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DALLAS () – From answering pre-launch questions before a NASA mission to one of Saturn’s moons, to identifying hundreds of mostly “hidden” landslides on the U.S. West Coast, ��«����Ƶ professors and students fueled research with impact in 2021. Here are some of the highlights:  

 

The , ,,, and  all featured the work of chemistry expert Tomče Runčevski, who led a team of researchers to create Titan-in-a-test-tube, which replicated the conditions of Saturn’s moon, Titan. Titan is the only moon in our solar system to have a dense atmosphere like Earth and is the only one to have liquid rivers, lakes and seas. 

 

Five reporters and photographers from visited human speed expert Peter Weyand’s Locomotor Performance Lab for a story and video on how speed and distance dictate how Olympians run. In another story, Weyand commented on his evaluation of runner Blake Leeper, barred from international competition because his running blades give him an unfair height advantage.

 

 

The duck-billed dinosaur, Yamatosaurus, discovered by paleontologist Tony Fiorillo and colleagues in Japan, was named by as one of the 10 most amazing dinosaurs discovered in 2021. The new dinosaur species was also featured in and , among others. In addition, a journalist writing for tagged along with Fiorillo on his search for Arctic dinosaur footprints in one of Alaska’s most remote locations.  

 

A team of mechanical engineering researchers is working with NASA to develop Frosty, a tiny optical seismometer that could be used for exploration on icy worlds like Jupiter’s moon, Europa. covered the ��«����Ƶ team’s research – doctoral students Jaime Da Silva and Elie Salameh and professor Volkan Ötügen are featured.

 

In the “good news, bad news” category, the meteorite that crashed into Earth 66 million years ago caused the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, but also led to the emergence of the Amazon rainforest, paleobotanist Bonnie Jacobs said in and and on .

 

New research by education policy expert Dominique Baker on using admissions lotteries to increase diversity was featured in , , and . The , , , and other media outlets tapped Baker throughout the year on topics such as student debt and options to replace the SAT and ACT. 

 

Psychology expert Nathan Hudson’s recent research that personality traits can be changed through intervention was highlighted in  and .

 

Engineering Ph.D. student Collin Yarbrough discussed his book, Paved a Way: Infrastructure, Policy and Racism in an American City, with,  and SiriusXM radio’s , a 24-hour channel dedicated to the trucking industry.

 

and featured technology developed by Lyle Dean Marc Christensen and engineering experts Duncan MacFarlane and Prasanna Rangarajan that enables cameras to see through nearly anything and around corners.

 

In Iceland, ��«����Ƶ volcanologist John Eichelberger and an international team are learning more about a magma chamber below the Krafka volcano, reported. 

 

and covered biology expert Robert Harrod’s research on TIGAR, a protein found in cervical cancer cells. He found that when the protein was decreased, cervical cancer cells became hypersensitive to chemotherapy treatments.

 

Their grandmothers’ struggles with Alzheimer’s disease inspired two ��«����Ƶ Ph.D. students, James McCormick and Lauren Ammerman, to identify a protein that may slow the onset of the disease.  and featured their research.

 

 

Geophysicist Zhong Lu and Yuankun Xu, a postdoctoral researcher who works in Lu's ��«����Ƶ Radar Laboratory, used satellite imagery to identify more than 600 slow-moving landslides near the U.S. West Coast. Less than 5% of the landslides were previously identified. The news was covered by and AGU’s , and Lu and Xu co-authored an op-ed for syndicated news service calling for policymakers in western states to monitor the movement of landslides they identified.

In an op-ed in the engineering professor Halit Uster urged emergency preparedness experts to consider his research demonstrating the importance of across-the-board cooperation long before a natural disaster occurs.

The discovery of carbon dioxide cold traps on the Moon has implications for future lunar landings as well as possible human or robot occupation on the Moon, according to new research by planetary scientist Matthew Siegler and others in

 

Energy efficiency can reduce cost and greenhouse gas emissions, drive economic development and create jobs, Hunt Institute Executive Director Eva Csaky wrote in and in a op-ed.

 

Is your pet part of your family? Yes, says sociologist Andrea Laurent-Simpson in her new book, Just Like Family: How Companion Animals Joined the Household. wrote about her new book and and featured her op-eds.

 

Physics expert Stephen Sekula explored how gaps in scientific knowledge spark scientific revolutions in a full-page op-ed in .

 

Biology researcher John Wise was featured in , and as lead inventor of ChemGen, a computational approach to drug discovery that cuts the time and costs of drug discovery.

 

Psychology professor Priscilla Lui discussed her research on racial discrimination in a two-part series on anti-Asian racism with She also notes there is nothing micro about racial microaggressions in an op-ed piece she wrote in . 

 

In the geothermal experts Maria Richards and Bob Gregory propose that expanded use of geothermal energy may help with Texas’ recent energy woes.

 

featured the collaboration between ��«����Ƶ and Children’s Health through its Children’s Health Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine. As ��«����Ƶ biomechanist and physiologist Peter Weyand explained, the collaboration is dedicated to leveraging the transformational power of sports to improve the health, activity levels and well-being of kids.  

 

 marked the one-year anniversary of Dallas County’s first COVID-19 case with a story including insight from anthropologist Neely Myers and historian Bianca Lopez.

 

Austin Baldwin, a psychology expert who studies vaccine acceptance, predicted in  that Johnson & Johnson’s single dose vaccine would increase vaccination rates. He also talked with about COVID-19 vaccines.

 

Physicist Krista Lynne Smith combined readings from two high-powered space telescopes to detect a bright, long-lasting gamma-ray burst. , and covered the discovery. The physics professor also explained the science of the Dec. 21 alignment of Jupiter and Saturn to . Missed it? You’ll have another opportunity in 2080.

 

, and covered new research from psychology expert Chrystyna Kouros suggesting children on the autism spectrum may be more likely to misinterpret healthy arguments between their parents as negative, compared to children who are not on the autism spectrum.

 

Ice age Siberians may have been the first to domesticate dogs, according to a paper co-authored by renowned ��«����Ƶ anthropologist David Meltzer and covered by and

 

highlighted the work of ��«����Ƶ engineering professors Ali Beskok and J.-C. Chiao that has developed a new rapid COVID-19 antibody test that produces results in minutes from a drop of blood.

 

 

 

Engineering graduate Aman Singh has helped his family business grow from his mother’s kitchen to a 30,000-square-foot factory manufacturing Kaurina’s Kulfi, a frozen Indian dessert made from caramelized milk, which is expanding its distribution in the Dallas market.  featured the company.

 

featured research by Simmons human speed experts Peter Weyand, Jen Nollkamper and Lindsay Ludlow that compared four walking calorie equations, including the one they developed, Minimum Mechanics. The result? In most cases, reviewers preferred the accuracy of the Minimum Mechanics equation.

 

Psychology expert George Holden discussed his child development model with . Holden found that effective parents guide their children by ensuring they are developing along positive trajectories.

 

Humans did not hunt woolly mammoths to extinction, anthropologist David Meltzer told The creatures, he said, were wiped out 15,000 years ago by massive climate change that eliminated dozens of ice age creatures. In he supported new evidence of the earliest human occupation of North America – 20,000-year-old fossilized human footprints found in White Sands, New Mexico.

 

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