Division of Natural Sciences

Using ‘mathy math’ to understand how people regulate their emotions

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 21:30:28 +0000

Using ‘mathy math’ to understand how people regulate their emotions Rachel Sauer Fri, 01/17/2025 - 14:30

Daniel Long

In a recent study, CU ��«��Ƶ’s Robert Moulder and colleagues find that individuals with trait neuroticism rarely modify how they respond to negative emotions

Emotions, like temperatures, go up and down. Yet everyone copes with these ups and downs in his or her own way. Some use the same emotion-regulation strategies over and over—read a book, take a walk, watch a movie—while others change which strategy they use depending on the situation.

Research scientist Robert Moulder of the ��«��Ƶ Institute of Cognitive Science, along with Katharine E. Daniel, Matthew W. Southward, Jennifer S. Cheavens and Steven M. Boker, wanted to know why: Why do some people frequently modify their regulation strategies? Why do others reuse the same strategies? And are there benefits to both approaches?

Institute of Cognitive Science research scientist Robert Moulder, a lecturer in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, notes that "that there are some times when it makes sense to become more adaptive" in regulating emotions.

Difficult questions, these, not least because they seek to identify patterns in what seem like random human behaviors. Which is why Moulder was particularly well-suited to the job of answering them. With a background in both mathematics and psychology, he uses chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics to understand human systems. “The way I like to describe it, I am like Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park, but for people instead of dinosaurs,” he jokes. “I do the ‘mathy math’ behind how psych works.”

Thanks to Moulder’s “mathy math,” he and his fellow researchers were able to reveal a key distinction between those who rarely change up their emotion-regulation strategies and those who do so often: trait neuroticism.

Trait vs. state

Neuroticism, Moulder says, refers to “someone's overall tendency to engage in and ruminate on negative emotions like getting angry, getting upset, being distrustful. You can think about it as the propensity of an individual to experience and act upon negative emotions.”

There are two categories of neuroticism: state neuroticism and trait neuroticism, the differences between which Moulder illustrates with an analogy to extroversion.

“A state personality would be, say, how extroverted you are right now, or how extroverted you are in two or three days,” he says. “Have you ever gone to a party and felt really engaged but afterwards felt dead? During that party your extroversion was higher than it normally would be, and afterwards, it was probably a little lower.”

Trait extroversion, on the other hand, takes the average of those individual moments over time. “It's kind of like your stable equilibrium,” says Moulder. “If you were going to describe to someone how extroverted you are, you'd be talking about your trait extroversion.”

The same thing goes for neuroticism. One person may have a high degree of neuroticism at any given moment but a low degree overall—high state, low trait—whereas another person may be exactly the opposite.

What Moulder and his colleagues found was that subjects with high levels of trait neuroticism tend not to experiment with their regulation strategies. “That means someone who is very high in neuroticism will consistently use the same tools over and over again, whether they’re working or not.”

A new mathematical model

Moulder and his colleagues arrived at these findings with the help of transition matrices, an analytical tool Moulder and Daniel developed in a previous paper.

Examples of transition matrices developed by CU ��«��Ƶ scientist Robert Moulder and his research colleagues.

“Why people do the things they do after a negative event has thousands of components,” Moulder says. “There was not a good method for measuring that. So, we made one.”

Transition matrices are rectangular grids of rows and columns that enable study subjects to keep track of which emotion-regulation strategies they use and when they use them.

A subject who got into an argument with her boss at noon and then took a walk, for example, would put a “1” in the box in her matrix associated with taking a walk. If she received an angry email from her boss an hour later and chose this time to call a friend, she would put a “1” in the box associated with that regulation strategy.

“If someone used the exact same strategy all the time, you would just see one number in the matrix, and all the rest of the matrix would be ‘0,’” Moulder says, whereas someone who constantly switched from one regulation strategy to the next would have numbers all over his or her matrix.

These transition matrices provide two key metrics, Moulder explains: stability and spread. Higher stability means fewer regulation strategies; higher spread, more strategies. Subjects with high levels of trait neuroticism are therefore likely to have high stability.

Just-in-time interventions

With this information about their own emotion-regulation behaviors, subjects can see which strategies they use and reuse; they get a snapshot of their own stability and spread. If they find they’re putting the same strategies on repeat, they can decide to change things up—play pickleball instead of binge-eating pickles, for instance.

“There are some times when it makes sense to choose the same strategy,” Moulder says, “but we know from prior research that there are some times when it makes sense to become more adaptive—to increase, to spread, to try other things.”

Moulder adds that the knowledge gleaned from transition matrices can also be turned toward potentially more effective approaches to emotion regulation. He and Daniel call one idea “just-in-time interventions.”

“If we are, let’s say, giving individuals telehealth, which is a really big space right now for therapy, we want to do something called just-in-time interventions,” he says. By understanding a person’s regulation practices, “we can say to that person, ‘Hey, you keep going to drink almost every time something negative happens. Maybe this time go read a book or a call a friend.’ We can offer alternatives that research shows will lead to better outcomes.”

The power of such interventions lies in their precision. They’re based not purely on statistics, Moulder says, but on “person-specific analysis, which we can use to give people personalized messaging that would ideally best help them in the long run.”

There’s no guarantee that switching strategies will bring the desired outcome, Moulder admits, but experimentation is part of the process. “We’re never going to know what works until we try.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about psychology and neuroscience? Show your support.

In a recent study, CU ��«��Ƶ’s Robert Moulder and colleagues find that individuals with trait neuroticism rarely modify how they respond to negative emotions.

Traditional

White

Thank bacteria for your innate immune responses to viruses

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 18:43:14 +0000

Thank bacteria for your innate immune responses to viruses Rachel Sauer Fri, 01/10/2025 - 11:43

Blake Puscher

��«��Ƶ scientists review the evidence for the bacterial origin of eukaryotic immune pathways

Scientists generally agree that eukaryotes, the domain of life whose cells contain nuclei and that includes almost all multicellular organisms, originated from a process involving the symbiotic union of two prokaryotes: an archaeon and a bacterium. It is unsurprising, then, that prokaryotes (single-celled organisms lacking nuclei and organelles) share many basic features—such as DNA genomes, cell membranes and cytoplasm—with eukaryotes; they developed these traits first and passed them down.

However, if the situation is this (relatively) simple, then the different kingdoms of eukaryotic life—animals, plants and fungi—should all have some variation of the same essential traits.

CU ��«��Ƶ researchers Hannah Ledvina (left) and Aaron Whiteley reviewed research that suggested a phenomenon known as horizontal gene transfer in eukaryotes.

By reviewing the research on this subject, two ��«��Ƶ scientists have demonstrated that this is not the case with respect to elements of the innate immune system that come from bacteria. Rather, some of the eukaryotic kingdoms have these elements while others do not. This is suggestive of a more obscure phenomenon known as horizontal gene transfer.

As authors of a recently published review article, Aaron Whiteley, the principal investigator of the Aaron Whiteley Lab and an assistant professor of biochemistry, and postdoctoral fellow Hannah Ledvina were not involved in most of the research used to draw this conclusion, and were not the first to come to it, but write to summarize the state of the field and provide clarity by aggregating sources.

Categories of immune system

There are two categories of immune systems: innate and adaptive. Both exist within an individual because they serve distinct purposes. The adaptive immune system is more effective at eliminating viruses than the innate immune system, Whiteley says, but the innate immune system also plays an important role.

“We all know that you start feeling sick maybe one or two days after you were exposed to most viruses,” he says. “In the beginning, part of the reason you feel sick is because your first line of defense, the innate immune system, is trying to buy as much time as possible for the adaptive immune system.”

It is hard to successfully fight a virus without the antibodies and other virus-specific cells created by the adaptive immune system, Whiteley explains, but the generalized response of the innate immune system is necessary to slow the progression of disease during the time it takes for the adaptive immune system to respond.

By studying the innate immune system, scientists have found connections between the immune systems of bacteria and those of humans.

“We only started sequencing large numbers of genomes about 20 years ago,” Whiteley says, “and before we sequenced any genome, it was very hard to compare two organisms.” When some genomes became available, rudimentary comparisons were possible, “but as of maybe 10 years ago, our detection techniques for similarities of genes have skyrocketed,” and this has made comparisons like the ones in Whiteley and Ledvina’s review possible in combination with the sequencing of many more genomes.

Conserved immune pathways

“What we’ve been finding is the way that bacteria stop phages is very similar to the ways that humans fight off their pathogens,” Ledvina says. “The same proteins, as well as the same types of signaling pathways, are being used.”

"We know that the world of the immune system is so much bigger than viruses. Our immune system controls cancer, our immune system is important for wound healing and our immune system also restricts bacterial pathogens.”

Ledvina and Whiteley highlight four such types of signaling pathways of the innate immune system that are conserved between bacteria and either humans or humans and plants: cGAS-STING, NACHT and STAND NTPases, viperins and TIR.

A signaling pathway is a series of chemical reactions between a group of molecules in a cell that collectively control a cell function. The two basic elements of a signaling pathway are sensor and effector proteins: sensors detect the presence of a virus or phage and start the signaling cascade that ends with the activation of an effector, which is responsible for some form of immune response.

In the first type of signaling pathway, bacteria use the same sensor and effector proteins, cGAS and STING, to respond to phages as humans use to respond to DNA viruses (e.g., smallpox-like viruses).

In the second type of signaling pathway, Whiteley says, bacteria sometimes use the exact same protein domain, NACHT, as humans. NACHT is a subtype of STAND NTPase, a class of protein. In other cases, bacteria use different STAND NTPase subtypes, and plants use this protein class too.

A third type of signaling pathway found in eukaryotes and bacteria uses an effector protein called viperin. Similarly, in the fourth type of signaling pathway, the signaling domain TIR is used by plants, humans and bacteria.

Horizontal gene transfer

The relationships between the immune systems of humans and bacteria are especially interesting, Whiteley says, because these four pathways are likely to have been passed to eukaryotes by horizontal rather than vertical gene transfer.

Eukaryotes have many genetic similarities to bacteria, including in terms of the immune system. This, Whiteley explains, is because “things like the mitochondria, which is a really important organelle within all our cells, look like they came from a bacterium that started living inside the cell and then became a permanent resident.”

In other words, bacteria are ancestors of eukaryotes, and therefore many of the genes from bacteria were passed down to eukaryotes through vertical gene transfer, which is the transfer of genes from ancestors to progeny. However, shared genes can also be transferred horizontally.

Bacteria are ancestors of eukaryotes, and therefore many of the genes from bacteria were passed down to eukaryotes through vertical gene transfer, which is the transfer of genes from ancestors to progeny, explains CU ��«��Ƶ researcher Aaron Whiteley. (Illustration: Shutterstock)

The exact mechanism for this type of transfer is unknown, Whiteley says, but the formation of mitochondria may provide a model: “You can imagine something similar, where a bacterium went into a cell, only rather than taking up residence, it broke open and released its genome. DNA is DNA, so it can be incorporated from exotic sources, albeit rarely.”

It is hard to be certain about this because of how long ago it would have happened, according to Whiteley. Eukaryotes lacking a given immune pathway may have used it at one point but then lost it through an evolutionary process like stabilizing selection, which removes traits that are no longer useful in order to free up resources (the classic example being fish or other animals that lose their eyes because they live in dark places like caves).

There is, however, significant evidence for horizontal gene transfer, Whiteley says. “If you find that a gene is in animals, but it's not in all the cousins of animals like plants or fungi,” as was the case with these immune pathways, “then the simplest explanation is that it was transferred in.”

This is all to say that these pathways evolved in bacteria after the creation of the first eukaryotes and were introduced to some of the eukaryotic kingdoms after the last eukaryotic common ancestor, which was about 2 billion years ago.

That kind of interaction is important because it’s how antibiotic resistance forms, Whiteley explains. “Bacteria in the hospital talk to other bacteria and they swap genes. We think about that all the time between bacteria, but we rarely think about it between different domains of life, like going from bacteria into, in this case, some ancestor of a human cell from a billion years ago, and that has real impacts.”

Immune evasion and drug development

According to Ledvina, there are at least four different ways for viruses to prevent immune systems from sensing and inhibiting them. These include preventing critical enzymes from functioning, destroying the products of such enzymes, blocking protein sensors by mimicking whatever activates them, and physically shielding the features that immune systems look for to identify viruses. This is true of both the viruses that make us sick and the viruses that infect bacteria.

One question that people always ask, Whiteley says, is “if our immune system is so great, why are we still getting sick? And it's because viruses find every way possible to maintain the upper hand.

“The wild thing is, I guess because the immune system of humans and bacteria looks so similar, the viruses of humans and bacteria have come up with shared strategies for that immune evasion. So, we can discover things in bacteria, but then go to human viruses and understand, are they also using this mimic strategy? And if so, that becomes a great antiviral strategy for drug development.”

Bacteria are particularly useful for testing, he explains, because they grow fast and because scientists have already developed genetic and biochemical tools with which to study them. These advantages and the similarities between bacterial and human immune systems mean that bacteria could inspire drugs to treat human viruses.

However, Whiteley says, “we know that the world of the immune system is so much bigger than viruses. Our immune system controls cancer, our immune system is important for wound healing and our immune system also restricts bacterial pathogens.”

This is what makes Hannah Ledvina’s research on ubiquitin-like proteins interesting. As demonstrated in a paper she worked on, bacteria have ubiquitin pathways resembling those in eukaryotes, and ubiquitin is broadly important in humans according to an article in Cell Death & Differentiation, such that its failure is associated with the development of cancer, immune disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases, among other things. As that article points out, this means there may be new therapeutic opportunities within the ubiquitin system.

“I think with Hannah's work,” Whiteley says, “we've shown the sky's the limit in terms of understanding the ways bacteria defend themselves, and then hopefully informing the way that human cells defend themselves.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about biochemistry? Show your support.

��«��Ƶ scientists review the evidence for the bacterial origin of eukaryotic immune pathways.

Traditional

White

3 years later, Marshall Fire impacts still being learned

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 21:23:38 +0000

3 years later, Marshall Fire impacts still being learned Rachel Sauer Thu, 01/02/2025 - 14:23

Colleen E. Reid

Wildfire smoke’s health risks can linger in homes that escape burning—as Colorado’s Marshall Fire survivors discovered

On Dec. 30, 2021, a wind-driven wildfire raced through two communities just outside ��«��Ƶ, Colorado. In the span of about eight hours, more than 1,000 homes and businesses burned.

The fire left entire blocks in ash, but among them, pockets of houses survived, seemingly untouched. The owners of these homes may have felt relief at first. But fire damage can be deceiving, as many soon discovered.

When wildfires like the Marshall Fire reach the wildland-urban interface, they are burning both vegetation and human-made materials. Vehicles and buildings burn, along with all of the things inside them—electronics, paint, plastics, furniture.

Colleen E. Reid, a CU ��«��Ƶ associate professor of geography, and her research colleagues created a checklist for people to use after urban wildfires in the future to help them protect their health and reduce their risks when they return to smoke-damaged homes.

Research shows that when human-made materials like these burn, the chemicals released are different from what is emitted when just vegetation burns. The smoke and ash can blow under doors and around windows in nearby homes, bringing in chemicals that stick to walls and other indoor surfaces and continue off-gassing for weeks to months, particularly in warmer temperatures.

In a new study released three years after the Marshall Fire, my colleagues and I looked at the health effects people experienced when they returned to still-standing homes. We also created a checklist for people to use after urban wildfires in the future to help them protect their health and reduce their risks when they return to smoke-damaged homes.

Tests in homes found elevated metals and VOCs

In the days after the Marshall Fire, residents quickly reached out to nearby scientists who study wildfire smoke and health risks at the ��«��Ƶ and area labs. People wanted to know what was in the ash and causing the lingering smells inside their homes.

In homes we were able to test, my colleagues found elevated levels of metals and PAHs – polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – in the ash. We also found elevated VOCs – volatile organic compounds – in airborne samples. Some VOCs, such as dioxins, benzene, formaldehyde and PAHs, can be toxic to humans. Benzene is a known carcinogen.

People wanted to know whether the chemicals that got into their homes that day could harm their health.

At the time, we could find no information about physical health implications for people who have returned to smoke-damaged homes after a wildfire. To look for patterns, we surveyed residents affected by the fire six months, one year and two years afterward.

Symptoms six months after the fire

Even six months after the fire, we found that many people were reporting symptoms that aligned with health risks related to smoke and ash from fires.

More than half (55%) of the people who responded to our survey reported that they were experiencing at least one symptom six months after the blaze that they attributed to the Marshall Fire. The most common symptoms reported were itchy or watery eyes (33%), headache (30%), dry cough (27%), sneezing (26%) and sore throat (23%).

All of these symptoms, as well as having a strange taste in one’s mouth, were associated with people reporting that their home smelled differently when they returned to it one week after the fire.

Many survey respondents said that the smells decreased over time. Most attributed the improvement in smell to the passage of time, cleaning surfaces and air ducts, replacing furnace filters, and removing carpet, textiles and furniture from the home. Despite this, many still had symptoms.

We found that living near a large number of burned structures was associated with these health symptoms. For every 10 additional destroyed buildings within 820 feet (250 meters) of a person’s home, there was a 21% increase in headaches and a 26% increase in having a strange taste in their mouth.

These symptoms align with what could be expected from exposure to the chemicals that we found in the ash and measured in the air inside the few smoke-damaged homes that we were able to study in depth.

The Marshall Fire swept through several neighborhoods in Louisville and Superior, Colorado. In the homes that were left standing, residents dealt with lingering smoke and ash in their homes. (Photo: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

Lingering symptoms and questions

There are a still a lot of unanswered questions about the health risks from smoke- and ash-damaged homes.

For example, we don’t yet know what long-term health implications might look like for people living with lingering gases from wildfire smoke and ash in a home.

We found a significant decline in the number of people reporting symptoms one year after the fire. However, 33% percent of the people whose homes were affected still reported at least one symptom that they attributed to the fire. the same percentage also reported at least one symptom two years after the fire.

We also could not measure the level of VOCs or metals that each person was exposed to. But we do think that reports of a change in the smell of a person’s home one week after the fire demonstrates the likely presence of VOCs in the home. That has health implications for people whose homes are exposed to smoke or ash from a wildfire.

Tips to protect yourself after future wildfires

Wildfires are increasingly burning homes and other structures as more people move into the wildland-urban interface, temperatures rise and fire seasons lengthen.

It can be confusing to know what to do if your home is one that survives a wildfire nearby. To help, my colleagues and I put together a website of steps to take if your home is ever infiltrated by smoke or ash from a wildfire.

Here are a few of those steps:

When you’re ready to clean your home, start by protecting yourself. Wear at least an N95 (or KN95) mask and gloves, goggles and clothing that covers your skin.
Vacuum floors, drapes and furniture. But avoid harsh chemical cleaners because they can react with the chemicals in the ash.
Clean your HVAC filter and ducts to avoid spreading ash further. Portable air cleaners with carbon filters can help remove VOCs.

A recent scientific study documents how cleaning all surfaces within a home can reduce reservoirs of VOCs and lower indoor air concentrations of VOCs.

Given that we don’t know much yet about the health harms of smoke- and ash-damaged homes, it is important to take care in how you clean so you can do the most to protect your health.

Colleen E. Reid is an associate professor in the ��«��Ƶ Department of Geography.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Wildfire smoke’s health risks can linger in homes that escape burning—as Colorado’s Marshall Fire survivors discovered.

Traditional

White

Top image: Bmurphy380/Wikipedia Commons

Breaking bonds in 'forever chemicals'

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 17:23:20 +0000

Breaking bonds in 'forever chemicals' Rachel Sauer Fri, 12/20/2024 - 10:23

Arindam Sau , Mihai Popescu and Xin Liu

We developed a way to use light to dismantle PFAS ‘forever chemicals’–long-lasting environmental pollutants

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have earned the nickname of forever chemicals from their extraordinary ability to stick around in the environment long after they’ve been used.

These synthetic compounds, commonly used in consumer products and industrial applications for their water- and grease-resistant properties, are now found practically everywhere in the environment.

Arindam Sau, a Ph.D. candidate in the CU ��«��Ƶ Department of Chemistry, along with Colorado State University research colleagues Mihai Popescu and Xin Liu, developed a chemical system that uses light to break down bonds between carbon and fluorine atoms.

While many chemicals will degrade relatively quickly after they’re disposed of, PFAS can stick around for up to 1,000 years. This durability is great for their use in firefighting foams, nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing and even food packaging.

However, their resilience means that they persist in soil, water and even living organisms. They can accumulate over time and affect the health of both ecosystems and humans.

Some initial research has shown potential links between PFAS exposure and various health issues — including cancers, immune system suppression and hormone disruption. These concerns have led scientists to search for effective ways to break down these stubborn chemicals.

We’re a team of researchers who developed a chemical system that uses light to break down bonds between carbon and fluorine atoms. These strong chemical bonds help PFAS resist degradation. We published this work in Nature in November 2024, and we hope this technique could help address the widespread contamination these substances cause.

Why PFAS compounds are so hard to break down

PFAS compounds have carbon-fluorine bonds, one of the strongest in chemistry. These bonds make PFAS incredibly stable. They resist the degradation processes that usually break down industrial chemicals – including hydrolysis, oxidation and microbial breakdown.

Conventional water treatment methods can remove PFAS from water, but these processes merely concentrate the contaminants instead of destroying them. The resulting PFAS-laden materials are typically sent to landfills. Once disposed of, they can still leach back into the environment.

The current methods for breaking carbon-fluorine bonds depend on use of metals and very high temperatures. For example, platinum metal can be used for this purpose. This dependence makes these methods expensive, energy-intensive and challenging to use on a large scale.

How our new photocatalytic system works

The new method our team has developed uses a purely organic photocatalyst. A photocatalyst is a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction using light, without being consumed in the process. Our system harnesses energy from cheap blue LEDs to drive a set of chemical reactions.

After absorbing light, the photocatalyst transfers electrons to the molecules containing fluorine, which breaks down the sturdy carbon-fluorine bonds.

By directly targeting and dismantling the molecular structure of PFAS, photocatalytic systems like ours hold the potential for complete mineralization. Complete mineralization is a process that transforms these harmful chemicals into harmless end products, like hydrocarbons and fluoride ions, which degrade easily in the environment. The degraded products can then be safely reabsorbed by plants.

A wide variety of products can contain PFAS. (Graphic: City of Riverside, California)

Potential applications and benefits

One of the most promising aspects of this new photocatalytic system is its simplicity. The setup is essentially a small vial illuminated by two LEDs, with two small fans added to keep it cool during the process. It operates under mild conditions and does not use any metals, which are often hazardous to handle and can sometimes be explosive.

The system’s reliance on light – a readily available and renewable energy source – could make it economically viable and sustainable. As we refine it, we hope that it could one day operate with minimal energy input, outside of the energy powering the light.

This platform can also transform other organic molecules that contain carbon-fluorine bonds into valuable chemicals. For instance, thousands of fluoroarenes are commonly available as industrial chemicals and laboratory reagents. These can be transformed into building blocks for making a variety of other materials, including medicines and everyday products.

Challenges and future directions

While this new system shows potential, challenges remain. Currently, we can degrade PFAS only on a small scale. While our experimental setup is effective, it will require substantial scaling up to tackle the PFAS problem on a larger level. Additionally, large molecules with hundreds of carbon-fluorine bonds, like Teflon, do not dissolve into the solvent we use for these reactions, even at high temperatures.

As a result, the system currently can’t break down these materials, and we need to conduct more research.

We also want to improve the long-term stability of these catalysts. Right now, these organic photocatalysts degrade over time, especially when they’re under constant LED illumination. So, designing catalysts that retain their efficiency over the long term will be essential for practical, large-scale use. Developing methods to regenerate or recycle these catalysts without losing performance will also be key for scaling up this technology.

With our colleagues at the Center for Sustainable Photoredox Catalysis, we plan to keep working on light-driven catalysis, aiming to discover more light-driven reactions that solve practical problems. SuPRCat is a National Science Foundation-funded nonprofit Center for Chemical Innovation. The teams there are working to develop reactions for more sustainable chemical manufacturing.

The end goal is to create a system that can remove PFAS contaminants from drinking water at purification plants, but that’s still a long way off. We’d also like to one day use this technology to clean up PFAS-contaminated soils, making them safe for farming and restoring their role in the environment.

Arindam Sau is a Ph.D. candidate in the ��«��Ƶ Department of Chemistry; Mihai Popescu is a postdoctoral associate in chemistry at Colorado State University; Xin Liu is a postdoctoral scholar in chemistry at Colorado State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We developed a way to use light to dismantle PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ – long-lasting environmental pollutants.

Traditional

White

Top image: PFAS foam washed up on beach (Photo: Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy)

There’s a reason it’s called ‘graveyard’

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 23:37:14 +0000

There’s a reason it’s called ‘graveyard’ Rachel Sauer Thu, 12/19/2024 - 16:37

Chris Quirk

In a study she conducted while she was a CU ��«��Ƶ postdoctoral researcher, Elizabeth Holzhausen and colleagues find a link between night-shift work and prostate-cancer risk

More workers than ever before can take advantage of flexible schedules. But some in health care, emergency services, manufacturing and other occupations are often constrained to regular overnight shifts. Epidemiologist Elizabeth Holzhausen had questions about the serious health risks associated with night shift work, specifically regarding prostate cancer.

Holzhausen, who worked as a postdoctoral associate in the ��«��Ƶ Department of Integrative Physiology before recently becoming an assistant research professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is coauthor—along with Jinyoung Moon of the College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University, and Yongseok Mun of the Hallym University Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital in Seoul—of a study examining the prevalence of prostate cancer in men who regularly work the night shift.

While a postdoctoral associate in the CU ��«��Ƶ Department of Integrative Physiology, Elizabeth Holzhausen studied the prevalence of prostate cancer in men who work the night shift.

They also examined whether the number of years on that shift increased the risk to employees. Their paper was recently published in the journal Heliyon.

For the study, Holzhausen and her colleagues conducted a meta-analysis, examining a large number of studies that looked at prostate cancer incidence and its possible relationship to night-shift work. One motivation for the meta-analysis was that there had been mixed results regarding any correlation between prostate cancer and night-shift workers in past studies. Holzhausen and the research team hoped to settle the matter with a rigorous meta-analysis.

Previous research has shown that working the night shift can present numerous health hazards. Along with heightened cancer risk, night shifts can increase the probability of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and sleep disorders in workers.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 13% of men will get prostate cancer, and approximately 3% of men die from the disease, which is more likely to strike older men. Definitive current figures are difficult to find, but the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2018, close to 4% of employees worked the night shift, including approximately 2.5 million men.

Prostate cancer and the night shift

In their study, Holzhausen and her co-authors found that there was a link between increased incidence of prostate cancer and night-shift work. They also determined that the longer men worked the night shift, the higher the risk became. The study showed that workers on the night shift for just one year had a 1% increase in prostate cancer risk, but for workers who had 30 years of overnight shifts, that risk jumped to 39%.

“I was surprised about the magnitude of the findings,” says Holzhausen. “There are a lot of people who work the night shift, so this is especially impacting people who work this shift over a long period of time.”

As Holzhausen explains, the disruptions to the body from shift work are significant: “There are several cancers that have been associated with night-shift work, and one of the big things is that we know lack of sleep and circadian misalignment can reduce the functioning of the immune system,” she says. “As a result, [the body’s] surveillance for cancer cells could be impacted if someone is doing chronic night-shift work.”

One of the challenges of the study was controlling for outside factors across a number of different studies that used different methods. A large chunk of the paper describes how the researchers achieved that.

"There are several cancers that have been associated with night-shift work, and one of the big things is that we know lack of sleep and circadian misalignment can reduce the functioning of the immune system."

“We were very rigorous about what studies we included," says Holzhausen. "Studies where the exposure was maybe nursing or some occupation that could be night-shift work, but they didn't explicitly identify if they were doing night-shift work, were excluded. We only looked at studies where specifically night-shift work was the exposure.”

The researchers also included studies that controlled for socioeconomic status to remove it as a variable in the study. "Nearly all of the studies included in our meta-analysis considered socioeconomic status. We did not analyze socioeconomic status explicitly and aren’t able to make inferences about different socioeconomic strata," says Holzhausen.

"However, the aim in adjusting for socioeconomic status is to estimate the impact of night-shift work on risk of prostate cancer independent of socioeconomic status. In other words, the results we observed are unlikely to be due to differences in socioeconomic status between day- and night-shift workers."

Holzhausen says that since night-shift work is probably not going away anytime soon, night-shift workers should be proactive in mitigating the potential risks: “Get additional screenings for prostate cancer, and take other measures that we know can help prevent prostate cancer, like eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol and not smoking.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about integrative physiology? Show your support.

In a study she conducted while she was a CU ��«��Ƶ postdoctoral researcher, Elizabeth Holzhausen and colleagues find a link between night-shift work and prostate-cancer risk.

Traditional

White

Top image: Pixaby

Sand verbena uses grains of sand to deter herbivores

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 19:41:09 +0000

Sand verbena uses grains of sand to deter herbivores Rachel Sauer Thu, 12/19/2024 - 12:41

Jeff Mitton

Apparently, herbivores are not fond of chewing sandpaper

Sand verbena, Abronia fragrans, has a moth pollination syndrome, or a suite of floral characters modified by natural selection driven by moth pollination. Its flowers are open all night but closed all day, and long corolla tubes prevent bees from taking nectar but are ideal for moths with long tongues.

Moths follow plumes of floral fragrance from sand verbena until they are within sight of the bright, conspicuous white globes of 25 to 80 flowers, where they sip a nectar reward.

Although sand verbena has a large geographic range, it is limited to sandy habitats in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota. While sand verbena is described as having white flowers that open only at night, populations in northern Texas and southwestern Oklahoma have a range of flower colors from light pink through fuchsia, and they also differ from most populations in the times that flowers open and close.

The plants with pink or fuchsia flowers remain open until late morning, and they reopen in early evening, allowing considerable visitation by bees and butterflies. Measurements of pollination success in the pink and fuchsia populations showed that diurnal or daytime pollination contributed 18% of the pollination success, in contrast to nothing at all in the remainder of the geographic range of the species.

Dwarf lupine with patches and particles of sand on its flowers, leaves and stem. (Photo: Jeff Mitton)

These data are consistent with the hypothesis that diurnal pollinators were a selective force producing and maintaining novel flower color and diurnal presentation of open flowers in the mornings and late afternoons. The long corolla tubes frustrate bee efforts to collect pollen or nectar but hold nectar available to virtually all butterflies.

Butterflies are visiting diurnally—the most common among them is the skipper Lerodea eufala, the Eufala skipper. These data and other observations suggest the hypothesis that the Eufala skipper applied selective pressure to change flower color from white to pink or fuchsia and to modify the times that flowers open and close.

How could a butterfly apply selection pressure? This terminology unintentionally suggests that the butterflies had a plan and the organization to apply it. But that was not the case. If some flowers did not close exactly at sunrise and if a small butterfly pollinated them, enhancing their seed set, the genes that influenced tardy closing of flowers would become more common in the next generation.

The butterfly did nothing more than sip nectar from a large globe of flowers, nor did the sand verbena do anything to achieve an intended goal. The metric of natural selection is the relative number of offspring produced by competing genotypes of sand verbena. Genes that had been rare produce more seeds, making those genes more common.

Sand verbena is in the genus Abronia, which has about 20 species, all in North and Central America. All thrive in sandy environments, and it is known that 14 of the 20 species have psammophory, a defense to herbivory that is more commonly called sand armor. The armor is assembled when wind-blown sandy grit adheres to sticky exudates on stems and leaves.

I first encountered psammophory when photographing dwarf lupine in the Maze in Canyonlands National Park, and since then I thought it was a rare defense. But a scientific article whose title begins with "Chewing sandpaper" lists more than 200 psammophorous species in 88 genera in 34 families.

Sand armor is not a rare defense; it is geographically widespread and has evolved many times. Experimental studies show that sand armor reduces herbivory—remove it from stems and leaves, and the plant suffers more herbivory than when the armor was intact. Add more sand, and the plant suffers less herbivory.

While sand verbena has a large geographic range, some species of Abronia have tiny geographic distributions. One example is Yellowstone sand verbena, A. ammophila, which is adapted to and endemic (found nowhere else) to the lake shores in Yellowstone National Park.

An obligate relationship was found recently when a new species of moth, Copablepharon fuscum, was discovered in 1995 on the shores of the Salish Sea between Georgia Straight and Puget Sound. The sand-verbena moth was found on just a few beaches and spits on Vancouver Island and Whidbey Island, and it only occupies sites with windblown sand and large and dense populations of A. latifolia, yellow sand verbena, which is found along Pacific Shores from Baja to British Columbia.

The sand-verbena moth uses yellow sand verbena as its host plant, meaning that it is the site of oviposition and the sole food consumed by the caterpillars. The caterpillars have specialized mouth parts allowing them to manipulate around grains of sand.

I know I will never see a sand verbena nor a dwarf lupine without the phrase "chewing sandpaper" popping into my thoughts.

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about ecology and evolutionary biology? Show your support.

Apparently, herbivores are not fond of chewing sandpaper.

Traditional

White

Top image: Sand verbena usually presents white blooms but response to a pollinator can turn a population pink or fuchsia. (Photo: Jeff Mitton)

CU president urges Quantum Scholars to think critically and creatively

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 23:20:49 +0000

CU president urges Quantum Scholars to think critically and creatively Rachel Sauer Tue, 12/10/2024 - 16:20

Rachel Sauer

At the program’s December meeting, Todd Saliman reaffirmed CU’s commitment to the quantum education and research happening on campus

The way University of Colorado President Todd Saliman sees it, “(quantum) is a sector where Colorado is uniquely well-situated... I want us to be the one. I want us to be front of the line. I want us to be leading the world.”

As for the Quantum Scholars he was addressing Wednesday evening, their mission is to think “critically and creatively, and be dynamic human beings,” Saliman said.

Professor Noah Finkelstein co-directs Quantum Scholars with Michael Ritzwoller. (Photo: Casey A. Cass/CU ��«��Ƶ)

Saliman was a guest speaker at the December meeting of Quantum Scholars, a program conceived in the ��«��Ƶ Department of Physics and the College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) that offers undergraduate students opportunities to learn about the quantum field, including connections with local industry leaders and introduction to new quantum technology.

The Quantum Scholars program includes undergraduates studying physics, engineering and computer science and aims to advance quantum education and workforce development through professional development, co-curricular activities and industrial engagement.

“We’re trying to extend what the Quantum Scholars are learning in class to make their education even more marketable and relevant,” said Michael Ritzwoller, a physics professor of distinction and Quantum Scholars founder with CEAS Dean Keith Molenaar. “More than 80% of our graduates eventually work in industry, so Quantum Scholars helps fill that gap.”

Scott Davis (PhDPhys’99), CEO of Vescent Technologies Inc. and a member of the Department of Physics advisory committee, told students at the Wednesday meeting that they are “at a special place” and cited the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act (S. 5411), introduced in the U.S. Senate last week, which would authorize $2.7 billion over the next five years for quantum research and development at federal agencies and shift focus “from basic research to practical applications.”

“So much of that started because of this institution,” Davis said. “We’re really just at the beginning, and we need CU to keep doing what you’re doing—technical development, workforce development, inventing the future.”

Supporting scholars

For Denali Jah, a senior majoring in engineering physics who has been a Quantum Scholar since the program began in spring 2023, the benefits of participating in it are many. The $2,500 that Quantum Scholars receive during the academic year—supported by the Department of Physics and CEAS, as well as contributions from alumni, industry and external partners—gave his budget some wiggle room so he could participate more fully in research and community initiatives.

CU President Todd Saliman (left) spoke to Quantum Scholars at the program's monthly meeting. (Photo: Casey A. Cass/CU ��«��Ƶ)

“I was looking for some way to contribute to the physics department and really put my stamp on CU before I left,” Jah says. “Professor Ritzwoller and I were talking and he said, ‘I really want a quantum hackathon to happen here at CU,’ so Annalise Cabra and I organized the quantum hackathon.

“It was a really great success on the whole, and a great opportunity for Quantum Scholars to be able to get some industry initiatives that were much better integrated into our program. One way that I see Quantum Scholars is we’re a curation of student opportunities. Everybody is really working to be able to create more and more initiatives and opportunities throughout campus.”

Luke Coffman, a senior studying physics and mathematics, is leveraging his time as a Quantum Scholar to study “useful ideas for quantum computation,” he noted during the Wednesday meeting. Specifically, he’s interested in molecular simulation for qubit systems and suggested that perhaps quantum sensing will happen before quantum computation.

“Theoretical quantum computing will always be hot,” added Noah Finkelstein, a professor of physics and Quantum Scholars co-director.

In response to a question from Alexander Aronov, a junior studying mechanical engineering, about whether quantum science is in a period of over-hype, Davis noted that the technology field broadly has long existed in a cycle of hype and bust: “Is that happening in quantum?” he asked. “I take a fairly broad view of what it means to be in quantum systems and a quantum player.

“Exploiting quantum to our benefit is not hype; it’s real… It’s been slowly building for a long time, especially the amount of money (dedicated to quantum research and development) on the public side because of national security aspects. We exploit the laws of physics to the advantage of humanity, and that’s not going anywhere.”

Saliman said that as an institution, CU is committed to quantum—to building and leveraging public and private partnerships that help fund the research and development of which Quantum Scholars are or will be a part. “Our job is to support smart people, and translating the discoveries made here into practical applications is going to help pay for it.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about Quantum Scholars? Show your support.

At the program’s December meeting, Todd Saliman reaffirmed CU’s commitment to the quantum education and research happening on campus.

Traditional

White

CU President Todd Saliman (second from left) talks with (left to right) professors Noah Finkelstein and Tobin Munsat, Scott Davis and Professor Michael Ritzwoller. (Photo: Casey A. Cass/CU ��«��Ƶ)

Katherine Stange named 2025-26 Birman Fellow

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 15:41:57 +0000

Katherine Stange named 2025-26 Birman Fellow Rachel Sauer Tue, 12/10/2024 - 08:41

The American Mathematical Society recognition supports mid-career female researchers whose achievements demonstrate potential for further contributions to mathematics

Katherine Stange, a professor in the ��«��Ƶ Department of Mathematics, has been named the 2025-26 American Mathematical Society (AMS) Joan and Joseph Birman Fellow.

The Joan and Joseph Birman Fellowship for Women Scholars is a mid-career research fellowship that aims “to address the paucity of women at the highest levels of research in mathematics by giving exceptionally talented women extra research support during their mid-career years,” according to the AMS. Fellows are those “whose achievements demonstrate significant potential for further contributions to mathematics.”

Katherine Stange, a CU ��«��Ƶ professor of mathematics, has been named the 2025-26 American Mathematical Society (AMS) Joan and Joseph Birman Fellow.

“I am both honored and humbled by this award,” Stange says. “As my career has unfolded, I've learned the incredible value of community in mathematics, and I feel a great debt of gratitude to my amazing collaborators and the support of my mathematical community.

“Joan and Joseph Birman's vision, to support the careers of women reconciling the many aspects of work and life, goes beyond these individual awards; and so, I hope to support those around me, just as I have been privileged by the support of so many.”

Fellows can use the $50,000 award in any way that most effectively enables their research, including child care, release time, participation in special research programs and travel support.

Stange, a number theorist, earned her bachelor of mathematics degree at the University of Waterloo and her PhD at Brown University under the mentorship of Joseph H. Silverman. She held postdoctoral positions at Harvard University, Stanford University and the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Simon Fraser University and is a fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics.

Describing her research, Stange says, “I enjoy simple-seeming questions that lead to a richness of structure; and arithmetic questions with geometric and especially visual access points.”

Her areas of interest include elliptic curves, Apollonian circle packings, Kleinian groups, algebraic divisibility sequences, Diophantine approximation, continued fractions, quaternion algebras and quadratic and Hermitian forms. Stange is especially interested in cryptography, including elliptic-curve and isogeny-based cryptography, as well as quantum algorithms, “in part for the surprising way mathematical structures can have an outsize influence on human affairs,” she notes. “I enjoy problems that involve experimental, algorithmic and especially visual mathematics, using a computer and other tools.

“There’s a great deal of hidden beauty in number theoretical problems waiting to be illustrated.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about mathematics? Show your support.

The American Mathematical Society recognition supports mid-career female researchers whose achievements demonstrate potential for further contributions to mathematics.

Traditional

White

Racing for climate action at 18,000 feet

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 15:14:08 +0000

Racing for climate action at 18,000 feet Rachel Sauer Thu, 12/05/2024 - 08:14

Rachel Sauer

Invited by the king of Bhutan, CU ��«��Ƶ PhD student Clare Gallagher completed the 109-mile Snowman Race to bring attention to the realities of climate change

Usually when Clare Gallagher runs 100 miles, she does it all at once—a day that’s alternately punishing and exhilarating and at the furthest boundaries of what her body can do.

The 109-mile Snowman Race was different. It spanned five days across the Himalayas and saw 16 of the most elite ultramarathoners from around the world traversing multiple mountain passes approaching 18,000 feet.

Clare Gallagher (left) was invited by Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck to run the 109-mile Snowman Race ultramarathon. (Photo: Snowman Race)

“As far as ultramarathons go, it was not that crazy a distance—we were doing about a marathon a day,” Gallagher explains. “But it took so, so long because these mountains are just so high. We started in Laya (Bhutan), which is about 13,000 feet in elevation, and went up from there.”

Gallagher, a PhD student in the ��«��Ƶ Department of Environmental Studies and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), was invited by the king of Bhutan to participate in the 2024 Snowman Race held at the end of October. It was the second time the race was held—an event envisioned by Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck to draw international attention to the stark realities of climate change in Bhutan and around the globe.

“Once we actually got there and were literally on top of these glaciers, I could see his point,” Gallagher says. “His goal is for international trail runners like myself to help share the story of what we saw, and what I saw is that the glaciers are melting.”

Running 100 miles

Before she vividly learned that a journey of 100 miles begins with a single step, however, Gallagher was simply a girl who liked to run. She ran track as an undergraduate at Princeton and kept running in Thailand, where she moved after graduating to teach English. While there, she signed up for the inaugural Thailand Ultramarathon almost on a whim and ended up winning.

Learn more

Read more about Clare Gallagher's experiences in Bhutan in an essay she wrote for Outside magazine.

The races she entered grew in length, and in 2016, at age 24, she ran the Leadville Trail 100 for the first time and won. “I had been reading Outside magazine, and I always looked up to some of the women who preceded me (in ultramarathons),” Gallagher says.

“I thought they were really badass, and trail running seemed a lot more interesting than track—I’d gotten really burned out in undergrad, but to race in a beautiful mountain environment, in places that are so remote, really appealed to me.”

Clare Gallagher (front row, far left in purple shirt) and 15 ultramarathon colleagues from Bhutan and around the world completed the five-day Snowman Race. (Photo: Snowman Race)

She won the 2017 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc CCC, setting a course record, and went on to win the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run in 2019, the Black Canyon 100K in 2022 and the Leadville 100 again, also in 2022. She was invited to run the inaugural Snowman Race in Bhutan that year, but she’d started her PhD program, and her schedule couldn’t accommodate the training.

When she was invited to the second Snowman Race in 2024, despite still being in graduate school, she eagerly accepted. The 16 participants were evenly split between Bhutanese and international runners, “and the Bhutanese runners destroyed us,” Gallagher says with a laugh.

“The physiology of running at altitude is pretty fascinating. A lot of the literature is finding that aspects of this ability are genetic, so if you don’t live at these altitudes and if you can’t afford to be acclimating for a month, your experience is going to be really different. It’s probably the gnarliest race I’ve ever done, and I got wrecked by altitude. People thought I might do well because I’m from Colorado—and I was using an altitude tent beforehand a little bit, but I was also taking my PhD prelims and didn’t want to be sleeping in it. So, I got destroyed.”

She did, most importantly, finish the race, and the slower pace she adopted in acquiescence to the altitude allowed her more time to look around.

‘Please send our message’

The Snowman Race course follows the historic, high-altitude Snowman Trek route, beginning in Laya and ending in Chamkhar, and summitting a series of Himalayan passes—the highest of which is 17,946 feet.

"My experiences in Bhutan reminded me that I also feel a lot of hope and a lot of motivation to do what I can do, and smile while I’m at it," says Clare Gallagher (foreground, running in Bhutan), a CU ��«��Ƶ PhD student in environmental studies. (Photo: Snowman Race)

“On day three we were up almost to 18,000 feet, and I’m walking and kind of sick with altitude, but I still had never felt the immensity of what I felt in the Himalayas,” Gallagher says. “The race route goes really close to glaciers well over 18,000 feet, and I’ve honestly never felt so scared. I could tell these glaciers were melting and the sun was so hot.

“The story of Bhutan is that these glaciers are melting at a much faster rate than predicted and are then creating these big alpine lakes that break through their levy walls or moraines and flood villages. We ran through one of these most at-risk villages—it takes seven days to get there by horse—and the people who live there don’t want to be forced to move. So, they were saying, ‘Please send our message back to your countries, we’re scared of our glaciers obliterating us.’”

And even though her PhD research focuses on plastic pollution in oceans, “even the issue of plastic pollution was apparent up there,” Gallagher says. “The interconnectedness of our world became so, so apparent up there. A piece of plastic trash up there is going to degrade really fast because of the high altitude and super harsh alpine environment, and then all those chemicals are going to go downstream. There’s not ton of trash in Bhutan, but plastic pollution is still a part of this story.”

She adds that Bhutan, like many smaller nations, is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change despite having one of the smallest carbon footprints on the planet, and she rues that it takes runners from western nations flying there—another carbon-intensive activity—to draw attention to the seriousness of climate change.

“A really surprising take-home from this journey was how spiritual the experience was,” Gallagher says. “All of my fellow Bhutanese runners were praying at mountain passes, and any time there was a meditative stupa, they were stopping and praying to the mountain deities, thanking them for safe passage.

“I really do feel there’s some connection between caring for this planet and each other and all the plants and animals on this planet. I feel like that reverence is something I’ve been missing in my work as an environmentalist. The phrase ‘climate change’ has taken on an almost corporate flavor, but in Bhutan things aren’t emails or PowerPoints or slogans, they’re real. Climate change is not just a phrase; it means melting glaciers. So, I’m interested in taking that depth and reverence for the land and living things and beings and asking, ‘OK, what are our problems here in Colorado? What are our challenges?’”

A hazard of the field in which she’s immersed is extreme climate anxiety, and Gallagher says she’s worked to focus day-to-day on “taking care of what I can take care of and acknowledging my present. My experiences in Bhutan reminded me that I also feel a lot of hope and a lot of motivation to do what I can do, and smile while I’m at it. I feel a lot of gratitude for being alive at this time in history and asking, ‘What are we going to do with this moment?’”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about environmental studies? Show your support.

Invited by the king of Bhutan, CU ��«��Ƶ PhD student Clare Gallagher completed the 109-mile Snowman Race to bring attention to the realities of climate change.

Traditional

White

Top photo: Clare Gallagher runs the Snowman Race in Bhutan. (Photo: Snowman Race)

The world’s food system is broken—this group wants to help fix it

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 14:00:00 +0000

The world’s food system is broken—this group wants to help fix it Rachel Sauer Wed, 12/04/2024 - 07:00

Sarah Kuta

With FrontLine Farming, CU ��«��Ƶ scholars and community colleagues focus on food security, food justice and food liberation

Many global experts agree: The world’s food system is broken.

Millions of people around the world go hungry each year, while millions more suffer from preventable, diet-related health issues like obesity and heart disease. Food insecurity—which disproportionately affects people of color—perpetuates cycles of poverty and makes it difficult for already-struggling families to get ahead. Commercial agriculture practices harm the environment, and food waste is a major source of global greenhouse gas emissions. Farmworkers face unfair and unsafe working conditions while also earning very low wages. The list goes on.

Damien Thompson, an assistant teaching professor in the Masters of the Environment (MENV) program, co-founded FrontLine Farming with MENV colleague and lecturer Fatuma Emmaud.

On a global scale, finding and implementing solutions to these problems will require international cooperation among policymakers, researchers and everyday citizens. But here, on Colorado’s Front Range, a nonprofit with ties to CU ��«��Ƶ is working to improve the local food system, one bite at a time.

Founded in 2018, FrontLine Farming is a nonprofit food justice and farmer-advocacy organization that aims to build a more equitable food system through community-derived, data-driven and asset-based solutions. Led by women and people of color, the group is also reclaiming the narrative and elevating historically oppressed voices.

The organization was co-founded by Damien Thompson, a Sustainable Food Systems specialization lead as well as an assistant teaching professor for the CU ��«��Ƶ Masters of the Environment (MENV) graduate program, and Fatuma Emmad, an MENV lecturer and Sustainable Food Systems career advisor.

Working alongside FrontLine Farming volunteers and staff, Thompson and Emmad are striving to improve the region’s food system through farming, education, policy changes and many other initiatives.

Food access and education

FrontLine Farming is trying to improve the Front Range’s food system from the ground up—literally. The group runs three urban farms—Sister Gardens and Celebration Community Farm in Denver and Majestic View Farm in Arvada—where it grows thousands of pounds of vegetables each year.

Much of that produce is distributed through community-supported agriculture shares, or CSAs. Participants pay upfront, then receive weekly distributions of vegetables between July and October.

Many CSA members pay full price, but FrontLine Farming provides a small number of free CSA boxes to families in need of additional support. The organization also accepts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as payment for CSA shares and, thanks to the Double Up Food Bucks program, gives a 50% discount to SNAP customers.

FrontLine Farming also donates up to a third of its annual harvest to a network of partner organizations through its Healing Foods program. These partners include organizations like Project Angel Heart, a nonprofit that prepares and delivers meals to Coloradans with severe illnesses.

FrontLine Farming runs three urban farms—Sister Gardens and Celebration Community Farm in Denver and Majestic View Farm in Arvada—where it grows thousands of pounds of vegetables each year. (Photo: FrontLine Farming)

“We’re trying to provide access to healthy food in the places where folks are already accessing services,” says Thompson.

In partnership with Denver Food Rescue, the group also hosts regular No Cost Grocery events at its farms. Shoppers can get free groceries and specialty items rescued from Whole Foods and Sprouts stores in Denver, without needing to show identification or documentation. These events not only increase food access but also help reduce the stigma around food insecurity.

FrontLine Farming offers an array of educational programs, including classes on topics ranging from herbalism and beekeeping to insect identification and seed-saving. It also runs a two-week farm immersion program to support aspiring Black, Brown and Indigenous farmers and gardeners.

“All of our education is rooted in this idea of sovereignty,” says Thompson. “Folks need information, they need knowledge in order to be able to start to participate in the food system in more meaningful ways.”

Achieving food sovereignty

Improving working conditions for farm laborers is another major priority for FrontLine Farming. In 2021, the group was part of a coalition that helped pass the state’s first farmworkers’ bill of rights, a law meant to protect the more than 40,000 farm laborers in Colorado, many of whom are migrants from Central America and Mexico.

How you can help

Overhauling the food system may seem daunting. But as FrontLine Farming demonstrates every day, small actions can have a big effect. Here are three steps you can take.

Plant a garden: One of the easiest ways to get involved? Grow your own food. “Become a community gardener, really into understanding the nature of the work that it takes to produce even a small amount of food,” says Thompson.

Join a CSA: If you don’t have time to grow veggies—or you worry you just don’t have a green thumb—consider buying a community supported agriculture (CSA) share from a farm near you, says Thompson. Also, spend some time learning about the farm’s values—how do they treat their labor? Do they follow organic practices? “Getting involved with a CSA and directly financing a farm contributes to the stability of local farms,” he adds.

Volunteer at a farm: FrontLine Farming relies on volunteers at its three farm locations—but they’re not the only organization you can support. Show up, get dirty and give your time and energy to your local farm. And if volunteering is not an option for you, consider joining your city’s sustainable food policy council or donating to organizations that support local agriculture.

FrontLine Farming also worked on the City and County of Denver’s Good Food Purchasing Program, which encourages major institutions to buy foods that are local, sustainable, fair and humanely produced.

“For us, food justice is policy work,” says Thompson. “How do we work within the system to try to change the system as it is currently constituted?”

With these and other programs, FrontLine Farming is working toward its goal of achieving food sovereignty, or the right for individuals to define and implement their own food and agriculture systems. Food sovereignty also encompasses the right to food that is both healthful and culturally appropriate, as well as produced sustainably.

“That’s where we want to be moving forward,” says Thompson.

Land ownership key to equity

Zooming out, all of FrontLine Farming’s work is informed by the team’s identities as women and people of color. Historically, Black, Brown and Indigenous farmers have faced myriad barriers to land ownership, resources and technical assistance.

“It’s been outright racism in terms of access to resources like banking and financing,” says Thompson. “Back in the day, it was racialized terror. Black farmers were literally terrorized and run off their land, potentially even lynched, depending on the circumstances.”

Farmers of color continue to face many of these same hurdles today. FrontLine Farming wants to help remove those obstacles while also amplifying the agricultural wisdom and skills of Africans, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, refugees and other communities.

FrontLine Farming also recognizes that land ownership—particularly among people of color—is crucial for resilience and equity. The organization recently celebrated a major milestone when it acquired the land on which Sister Gardens sits in Denver’s Chaffee Park neighborhood, but continues to raise money to buy more property through its Liberation by Land reparations campaign.

“The fact that we own Sister Gardens now—that’s land no one can take from us,” says Thompson. “That’s really important and really meaningful, ultimately, for the idea of sovereignty, especially for Black folks.”

Understanding the food system

Looking ahead, FrontLine Farming will continue to push for changes to the food system. Much of that work comes down to raising awareness about how that system is inextricably intertwined with labor, immigration, climate change, human health, policy and other topics.

“There are all of these different experiences that folks have in their everyday lives that are actually related to the food system,” says Thompson. “And it’s important to start to understand that. Not so we can scold farmers or turn producers into the bad guys, but so that we can understand that changes in the food system really do have so many knock-on effects.”

Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to our newsletter. Passionate about the Masters of the Environment graduate program? Show your support.

With FrontLine Farming, CU ��«��Ƶ scholars and community colleagues focus on food security, food justice and food liberation.

Traditional

White

Top photo: FrontLine Farming

Division of Natural Sciences

Using ‘mathy math’ to understand how people regulate their emotions

Related Articles

Thank bacteria for your innate immune responses to viruses

Related Articles

3 years later, Marshall Fire impacts still being learned

Related Articles

Breaking bonds in 'forever chemicals'

Related Articles

There’s a reason it’s called ‘graveyard’

Related Articles

Sand verbena uses grains of sand to deter herbivores

Related Articles

CU president urges Quantum Scholars to think critically and creatively

Related Articles

Katherine Stange named 2025-26 Birman Fellow

Related Articles

Racing for climate action at 18,000 feet

Related Articles

The world’s food system is broken—this group wants to help fix it

Related Articles