Everyone engaged in research, scholarly, and creative activity and discovery at K-State is invited to attend and exhibit at this internal event. Research Connections will be held from 3-5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 26, in the K-State Alumni Center Ballroom.

The event gives K-State researchers a chance to learn what their colleagues are doing, promote their work, and explore possible collaborations. Exhibitors and attendees will also have an opportunity to learn about K-State resources that are available to support research, scholarly, and creative activity and discovery.

Exhibitors will have a table and display space for posters, banners, signs, handouts and some limited equipment or other items. Exhibitors must register no later than Tuesday, Oct. 12.

Note: Capacity for booth space may be limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis. Attendees may also be limited and on a first-come, first-served basis depending on COVID-19 protocols. University COVID-19 protocols in place at the time of the event will be followed. If such protocols necessitate a change to the format of the event, you will be notified by email.

Research connections is sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research, K-State Innovation Partners and the Kansas State University Foundation.

Learn more about Research Connections.

K-State faculty and staff, centers, institutes and units engaging in innovation and economic prosperity are invited to submit a two-page narrative for the K-State Excellence in Innovation and Economic Engagement Award by Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, to ecodevo@k-state.edu.

This award recognizes exemplary economic engagement across efforts in talent, innovation and place — plus the intersections of these categories.

This year, two winners will be selected to account for both 2020 and 2021. While the ongoing pandemic has drastically changed the way people collaborate, K-State faculty and staff, centers, institutes and units have made concentrated efforts to thrive despite these additional challenges. This award recognizes those efforts. At least one of the two winners selected will be an applicant who intentionally pivoted to advance talent, innovation or place in a COVID-19 world.

Finalists will be recognized at the K-State Research Connections event on Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021, and winners will be invited to provide a short presentation about their project at the event. Each winner will receive a commemorative plaque, along with a certificate and a $1,000 grant to advance their economic engagement efforts. Finalists and winners will also be featured in news stories and promotions about K-State's economic engagement activities.

Full submission details are available on the award website.

Email questions to ecodevo@k-state.edu.

The University Small Research Grant, or USRG, program is a seed grant program to support early research, scholarly activity, and other creative efforts. Proposals must be received by 5 p.m., Monday, Oct. 4, 2021, by emailing ord@k-state.edu.

There will be an FDA/USRG Information Session at 3:30 on Thursday, Sept. 9 via zoom. Please register in advance for this session.

More details on the application requirements may be found on the Office of the Vice President for Research website.

The Office of Nationally Competitive Scholarships, the Graduate School and the Office of Research Development are hosting an information session on the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program, or NSF GRFP, at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 8, 2021, via zoom.

This session will take an in-depth look at the requirements for an NSF GRFP submission. A panel of faculty members who have served on review panels for this program will discuss tips and provide advice that you will not find in this program’s request for proposals. Students will also have an opportunity to talk about their research ideas with the panel. If you are serious about submitting to this program, this is a session you should not miss. This session should be of interest to graduate students and undergraduate seniors since both are eligible to apply.  Click here to register for this event.

Graduate students and post-docs going on the market for academic jobs are encouraged to attend this session to learn effective strategies for preparing three key documents of your job application: a teaching philosophy, research statement, and diversity statement. Refreshments will be provided. 

Please register by noon on Sept. 17 to attend in person.   

Save the Date! Join the National Science Foundation, or NSF, for the Fall 2021 NSF Virtual Grants Conference, to be held during the week of October 4-8, 2021.

In the meantime, please feel free to check nsfpolicyoutreach.com for the most up-to-date information and view recordings of sessions from previous conferences. You may also view the Spring 2021 Virtual Grants Conference recordings on the NSF YouTube page. For those who cannot attend the live conference, all recorded conference sessions will be available on-demand shortly after the event and posted on the NSF website and YouTube page.

If you have any logistical questions about this virtual conference, please contact grants_conference@nsf.gov.

K-State experts outline climate change effects on Kansas, tips to reduce impact themercury.com

Conversion of crop acres to grazing acres helps cattle producers hpj.com

Space alters an astronaut’s immune system drugdiscoverynews.com

Physiologically, people’s bodies aren’t built to handle heat beyond wet bulb temperatures — a combined measure of heat and humidity — of about 95° Fahrenheit. Mounting evidence shows that when heat taxes people’s bodies, their performance on various tasks, as well as overall coping mechanisms, also suffer. Researchers have linked extreme heat to increased aggression, lower cognitive ability and, as Tewari and colleagues showed, lost productivity. With rising global temperatures, and record-breaking heat waves baking parts of the world, the effects of extreme heat on human behavior could pose a growing problem. sciencenews.org

People with an inherited condition known as neurofibromatosis type 1, or NF1, often develop non-cancerous, or benign, tumors that grow along nerves. These tumors can sometimes turn into aggressive cancers, but there hasn’t been a good way to determine whether this transformation to cancer has happened. Researchers from the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Center for Cancer Research, part of the National Institutes of Health, and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a blood test that, they believe, could one day offer a highly sensitive and inexpensive approach to detect cancer early in people with NF1. The blood test could also help doctors monitor how well patients are responding to treatment for their cancer.nih.gov

Ambitious recycling scheme would make giant accelerator-driven machines work more like ordinary lasers. In contrast to the pure, single-wavelength light emitted by conventional lasers, they produce noisy, chaotic beams. Now, physicists are developing a scheme that would enlist perfect diamond mirrors to make the x-ray pulses much more like ordinary laser beams and even more useful.science.org

For 20 years, science has blossomed in Afghanistan. Now many researchers are fleeing and those who remain face lost funding and the threat of persecution. Waizy, a researcher at Kabul Polytechnic University who was recently also appointed director-general of prospecting and exploration of mines at the ministry, was shocked by the city’s rapid fall. Since then, he’s lived in limbo, mostly shuttered up in the relative safety of his home. Across Kabul, most universities and public offices remain closed. The Taliban says it wants officials to continue working, but it is not clear what this will look like. “The future is very uncertain." nature.com

As the extraordinarily infectious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread around the world, vaccines’ powers are showing their limits. Although they are still extremely effective at preventing severe COVID-19, the tantalizing hope that the shots could block almost all infections—and squelch transmission—has evaporated. Now, amid hints that vaccine-induced immunity is waning, policymakers and scientists are debating whether widespread booster shots could help—or whether getting shots into the arms of the unvaccinated should remain the top priority. sceince.org

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