Division of Natural Sciences

Medical issues and neighborhood opportunity can affect infant development

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 20:21:30 +0000

Medical issues and neighborhood opportunity can affect infant development Rachel Sauer Mon, 08/04/2025 - 14:21

Sarah Kuta

ɫ��Ƶ�� researcher Emily Yeo finds that some babies may benefit from more support and resources so they can grow up to lead long, happy and healthy lives

In an ideal world, every baby would be born perfectly healthy. Unfortunately, many newborns arrive prematurely or suffer from medical conditions that could hinder their future development.

Some of these high-risk infants live in neighborhoods with access to healthy food, low crime rates and affordable housing. Others, however, live in worse-off communities with limited access to quality education, health care, housing and jobs.

Now, new research led by ɫ��Ƶ��’s Emily Yeo explores how medical complexity and neighborhood opportunity might affect the development of high-risk infants.

Emily Yeo, a PhD student in the ɫ��Ƶ�� Department of Integrative Physiology, led research exploring how medical complexity and neighborhood opportunity might affect the development of high-risk infants.

The findings, recently published in the Journal of Pediatrics, suggest some babies may benefit from more support and resources so they can grow up to lead long, happy and healthy lives.

“What the study highlights is that there’s sort of a double burden on medically complex infants living in lower-opportunity neighborhoods,” says Yeo, a doctoral student in the Department of Integrative Physiology. “There needs to be a lot more research into how we can better support these infants, especially within the first couple of years of their lives, which are critical for development and when small interventions could have a huge, life-long impact.”

Studying high-risk infants in California

Public health professionals have long understood that social, environmental and economic factors affect human health and development. Everything from a person’s income and education levels to the purity of the air they breathe and their access to grocery stores can play a role in their well-being.

Against this backdrop, scientists wanted to understand whether there was a relationship between the complexity of infants’ medical conditions, their neighborhood opportunity and their developmental progress.

“To fully understand the developmental challenges these infants face, it is essential to consider how their medical conditions interact with the social and environmental contexts of their upbringing,” says Yeo.

The team studied 440 infants born in Southern California between 2014 and 2023. Doctors had deemed these babies “high-risk” because they were born prematurely, had very low birth weights or suffered from conditions that required treatment in a neonatal intensive care unit.

By reviewing the infants’ medical records, scientists were able to categorize them based on the seriousness of their situation. Infants with the highest level of medical complexity, for instance, had conditions like permanent brain damage or chronic respiratory issues. Those with the lowest level of medical complexity, meanwhile, had more easily treatable conditions, like acute lung or eye infections.

Researchers also assessed each child’s neighborhood opportunity level, based on their home address. For this, they turned to the Child Opportunity Index, a pre-existing, composite index that analyzes education, health, social and economic data from every census tract in the United States.

Some neighborhoods earn high scores, because the children who live there have access to quality schools, clean air, health care, playgrounds and other conditions that will help them grow up healthy and become thriving adults. Other neighborhoods, however, offer very few or none of these resources. Black, Hispanic and Native American children are more likely to live in very low-opportunity neighborhoods compared to their White peers.

For each child, researchers also collected developmental scores from standard tests conducted when they were between the ages of 4 months and 36 months old. The scores came from the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, which doctors consider the “gold standard” for evaluating infant cognitive, motor and language skills, the researchers write in the paper.

ɫ��Ƶ�� researcher Emily Yeo found that childhood development is affected by both medical and social factors, which aligns with what pediatricians see in daily practice. (Photo: Emily May/Unsplash)

When the scientists analyzed all of the data they had gathered, some clear patterns began to emerge. Developmental scores got worse as medical complexity increased, meaning that infants with more severe and complicated health conditions had lower cognitive, motor and language scores. These finding are consistent with previous studies, says Yeo, which have found that infants with fewer medical complications are also likely to face fewer challenges achieving growth milestones.

The study also found that medical complexity had a more significant effect on developmental outcomes than gestational age, or how early a baby was born. This is an important takeaway for pediatricians, who have long used gestational age to predict potential developmental delays or issues, says Yeo.

“Gestational age might be useful for infants who are not medically complex, but if you’re looking specifically at those infants, we need a more granular tool,” she says. “With this group of infants, we saw that gestational age didn’t really play a huge role in deciphering differences in development, whereas their degree of medical complexity did.”

The researchers also found a correlation between lower neighborhood opportunity scores and decreased language scores, but not cognitive and motor scores. The reasons for this discrepancy are not clear. But, overall, this finding indicates that where an infant lives does seem to play a role in their development.

Importantly, the study also ruled out differences in development based on race and ethnicity alone. Black and Hispanic babies did have lower developmental scores than White babies, but the findings indicate those disparities resulted from differences in the infants’ socio-demographic and medical factors.

“The differences do not come from race and ethnicity itself—they come from other influential factors that tend to be worse in those groups,” says Yeo, adding that this finding aligns with the general shift from race-based to race-conscious medicine.

More social supports for development

Together, the study results align with what pediatricians see in real life—that childhood development is affected by both medical and social factors. The research also highlights the importance of early intervention programs and policies designed to help children succeed.

“It’s one more indication of how, if we really want to move the needle and improve the outcomes of these babies that are born with medical risk factors, we need to put as many social supports in place as we can to support their development,” says study senior author Christine Mirzaian, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and an associate professor of clinical pediatrics in the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

“It’s not just the child’s medical diagnosis that is going to impact their development—it’s also the neighborhood the child is brought up in, how much medical care their family is able to afford and other barriers.”

The study did not explore the possible mechanisms at play—that is, why medical complexity and neighborhood opportunity seem to be linked with development. But the researchers have a few theories.

For one, children with very serious health issues often need to use medical equipment that helps them breathe and eat—like feeding tubes in their stomachs or oxygen tubes in their noses. From a purely physical standpoint, these devices may make it difficult for infants to do “all the basic things babies do,” Mirzaian says, like rolling around or pulling themselves up to a standing position.

Another possible explanation is that a child’s appointments and treatments may leave little time for activities that promote development, like reading and playing with toys, Mirzaian adds.

Families living in neighborhoods with low opportunity scores, meanwhile, may be grappling with poverty—and having a baby with a serious medical condition likely only adds to their stress. Through no fault of their own, caregivers may need to focus more on basic needs—like how they’re going to pay next month’s rent or put food on the table—and less on their child’s development, says Mirzaian.

‘Medical Data Alone Does Not Tell the Whole Story’

Looking ahead, the co-authors hope other researchers will repeat and replicate the study, perhaps in other geographic locations or with slightly different populations. Future work might also involve following the same children as they grow up, to see whether and how their developmental outcomes change over time.

For now, though, the study is a good first step toward understanding the link between medical complexity, neighborhood opportunity and development. Zooming out, the findings also reinforce the idea that “medical data alone does not tell the whole story,” says Yeo.

“It’s important for researchers to consider social explanations to formulate a holistic picture of infant development,” she adds. “It’s not just the child’s medical diagnosis that is going to impact their development—it’s also the neighborhood the child is brought up in, how much medical care their family is able to afford and other barriers.”

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ɫ��Ƶ�� researcher Emily Yeo finds that some babies may benefit from more support and resources so they can grow up to lead long, happy and healthy lives.

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Top photo: Philip Mroz/Unsplash

Cycling tradition meets biomechanics at CU

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 18:47:46 +0000

Cycling tradition meets biomechanics at CU Rachel Sauer Thu, 07/31/2025 - 12:47

Cody DeBos

In time for Buffalo Bicycle Classic, ɫ��Ƶ�� researchers challenge cycling norms that stiff cycling-shoe soles are essential for efficient riding

Years ago, Rodger Kram, a biomechanics researcher and now ɫ��Ƶ�� associate professor emeritus of integrative physiology, offered a student in his lab a challenge.

Asher Straw, a sophomore at the time and an avid cyclist, was convinced that stiff, carbon fiber soles were essential for serious riders because they made for more efficient pedaling. Kram, with a twinkle in his eye, disagreed.

“I provocatively said that I didn’t think they made any difference,” Kram recalls. “I figured even very flexible running shoes would be just as efficient as carbon fiber cycling shoes when riding at a steady pace and moderate intensity.”

Rodger Kram is a biomechanics researcher and ɫ��Ƶ�� associate professor emeritus aof integrative physiology.

Straw was determined to prove his professor wrong. So, the two set out on a small but illuminating study and found that ultra-stiff shoes didn’t offer improved efficiency during moderate cycling.

But that was just the beginning.

Kram and his students have since spent nearly a decade exploring a deceptively simple question: How stiff does a cycling shoe really need to be?

The answer, it turns out, may surprise even the most gear-obsessed riders.

The stiffness myth

Carbon fiber shoes have been marketed as the gold standard for years, and riders have adopted the message. These shoes are sleek and featherlight, and their unyielding soles allegedly transfer more power from leg to pedal.

Kram’s research team, including then-graduate student Tripp Hurt, conducted a study to test the limits of this belief. They equipped trained cyclists with a set of three identical shoes, each fitted with a unique sole material of varying stiffness. The cyclists were then asked to sprint as hard as possible up a 50-meter stretch of road in each pair.

After multiple experiments, the researchers had their answer.

“There was a breakpoint,” Kram says. “Below a certain stiffness, sprint performance does trail off.”

But not by much. Going from nylon soles (a very stiff reference) to a medium-stiff TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) sole caused only a 3.1% drop in maximal one-second power output. The more flexible, soft TPU sole yielded a further power-output decrease of just 2.4%. At those levels, most cyclists wouldn’t notice the difference.

“The $150 shoes were just as good as the $450 shoes,” Kram says.

Comfort over carbon

“For most of us, like riders in the Buffalo Bicycle Classic, there are far more important qualities in a shoe beyond sprint performance. Are they comfortable would be number one. Do they fit your foot?” Kram asks, adding that when picking out new shoes, “sole stiffness should be way down your list.”

“For most of us, like riders in the Buffalo Bicycle Classic, there are far more important qualities in a shoe beyond sprint performance. Are they comfortable would be number one. Do they fit your foot?” asks researcher Rodger Kram. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

It’s a refreshing perspective in a world where the latest (and often most expensive) iterations are always advertised the loudest. Stiff soles may seem impressive in an ad, but they aren’t always practical, Kram says. They can even be a hazard.

“Social riders often stop for a snack or coffee, and it’s easy to fall when trying to walk in carbon fiber soles on the tile floor of a café,” Kram says.

There’s also a growing awareness of carbon fiber’s environmental toll. Making carbon fiber is energy intensive and expensive, and the end product is nearly impossible to recycle. Though the sole of a cycling shoe isn’t world-ending, the cumulative effect of our consumption habits adds up.

If riders are sacrificing comfort, affordability and sustainability for just a few watts of power they may never use, Kram wonders, what’s the point?

Lab to innovation

That question stuck with Tripp Hurt, the aforementioned ɫ��Ƶ�� graduate. Inspired by the science, he found Brevay, a shoe startup based in Seattle.

“I had my ‘lightbulb’ moment after a night out with friends,” Hurt says. “I started to think about my biomechanics research and how it was relevant to the overall cycling market. We see these results, but nothing has changed about the way cycling companies were building their product.”

So, Hurt decided to build a new kind of shoe. Brevay’s first model, the Road One, will be a high-performance road cycling shoe made from sustainable materials.

“Sustainability and performance are the north star for Brevay. We’re the first brand developing a sustainable cycling shoe, so the market is unproven if this is a category that cyclists are interested in. But we’re building it anyway,” Hurt says.

This year, Rodger Kram will work at the Buffalo Bicycle Classic aid station near his home in Ward, handing out water and snacks to the riders. Though he’s retired from teaching, he nevertheless considers it important to help make CU Bulder affordable for the next generation of curious students.

That means sourcing bio-based materials, investing in an alternative supply chain and pricing the shoes competitively with the high-end carbon-fiber models they aim to replace.

Challenging assumptions

For Kram, the research is about more than shoes.

“We love challenging conventional wisdom,” he says, “and cycling is a sport fraught with tradition.”

That spirit of inquiry is part of what makes ɫ��Ƶ��’s research culture special, he adds. The study, and its illuminating results, started with a student’s curiosity and a professor’s willingness to be proven wrong.

“It represented a major shift in my career trajectory,” Hurt says of his time in Kram’s lab. “I felt more at home working on running and cycling biomechanics.”

As elite athletes continue to chase fractions of a second, Kram and Hurt hope their work encourages others to rethink what performance really means.

For many, like riders tackling Boulder Canyon to fundraise for scholarships in the Buffalo Bicycle Classic, choosing the right shoe shouldn’t be about speed, Kram says, but about enjoying the ride, staying comfortable and being mindful of the environment.

In the end, as Kram puts it, “there are far more important qualities in a cycling shoe than sprint performance.”

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In time for Buffalo Bicycle Classic, ɫ��Ƶ�� researchers challenge cycling norms that stiff cycling-shoe soles are essential for efficient riding.

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'Your love will be your legacy'

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 13:30:00 +0000

'Your love will be your legacy' Rachel Sauer Wed, 07/23/2025 - 07:30

Sarah Kuta

Losing her father to pancreatic cancer inspired ɫ��Ƶ�� undergraduate Giovanna Ruffolo to raise money for cancer research and pursue a career in medicine

Giovanna Ruffolo was a senior in high school when her dad died of pancreatic cancer.

While other students were looking forward to prom and graduation, Ruffolo was navigating a web of tangled emotions—shock, disbelief, sadness, anger, uncertainty.

“Losing a parent is probably the most intense pain someone can feel in their entire life,” she says. “It’s a terrible, terrible pain.”

Giovanna Ruffolo (second from right) with her brothers Leo (left, a 2024 ɫ��Ƶ�� graduate) and Joey (second from left, a CU Denver student) and their mom, Rosanna. (Photo: Giovanna Ruffolo)

Mostly, though, she just felt numb. Heading off to college so soon after her father’s death was the last thing she wanted to do. But she knew education was important to her dad, so she pushed through the pain and enrolled at ɫ��Ƶ��.

Now a senior studying integrative physiology and psychology, Ruffolo is preparing for a career in medicine so that, someday, she can help support families just like hers. She hopes to work in pediatric oncology, providing compassionate care to children who are fighting cancer.

As a Buff, Ruffolo is also honoring her father’s legacy by raising money and awareness for cancer prevention research, an initiative she started just after her father got his diagnosis.

“I just want people to know they have a support system and a network that hates cancer as much as they do—that they’re not alone,” she says.

Helping others

Life was rolling along for the Ruffolo family when they got the news that would change their lives forever. In 2017, their beloved patriarch, John Ruffolo, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a disease that is often fatal.

“It hit us like a bus,” says Ruffolo.

Pancreatic cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health. Between 2015 and 2021, the five-year survival rate was just 13.3 percent—much lower than other types of cancer. In 2025, the American Cancer Society estimates 67,440 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and 51,980 people will die from the disease.

“It’s the cancer that really gives cancer its bad name,” Ruffolo says.

Prospect Ridge Academy High School Students participate in a cancer fundraiser organized by Giovanna Ruffolo in 2019. (Photo: Giovanna Ruffolo)

Ruffolo was just 14 at the time, but she felt compelled to take action. As a sophomore at Prospect Ridge Academy High School, she created TeamRuffolo, a student-led initiative to raise money and awareness for cancer research.

In November 2018, her school hosted a “Purple Out”—a one-day event in which students were encouraged to wear purple to show their support for the cancer community and donate whatever they could toward prevention research. Students, teachers and administrators raised more than $1,000 for the American Cancer Society that day, and Ruffolo went home feeling inspired and hopeful.

She organized similar fundraisers at her high school in 2019 and 2020 (though the initiative had to go virtual because of the COVID-19 pandemic).

“It was such a wonderful feeling,” she says. “A lot of these people didn’t even know my dad, but they were still so supportive. Seeing people come together not only for him, but just to say, ‘You’re not alone,’ was tremendous for all of us.”

Balancing act

Meanwhile, despite undergoing various treatments and surgeries, her father’s cancer continued to progress. Four years after his diagnosis, he succumbed to the disease in January 2021 at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center.

Ruffolo was utterly devastated, but she knew she had to finish high school and get a college degree for her dad. And, wherever she ended up next, she wanted to continue her awareness-raising and fundraising events to support other cancer patients and their families.

ɫ��Ƶ�� participants run in the Stronger Together Annual 5K at CU in 2024, the event's most successful year. (Photo: Giovanna Ruffolo)

At ɫ��Ƶ��, Ruffolo has thrown herself into her studies, with an ultimate goal of working in the medical field. From her father’s experience, Ruffolo learned first-hand that cancer affects more than just the body—it also influences a patient’s mind, spirit and emotions. With that in mind, she’s majoring in integrative physiology and psychology to create her own pre-health pathway.

“My father had trouble grasping being diagnosed with a terminal disease, as anyone rightfully would,” she says. “I want to understand people’s behaviors and thoughts better, so that when someone is going through a hardship, I can better support them.”

To further build her skill set, Ruffolo also completed CU’s emergency medical technician (EMT) program, an online, non-credit specialization that prepares students for national registry testing. She has also worked as a research assistant at ɫ��Ƶ�� and Children's Hospital Colorado.

In addition, Ruffolo has taken on a leadership role with the ɫ��Ƶ�� chapter of the American Medical Student Association, spending three years on the executive board before being elected president for the 2025-26 school year. Through the student group, Ruffolo has carried on her TeamRuffolo efforts—now called Stronger Together—by organizing 5-kilometer run/walk events to raise money for the American Cancer Society.

She is also a journey leader with New Student & Family Programs, where she helps incoming freshmen navigate the ɫ��Ƶ�� experience. Balancing her studies with her extracurricular activities—while also supporting her family and honoring her father’s legacy—has been challenging. But, for Ruffolo, it all comes back to staying true to herself.

“Pretty much my tippy-top value is helping others,” she says.

In class, Ruffolo has never been afraid to ask questions and speak up—even when that means talking about her father’s death in a large lecture hall full of hundreds of students. Jennifer Stratford, a ɫ��Ƶ�� teaching associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, says Ruffolo’s willingness to be vulnerable has opened the door for other students to share their experiences.

John Ruffolo died from pancreatic cancer in 2021. (Photo: Giovanna Ruffolo)

“She just kind of became an ambassador and a face for students who have lost parents,” says Stratford. “I’ve had a lot of feedback from students about how much they appreciated her bravery and how much they identified with some of the struggles she’d been through. It’s a once-in-a-decade or once-in-a-lifetime experience to see a single student have an impact on so many of her classmates.”

‘Your love will be your legacy’

Since high school, Ruffolo estimates she’s helped raise more than $20,000 for the American Cancer Society. And she’s not done yet. She hopes the ɫ��Ƶ�� AMSA chapter will continue organizing the 5K run/walk fundraisers, and that she’ll be able to host similar events during the next phase of her educational journey.

For now, Ruffolo is focused on finishing up her studies so she can graduate in the spring of 2026. From there, she hopes to continue her education in the medical field, likely as a doctor or physician assistant specializing in pediatric oncology.

“I really want to serve that specific community,” she says. “You’re treating little people who have lots of emotions and a little body. They get very scared easily. You really have to be empathetic and treat them and their families with kindness. I love the idea of sitting down with people, holding their hands, talking to them—not just giving them a death sentence, walking out the door and saying, ‘Best of luck.’”

That approach stems directly from her father’s experiences. As he neared the end of his life, Ruffolo remembers him breaking down and talking about how scared he was. She hopes to be the kind of practitioner who will help people like her dad move forward through their pain and fear, while also treating their underlying illness.

“Your love will be your legacy,” she says. “In a world where there’s no cure for cancer, investing your time in others is the only way you can live forever. And loving other people—giving them kindness and empathy—is one of the best ways to help fight any disease.”

Losing her father to pancreatic cancer inspired ɫ��Ƶ�� undergraduate Giovanna Ruffolo to raise money for cancer research and pursue a career in medicine.

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Top image: Giovanna Ruffolo (right) and her late father, John, representing Colorado cancer patients and survivors at Mile High Stadium at an event sponsored by the American Cancer Society in 2019. (Photo: Giovanna Ruffolo)

Who is afraid of the big, bad (dire) wolf?

Kylie Clarke — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 15:28:17 +0000

Who is afraid of the big, bad (dire) wolf? Kylie Clarke Tue, 07/22/2025 - 09:28

Bradley Worrell

Advancing science may make it possible to bring back extinct species like the dire wolf—but should it? ɫ��Ƶ�� environmental studies and philosophy Professor Ben Hale says the answer is complicated

Earlier this year, Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences made headlines when it announced that—through the science of genetic manipulation—it had successfully re-created three dire wolves, a large wolf species that ranged across North America and South America some 10,000 years ago before going extinct. Some news outlets, including Time magazine, called the development species “de-extinction” while others touted it as “scientifically seismic.”

Subsequently, other scientists challenged Colossal’s assertions of having de-extincted the species, arguing that these wolves—Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi—did not meet the technical definition of dire wolves. That’s because Colossal did not create the animals from a fully reconstructed dire wolf genome but instead relied on a gray wolf’s genetic material and made changes to it with ancient DNA recovered from dire wolf specimens.

Meanwhile, Colossal has announced plans to bring back a variety of other extinct species, including the wooly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger (or Thylacine) and most recently the Moa, a giant flightless bird that stood about 12 feet tall and weighed about 500 pounds.

However, seemingly lost amid the claims and counterclaims of whether scientists can bring back dire wolves—or any other extinct animals—from extinction is the deeper philosophical and ethical issue: should they?

As a ɫ��Ƶ�� philosophy professor in the Department of Environmental Studies, Ben Hale’s primary research focus is on environmental ethics and policy. He has followed the news reports about bringing back dire wolves and other long-gone animals through the lens of ethical issues associated with the extinction and de-extinction of species.

For his part, Ben Hale has no easy answers. A ɫ��Ƶ�� philosophy professor in the Department of Environmental Studies, Hale’s primary research focus is on environmental ethics and policy. He has followed the news reports about bringing back dire wolves and other long-gone animals through the lens of ethical issues associated with the extinction and de-extinction of species.

Recently, Hale spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine regarding his thoughts on when it makes sense to attempt to de-extinct a species (and when it doesn’t); what it means to de-extinct a species, ethically speaking; how ethicists in the larger scientific community are responding to the latest scientific breakthroughs; and his thoughts on the ethical implications of de-extincting a T-Rex. His responses have been lightly edited for grammar and clarity and condensed for space.

Question: Setting aside the issue of whether Colossal actually created dire wolves, or just something similar, why would we want to bring back an extinct species of wolf?

Hale: That’s the question, right? For some (scientists and entrepreneurs), I think there’s the relatively straightforward scientific challenge of seeing if it can be done—to de-extinct a species. The dire wolf happens to be a particularly charismatic species in no small part because it’s a large mammal that has some resemblance to a dog. Popular fantasy shows like Game of Thrones elevated the ecologically real dire wolf species even further, to a kind of magical status, so there’s an element of fantasy and science fiction that makes the dire wolf intriguing.

Still, that doesn’t speak to the kind of public-facing rationale offered by Colossal Biosciences or other folks who are engaged in de-extinction efforts. Let’s call them ‘de-extinction optimists.’ It’s not enough, generally speaking, just to say, ‘We wanted to see if we could do it,’ or ‘We did it because we think the species is beautiful or cool.’ Using that as a justification starts to look a lot like Jurassic Park, right? And Michael Crichton and Stephen Spielberg and numerous others have warned us about technology unchained with these cautionary tales.

Hale says he believes part of the appeal of de-extincting dire wolves is because they resemble a dog and that popular TV shows such as Game of Thrones have elevated the status of real dire wolves to an almost magical level.

So, the public-facing justification that de-extinction optimists will offer is that we ‘owe it to the species,’ possibly because we’ve made that species extinct by something we’ve done—say, human-caused extinction—or because extinct animals can serve as important elements or components of the ecological system, given that some ecosystems are not healthy. You can make the case that we can revive those ecosystems by reintroducing apex predators that were playing a valuable regulatory function.

Question: If you bring back a creature from extinction, but the natural habitat for it no longer exists, how much have you accomplished?

Hale: I think this a question that looms large over the matter of de-extinction, particularly in an era of accelerated climate change. It may be the case that we can bring back a species that is genetically similar to a past species, but we may not have done anything to make that species function within the ecosystem. Is it in that case true that we’ve brought back the species? Does it even make sense to speak of a species outside of its ecological context?

One of the stated reasons for de-extincting a species is to revive or rejuvenate deteriorating or degraded ecosystems. If you think the environment has been degraded to such an extent that it needs to have some kind of apex predator that was roaming the earth 10,000 years ago, like the dire wolf, reintroduced into the ecosystem, then it’s not clear what it means even to say that the species has been brought back. It’s not back at all. It’s just isolated somewhere. Keeping it as a specimen in Colossal Biosciences laboratories (as the company has done) doesn’t actually de-extinct the species, in my opinion.

Now, you could say that genetic replication is just the first step in a proof-of-concept de-extinction effort, and the next step is to create enough of the species that scientists can develop a viable population and then release them into the wild. Then perhaps that’s the ultimate step to de-extinction.

But if your criterion is that whatever species is brought back derives its status from its function in the system, then it’s a mistake for them to suggest that they have de-extincted the species—because they haven’t yet done that.

Question: Generally speaking, how do ethicists within the scientific community think about the idea of de-extincting species? And what is your position on this subject?

Hale: I would argue that most environmental ethicists, as well as most animal ethicists—these are two different communities of ethicists who agree on some things but disagree on many others—are extremely skeptical of these efforts to de-extinct species. I think you’re going to be hard pressed among the ethics community to find people who are excited about the potential of these de-extinction technologies.

Personally, I tend to be more of a moderate regarding technologies such as these. My view—unlike some of my other colleagues at other universities—is that developing technologies like this can help us to address ecological issues in the near term, but that this gets much more complicated as we reach back in history.

With extinction, an animal can either go functionally extinct or ontologically extinct, which are two different things. For instance, the oysters in the Chesapeake Bay are often said to be functionally extinct. There are still oysters living in the Chesapeake Bay, but they’re not serving the function that they were once serving, which was the cleaning and purification of the bay.

In that context, it would be a much more meaningful outcome for us to revive or to de-extinct oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, say, than to de-extinct the dire wolf. Oysters are important for us, and they were vitally important to many communities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. I think we should use technologies to de-extinct functionally extinctorganisms and species.

So, it’s a balance. We don’t want to drop the ball on the de-extinction discussion inasmuch as its an important tool for ecologists, but we also don’t want to introduce Jurassic Park-style scenarios where we fetishize a charismatic species simply because it is genetically related to something that we like. Also, as we get deeper into time and deeper into history, I think it becomes more ridiculous and more problematic, ethically speaking, for us to try to de-extinct a species.

Question: So, bringing back oysters to Chesapeake Bay could fulfill a useful ecological role, but ethically it’s harder to make the case for bringing back a Tyrannosaurus Rex?

Hale: Is the de-extinction of a T-Rex the best use of our resources? My answer to that question is probably not.

Again, I’m generally supportive of research into a variety of different technologies that help us better understand how nature works and what we can do to address concerns in our natural environment. And it may well be that some of these gene-splicing technologies do precisely that.

Dire wolves Romulus and Remus, along with their sister, Khaleesi, will spend their entire lives in an animal refuge. Hale says there are ethical questions as to whether a species is really made de-extinct if it’s natural habitat no longer exists.

I believe it’s important for us as a society to have robust technologies, maybe even de-extinction ones in cases ofcatastrophe or calamity—much like seed banks or insurance policies—but we certainly should have security in place in case things go sideways.

Question: Are there any governmental regulations at the international level, or at the national level, governing this kind of scientific work? If not, do you think there should be?

Hale: This is not an area that I tend to work in, but I’m not aware of any regulations. Personally, I do think that this kind of private sector, entrepreneurial research should be regulated.

What would it mean to regulate more pure scientific research is an interesting question. I think it would mean that you would have some kind of external scrutiny of scientific operations in an open framework that would prevent opportunists from developing a technology that could be either weaponized, which would be unusual in this context, or that would prevent ecological recklessness, as in the case of an accidental or intentional release. Given the potential ecological, environmental, and economic impacts of release, we should be very careful about allowing self-replicating but misfit entities, like a de-extincted species, into the wild. The potential for misuse here is tremendous.

I think there probably are other reasons to regulate it as well. You might be concerned about the harm or suffering that you might cause to any given specimen of that species. For example, if you’re creating a huge laboratory of failed experiments with de-extinct species—say, a bunch of failed versions that die prematurely or live out their short lives in pain—I think that should also have some oversight.

Question: So, potentially in the pursuit of a scientific good, scientists could, possibly inadvertently, cause harm to the animals?

Hale: This was an issue with the cloning controversy, when Dolly the sheep was cloned. Anytime you’re experimenting with technologies of this sort, you’re going to create some mutants or some mistakes during trial runs—and there were quite a few of those when Dolly was cloned. Some of the animals had short lives or they were born with mutations and whatnot.

This is one of the key worries for animal ethicists: that the animal will be born with defects that will cause it to suffer, or maybe that it’s destined to spend its entire life in captivity being poked and prodded. …

There are a range of different reasons why animal ethicists think that we should be concerned about the well-being of animals. Some of them include their capacity to experience pain and suffering, and some of them are more abstract, likethat they have rights. So, depending upon which sort of camp you fall in in the animal ethics literature, you may object to de-extincting individual entities for different reasons than environmental ethicists, but two sets of concerns—about the ecology and about the individuals themselves—sort of work in tandem with one another.

Question: Do you think there is a risk that, if scientists show they can successfully bring back extinct species, some people will come to believe that conservation efforts are no longer necessary?

Hale: I think we should be thinking hard about the problem of extinction. The reason I’m interested in de-extinction is not just because I think it’s cool, but because I think it provides a good reason for us to try to prevent extinction in the first place. That’s my real objective in exploring the question of de-extinction.

“It’s not enough, generally speaking, just to say, ‘We wanted to see if we could do it,’ or ‘We did it (de-extincted a species) because we think the species is beautiful or cool.’ Using that as a justification starts to look a lot like Jurassic Park, right?”
Ben Hale, ɫ��Ƶ�� philosophy professor in the Department of Environmental Studies

I think we have good reasons to try to prevent extinction and that de-extinction alone is not going to be a solution to the problem of extinction. Potentially, it just introduces more problems. So, we should try where we can to prevent the extinction of animals or the extinction of a species.

In fact, in a lot of my work I discuss different kinds of reversal scenarios, from air pollution to geoengineering to remediation. Thinking about repair and restoration helps us see better that many of our most basic intuitions regarding environmental wrongdoing aren’t, strictly speaking, about the harm that we’re doing to the environment. For instance, those who think that a company can pollute a river, say, and then right their wrong by cleaning up the pollution using remediation technologies, have a pretty limited sense of what an environmental wrong is. Environmental wrongs also happen in part because people are trespassed upon, their rights are violated, or there are other offenses to them and the world. Those kinds of cases are not properly related to de-extinction, but all of them are an effort to try to repair past harms or restore lost value, just as de-extinction is an effort to return something that is lost.

In many cases—maybe even in most cases—I think we should essentially operate under the assumption that interventions like de-extinctions are cases of last resort. And this goes for many different kinds of environmental interventions like the ones I mention above: We need to try to avoid circumstances in which we need to take drastic action to repair things that we’ve done that are damaging or wrong.

Question: Do you expect that, moving forward, companies like Colossal Biosciences will continue to pursue efforts to bring back extinct species?

Hale: I do. Again, I’d like to see scientists and governments deal with this globally, to set up some kind of commission to create some kind of oversight or monitoring that nudges private companies away from technologies that could be used recklessly, such that they threaten existing ecosystems. This is part of the reason that I think we should be cautious about de-extinction intervention overall. We just don’t know what the downstream impacts of our actions are going to be.

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Photos courtesy of Colossal Biosciences

Science inherits the wind of century-old verdict

Clint Talbott — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 04:28:59 +0000

Science inherits the wind of century-old verdict Clint Talbott Tue, 07/15/2025 - 22:28

Clint Talbott

On the 100-year anniversary of the Scopes Evolution Trial, ɫ��Ƶ�� scientist reflects on science education and on ‘same issues, different players’

Andrew Martin first became interested in biology as a child growing up in the Sonoran Desert, which is in southern California and western Arizona. He was captivated by living things like butterflies: “They don’t weigh anything. They have these beautiful wings, and they fly off and visit flowers, and it’s just amazing.”

Professor Andrew Martin

Martin was about 6 or 7 years old then, and he collected every live thing he could find and took it home. “I turned my room into a museum of living organisms, and half the time the things would escape somewhere in the house.”

For a long time, Martin notes, he was “totally hooked on biology” and was “always asking the question of ultimate causation without really realizing it.” It wasn’t until college that he realized the scientific answer to that question was evolution.

“Evolution as a coherent explanation of the diversity of biology structure and function was not on the syllabus until I got to college,” Martin says.

Today, Martin is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the ɫ��Ƶ��. Recently, he discussed the teaching of evolution on the occasion of the 100-year anniversary of the Scopes trial, a landmark case in 1925 in which a substitute high school biology teacher was found guilty of teaching evolution, then a crime under Tennessee law.

That trial, which was immortalized in Inherit the Wind, a play (and, later, movie), is a parable about the conflict between religion and science, social conformity and intellectual freedom, intuition and reason.

Teaching evolution was legal when Martin went to school, but state legislatures could criminalize the teaching of evolution until 1968, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which established a separation of church and state.

For Martin, learning evolution for the first time in college was not only exciting, but it also helped him understand how life came to exist. “I had been looking for those answers for a long time. I didn’t really understand the process of mutation and sexual recombination during reproduction,” he says.

His reaction was, “This is amazing.”

The Scopes trial is an indication that evolution was not an acceptable topic for education. My grandparents likely did not learn about it, and their children, my parents, who were born in the decade after the Scopes trial, also likely did not learn about it except in very general ways.

Then, all the biological diversity he’d seen as a child made sense. “And the common-ancestry piece blew my mind. We [all life on Earth] were all basically different combinations of the same set of parts.”

Martin didn’t begin college focused on a particular career. “I was just following my passion for knowledge, and I ended up here,” he says. “If anything, I was much more a product of evolution of my own self than a plan, a directed deterministic plan to arrive at a place. I’m not sure every evolutionary biologist has that trajectory, but I certainly did.”

Martin seldom thinks about the Scopes trial, but he believes something like it could play out today in a similar way. As was the case a century ago, there is conflict between belief systems and scientific knowledge.

When he does reflect on the Scopes trial, he says, “It’s the same issues, different players, still playing out today.”

First, he notes, when the issue of ultimate causation comes up in biology courses, students are sometimes unprepared to explore and understand it. Evolution is “a result of a really large and complex emergent process that leads to different outcomes in different places, and if we ran the tape again it would be a completely different show. So, there’s the inability to grapple with emergent processes, for everyday thinking about what evolution is.”

Second, a lot of people believe in various forms of the supernatural, a world beyond the ability of science to detect, Martin says, noting that only about a third of Americans think about biology as scientists do—namely that evolution is a natural, emergent process and not a direct process.

“Every time I go into class, I know that there’s a whole bunch of people in there who will have difficulty trying to get their head around how evolution happens and what it really means.”

Scientific education, particularly at the K-12 level, bears some responsibility for this, Martin suggests. “Science curriculum, especially in biology, is consumed with content, when it should be focused on process.”

Martin also notes that popular conceptions of evolutionary biology are lacking. Specifically, that many people think of evolution as a good process that inevitably leads to the improvement of species, “that mutation is always advantageous, that things get better and that that’s the reason everything is here.”

When he asks students to draw a picture of evolution, Martin notes, most will draw a picture of a single cell transitioning into a more complex organism and portray the ultimate result as a human.

“Everybody sees the world through their own perspective, and it’s hard for them to escape it. They have a coherent narrative that allows them to explain their own existence as an individual that is often unconnected to other organisms and histories.”

Additionally, Martin says, there could be lingering effects of scientific illiteracy resulting from the Scopes verdict, which effectively allowed states to ban the teaching of evolution.

“The Scopes trial is an indication that evolution was not an acceptable topic for education. My grandparents likely did not learn about it, and their children, my parents, who were born in the decade after the Scopes trial, also likely did not learn about it except in very general ways: like there were adaptations and a fossil record showing life on Earth has been in place for millions of years. I don’t remember ever talking about evolution in my house when I was growing up,” he says.

Also, to the extent that evolution and religious belief might compete for space in people’s minds, religious traditions have an advantage: “If there’s a conflict between those two with how people see themselves in the world, then it’s usually the case that religion wins.”

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The anti-evolution league at the Scopes trial in 1925.

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The anti-evolution league at the Scopes trial in 1925.

Baker brings delicious sustainability to the table

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 13:30:00 +0000

Baker brings delicious sustainability to the table Rachel Sauer Tue, 07/15/2025 - 07:30

Cody DeBos

Gregor MacGregor, assistant teaching professor of environmental studies, focuses on local economies and environmental justice in his Vulcan Mine Bakery

On a quiet street in Lafayette, Colorado, the smell of rosemary and fresh bread often drifts from a solar-powered oven just before dawn. It’s where you’ll find Gregor MacGregor, a ɫ��Ƶ�� assistant teaching professor with the Masters of the Environment Graduate Program in the Department of Environmental Studies and the online Outdoor Recreation Economy program, conducting a carefully orchestrated dance of timers, dough balls and donut boxes.

His micro-bakery is a far cry from the courtroom or a university lecture hall, where he also spends his time. But to MacGregor, there’s a through line to it all: caring for the planet and the people in his community.

Gregor MacGregor, a ɫ��Ƶ�� assistant teaching professor of environmental studies and a water attorney, began baking bread with his daughters during COVID lockdowns and eventually opened Vulcan Mine Bakery. (Photo: Gregor MacGregor)

“During the COVID lockdown, I was looking for activities to do with my daughters. As my wife characterizes it, we baked a loaf of bread and a dozen donuts, then decided to open a bakery,” he says.

That spontaneous project eventually became Vulcan Mine Bakery. The name, a nod to the former coal mine near his home, reflects MacGregor’s dedication to environmental awareness.

Sustainability you can taste

MacGregor brings his experience as a water attorney and former U.S. Army officer to the bakery in many ways. Having extensively researched circular economies, he built Vulcan Mine Bakery as a truly local operation.

“My milk comes from a dairy in Longmont, I use duck eggs from a farm in Lafayette, I purchase Colorado sugar beet sugar and my grain comes from a farm in Hugo that I mill in house,” he says.

Even the energy source is intentional. Vulcan Mine’s singular oven is powered by rooftop solar panels. MacGregor sees these choices as essential not just for sustainability, but for flavor—and education.

He says, “The public imagination hasn’t quite adopted the fresh food, farm-to-table movement for baked goods yet. That changes when you let someone take in a breath of freshly milled flour.”

Operating under Colorado’s Cottage Foods Act (CFA) helps MacGregor keep his overhead low and his connections local.

“The CFA unlocks opportunities for entrepreneurs to experiment, grow their chops and see if moving on to a food truck or brick-and-mortar store makes sense for them,” he says.

MacGregor adds, “We should explore every avenue to help locals succeed so we all have options to spend and keep money in our communities, with people we care about, and with people who care where our food comes from.”

In summer 2025, Gregor MacGregor spent about two weeks in Ukraine baking bread with Kharkiv’s Hell’s Kitchen organization, supplying about 900 meals and 1200 rolls a day to hospitals, refugees and other groups. (Photo: Gregor MacGregor)

Flour and fellowship

For MacGregor, food is also a tool for justice.

“Food justice is absolutely a part of environmental justice—having the basic necessities to survive at the low end and having the opportunity to participate in the system in a culturally and economically significant way at the high end,” he says.

MacGregor embraces the opportunity to live out this philosophy through Vulcan Mine Bakery and regularly donates baked goods to those in need.

In 2021, MacGregor created a special menu of Afghan and American treats for newly arriving families of Afghan refugees.

“I got to visit some of the families with their sponsors to share food and stories. It was an incredible way to meet our new neighbors and help them feel welcome,” he says.

MacGregor’s service work also extends far beyond Colorado’s borders.

“Last summer, I spent about two weeks in Ukraine baking bread with Kharkiv’s ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ organization. We supplied about 900 meals and 1200 rolls a day to hospitals, refugees and other groups. We also drove and delivered food, medicine and clothing out into the countryside to villages in need,” he says.

As someone who has spent years working in environmental law and teaching policy, MacGregor is acutely aware of the systems that shape equity and resilience. Baking has given him a new way to get involved.

“Very few people smile when you show up as an attorney, but almost everyone smiles when you show up as a baker,” he says.

A taste of history

MacGregor’s loaves do more than just nourish. Thanks to his interest in holiday baking, they also spark curiosity and conversations about heritage.

Inspired by an old cookbook titled Celebration Breads, MacGregor often bakes traditional and seasonal recipes that let customers taste the intersection of history, culture and community.

“There’s a recipe for the boozy Hartford Election Cake, which I have not seen baked anywhere else, but which used to be a vital part of early-American democracy,” he explains.

“Like many of our other celebratory breads, it contains a great amount of cultural history within it that relates to the why and when of our consumption.”

Lessons from a loaf

Though Vulcan Mine Bakery is now a part of MacGregor’s daily life, it hasn’t replaced his identity as a champion of the environment. It’s only strengthened his desire to have an impact.

“I love baking because I get to work with my hands, chat with people and see how much they appreciate my bread. I think that last bit, the connection with others and serving them, is what really makes it worthwhile,” he says.

MacGregor sees his bakery as an extension of his environmental teaching, a chance to live out sustainability and connection in a tangible way. He also encourages others to look for similar opportunities in their own lives.

“If you already have a skill, you can probably put it to good use for yourself and others,” he says. “There is great need in the world, but you don’t need great means to have an impact.”

In 2021, Gregor MacGregor created a special menu of Afghan and American treats (shown here) for newly arriving families of Afghan refugees.

For Gregor MacGregor (left, making donuts with his wife, Kelly, and daughter Madeleine), baking is a family affair. He and his daughters began making bread during COVID lockdowns, which eventually led to opening Vulcan Mine Bakery.

Inspired by an old cookbook titled “Celebration Breads,” Gregor MacGregor often bakes traditional and seasonal recipes that let customers taste the intersection of history, culture and community.

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Gregor MacGregor, an assistant teaching professor of environmental studies, focuses on local economies and environmental justice in his Vulcan Mine Bakery.

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What rats can tell us about the opioid crisis

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 13:30:00 +0000

What rats can tell us about the opioid crisis Rachel Sauer Mon, 07/14/2025 - 07:30

Blake Puscher

ɫ��Ƶ�� scientists estimate the heritability of opioid use disorder with a rodent study

Opioid use disorder is an ongoing global health crisis. In the United States alone, almost 108,000 people died from drug overdose in 2022, and about 75% of those deaths involved opioids.

Although many factors contribute to this crisis—and there are many approaches to addressing it as a result—one important line of research is into the genetic factors that increase people’s risk for developing an opioid use disorder (OUD). Once these risk factors are known, doctors may be able to prescribe opioids more strategically to people at higher risk of OUD, and such individuals could make more informed choices.

In recently published research, scientists from the ɫ��Ƶ��—including Eamonn Duffy, Jack Ward, Luanne Hale, Kyle Brown and Ryan Bachtell of the Bachtell Laboratory, and Andrew Kwilasz, Erika Mehrhoff, Laura Saba and Marissa Ehringer—tested the influence of genetics on opioid-related behaviors, which include OUD. Specifically, they looked at its heritability by conducting an experiment in which rats were given the ability to self-administer oxycodone, a semi-synthetic opioid that is used medically to treat pain.

ɫ��Ƶ�� researchers tested the influence of genetics on opioid-related behaviors, specifically looking at its heritability by conducting an experiment in which rats were given the ability to self-administer oxycodone, a semi-synthetic opioid that is used medically to treat pain. (Photo: Jon Anders Wiken/Dreamstime.com)

Experimental design

More than 260 inbred rats from 15 strains were used for the study. In this case, an inbred strain is defined as a population produced by 20 or more generations of brother-sister mating. This was important for the study because the rats within inbred strain are isogenic: “They’re almost like clones; their genomes are identical, except for the X and Y chromosomes between males and females,” Duffy explains.

Like the use of identical-twin research involving humans, this makes the results more reliable. In a twin study, most differences between twins are caused by their environment, so researchers can determine the genetic influence on a trait by how much it varies. Similarly, within an inbred strain, most individual differences are caused by sex differences, and this provides insight into the importance of biological sex to a given trait. Between inbred strains, differences are attributable to either the strains’ different genes, sex differences, or a combination of the two.

The animals in the study could self-administer the oxycodone using levers, so their behaviors could be measured. There were two retractable levers in the testing chamber: one active, which would give the rats a dose of oxycodone after being pulled, and one inactive, which would do nothing.

After the active lever was pulled, there was a cooldown period of 20 seconds, during which time pulling the lever would not dispense another dose. Regardless of whether pulling a lever had an effect, it would be recorded. This allowed researchers to measure two substance-use behaviors in addition to the total amount of oxycodone consumed. These variables were referred to as “timeout responding” and “lever discrimination.”

Timeout responses were pulls on the active lever that happened during the cooldown period. Lever discrimination was a measure of how often rats pulled the inactive lever. Both essentially tracked the rats’ ability to self-administer substances in a regulated manner, although lever discrimination could have other associations. Attempting to get more oxycodone very quickly (timeout responding) and attempting to get it in an illogical way (low lever discrimination, especially once the animals had time to learn how the levers worked) are signs of dysregulated drug use.

These measures are important in addition to total dosage because the rats naturally consumed more oxycodone as they developed a tolerance to the drug, making it difficult to characterize their drug use on that basis alone. “With addiction,” Duffy says, “it’s a complicated story. They’re developing tolerance, and they’re showing dysregulated use.”

Push the lever, get the oxycodone

The tests were split into two phases: acquisition and escalation. Although the number of daily doses the rats received generally increased over time, especially between the two phases, their self-administration behaviors varied significantly by strain.

For example, in the escalation phase, the females of one strain pushed the lever for a total oxycodone dose of less than 100 mg/kg, whereas rats of another strain took a total of about 300. There was also variation between males and females within a strain, though not always: In some strains, males and females consumed a similar amount of oxycodone, while in others, consumption was notably divergent, with males consuming around 200 mg/kg more oxycodone overall.

Once the genetic factors that increase people's risk for developing an opioid use disorder (OUD) are known, doctors may be able to prescribe opioids more strategically to people at higher risk of OUD, and such individuals could make more informed choices. (Photo illustration: iStock)

This is evidence for a strain-sex interaction, meaning that the rats’ substance-use behaviors were determined by a combination of genetic background and biological sex, not either alone, according to the researchers. Although the obvious explanation for this would be different genes encoded on the sex chromosomes of the various strains, this isn’t necessarily the case.

“Some of our collaborators in San Diego have performed several genetic mapping studies,” Duffy says, “and they found that the Y chromosome didn’t appear to play much of a role in regulating behavioral traits.”

It is possible that X-chromosome genes are a greater factor. However, the biggest influence would probably be sex hormones or related differences, Duffy adds. For example, according a separate study, the sex hormone estradiol can increase oxycodone metabolism indirectly by raising the concentration of a protein in the brain.

Moreover, Duffy says, “there could be developmental aspects to the sex difference, so seeing if they’re exposed to testosterone versus estrogen as they’re growing up, that may affect how their brain is wired.”

Several other strains showed notably divergent behaviors. Some strains were fairly stable in their use, while others increased their oxycodone intake rapidly during the acquisition phase. Lever discrimination also varied by strain, with one strain increasing its lever discrimination quickly, for example, while another failed to increase its lever discrimination much over time.

The biggest discovery that emerged from the research was the discovery of how heritable several behaviors related to opioid use are.

The influence of genetics

Heritability is a measure of what part of the variation in a group is due to genetic or heritable characteristics.

“With heritability,” Duffy explains, “when you’re looking at everything that goes into some kind of trait, like opioid use disorder, the average genetic component will be your heritability. You also have environmental influences, which could be things such as diet.”

Taking OUC as an example, variation might be understood qualitatively in terms of how destructive the effects of drug use are on individuals, from having minimal effect on people’s lives to potentially causing overdoses and death, Duffy adds.

If the heritability of OUD were 0, the fact that some people use the drug safely and others die because of it would be explained entirely by non-genetic factors. If the heritability of OUD were 1, this fact would be explained entirely by genetics. However, as with most traits, OUD appears to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

According to the study, measures of oxycodone intake ranged between 0.26 and 0.54 heritability. The high end of this range is total oxycodone intake over the course of the experiment, while the low end is change in intake (increase in intake over the acquisition phase). The other behavioral phenotypes had heritability scores of 0.25 to 0.42, with timeout responding being more heritable than lever discrimination.

“About half of that variability is due to genetic background,” Duffy says, referring to total intake. “That’s really strong heritability.” However, because these data come from rats, the heritability of these behavioral phenotypes may be different in humans. “We’re not going to capture everything about OUD in a rat model, but we can capture specific aspects and use that to put together a bigger picture.

“OUD is hard to study in humans because there aren’t as many people using opioids as alcohol or nicotine, and of that smaller population, we also have people using several types of drugs, so it’s harder to calculate these heritability values, but I believe ours do fall within the range for opioid dependence and opioid use disorder in humans.”

“With addiction, it’s a complicated story. They’re developing tolerance, and they’re showing dysregulated use.”

It's also important to recognize that heritability is a population-level statistic. This means that it does not represent the chance for any individual to develop a trait, even if that trait could be inherited from the individual’s parents. However, a higher heritability of some trait would correspond to a greater resemblance between parents and offspring in that respect throughout the population, Duffy says.

What genes contribute to OUD?

While it is useful to know how heritable opioid use disorder is, meaningfully assessing the risk for individuals requires knowing what genes contribute to it. This study doesn’t identify these genes, but progress has already been made to this end.

“There’ve been a number of studies in humans that have found that these SNPs, or single nucleotide polymorphisms, are associated with your risk of developing conditions like opioid dependence or opioid use disorder,” Duffy says. “There’s another group that is performing some genetic mapping in outbred rats, and that’s going to be the next stage of this project for us as well.”

One potential gene influencing OUD in mice is an SNP in the Oprm1 gene, which is explained in the study to affect the brain’s response to reward-related behavior generally and analgesics like oxycodone specifically. Common Oprm1 SNPs have also been associated with dysregulated use of an opioid in humans, specifically heroin.

Once relevant SNPs are identified, however, the situation remains complex. “It’s not going to be a simple answer,” Duffy says. “Like, you have this one SNP in Oprm1 and that’s going to increase or influence your risk for OUD. It’s probably going to be a multitude of SNPs, and those additive effects are going to influence the risk for this disorder.”

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ɫ��Ƶ�� scientists estimate the heritability of opioid use disorder with a rodent study.

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How deep is that snow? Machine learning helps us know

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 13:30:00 +0000

How deep is that snow? Machine learning helps us know Rachel Sauer Thu, 07/10/2025 - 07:30

Blake Puscher

ɫ��Ƶ�� researchers apply machine learning to snow hydrology in Colorado mountain drainage basins, finding a new way to accurately predict the availability of water

Determining how much water is contained as snow in mountain drainage basins is very important for water management, because measuring it is a necessary part of predicting the availability of water—especially in places that rely on snowmelt for their water supply, like Colorado and other western states.

Snow water equivalent is the amount of water in a mass of snow or snowpack. The depth of this water is a fraction of the snow depth, and this fraction is obtained by multiplying the depth by the snow density, which is expressed as a percentage of the density of water. If there are 10 inches of snow with a density of 10%, the snow water equivalent is 1 inch.

A persistent challenge is that snow water content is calculated from both snow depth and snow density, yet it remains unfeasible to directly measure snow density over a large area. Traditionally, this issue has been addressed with remote sensing, which allows for consistent and relatively large-scale measurements. However, remote sensing methods have their own limitations, which has prompted the search for an alternative in machine-learning technology.

ɫ��Ƶ�� researchers Jordan Herbert (left), a PhD candidate, and Eric Small, a professor of geological sciences, developed a model that can estimate the snow density at times when and in places where it has not been observed or sensed.

In their study on the subject, ɫ��Ƶ�� Ph.D. candidate Jordan Herbert and Professor Eric Small of the Department of Geological Sciences developed a model that can estimate the snow density at times when and in places where it has not been observed or sensed. This model is split into different scenarios, each trained on a different subset of the data, and while performance varied, all scenarios were more accurate than extrapolation from remote sensing methods, according to Herbert and Small.

Model performance analyses also demonstrated that information from Airborne light detection and ranging (LIDAR) can be transferred to different times and places within the region it was collected.

LIDAR and SNOTEL data

LIDAR surveys are an important tool in snow hydrology, as they provide detailed information about snow properties, specifically through their detection of snow depth.

“You fly the plane twice,” Small says, “once when there’s no snow, once when there is snow. The laser reflects off the surface, and if you know where the plane is and the distance to the surface, then you know the height of the snow relative to the ground surface.” This is called differential LIDAR altimetry.

While LIDAR is very useful in snow hydrology, it does have some limitations. The first is that it only measures snow depth, but snow density (either measured or modeled) is also needed to determine snow water equivalent. This isn’t a unique limitation, however, because snow density cannot be surveyed in the same way as snow depth.

“Measuring snow density in the field reveals just how variable the snowpack is,” Herbert explains. “Depending on if you dig a snow pit under a tree or on a north versus south facing aspect, you can get a completely different answer.”

This is a major limitation of on-site observations. Density also varies with depth, and remote sensing signals will be affected by the amount of liquid water content in snow, which makes measuring snow density remotely or over a broad scale impossible for the foreseeable future.

The second and more easily addressed issue with LIDAR surveys is the logistical issues associated with necessary plane flights.

“You can’t fly a plane all the time,” Small says. “It’s too expensive, and we don’t have enough planes to fly everywhere.” Planes also cannot be flown when the weather is bad, and surveys only provide a snapshot of snow depth, which can change rapidly as snow falls or melts.

“Measuring snow density in the field reveals just how variable the snowpack is. Depending on if you dig a snow pit under a tree or on a north versus south facing aspect, you can get a completely different answer,” says ɫ��Ƶ�� researcher Jordan Herbert. (Photo: Pixabay)

These limitations can be worked around by using the LIDAR data to train computer models. “Based on that,” Small says, “you can use the LIDAR information to make predictions in the absence of LIDAR at another time or date or location. So, you’re leveraging the scientific information from LIDAR to improve your knowledge generally.”

Snow telemetry (SNOTEL) is an automated system of snow and climate sensors run by the National Resource Conservation Service, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There are about a thousand SNOTEL sites across the western United States—small wilderness areas filled with sensing equipment that measures precipitation, snow mass and snow depth.

“All snow hydrology is based on data from these stations,” Small says. “The problem is that they only cover a small area. If you take all the SNOTEL stations in the western U.S. and put them next to each other, they’d be about the size of a football field, so they’re vastly under sampling. That’s why people want to use LIDAR to fill in all the spaces around them.”

The random forest model

Linear regression makes quantitative predictions based on one or more variables, but it becomes difficult to perform when many of these variables interact with each other in complex ways. In this case, some examples are elevation, solar radiation, slope, tree cover and so on. The difficulty of working with all these variables can be minimized by a modeling tool called a regression tree.

“A binary regression tree splits your sample into two groups, and it splits that sample to figure out which variable has the most effect on the thing you're trying to predict,” Small explains. The branching structure created by these splits gives the model its name and is designed to minimize errors. Each branching point is a condition like true/false or yes/no, the answer to which determines the path taken.

Regression trees are useful in that they fit the data better than multiple linear regression models, which are the other option when it comes to using linear regression when there are many variables involved. The better a model fits the observed data, the better it will be at predicting data that have not been observed, Small says.

However, regression trees have their own limitations.

“The downside of a binary regression tree is that it only gives you categorized values,” Small says. “For example, snow depth could be 70 centimeters, 92 centimeters or 123 centimeters. You end up with a map that just has these particular values.” This issue can be solved by combining multiple regression trees into a random forest model.

“What a random forest does,” Small explains, “is take a bunch of these binary regression trees and samples them randomly to give you continuous distributions of the variable that you care about. So instead of it being in these categories, it's more like how we think about snow depth.”

“All snow hydrology is based on data from (SNOTEL) stations. The problem is that they only cover a small area. If you take all the SNOTEL stations in the western U.S. and put them next to each other, they’d be about the size of a football field, so they’re vastly under sampling," says ɫ��Ƶ�� Professor Eric Small. (Photo: Ruvin Miksanskiy/Pexels)

Machine learning

While using binary regression trees allows the predictive model discussed in this study to fit the data better, there are other things to consider, Small says. “In machine learning and other statistics, there’s this trade-off between how well a model can fit the information you give it and how generalizable it is. If I keep adding training data, training the model and tuning the parameters, I can have it fit the data pretty well, but then it becomes fixated on those very specific data, and it’s not going to make good predictions elsewhere.”

This is called “overfitting,” and it can be described simply as the model becoming too used to patterns in the data it was trained on. In anticipating these patterns, the model will make incorrect predictions that would have been right in the same place or under the same circumstances as the training data were collected, but aren’t otherwise.

This explains the different performance of the three different versions of the model: the site-specific model, the regional model and the site-specific and regional (SS+Reg) model. The site-specific model makes predictions about a given basin using LIDAR data from the same basin that was collected at other dates, whereas the regional model makes predictions about a basin using data from other basins and at other dates. The SS+Reg model was trained using all available data.

The SS+Reg model was the most accurate, but all models were generally accurate, both compared to models from prior studies and remote sensing methods. Because models of the sort used in this study output on the 50-meter scale, this scale was used to compare this study’s models to existing ones, and the former were more accurate. The models’ outputs were at a scale of 50 meters, but these were upscaled to 1- and 4-kilometer scales as well.

The 1- and 4-kilometer scales are more typically used in water management applications, and all three models became more accurate when applied to these scales, outperforming SNOTEL. This means that the models were more accurate than extrapolation from observation data. The success of both the SS+Reg and regional models indicates that information gained from LIDAR is transferable to different times and locations within the Rocky Mountain Region.

Besides fitting the data well and being adaptable to different scales between the three model scenarios, this approach is also beneficial because it does not rely on modeling physical processes (like snow formation, accumulation and melt) or on uncertain weather data. This makes it so that, once a model is trained, it doesn’t take long to make predictions. “The big gain is that it's much more computationally efficient and it just takes a fraction of the time,” Small says. “It's about 100 times faster.”

Herbert says “machine learning has been a huge benefit to my research, with the results to back it up. It’s freed up my time in the winter to put skis on and dig more snow pits to get the density data we desperately need.”

“For whatever reason, all our physically based models and our knowledge of science just gets in our way of making predictions,” Small explains, “because we've tried to boil it down to these simple equations, but it's not simple.”

"Machine learning has been a huge benefit to my research, with the results to back it up. It’s freed up my time in the winter to put skis on and dig more snow pits to get the density data we desperately need."

Expanding to other regions

The primary limitation of the snow density-measuring framework that the researchers created for this study was its reliance on on-site and LIDAR data for snow depth measurements. Small says that this could be addressed by bringing in other data sets, which would provide a more independent test of success than models’ ability to predict snow density in regions they were not trained on.

One of these data sets, the fractional snow-covered area (how much of the ground is covered by snow), could be measured using LIDAR equipment mounted to a satellite rather than relying on airplanes. While LIDAR has been used with satellite technology, this doesn’t address the limitations of plane-mounted LIDAR, because as Small says, “the (satellite) overpass interval is very slow. It’s about 90 days before it comes back to the place you’re looking at. So, you get a snapshot very infrequently, but it’s everywhere on the planet.”

The next step of developing this kind of model is to apply it to other regions, and it remains to be seen how easily that translation can be made, Herbert says.

“We’ve just begun running the model in California to see if the model works in regions with different climates,” he says. “We want to see how transferable data from one region is to another, and California is an ideal test site since it has more LIDAR than anywhere else in the world.”

The presence of LIDAR is important because these data were the most useful when it came to statistical model validation, or making sure that the models were accurate and reliable, compared to data limited by the small-area reporting of SNOTEL and the variability of on-the-ground snow density measurements. Without data to judge models’ predictions against, it is impossible to determine how well they do, because the actual snow depth is unknown.

Also, because LIDAR isn’t available everywhere, it is important to continue developing other methods of validation, the researchers say. Small says reducing reliance on LIDAR will help the innovative modeling framework apply to many parts of the country.

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ɫ��Ƶ�� researchers apply machine learning to snow hydrology in Colorado mountain drainage basins, finding a new way to accurately predict the availability of water.

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That lightbulb represents more than just a good idea

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 18:39:18 +0000

That lightbulb represents more than just a good idea Rachel Sauer Tue, 07/08/2025 - 12:39

Rachel Sauer

In research recently published in Science, ɫ��Ƶ�� scientists detail how light—rather than energy-intensive heat—can efficiently and sustainably catalyze chemical transformations

For many people, the role that manufactured chemicals plays in their lives—whether they’re aware of it or not—may begin first thing in the morning. That paint on the bedroom walls? It contains manufactured chemicals.

From there, manufactured chemicals may show up in prescription medicine, in the bowls containing breakfast, in the key fob that unlocks the car, in the road they take to work. These products are so ubiquitous that it’s hard to envision life without them.

Professor Niels Damrauer and his ɫ��Ƶ�� and CSU research colleagues were inspired by photosynthesis in designing a system using LED lights to catalyze transformations commonly used in chemical manufacturing.

The process of transforming base materials into these desired products, however, has long come at significant environmental cost. Historically, catalyzing transformations in industrial processes has frequently used extreme heat to create the necessary energy.

Now, continuing to build on a growing body of research and discovery, ɫ��Ƶ�� scientists are many steps closer to using light instead of heat to catalyze transformations in industrial processes.

In a study recently published in Science, Niels Damrauer, a ɫ��Ƶ�� professor of chemistry and Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute fellow, and his research colleagues at ɫ��Ƶ�� and Colorado State University found that a system using LED lights can catalyze transformations commonly used in chemical manufacturing. And it’s entirely possible, Damrauer says, that sunlight could ultimately be the light source in this system.

“With many transformations, the economics are, ‘Well, I need this product and I’m going to sell it at this price, so my energy costs can’t be larger than this amount to make a profit’,” Damrauer says. “But when you start to think about climate change and start to think about trying to create more efficient ways to make things, you need different approaches.

“You can do that chemistry with very harsh conditions, but those harsh conditions demand energy use. The particular chemistry we are able to do in this paper suggests we’ve figured out a way to do these transformations under mild conditions.”

Inspired by plants

Damrauer and his colleagues—including first authors Arindam Sau, a ɫ��Ƶ�� PhD candidate in chemistry, and Amreen Bains, a postdoctoral scholar in chemistry at Colorado State University in the group of Professor Garret Miyake—work in a branch of chemistry called photoredox catalysis, “where ‘photo’ means light and ‘redox’ means reduction and oxidation,” Damrauer explains. “This type of chemistry is fundamentally inspired by photosynthesis. A lot of chemistry—not all of chemistry, but a huge fraction of chemistry—involves the movement of electrons out of things and into other things to make transformations. That happens in plants, and it happens in photoredox catalysis as well.

“In photosynthesis, there’s a beautiful control over not only the motion of electrons but the motion of protons. It’s in the coupling of those two motions that a plant derives functions it’s able to achieve in taking electrons out of something like water and storing it in CO2 as something like sugar.”

Further inspired by photosynthesis and a plant’s use of chlorophyl to collect sunlight, the research team used an organic dye molecule as a sort of “pre-catalyst” that absorbs light and transforms into a catalyst molecule, which also absorbs light and accelerates chemical reactions. And because the four LED lights surrounding the reactor are only slightly brighter than a regular home LED lightbulb, the transformation process happens at room temperature rather than extreme heat.

The molecule is also able to “reset” itself afterward and harvest more light, beginning the process anew.

“We set out to understand the behavior of a photocatalyst that was inefficient at this process, and my student Arindam discovered there was this fundamental transformation to the molecule occurring while we did the reaction,” Damrauer says, adding that the team discovered there are key motions not just of electrons, which is essential for photoredox, but also of protons.

“In our mechanism, the motion of the proton occurs in the formation of a water molecule, and that very stable molecule prevents another event that would undermine the storage of energy that we’re trying to achieve,” Damrauer says. “We figured out what the reaction was and, based on that reaction, we started to make simpler molecules.

“This was a really fortuitous discovery process: We were studying something, saw a change, took the knowledge of what that change was and started to design systems that were even better. This is the best advertisement for basic science—sometimes you can’t design it; you’ve got to discover things, you’ve got to have that freedom.”

A sunny future

Damrauer, Sau and their colleagues in the multidisciplinary, multi-institutional Sustainable Photoredox Catalysis Research Center (SuPRCat) are continuing to build on these discoveries, which happen at a small scale now but may have the potential for large-scale commercial use.

In an essay for The Conversation, Sau noted, “Our work points toward a future where chemicals are made using light instead of heat. For example, our catalyst can turn benzene—a simple component of crude oil—into a form called cyclohexadienes. This is a key step in making the building blocks for nylon. Improving this part of the process could reduce the carbon footprint of nylon production.

“Imagine manufacturers using LED reactors or even sunlight to power the production of essential chemicals. LEDs still use electricity, but they need far less energy compared with the traditional heating methods used in chemical manufacturing. As we scale things up, we’re also figuring out ways to harness sunlight directly, making the entire process even more sustainable and energy efficient.”

Damrauer adds that he and his colleagues aren’t trying to change the nature of manufactured chemicals, but the approach to how they’re made. “We’re not looking at making more stable paint, for example, but we’re asking if it costs a certain number of joules to make that gallon of paint, how can we reduce that?”

In addition to Niels Damrauer, Arindam Sau and Amreen Bains, Brandon Portela, Kajal Kajal, Alexander Green, Anna Wolff, Ludovic Patin, Robert Paton and Garret Miyake contributed to this research.

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In research recently published in Science, ɫ��Ƶ�� scientists detail how light—rather than energy-intensive heat—can efficiently and sustainably catalyze chemical transformations.

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Top image: dreamstime.com

ɫ��Ƶ�� biochemist wins prestigious fellowship

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 18:45:06 +0000

ɫ��Ƶ�� biochemist wins prestigious fellowship Rachel Sauer Mon, 06/30/2025 - 12:45

Blake Puscher

Postdoctoral researcher Nathan Bullen announced as a 2025 Jane Coffin Childs fellow, supporting his research on how organisms survive when their RNA is under attack

A ɫ��Ƶ�� postdoctoral researcher specializing in biochemistry is one of 29 to be awarded a Jane Coffin Childs fellowship in 2025.

Nathan Bullen, a postdoctoral scholar in the ɫ��Ƶ�� Department of Biochemistry and the Aaron Whiteley Lab, studies how organisms survive when their RNA is under attack. As a Jane Coffin Childs (JCC) fellow, he will receive three years of salary funding to support his research out of the almost $8 million the JCC has committed to its fellows this year.

The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research (JCC Fund) is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious postdoctoral fellowships in the United States. Established in 1937 to honor the memory of Jane Coffin Childs, who died from breast cancer in 1936, and to support cancer research, the JCC Fund has since expanded its mission to include fundamental basic scientific research into the causes and treatment of human disease.

Nathan Bullen, a postdoctoral scholar in the ɫ��Ƶ�� Department of Biochemistry and the Aaron Whiteley Lab, was awarded a 2025 Jane Coffin Childs fellowship.

Each year, the JCC Fund selects between 25 and 30 early-career postdoctoral fellows from a pool of more than 350 applicants and, to date, has helped more than 1,800 researchers to pursue a cure for cancer and other human diseases. Bullen and his Whiteley Lab colleagues are working toward this goal by studying immune systems and infectious diseases to develop next-generation therapeutics.

Supporting early-career scientists

In addition to furthering important biomedical research and improving human health, the JCC also helps its fellows advance their careers. Current JCC Fund fellows attend an annual symposium that includes career-development sessions and other activities intended to improve their scientific, communication and networking skills. Since its inception, the JCC Fund has produced many scientific leaders in their respective fields, including numerous Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators and seven Nobel laureates.

“These sorts of postdoc fellowship are important for trainees like Nathan because they demonstrate their ability to secure competitive funding,” says Aaron Whiteley, ɫ��Ƶ�� biochemistry assistant professor, head of the Aaron Whiteley Lab and a past JCC postdoctoral fellow. “They are an important step in building the resume required to run your own research group. Fellowships also help the labs that the fellows belong to, as they cover some of the cost of personnel, saving funding for experimentation.”

Bullen’s work in the Whiteley lab aims to shed new light on highly conserved systems related to RNA repair.

“Our lab is broadly focused on conserved immune pathways shared between bacteria and eukaryotes (organisms whose cells have a membrane-bound nucleus),” Whiteley says. Because bacteria are easy to study, they provide a novel way to gain insight into the way these elements work in the human immune system.

According to Whiteley, the proteins involved in RNA repair are conserved between bacteria and humans. This is similar to how certain immune pathways are conserved, as outlined in a review article he and Hannah Ledvina wrote.

“While much of our work centers on immune pathways,” he says, “we’ve found that these similarities extend into more fundamental processes.”

One example of this is RNA repair, which is essential because of the vital roles that RNA plays in cells, including helping to produce proteins. Bullen is working in this area, specifically investigating how organisms survive when their RNA is under attack.

This project is still in its early stages, Whiteley says, but “we’re making strong progress and excited about where it is heading.”

Advancing research

The JCC fellowship recognizes not just the proposed research, but who the researcher is as a scientist. According to Whiteley, Bullen has a passion for pursuing interesting and meaningful questions. “That might sound obvious for a scientist, but it’s honestly not always the case,” he says. “A big part of being successful in research is knowing what makes for a good question, and I think Nathan has a well-tuned compass in that regard.

"My goal now is to live up to the opportunity and discover something genuinely cool about how the natural world works."

“He’ll probably say he’s very lucky to have been selected as a JCC fellow, which is true, but I’ll also add that Nathan did excellent work during his PhD and has big ideas for his postdoc. He has absolutely earned this opportunity. I’m very excited about the work he’s pursuing in the lab and I’m looking forward to the discoveries he’ll make over the next few years with the support of the JCCF.”

Bullen earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Waterloo and a PhD in biochemistry from McMaster University. He has been working at CU as a postdoctoral fellow since 2024.

“I’m incredibly honored to have been selected as a Jane Coffin Childs fellow,” Bullen says. “It’s hard to turn your passion into a career. Academia isn’t an easy road, and it comes with a lot of uncertainty. Awards like the JCCF are more than financial support; they’re a real vote of confidence in early-career scientists like me.

“These types of awards are basically saying: we like your ideas, and we think you can do something great. At this stage, that vote of confidence makes a huge difference. My goal now is to live up to the opportunity and discover something genuinely cool about how the natural world works. I am hopeful that the discoveries I make during my postdoc will serve as the foundation for my own independent research group in the future.”

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Postdoctoral researcher Nathan Bullen announced as a 2025 Jane Coffin Childs fellow, supporting his research on how organisms survive when their RNA is under attack.

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