Tag: Environment

Nine Husker researchers earned National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program awards during the 2025 cycle, tying an institutional record set in 2024.

Increasing the number of external honorific awards is one of UNL’s strategic goals. The following list includes selected awards and accomplishments that Husker researchers earned in fiscal year 2025.

Biologist Rene Martin’s research revealed, for the first time, that birds-of-paradise are biofluorescent, meaning they absorb light from the sun and re-emit intensely bright colors. Martin’s work generated headlines across the world, including in The New York Times, the Guardian and Smithsonian Magazine.

Nearly one in eight Nebraskans are unable to easily access healthy food, and the problem is especially acute in rural areas. Husker irrigation engineer Saleh Taghvaeian is supporting food production and local economies by researching how micro-irrigation systems can boost smaller-scale agriculture.

Nebraska is leading a national effort to assess the health risks posed by antimicrobial-resistant pathogens in the environment. The study is one of the first to use field data to gauge the level of risk posed by activities like swimming and fishing in waters contaminated by resistant bacteria.

Despite their microscopic size, methanogens play a major role in the global carbon cycle. A Nebraska research team uncovered another dimension of how they function, painting a clearer picture of environmental carbon flow and providing key information for the sustainable development of bioenergy sources.

Humans have strategies for dealing with bothersome environmental noise: headphones, white noise, soundproofing materials and more. Husker research suggests that animals, too, have methods for tuning out. Biologists Eileen Hebets and Brandi Pessman published one of the first studies showing that the funnel-weaving spider can change how it receives sound when faced with local, human-generated noise.