In an underground bunker west of Corvallis, scientists monitor tremors around the world
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Listening Post
Author: Nick Houtman
Nick Houtman is director of research communications at OSU and edits Terra, a world of research and creativity at Oregon State University. He has experience in weekly and daily print journalism and university science writing. A native Californian, he lived in Wisconsin and Maine before arriving in Corvallis in 2005.
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Thinking Like a Physicist
Walk into an upper-level college physics classroom almost anywhere in the country, and you’ll see students sitting down, listening to the professor and taking notes. Despite years of education research showing that students learn better by being active, the common curriculum for juniors and seniors in physics still emphasizes passivity. At Oregon State University, advanced physics instruction has already made the transition.
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When it rains, beetles fly
OSU’s Chris Marshal takes a trip to Oregon’s Coast Range in search of beetles.
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Hard-rock story
Oregon State University Professor Anthony Koppers and Toshitsugu Yamazaki of the Geological Society of Japan were co-leaders of the latest cruise conducted under the auspices of the International Ocean Drilling Program (IODP). Their target: the Louisville Seamount Trail — a 2,600-mile-long line of underwater mountains in the South Pacific — where they hoped to learn more about the geophysical processes that produce such features as the Hawaiian Islands or the stretch of ancient volcanoes between the Oregon Cascades and Yellowstone National Park.
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Salmon diets are skin deep
Scientists at the Oregon Hatchery Research Center look for clues to what salmon eat in an unlikely place: the mucus that fish produce on their skin.
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Green Tower
If your taste buds yearn for home-grown tomatoes, spinach, onions, garlic, lettuce, potatoes and cukes, but your garden is the size of a postage stamp, Al Shay has an idea for you.