The Board of Regents, State of Iowa has approved formation of the new Translational AI Research and Education Center (TrAC) at Iowa State University. TrAC was initially established with $450,000 in Iowa State University Presidential Interdisciplinary Research Initiative (PIRI) funding, sponsored by the Office of the President and administered by the Office of the Vice President for…

During the dramatic halt to in-person events in 2020, the use of video call software skyrocketed, transforming Zoom into a household name, opening the door to telehealth, and spurring ongoing conversations about the future of work. The COVID-19 pandemic will eventually subside, but videoconference calls, whether through Zoom, Webex or some other platform, are here…

Iowa State University scientists have harnessed data analytics to look “under the hood” of the mechanisms that determine how genetics and changing environmental conditions interact during crucial developmental stages of plants. A new study published in the academic scientific journal New Phytologist focuses on how changes in temperature affect the height of sorghum plants, and the scientists…

The Iowa State University Plant Sciences Institute recently completed its third Faculty Scholars cohort, welcoming four additional Iowa State researchers to a roster currently comprised of 25 active faculty members. The PSI Faculty Scholars program, which began in 2015, is open to PhDs with tenure-track positions of assistant professor or higher at Iowa State. It…

The Iowa State University Office of the Vice President for Research has announced two winning teams for the 2021 Presidential Interdisciplinary Research Initiative (PIRI), distributing a total of $900,000 in institutional funding to support two of the largest collaborative initiatives in award history. Established in 2012 and sponsored by the Office of the President, PIRI…

Midwesterners fretting in dark kitchens after a storm have a pretty good idea about the real-world consequences of a cyberattack on the power grid. “Other than intent and persistence, there isn’t much difference between a tornado and a hacker,” said Doug Jacobson, a University Professor of electrical and computer engineering at Iowa State University, director of the university’s Center…

The damage natural disasters like tornadoes and floods inflict is often immediate. But a community’s ability to successfully rebound from the impacts of these disasters is tied directly to its ability to assess damage just as quickly and efficiently in order to restore the functionality of civil infrastructures. A team of Iowa State University researchers…

The newly assembled genomes of 26 different genetic lines of corn illustrate the crop’s rich genetic diversity and could pave the way for a better understanding of what genetic mechanisms account for crop traits prized by farmers. The mapping of the 26 genomes is detailed in an article published in the journal Science, and Matthew Hufford,…

Scientists have invested great time and effort into making connections between a plant’s genotype, or its genetic makeup, and its phenotype, or the plant’s observable traits. Understanding a plant’s genome helps plant biologists predict how that plant will perform in the real world, which can be useful for breeding crop varieties that will produce high…

A gardener hoping for a crop of the juiciest summer tomatoes might tend to each and every plant in a plot. But a farmer working to feed the world? Researchers believe that may be possible. They’re applying and integrating layers of technologies – including sensors, machine learning, artificial intelligence, high-throughput phenotyping platforms such as drones…