Results are just beginning to arrive for the 1000 Genomes Project, a genomic study of human diversity. However, an international group is already planning something even more ambitious — a 10,000 genomes project. David Maddison, who studies beetle phylogeny at Oregon State University in Corvallis, points out that, so far, only one beetle species has had its genome sequenced, despite there being about six times as many beetle species as there are vertebrates.

Dr. Scott Baker, from Oregon State University in the US, who edits the Journal of Heredity, is coordinating efforts to assemble DNA samples from all known species of whales, dolphins and porpoises.

The humpback review, certain to be contentious, may not result in the species being delisted. "Some of this recovery is so recent that there will be uncertainty about it," says marine mammal biologist Scott Baker at Oregon State University.

Magnified, they look a bit like robots that NASA would send to explore distant planets, but phages – also known as bacteriophages – are actually tiny viruses that infect and destroy bacteria. For the last two years, Oregon State University freshmen in a unique biology lab have been researching and documenting phages, and their work is contributing to a Howard Hughes Medical Institute project.

Blue is sometimes not an easy color to make. So it was a pleasant surprise to chemists at Oregon State University when they created a new, durable and brilliantly blue pigment by accident.

Researchers at Oregon State University and other institutions have developed a new "plasmonic nanorod metamaterial" using extraordinarily tiny rods of gold that will have important applications in medical, biological and chemical sensors.

The name of Linus Pauling, the famed scientist and Oregon State University alumnus, will be front and center on the Linus Pauling Science Center when the building is finished in June 2011.

As the researchers report tomorrow in Nature, it was predominantly natural, a combination of vegetation buildup after the ice age and, more prominently, the slow reaction to this change by ocean chemistry. But humans, the team concluded, played a small part. "It's a much better picture than we previously had," says geochemist Edward Brook of Oregon State University, Corvallis.

OSU Professor Aaron Wolf discusses why water conflict has an impact on world peace. He has been facilitating solutions to water conflicts for years and sees many lessons in peacemaking emerging from the experience.

Oregon State University recognized the achievements of more than two dozen leading faculty and staff members in 21 award categories with some of its most prestigious annual awards this week as part of University Day, the annual kick-off of the new school year.