ScholarWorks

ScholarWorks is an open access repository for the capture of the intellectual work of Montana State University (MSU) in support of its teaching, research and service missions. MSU ScholarWorks is a central point of discovery for accessing, collecting, sharing, preserving, and distributing knowledge to the Montana State University community and the world.

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Scientists' Warning to Humanity: The Need to Begin Teaching Critical and Systems Thinking Early in Life
(Wiley, 2025-12)
Timmis, Kenneth
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Baquero, Fernando
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Lal, Rup
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Pinto Amorim, Lara Raquel
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Nikel, Pablo Ivan
We live in a time of global crises: a deteriorating environment that is struggling to provide all the resources and services we demand of it, changing climate and its consequences for the biosphere, its habitats, inhabitants and biodiversity, conflicts-divisive ideologies-competition for resources, increasing societal inequalities and human deprivations, and a youth mental health pandemic, to name but just a few. Most of these crises are self-made, the result of human decisions, and their acceptance/toleration by society. Policies and practices at all levels of society that created, exacerbate and launch new crises are, at worst, self-serving and, at best, faulted through a lack of understanding. In democracies, citizens can hold decision-makers to account but, to do this, they must understand the issues and be able to imagine better policies. We also live in a digital world in which a flood of mostly inconsequential information and misinformation pollutes our brains, enhancing pre-existing biases and creating new ones, and numbing our mental ability to think clearly and reach sensible decisions. But sensible decisions are urgently needed at all levels to fix problems and reduce future self-harm. Sensible decisions require sourcing the best available relevant information, and a process to convert information into understanding, understanding into clear decision options, and the choice of a decision option that leads to an action that represents best practice. Critical thinking is the enabling cognitive process of this decision pathway, because it selects the best available information through demanding evidence-basing, seeks critical discourse between experts and stakeholders that agnostically explores solution space to find plausible options, and whittles down options inter alia through plausibility, due diligence, bottleneck analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and benchmarking filtering. Crucially, it rejects biases, influencing factors, and other constraints on options, and is an effective barrier to the information flood. The problem is that critical thinking capacity is not widely available among either decision makers or stakeholders. There is an urgent need to rapidly roll out effective education programmes in which critical thinking teaching is solidly embedded. Since biases accumulate with age, the teaching of critical thinking must begin with the very young. However, the very young are not able to comprehend the complex abstract issues underpinning critical thinking. Embedding the teaching of critical thinking in a suitable educational context, and integrating it into curricula, is another challenge. To address these two challenges, the International Microbiology Literacy Initiative is developing a storytelling programme for children, called the Critical Thinking MicroChats Gallery, within the curriculum of societally relevant microbiology it is creating. MicroChats illustrate the principal practical elements of critical thinking, like bottlenecks, cost: benefit, benchmarking, the need for discussions and other points of view, employing readily relatable, relevant microbially centric scenarios. MicroChats suggest class discussion topics to encourage children to imagine the application of each element in other contexts to reinforce principles and hone critical thinking skills. Critical thinking, and especially the cultivation of the habit of asking ‘why’ and requiring plausible justification for policies/actions, is a shield against bias, prejudice, propaganda, misinformation and the incessant pressures of social media. It promotes a healthy mind and the attainment of the developmental potential of individuals. Increasing critical thinking in society will raise the quality of decision making at all levels and thereby improve sustainability/reduce the human footprint on our planet, and promote the individual sense of responsibility and global citizenship necessary for the improvement of the condition of humanity and its relationship with Planet Earth.
Branched-chain amino acid specialization drove diversification within Calditenuaceae (Caldarchaeia) and enables their cultivation
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2026-02)
Lai, Dengxun
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Mosier, Damon
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Palmer, Marike
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Mayali, Xavier
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Johnston, Juliet
Many thermophiles that are abundant in high-temperature geothermal systems have never been cultivated and are poorly understood, including deeply branching members of the archaeal phylum Thermoproteota. Here, we describe the genome-guided cultivation of one such organism, Calditenuis ramacidaminiphagus, and show that it has evolved a heterotrophic metabolism focused on branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs). Initially, fluorescence in situ hybridization and nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry (FISH-nanoSIMS) showed that Cal. ramacidaminiphagus assimilated amino acids rapidly in casamino acid-amended enrichment cultures. Metagenome and metaproteome analyses showed a high abundance and expression of BCAA transporter genes, suggesting a BCAA-focused metabolism. This inference was supported by the subsequent enrichment of Cal. ramacidaminiphagus in BCAA-fed cultures, reaching 2.66×106 cells/mL and 48.7% of the community, whereas it was outcompeted when polar amino acids were included. Metabolic reconstruction and metaproteomics suggest that BCAAs are channeled into the mevalonate pathway for lipid biosynthesis and fuel ATP production through the TCA cycle coupled with aerobic respiration and through production of branched-chain organic acids by overflow metabolism. Ancestral state reconstructions and phylogenetic analyses of 62 Caldarchaeales genomes revealed multiple horizontal transfers of BCAA transporters to the ancestor of the genus Calditenuis. Our study highlights the crucial role of BCAAs in the early evolution and niche of this genus, and suggests a high degree of resource partitioning even within low-diversity thermophilic communities.
Novel Irrigation Reduces Prosthetic Joint Infection Rates: Meta-analysis of 3 clinical studies
(Charter Services New York d/b/a Journal of Orthopaedic Experience and Innovation, 2025-09)
Amin, Vibhatsu
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Bashyal, Ravi
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Harris, Robert
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Parker, Al
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Singer, Ronald
Prosthetic joint infection (PJI) in the setting of total joint arthroplasty represents significant morbidity and economic burden to patients and the healthcare system. We analyzed a non-toxic, no-rinse intraoperative antimicrobial irrigation solution (AIS) that was designed to combat infection. In this meta-analysis of three studies, the AIS rate of PJI was 0.727 per 1000 surgeries (95% CI: [0.041, 3.19]), which was significantly less than the standard of care (SOC) rate of infection of 4.854 per 1000 (95% CI: [1.178, 27.73]) (p=0.045). This corresponds to a reduction of 85% in the odds of PJI (p = 0.045, 95% CI: [24%, 99%]). When compared to the American Association of Hip and Knee Surgeons (AAHKS) estimate of 1 infection per 100 surgeries, the AIS rate of infection was significantly less (p=0.004). The use of this AIS intraoperatively represents an efficient and effective technique to combat PJI in the setting of total joint arthroplasty.
Quantifying Chromosphere Response to Flare Energy Release Using AIA Observations in 1600 Å and 304 Å Passbands
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2025-09)
Qiu, Jiong
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Fleming, Rhiannon
Imaging observations of the solar lower atmosphere by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) have been mostly used as the context, and their quantitative information has been much less explored. The chromosphere responds rapidly to energy release by magnetic reconnection during flares. Furthermore, a flare is a collection of multiple energy release events that can be identified in spatially resolved chromosphere observations. In this paper, we conduct a statistical and semi-quantitative study of the relative photometry in the UV 1600 Å and EUV 304 Å passbands for 18 flares observed by AIA. In each flare, we have identified thousands of flare ribbon pixels in the UV 1600 Å images, and measured their brightness (counts per second) and the rise and decay timescales, which are indicative of heating properties in flare loops. The analysis shows that bright flare pixels, characterized by peak brightness larger than ten times the quiescent brightness, exhibit sharplight curves with the half rise time below 2 min, followed by a two-phase decay with a rapid decay on timescales comparable to the rise time and then a more gradual decay. Flare ribbon pixels identified in both UV 1600 Å and EUV 304 Å images exhibit similar time profiles during the rise, and their peak brightness appear to be related by a power law. Our analysis shows that AIA observed flare brightness in UV 1600 Å relative to the quiescent brightness is a meaningful measurement of the flare chromosphere photometry. AIA observations for over a decade thus provide a unique and extensive database for systematic and semi-quantitative study of flaring chromosphere, either in the context of the Sun as a star, or in spatially resolved manner that helps to probe the nature of flare energy release on elementary scales.
Delayed maximum energy solar energetic particle events
(EDP Sciences, 2025-12)
Allen, R. C.
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Ho, G. C.
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Mason, G. M.
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Ding, Zheyi
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Walker, Malik H.
Investigations of solar energetic particles (SEPs) have long utilized the dispersive nature of onset times, as in, the earlier arrival of higher-energy particles compared to lower-energy particles, to infer information such as the path length to the acceleration site at the time of initial particle release. However, recent observations by Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe have begun to characterize SEP events with an apparent delay in arrival times of the higher energy portion of the particle distribution, above a critical energy separating the delayed particles from that of the typical velocity dispersion signature at lower energies. Features of these delayed maximum energy (DME) SEP events, sometimes referred to as “inverse velocity dispersion” events, could provide new insight into the impacts of magnetic connectivity to locations along an expanding coronal mass ejection-driven (CME-driven) shock wave, variations of acceleration along the shock surface, and transport effects in the inner heliosphere. This study focuses on the occurrence rate and characteristics of DME events observed by Solar Orbiter relative to their footpoint locations with respect to the initial flare site. These DME events show a bias in occurrence rate towards events when the observer’s footpoints were westward of the associated flare location. Additionally, estimated locations at which the highest-energy particles of DME events are released into the flux tube suggest continued release of increasingly higher-energy particles from the CME-driven shock into the connected flux tube well into the inner heliosphere. This indicates that DME events could be attributed to inner heliospheric effects and are not actually coronal in origin. This finding is consistent with previous observations and interpretations of SEP events connected westward of the associated flare.