Imagine you could see right through an animal. You could examine its bones, or the way the muscles are structured, and see the wispy veins and arteries flowing through the animal right before you.
Led by nothing more than the soft glow of their lanterns, a crew of students from the University of Northern Iowa trek into the winding depths of Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.
The southeastern states have seen a record-breaking number of hurricanes already make landfall in a year when the nation is also grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. When researchers wanted to know how people would balance the danger of contracting the virus with the need to evacuate their homes, they turned to UNI professor Mark Welford for help. Welford, who heads UNI’s geography department, is also an expert on global pandemics like the medieval Black Death.
The UNI Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders has welcomed a new addition to their department: baby “Paul.”
Weighing just under two and a half pounds, “Paul” is a preterm infant born at 27 weeks. He has a pulse, real hair, and can breathe and cry.
Paul is not a real infant, though, but rather a top-of-the-line high emotion simulator that students in the department will soon begin using for classwork.
The first time she stepped inside of the UNI Metal Casting Center, surrounded by the red-hot glow of molten metal, Maria Alverio knew she was hooked. “There are two types of people in this world: the type who see molten metal and run away, and the type who can’t help but go closer. I’m definitely the second type,” Alverio said.
More than 100 million adults in the U.S. suffer from hypertension, or, high blood pressure, and in recent years, nearly half a million deaths in the U.S. were directly or indirectly caused by the condition.
Abby Weekley, a senior biology major at the University of Northern Iowa, is hoping to change that through her work with UNI alum Dr. Bob Good. Weekley and Good are collaborating on a research project to study how much young people between the ages of 18-25 know about hypertension.
University of Northern Iowa junior Ashley Campbell had just made the biggest scientific discovery of her life, but it took a moment for the truth to sink in.
Campbell is part of a group of UNI undergraduates researching the genetic makeup of the chewing louse, a grain-sized parasite similar to lice in humans that makes its home on furry animals. The research, which aims to expand our knowledge of evolutionary biology for use in medical applications, is exacting and sometimes tedious.
At first glance, it looks like something sprung from the mind of Jackson Pollock.
But the vibrant colors strewn across the image represent not the paint strokes of an artist, but the tiny, mineralogical components of a rock. And they were produced by a new set of scientific instruments at the University of Northern Iowa that will give students a deeper, more detailed look into geology than was previously possible.
