Experts in the News

Toad tongues are ready for their closeup — extremely close closeups — in this video from San Francisco PBS station KQED. The closeups and slow-motion photography are necessary to show the role toad saliva plays in snatching crickets, worms, and other prey in the blink of an eye. Thanks to research from the team of David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics, science learned that a toad’s saliva starts off thick and sticky. But when the saliva hits prey at a high speed, it thins out dramatically, pouring into every nook and cranny the tongue touches. And then, it becomes sticky again, drawing that meal down the hatch.

Green companies across the U.S. have developed innovations geared toward minimizing humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions. While carbon dioxide is naturally released from events like volcanic eruptions and wildfires, it’s also the primary greenhouse gas released by transportation, electricity, industrial processes and other activities. Many climate tech businesses are hard at work developing solutions to shrink our carbon footprint. One of the companies highlighted in this profile is Lithos, a carbon capture innovator focused on the agriculture industry. The company’s rock weathering solution is based on a biogeochemical process that uses volcanic basalt rock dust to decompose carbon in fields, as well as nourish growing crops. Chris Reinhard, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is a Lithos co-founder.

Chia seeds sprouted in trays have experimentally confirmed a mathematical model proposed by computer scientist and polymath Alan Turing decades ago. The model describes how patterns might emerge in nature, such as desert vegetation, leopard spots and zebra stripes. But proving that Turing’s model explains patterns in the real world has been challenging. It could be that the idea is a mathematical just-so story that happens to produce similar shapes in a computer, says Flavio Fenton, professor in the School of Physics. Brendan D'Aquino, a Northeastern University computer science undergraduate student who studied in Fenton's lab in the summer of 2022, described his Turing-based experiment at the recent American Physical Society March meeting. (This story also appeared in LiveScience.)

Two New Orleans high school seniors who say they have proven Pythagoras’s theorem by using trigonometry – which academics for two millennia have thought to be impossible – are being encouraged by a prominent US mathematical research organization to submit their work to a peer-reviewed journal. Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson, who are students of St Mary’s Academy, recently gave a presentation of their findings at the American Mathematical Society Southeastern Section meeting at Georgia Tech, hosted by the School of Mathematics. They were reportedly the only two high schoolers to give presentations at the meeting, attended by math researchers from institutions including Georgia Tech and the universities of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana State, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Texas Tech. (This story was also covered in NOLA.com, Essence, BlackNews.com, Complex, Yahoo! Entertainment, Crusader Newspaper Group, Atlanta Black Star, and Greek Reporter.) 

If you’ve ever dreamed of skating on Saturn’s rings or making a pit-stop on Venus, maybe those fantasies are best kept to dreamland. In reality, each of the planets in our solar system besides Earth would immediately annihilate you — in pretty much the worst way possible. In short, not even a spacesuit would save you from Jupiter’s insane atmospheric pressure or Venus’s 900-degree temperatures. Unfortunately, you’d pretty much be gone in the blink of an eye — but it’s still fascinating to know exactly how that would happen. Jennifer Glass, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, details how you'd die on Mercury: "“If you died on the hot side, you would be burned to death in seconds, while asphyxiating and having all the water vaporize from your body.” (This story includes other information from an October 2022 Newsweek story, which has more quotes from Glass.) 

The final week of the Atlanta Science Festival (ASF) is underway (March 20-25), and there are still plenty of activities for families to enjoy around the city. Now in its 10th year, the festival explores the intersection of science, technology, engineering and math with food, nature and the arts. It’s an enlightening and entertaining way to learn about the many ways science is woven into our everyday lives. Several Georgia Tech College of Sciences faculty, staff, and students are taking part in the event. Check here for more ASF details. 

The final week of the Atlanta Science Festival (ASF) is underway (March 20-25), and there are still plenty of activities for families to enjoy around the city. Now in its 10th year, the festival explores the intersection of science, technology, engineering and math with food, nature and the arts. It’s an enlightening and entertaining way to learn about the many ways science is woven into our everyday lives. Several Georgia Tech College of Sciences faculty, staff, and students are taking part in the event. Check here for more ASF details. 

Fish that tend patches of stringy algae seem to shield branching corals from the worst effects of marine heat waves and help them recover after bleaching. In 2019, the reefs near the French Polynesian island of Moorea in the South Pacific Ocean endured their worst heat stress event in 14 years. Branching corals there bleached en masse. Some of those colonies were in "gardens" defended by farmerfish, which cultivate their own algae for food and chase off fish that eat plants and corals. The researchers discovered that, after one year, just 44 per cent of colonies inside gardens died compared with 67 per cent of those outside gardens. What’s more, colonies on the turf of the territorial fish were twice as likely to recover living tissue to the levels they had been before bleaching. Mark Hay, Regents Professor and Teasley Chair in the School of Biological Sciences, didn't work on the research but said that tissue recovery was "a big deal" and that the farmerfish seem to be having a positive effect. (Subscription required)

Walking into a high school classroom full of young, eager minds would intimidate some, but for Erica Borgers Klonkowski, who received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, it’s an opportunity to dazzle and spark inspiration in students with scientific magic. How does she rise to the task? By devoting her time, energy, knowledge and resources to volunteer at local schools and in the community through Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division’s (NSWCDD) STEM educational programs and sponsored events.

Black holes remain one of the great mysteries of the universe. Another enigma? Dark energy. Little is known about this concept, aside from the belief that dark energy accelerates the expansion of the universe. There’s a new theory that brings together black holes and dark energy into one mind-bending solution: research led by the University of Hawai’i at Manoa posits that dark energy could actually come from supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies. Feryal Özel, professor and chair of the School of Physics, and a founding member of the Event Horizon Telescope project that has captured images of black holes, joined host Ira Flatow to talk about the new development.

Walking into a high school classroom full of young, eager minds would intimidate some, but for Erica Borgers Klonkowski, who received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, it’s an opportunity to dazzle and spark inspiration in students with scientific magic. How does she rise to the task? By devoting her time, energy, knowledge and resources to volunteer at local schools and in the community through Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division’s (NSWCDD) STEM educational programs and sponsored events.

Țară Stoinski, president/CEO and chief scientific officer for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, doesn't just have to worry about increasing the numbers of the various species of gorillas under her group's conservation care. Stoinski, who received her Ph.D. from the School of Psychology in 2000 and joined the Fossey Fund while working at Zoo Atlanta, also has to try to find more land for the animals, protect them from poachers, and deal with the challenges that arise from civil unrest in countries where the gorillas have their habitats.