A chemical engineer developing more environmentally friendly materials and a geologist exploring the chemistry of Earth’s carbon reservoirs have been named Fellows by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS.
Jackson Powell is a doctoral student studying ecology and evolution in the Department of Biological Science, part of Florida State University’s College of Arts and Sciences.
When bacteria interact, they give off cellular signals that can trigger a response in their neighbors, causing them to behave in different ways or produce different substances. For example, they can communicate to coordinate movement away from danger or to emit light to ward off predators.
Chemists can make a career out of controlling whether certain molecules are generated as a lefty or a righty. Molecules don’t literally have hands, but scientists often refer to them in this way when looking at molecules that are mirror images of each other and therefore are not superimposable.
Douglas Storace, an assistant professor of biological science at FSU, is investigating exactly how a human’s sense of smell works with the help of a $2 million National Institutes of Health grant.
Peatlands store a significant amount of the Earth’s carbon and have functioned as an important moderator of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for thousands of years. But as peatlands are lost to overextraction and affected by a warmer climate, the impact on these natural carbon scrubbers remains unclear.
Debra Ann Fadool is a Distinguished Research Professor holding appointments in the Department of Biological Science, the Program in Neuroscience and the Institute of Molecular Biophysics; all units of Florida State University’s College of Arts and Sciences.
A Florida State University researcher will receive the Grammaticakis-Neumann Prize from the Swiss Chemical Society. Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Lea Nienhaus will receive the award for her work on light-matter interactions in hybrid semiconductors. The prize is awarded to a promising young scientist for outstanding work in the field of experimental or theoretical photochemistry.
