“If a person with facial paralysis walks into a room, people can tell that something is different, but they can’t quite figure out what it is,” says Kathleen Bogart, OSU psychologist.
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Familiar Faces
Category: Healthy People
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Animal Behavior
Our decisions carry implications for health, livelihoods, communities and the environment as well as for the well-being of the animals. Ethical principles — whether codified in law or community practice — guide decisions in each of these arenas and evolve with social norms.
When it comes to water, Lauren Smitherman doesn’t mind getting a little personal. As a graduate student in Water Resources Science at Oregon State University, she asked people in rural Oregon for permission to collect samples of their drinking water. Assured of confidentiality, most people welcomed her into their kitchens where Smitherman ran a stream of cold water from their faucets for a few minutes before filling a plastic bottle.
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Swallowing the Guilt Pill
“Our emotions are being targeted by corporate interests to internalize the wrongs that have been done to the environment,” explains Tim Jensen.
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Biology Through Numbers
Through the Biological Informatics and Genomics (BIG) initiative, Oregon State is building expertise to apply the latest research results to human health, agricultural crops and other pressing needs. Each new faculty member combines experience in biology, math and computational science.
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Diet and the Microbiome
The gut microbiome — a teeming mass of bacteria, fungi, viruses, archaea and protozoans that live in our lower gastrointestinal tracts — has captured the attention of health-conscious consumers. Through controlled studies with mice, scientists have learned that by manipulating the microbiome, we can induce weight loss, affect pain perception and decrease hormonal responses to stress, among other fascinating outcomes. We know that the microbiome interacts with the immune, neuroendocrine and cardiovascular systems to affect health.