants.

Ant Course in Vietnam is currently at the center of that ambition. Follow the Ant Course blog and on Twitter @AntsProject. Read the profile of graduate student Elaine Tan, who is accompanying Jack Longino to Vietnam here.

Star Trek

August 10, 2022

Gail Zasowski

According to Captain James T. Kirk, space is the final frontier (although oceanographers might have something to say about that). Beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, there is a vast area of the Universe that we will likely never completely understand, despite the best efforts of mathematicians, physicists and astronomers.

However, rather than being a source of frustration, space represents infinite possibility, which is why astronomers like Dr Gail Zasowski, an astronomer based at the University of Utah in the United States, enjoy what they do in their professional lives. Gail is an astronomer with a particular interest in understanding where and when our Milky Way galaxy formed its 100 billion stars. Her research will help us understand how the infant Milky Way grew into the massive spiral galaxy that we see today.

WHAT ARE OUR CURRENT LIMITATIONS REGARDING UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORY OF OUR GALAXY?
Ironically, the main limitation to our understanding is closely related to the main advantage: that we are embedded inside the Galaxy. It can be thought of as the difference between looking at a map of a city and standing on a street in that city. “Looking at a map is like looking at other galaxies – we can see the overall shape and structure, where the business and residential areas are, and so on,” explains Gail. “But standing in that city has historically been like studying the Milky Way – we can’t see the pattern of streets or what the next neighbourhood looks like, but we can see the people and the shop windows, smell the smells, hear the sounds.”

However, in recent years, astronomers have been able to peer farther into the Milky Way than ever before. A lot of the difficulty in observing our galaxy is because of the thick clouds of gas and dust that fill the disc part of the Milky Way and block the starlight behind them. But some surveys, including the second generation of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III and IV projects, use infrared light to study the stars, which are much less affected by the intervening dust. The problem of perspective still exists, but astronomers are getting closer to being able to characterise the Milky Way in the same way as external galaxies.

Image of the Milky Way for the APOGEE project.

WHY IS THE MILKY WAY SO IMPORTANT?
We can observe the Milky Way at a higher resolution than other galaxies because of our proximity to it. Although there are some challenges as previously noted, we can observe the small-scale building blocks of galaxies, such as individual stars and small gas clouds. “These observations have shaped our understanding of a large fraction of astrophysics, from what happens in the interiors of stars to the ways a whole galaxy can change over billions of years,” says Gail. “We then apply this understanding to interpret our observations of other galaxies – where we can’t see things at the same level of detail – and create a picture of how galaxies in the Universe, and the Universe itself, have evolved since shortly after the Big Bang.”

The ’big-picture’ questions Gail and her team are trying to answer include: “Where and when did the Milky Way’s stars form?”, “What are the main sources of heavy elements in today’s Milky Way stars, and when and how were they synthesised?” and “What is the best way to apply what we learn in our Galaxy to understanding what happens in other galaxies?”

Addressing these questions involves answering smaller ones, like: “How old are the stars in a specific part of the Milky Way and what is their chemical makeup?”, “What series of evolutionary events could give us this pattern of stellar ages and chemistry?”, and “How does the gas and dust between the stars move around throughout these events?”

METHODS, FINDINGS AND SUCCESSES
To uncover what elements are in a star, Gail and her team are part of a larger team that measures the star’s light at different wavelengths. Atoms of different elements absorb that light at different wavelengths, so models are fitted to the pattern of absorption compared with wavelength to determine how much of each element is present in the star. These same models also account for the star’s temperature, surface gravity and other properties that are necessary for computing distances and ages.

2022 Meeting of the American Astronomical Society

Gail’s group has worked hard to link detailed measurements that can be made in the Milky Way with global measurements that can be made in other galaxies (which are less detailed but cover a higher number of galaxies in different environments with different histories). “It has been very exciting to see many different analyses on stars in different parts of the Milky Way come together in a comprehensive picture of where and when its stars formed, including the influence of gas accretion events billions of years ago, which strongly affected the regions near the Sun (but which probably happened before the Sun formed!),” explains Gail.

“It has also been extremely gratifying to see the students and post-doctoral researchers in my group taking ownership of their work and leading their own projects, often collaborating with each other and with very little input from me. I value the success of the scientific work for increasing our understanding of the Universe and for launching the careers (in and out of academia) of so many hard-working scientists.”

WHAT ARE THE LONG-TERM PLANS FOR GAIL’S RESEARCH?
Many of the upcoming datasets – including for the SDSS-V, the next data releases from ESA’s Gaia mission and NASA’s Roman Space Telescope – will provide ever-larger troves of measurements of the stars in our Milky Way and nearby galaxies. “I am excited to work on recreating the history of our galaxy – playing the movie of its life, backwards – by mapping out where and when the stars form, how they release their new elements back into the galaxy and how those new elements move around between the stars before being incorporated into the next stellar generations,” says Gail. “I love learning things that no one has ever known before.”

Astronomy is something that surely interests all of us to some degree and is a field that is ready for new discoveries. Only around 400 years ago, Galileo was chastised for championing Copernican heliocentrism (the belief that the Earth revolved around the Sun). This demonstrates just how ready the field of astronomy is when it comes to new and novel ideas that could fundamentally change our understanding of the ways things are.

The 2.5-metre Sloan Telescope (lower right) observing the centre of the Milky Way.

WHAT DOES GAIL FIND MORE REWARDING ABOUT HER RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gail loves learning things that no one has ever known before, such as seeing a particular pattern or correlation for the first time. In many ways, astronomy is not centred on answering questions, but on asking questions that no one has thought to ask before. “What I find particularly rewarding is getting to learn all these things about some of the biggest, most beautiful and most unfathomable objects in the Universe,” explains Gail.

“By ‘unfathomable’ I don’t mean un-understandable, but rather that we can’t truly picture their size, we can’t hold something that big or that hot or that old in our minds. Even stars, which we see every night with our eyes, and which are on average rather small and cool compared to other things in the Universe – our brains just aren’t set up to imagine those regimes.”

WHAT CHALLENGES WILL THE NEXT GENERATION OF ASTRONOMERS FACE?
There are always technical challenges: think about the difficulties of studying space without a telescope! Then think about the first telescopes and how primitive they were. Now think about the telescopes that we have presently and consider how they will one day be seen as primitive! It is a basic fact that we will be able to understand more about space with time simply because of access to improved and better tools.

But then, there are also data challenges. “Our datasets, observational and simulated, are getting increasingly larger, and being able to store this information and access it already requires specialised knowledge,” says Gail. “In addition, data is more complex, so understanding how to put all that data into a meaningful physical understanding is a challenge that is unlikely to be solved any time soon, but it’s exciting to think that one day it will be.”

HOW HAVE OUTREACH AND EDUCATION INITIATIVES, AT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH AND ELSEWHERE, HELPED ENCOURAGE YOUNG PEOPLE TO STUDY STEM?
One of the things the team tries to do with these kinds of programmes is to emphasise that science is something that shows up in everyday life. It’s not some obscure knowledge that only genius people in lab coats have access to. It affects all of us every day and is something we can all learn about. “We try to do fun projects that show how scientific knowledge, maths and computing manifest themselves in objects and activities that everyone can contribute to,” explains Gail.

“We want to convey the idea that studying STEM prepares people for a wide range of things in life – not just jobs! If you want to study science as a career, you can do it, even if you don’t fit the stereotypical image of what, say, the movies tell us a ‘scientist’ looks like.”

Adding the sticker to the first APOGEE instrument at APO.

WHAT WERE YOUR INTERESTS WHEN YOU WERE GROWING UP?
I’ve always loved reading, especially science fiction and historical novels. In school, I enjoyed science and language classes the most – I love learning how systems work, both the physical system of the Universe and human systems of language and communication. I’m also an avid outdoor enthusiast and love camping and spending time in nature, especially here in Utah, with its red-rock canyons, deserts and incredibly dark night-time skies!

WHO OR WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO BECOME AN ASTRONOMER?
It wasn’t until I was at university that I understood that ‘astronomer’ was a job that people could have (my earlier schools didn’t really push science as a career). I took an introductory astrophysics course during my first year at university, and the combination of the enormity and beauty of the Universe, coupled with actually being able to understand pieces of it with maths and physics, was irresistible.

WHAT ATTRIBUTES HAVE MADE YOU SUCCESSFUL AS AN ASTRONOMER?
Being detail-oriented has been very helpful, I think. A lot of my day-to-day work involves writing code, reading and writing papers, and understanding all the nitty-gritty details of a dataset that might influence our interpretation of our results. Not being able or interested in submerging oneself in those details would make the daily work much more challenging.

Being a people person has also been helpful. Much of the astronomical progress currently is made in collaboration with other people, as simulations and datasets get larger and more complex, and just require so many more individuals to create them. I love working with a team of people on a common project and doing my part to make sure the team is a fun and inclusive place to be, which almost always leads to better science too.

WHAT ARE YOUR PROUDEST CAREER ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR?
I am very proud of the scientific knowledge that my team and I have contributed to our understanding of the Universe. I am also proud of what I have been able to do in the classroom and broader environment in the field and my department. Both of these were recognised with a Cottrell Scholar Award in 2021, which honours early-career faculty who have shown excellence in both research and education.

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH CHALLENGES AT WORK?
Deep breaths! Very few things are solved well if people are worked up or angry. If the science or the data are challenging, I take a step back and think about the root of the problem. Taking a walk or working on something else for a while can be very useful. It’s helpful to remember that the Universe isn’t trying to be difficult! Often, things are just more complicated than we anticipated they would be, and our job is to make our treatment of the data more sophisticated in response.

If there are tensions with people causing challenges, I take a similar approach: focus on why people are acting like they are, not the effects on me or my feelings. If someone is behaving inappropriately, that does need to be addressed, but often the root of the conflict is a misunderstanding or miscommunication that a calm, neutral message can resolve.

10-year Plan

August 5, 2022

U astronomers tackle decade’s biggest questions.

Astronomers and astrophysicists at the University of Utah have been driving discoveries in the field for years. The innovative research from the Department of Physics & Astronomy is making an impact in all areas that the national community has determined as priorities in a once-in-a-decade report that guides the direction of astro-research for years to come.

This Decadal Survey was commissioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to identify goals and challenges for the exploration of the cosmos. Unraveling the secrets of the universe requires vision and extensive planning—astronomers and astrophysicists use massive ground observatories and sophisticated space telescopes for projects that need years of preparation. The guidance of the decadal survey is crucial to this effort.

Released in early November, the decadal survey highlights three key research areas ripe for discovery: “Worlds and Suns in Context” focuses on stars and planets; “Cosmic Ecosystems” describe galaxies and the cosmic web they form; and “New Messengers and New Physics” provides a new view of the universe through high-energy particles, gravitational waves, and deep sky surveys. Scientists in the U’s Department of Physics & Astronomy are leaders in each of these areas.

Kyle Dawson

“Over the past several decades, department faculty pushed forward on an increasing number of research areas in astronomy, astrophysics and particle physics. Now these separate initiatives are coming together, in focus, and beautifully aligned with the decadal survey’s top priorities.”

Kyle Dawson, professor of physics and astronomy, will chair the Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC) in the first full year following the release of the decadal survey. The AAAC is a national panel of experts who advise the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Energy toward issues within the fields of astronomy and astrophysics that are of mutual interest. “We meet regularly with leadership from the federal agencies that sponsor research in astronomy and astrophysics. The decadal survey gives our panel a guide to work with those agencies to assess progress toward new programs that will allow the United States to maintain its role as a leader in astronomy and astrophysics research.”

Over the past several decades, department faculty pushed forward on an increasing number of research areas in astronomy, astrophysics and particle physics, notes Professor Dawson. “Now these separate initiatives are coming together, in focus, and beautifully aligned with the decadal survey’s top priorities.”

Worlds and Suns in Context

The sun hosts a rich system of planets, from the massive gas giant Jupiter and the icy dwarf planet Pluto, to Earth, the only body in the universe known to sustain life. Recent observations from space and the ground have revealed thousands of other worlds around distant stars. Some are so large as to dwarf Jupiter, others appear to be exotic water worlds. A precious few may even harbor life. A key priority of the decadal survey is to understand the nature and origin of these worlds and the stars that host them. Driving this quest is a profound question, whether we are alone in the cosmos.

Mock-ups from a fast-migration sim (Jupiter through a massive pebble disk) w/planets + host star added.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, (SDSS), an international effort to chart the cosmos, is mapping stars across our galaxy, the Milky Way. Scientists at the U are in leadership roles in this large-scale, on-going collaboration. With detailed measurements of millions of stars, SDSS will provide an understanding of their chemical composition, how the elements are spread throughout the galaxy, and the connection between stars, their composition and the planets they host. This world-class project is integral to the decadal survey’s scientific goals.

Research at the U also focuses on planet formation, how worlds emerge from the gas and cosmic dust that encircle all observed young stars. Simulations run on high-performance computers track this process, how planetary building blocks come together, sometimes through violent collisions, to grow into the planets like those in our solar system and around other stars in the cosmos.

Cosmic Ecosystems

Looking beyond the stars visible in the night sky, astronomers have discovered a wealth of exotic objects, including neutron stars, with the mass of the sun packed into a region the size of a small city, and black holes, where matter is so concentrated that space and time warp to form an event horizon, from which nothing, not even light, can escape. Telescopes also reveal galaxies, like our own Milky Way, with hundreds of billions of stars, even supermassive black holes in their centers, strewn across space. Neighboring galaxies, drawn together by gravity, form enormous clusters, the most massive objects in the universe. They are permeated by dark matter, an unidentified, ethereal substance known only through its gravitational influence. Together with galaxies and galaxy clusters, the dark matter sea forms patterns – knots, sheets and walls in a vast cosmic web. A second top priority of the decadal survey is to understand this cosmic web, the structures it contains, and how these structures formed out of the hot, dense early universe.

At the U, researchers are studying the ecosystems that produced this diversity of cosmic structure. With theoretical and computer studies, as well as observations from the ground and space, Utah faculty are probing the nature of galaxies, the central supermassive black holes they harbor, and how stars, gas, and dark matter interact to produce the cosmic structures we observe today. Research on nearby small galaxies, including satellites of our Milky Way and other nearby massive galaxies, will help us understand their formation histories and the role of dark matter in that formation. Upcoming observations with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the most sophisticated observatory ever launched, will help university researchers discover supermassive black holes in the central regions of galaxies to learn how these exotic beasts formed. At larger distances and earlier times, large clouds of gas – the precursors of galaxies– provide key diagnostics for researchers at Utah to identify the underlying physics of galaxy formation. Galaxy clusters, with up to thousands of galaxies bound together, are also in focus at Utah as researchers take advantage of NASA’s NuSTAR mission to study the hot X-ray emitting gas trapped in these massive objects. These separate research threads are weaving together a more complete and compelling picture of cosmic structure formation.

New Messengers and New Physics

Studies of the universe began with optical telescopes, using our eyes to capture the signal from distant sources. As technology advanced, we used cameras to record this light, thus allowing for longer integrations and deeper insights into the cosmos. We soon began to explore the cosmos with light not visible to our eyes, from radio waves to X-rays to light with even higher energies. The scientific community has continued to add new messengers from the cosmos beyond the electromagnetic spectrum: High energy particles, neutrinos, and gravitational waves. Combining these multiple messengers is key to understanding the underlying physics of the most extreme events in the cosmos such as stellar explosions, collisions between black holes or neutron stars, and the dramatic forces in the regions surrounding supermassive black holes. Our understanding of the universe has advanced with each new way of observing the sky.

Bryce canyon skies. photo: Anil Seth

The faculty at Utah helped introduce some of these new messengers to the field of astrophysics. The Telescope Array, near Delta, Utah, is the most recent in a series of Utah experiments to study very high energy particles. The highest energy particle on record was detected from this sequence of experiments in Utah. The Utah faculty round out the full suite of messengers with significant contributions to the LIGO interferometer that is used to detect gravitational waves, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, and the Veritas and HAWC (High-Altitude Water Cherenkov) observatories, and the future CTA and SWGO observatories used to detect the highest energy photons. The Utah faculty also leverages national facilities to use everything between radio and X-rays to explore the physics behind the most dramatic events in the universe.

This theme within the decadal survey also includes new physics, particularly the unknown physical natures of dark matter and dark energy. The possibility for discovering new fields, new particles, new laws for gravity, or new particle interactions motivated the construction of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument in Arizona. Faculty in Utah use the data from these observatories to constrain models of fundamental physics and hunt for the signatures of new physics. Faculty in Utah are also making theoretical predictions for new signatures that dark matter or other new physics may introduce into the full suite of astronomical detectors that are used to track the multiple messengers from the cosmos.

John Belz - Studies the composition of the highest-energy cosmic rays, and investigated the use of novel instruments for their detection. He also uses computational techniques to model extreme spacetimes at the threshold of black hole formation, work complementary to the studies carried out by the Utah gravitational wave physics group.

Douglas Bergman - Uses observations of ultra high energy cosmic rays to test fundamental physics at the highest energies and to explore where extreme acceleration mechanisms exist in the local universe.

Benjamin Bromley - Explores the formation of planets using supercomputer simulations. This work identifies the conditions necessary for a star to host a planet like Earth.

Joel Brownstein - The head of data for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). He uses the distribution of luminous matter and dark matter to explore cosmic ecosystems.

Kyle Dawson - Co-spokesperson who sets priorities for cosmological studies within the 500-member, Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collaboration. He uses these spectroscopic data to search for new physics such as dark energy, new theories of gravity, and new fields that affect the evolution of the cosmos.

Paolo Gondolo - Studies theoretical models for new physics related to the nature of dark matter, and uses multi-messenger observational and experimental data to test them.

Charles Jui - Uses ultra high energy cosmic rays as a messenger to explore where extreme acceleration mechanisms exist in the local universe.

David Kieda - Leads multi -messenger astrophysics observations using high energy gamma rays as a messenger to explore particle acceleration around supernova remnants, neutron stars and black holes. Head of US development effort for ultra-high resolution interferometric observations of stars and binary systems.

Tanmoy Laskar - Uses light across the electromagnetic spectrum to investigate new physics in distant cosmic explosions.

Yao-Yuan Mao - Searches for galaxies in the nearby universe that are much smaller than the Milky Way and studies their roles in the cosmic ecosystems and their connection to dark matter.

John Matthews - Uses ultra high energy cosmic rays as a messenger to explore where extreme acceleration mechanisms exist in the local universe.

Carsten Rott - Studies neutrinos as a member of the IceCube collaboration, an observatory built into the pristine ice of the South Pole.

Pearl Sandick - Studies possible explanations for the dark matter in the Universe, how to confirm its nature experimentally, and how it affects our understanding of particle physics.

Anil Seth - Uses NASA’s recently launched James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other national facilities to study cosmic ecosystems and supermassive black holes.

Wayne Springer - Uses very high energy gamma rays as a messenger to explore particle acceleration around supermassive black holes.

Daniel Wik - Takes a broad view of cosmic ecosystems by exploring clusters of galaxies and their wells of hot gas.

Gail Zasowski - Uses positions, motions, ages, and chemical makeup of millions of stars in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies to better understand today’s worlds and suns.

Yue Zhao - Leads the Utah gravitational wave physics group in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Zheng Zheng - Studies the connection between galaxies, the dark matter halos in which they live, and the gas that flows in and out of these dark matter halos.