Non-native species come to Humboldt county when small patches are washed up on beaches, hitch rides on ships and cars, or escape from someone's garden. Some of these species are considered invasive, and rapidly take over the landscape. Once they establish, they starve native species of resources like light and water, and out-compete them for surface area on the ground. They also harm native animals by replacing their food sources, harming them, or changing the landscape in which they live. Volunteering with the Invasive Plant Removal Team at Sue-Meg State Park, I had firsthand experience examining and removing these species across Humboldt County.

Anabaena sensory rhodopsin (ASR) is a prokaryotic photoactive transmembrane G protein coupled receptor extracted from the cyanobacterium Nostoc. The potential for ASR and its transducer, ASRT, to transcribe/translate prokaryotic genes into products by light signals is an extremely attractive possibility for future membrane research. Nanodiscs are a useful tool for studying membrane proteins because they serve to create a stable amphipathic environment. In the present study, 6x-His ASR has been extracted, isolated, purified, and inserted into a MSP nanodisc with ApoA1 and DMPC. We examine ApoA1 insertion into the nanodisc via SDS-PAGE and chemiluminescent western blot analysis.

With an ever-increasing push for urbanization, it is necessary to monitor the passerine's ability to tolerate increased anthropogenesis and ensure their persistence among changing habitats. Arcata, California is home to both a lively college campus (CPH) and a restored wildlife sanctuary (AMWS), offering ideally contrasting study sites to sample at. In order to determine if urbanization is affecting the birds’ occupancy, I will conduct a total of 30 point-counts at 15 urban and 15 rural sites to compare the number of individual passerines across land types. I hypothesize to detect a higher abundance of passerines throughout the rural settings.

Bioethanol is a biofuel already prevalent throughout industry as a gasoline additive. It is widely considered carbon neutral since the carbon released upon combustion was taken from the CO2 in the air and made into cellulose during photosynthesis. Starchy or sugary food crops are used in bioethanol production when plant waste cellulose could be used instead. Efficient and scalable cellulase enzymes are limiting this switch. We sought to characterize a novel cellulase identified by metagenomic analysis of bovine rumen by the JGI and Hess et al. We performed protein expression and characterization by SDS-PAGE, CMC and DNS activity assays to compare this enzyme’s efficacy to commercial ones.

Our group is exploring the link between vocalics and nonverbal communication by examining four different popular television characters and analyzing their individual character nonverbals. We selected popular characters and examined their vocalics (pitch, speech rate, etc) and nonverbals (gestures) in relation to audience and character perception. The characters selected are Ron from Parks and Rec, Jack from Will and Grace, Captain Holt from Brooklyn Nine Nine, and Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. Often nonverbal behaviors, specifically speech illustrators, are used to accompany the characters respective idiosyncrasies in an amusing or humorous way that we examine in our project.

Our idea poster is about our College Corps site. We volunteered with three other fellows to maintain the garden. We have been giving our time here since August and have helped hundreds since then. Some of the things we learned about are the many gardening and carpentry tools. This has helped us to remove a plethora of invasive species. We have also built fences and done trail maintenance work. We partnered up with local businesses to obtain hundreds of seeds to donate. This helped our community start more gardens around town. Overall, our site's main mission is to give back to the community one seed at a time.

University students, along with programs and services that serve them have been deeply impacted by COVID-19. The goal of this study was to explore students' statuses and their ability to access campus programming and supports that helped meet their basic needs such as, food, housing, and financial supports before and during the COVID-19 pandemic to evaluate their efficacy. This study had a particular focus on the context of diverse needs of students and campuses. This research adopted a mixed-methods approach to better understand basic needs insecurity, we focused on the survey data for this report.

The practice of excessive cursing is understood in teens and early adults as a transition into adulthood, by developing code switching skills, and strengthening kinship bonds. However as our world is increasingly digitized and kids find themselves socializing online at an ever increasing rate, taboo language has experienced a shift that is acutely represented within the boundaries of online gaming. Within the borders of popular combat games, a ritual of offensiveness takes cursing and derogatory terms to extreme use over their microphones within “in game chat” features. This poster examines these two cursing practices side by side, allowing participants to analyze how the culture changes.

During the pandemic, students experience a series of academic, structural, social, and personal stressors. For example, some students experienced abrupt closure of colleges and universities; some students’ households did not have access to needed resources such as an internet connection, and limited resources for remote online learning. Students of color experience these stressors in addition to ethnic minority stress which may have been exacerbated because of the current social climate. The current study examined associations between minority student achievement stress on self-esteem and academic sense of belonging and the possible moderating effects of challenge-focused stress appraisals.

Cellulose waste is utilized for biofuels, however cellulase enzymes are a limiting factor. We sought to evaluate a novel cellulase identified in cow rumen metagenomic analysis provided by the Joint Genome Institute. We performed DNA analysis, SDS PAGE, and a cellulase activity assay to theoretically calculate and compare to experimental molecular weight; and determine cellulase activity. The theoretical molar mass (64.9 kD) strongly correlates to the experimental molar mass (60.7 kDa). Purified cellulase has an activity, 6.27 cm2/ug, 6x higher versus commercial cellulase enzyme. These results have positive implications for the creation of biofuels from agricultural waste products.