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In the News

NC State news is shared far and wide. Below are just some of our recent appearances in local, regional, national and international media publications.

May 11, 2023 PNAS

Can nature inspire sustainable fashion?

Then there’s the prospect of changing consumer behavior. Fast fashion is easy on the wallet. Nature-inspired materials come at a premium. Schiros expects that initial pricing for her teams’ biofabrics will land somewhere between wool and cashmere. A KENT high-waist brief retails for $24. “The consumer doesn’t want to pay more,” says Karen Leonas, a… 

May 10, 2023 WRAL

Private school vouchers in NC: Who uses them and which schools get the most?

“For many families, the tuition might have been prohibitive in the past, but once a voucher comes available, then they are ready to make that change,” said Anna Egalite, an associate professor at North Carolina State University’s Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development. She said studies show students who receive vouchers to attend… 

May 10, 2023 Our State

Beyond the Boundaries

In the mountains of western North Carolina, Cherokee foodways have endured for centuries, an integral part of the tribe’s identity. NC Cooperative Extension works to ensure that those traditions are not lost. 

May 10, 2023 Our State

Farmer 911: Tropical Storm Fred

Leatherwood and his neighbors had just corralled his cows when he got a call from field staff at NC State University’s Mountain Research Station asking what help he needed. Dr. Deidre Harmon, a livestock specialist with NC State Extension, and others soon came out to assist with moving heifers to safe pastures. Harmon was at the Mountain… 

May 10, 2023 The Austin-American Statesman

Should we bring back the woolly mammoth? SXSW experts talk ethics behind de-extinction

De-extinction can also be done for plants. Jason Delborne, a professor at North Carolina State University, has been part of the efforts to bring back the American chestnut tree, which was important to Native Americans and colonial America, but died off in the late 1800s because of a fungus. Scientists have been working to bring… 

May 9, 2023 WRAL

Thousands gather at PNC Arena to usher in the Class of 2023

Several colleges and universities had their spring commencement ceremonies over the weekend. The graduating seniors at North Carolina State University filled PNC Arena with a sea of red and white, while thousands gathered for an unforgettable moment in these young lives. 

May 9, 2023 CBS17

How a new tool developed at NC State could speed up first responders

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a tool they hope can help first responders respond more efficiently to emergencies. Those behind the tool say that in computational testing, their model outperformed the existing techniques for getting first responders to accident sites quickly. Leila Hajibabai, an assistant professor in N.C. State’s Edward P. Fitts… 

May 9, 2023 The Guardian

Many soft contact lenses in US made up of PFAS, research suggests

“You could consider [the lenses] almost pure PFAS,” said Scott Belcher, a North Carolina State University researcher and scientific adviser on the contact lens testing. PFAS are a class of about 14,000 chemicals typically used to make thousands of consumer products resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not… 

May 9, 2023 The Assembly

Can Asheville Learn To Live With Bears?

That was, evidently, not the case, as careful wildlife management and changing public opinion helped the bears’ resurgence. There are now around 20,000 bears in the state, making it the largest population on the East Coast. Their numbers are growing particularly fast in the mountains—to about 8,000 as of 2023, and climbing at a clip… 

May 8, 2023 Futurity

Model May Get First Responders To Car Accidents Faster

“The goal was to figure out the most efficient way to get first responders to an accident,” says Leila Hajibabai, an assistant professor in the industrial and systems engineering department at North Carolina State University. “Where should first responders be based in order to respond to the most likely sites of accidents? Is it always… 

May 8, 2023 Popular Science

The epic journey of dust in the wind often ends with happy plankton

Scientists pay close attention to dust particles because of their roles as iron couriers. “Often, when we think of dust,” says Douglas Hamilton, an earth scientist at North Carolina State University, who was not an author on the paper, “we do link it immediately to the iron.” There are many questions that remain unanswered about… 

May 8, 2023 DVM360

NC State study finds dogs with dementia suffer from more sleep disruption

Researchers at North Carolina State University performed electroencephalography (EEGs) on elderly dogs to determine whether brain-wave readings during sleep correlated with signs of cognitive decline. According to a university release,1 the results showed that dogs with a more advanced form of dementia typically suffered more frequently with sleep disruptions and also sleep less overall compared… 

May 8, 2023 WRAL Tech Wire

Helping first responders: NCSU computer model could improve response times

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a complex model to improve how quickly first responders – such as police and EMTs – reach the scene of vehicle accidents. In computational testing, the model outperformed the existing techniques for getting first responders to accident sites quickly. 

May 5, 2023

Researchers Assemble Pathogen “Tree of Life”

“We’re taking all known Phytophthora species and putting them into a living ‘tree of life’ using the Tree-Based Alignment Selector (T-BAS) toolkit that was developed by my colleague Ignazio Carbone,” says Jean Ristaino, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of a paper in the journal… 

May 5, 2023 Huffington Post

8 Common Kitchen Habits That A Food Safety Inspector Might Fail You For

Many people stick food in the refrigerator wherever there’s space, without giving it much thought. But Ellen Shumaker, who has a Ph.D. in food science and directs outreach for North Carolina State University’s community food safety program, said that restaurants must follow strict rules about where to place items in the fridge to avoid cross-contamination.…