LINGUISTICS - Kaori Idemaru was a middle schooler living in the Japanese countryside when she discovered that learning a foreign language—English, in her case—could open a portal to a new world. Today, Idemaru studies how speech is learned and perceived.

BIOLOGY - Bee populations have been suffering sharp declines in recent years, part of a pattern of widespread loss of pollinator diversity and abundance. Now a UO biologist and former UO postdoctoral fellow have looked for ways to incentivize almond growers to adopt bee-friendly practices.

ANTHROPOLOGY - Sustainability is a 21st century buzzword, but a new interdisciplinary study shows that some communities have been conducting sustainable practices for at least a thousand years.

LINGUISTICS - Linguistics professor Don Daniels will spend next summer in Papua New Guinea, where he will document languages in the most linguistically diverse country on Earth. Daniels has been awarded a prized National Science Foundation Career Award.

PHYSICS - A research team that includes two UO physicists have outlined new techniques for controlling the building blocks of quantum computing, a potentially significant step toward making such computers more accurate and useful. Physicists David Allcock and David Wineland are founders of the new Oregon Ions Laboratory.

Ten University of Oregon undergraduates had the chance to spend part of the summer honing their research skills through programs that offered a chance to pursue their own scholarly projects. The students were chosen for one of two types of research grants.

PSYCHOLOGY - Six grants totaling more than $92,000 will allow several University of Oregon researchers to study a range of topics aimed at helping protect consumers. The research funding came about through a 2014 jury trial involving the oil giant BP.

BIOLOGY - Craig Young was leading a research trip off the Oregon coast near Newport Aug. 28 when he said he had the “strong impression” the ship should change course to collect samples in a new area. It may have inadvertently been a lifesaving decision.

PHYSICS - Ant mandibles, spider fangs and scorpion sting tips are made of special materials that deliver sharpness for penetrating prey that the limited forces of their small muscles won’t otherwise allow, according to new University of Oregon research. That knowledge may be useful for designing new precision cutting tools.

ANTHROPOLOGY, LINGUISTICS, SOCIOLOGY - A new UO study, which was recently shared with the U.S. secretary of labor, shows that COVID-19 has caused long-term economic, social, physical and mental health challenges for farmworkers in Oregon.