Allen Gibbs (Life Sciences) published An Experimental Evolution Test of the Melanism-Desiccation Hypothesis in Insects in PLoS One. This study challenges a long-standing idea in insect physiology, that darker insects will survive better in drier conditions. Co-authors included Subhash Rajpurohit, a former post-doctoral researcher in the Gibbs lab…

Martin Schiller (Nevada Institute of Personalized Medicine) and the Schiller Laboratory of Applied Bioinformatics, Christy Strong (Life Sciences), Ronald Benjamin, Omoyemwen Igbinedion (both Nevada Institute of Personalized Medicine), and peers at other institutions recently published a review article titled “TALEN Gene Editing Takes Aim on HIV”…

Frank van Breukelen and Jenifer Utz (Life Sciences) organized the 15th International Hibernation Symposium, which was held in Las Vegas July 31-Aug. 4, and was hosted by UNLV and the School of Life Sciences. The symposiums are conducted once every four years and bring together most of the hibernation researchers from around the globe. This…

Doctoral student Carmen Vallin (Life Sciences) was awarded the American Society for Microbiology Robert D. Watkins Graduate Research Fellowship. The program provides a total stipend of $63,000 ($21,000 a year) for a three-year period and is aimed at highly competitive graduate students. Vallin was awarded this…

Lars Walker (Life Sciences) is co-editor of Long-Term Ecological Research Changing the Nature of Scientists, an insiders' views of ways that that long-term collaborative ecological research has shaped science and scientists in the U.S. Long-Term Ecological Research network. Walker also was a co-author on Chapter 1 (Changing the…

Brian Hedlund (Life Sciences) recently was featured in the Vegas PBS series Outdoor Nevada. Hedlund and host John Burke look for clues to life on other planets in the hot springs in Gerlach.  Vegas PBS’ Outdoor Nevada originally aired from 1995 to 1999. Hosted by highly regarded television host and actor John Burke,…

Scott Abella (Life Sciences) presented the first talk in the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension's 2016 Nevada Naturalist Lecture Series. His presentation was titled "Conserving America’s National Parks." Abella shared stories of active conservation projects across the national park system, including many local parks such as…

Biologist Daniel Thompson (Life Sciences) was recently featured in the Vegas PBS series Outdoor Nevada. Thompson and colleagues from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service joined host John Burke to discuss rare butterflies in the Spring Mountains. Vegas PBS’ Outdoor Nevada originally aired from 1995…

Brian Hedlund (Life Sciences) is now serving as a member of the board of trustees for Bergey’s Manual Trust. The board is responsible for managing the trust, promoting microbial systematics internationally, and compiling and editing Bergey’s Manual of Systematics of Archaea and Bacteria, the preeminent reference publication on the taxonomy of…

Brian Hedlund (Life Sciences) recently co-authored “Global Metagenomic Survey Reveals a New Bacterial Candidate Phylum in Geothermal Springs” with several colleagues in the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute as well as other institutions of higher education. The article appears in Nature Communications, published by the…

Brett Riddle (Life Sciences) is a co-author on a paper that was recently published in Nature. The article is titled, "Holocene Shifts in the Assembly of Plant and Animal Communities Implicate Human Impacts." Understanding how ecological communities are organized and how they change through time is critical to predicting the effects of climate…

Brian Hedlund (Life Sciences) recently received an $876,229 National Science Foundation grant for his project, "Collaborative Proposal: Biodiversity Discovery and Analysis of 'Aigarchaeota', a Globally Distributed But Poorly Understood Archaeal Lineage." The grant is for three years.