2007

MESSAGE FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT
UM research has evolved to prepare a better future for all.

QUICK LOOKS
A rundown of science stories from the past year.

WARM NEW WORLD
Efforts by the University to understand and adapt to climate change.

Sidebar: Are oceans becoming acidic?

LANGUAGE 911
UM faculty members strive to save fading indigenous tongues.

THE BEACH BUILDERS
UM helps repair the shores of Montana's largest natural freshwater lake.

THE LOST LEWIS AND CLARK
Professor rediscovers explorers forgotten by history.

BIRDS AS BAROMETERS
UM center uses feathered friends to help monitor the environment.

A GROWING MYSTERY
Ecologist studies why all plants don't flower and seed every year.

STUDENT SCIENTIST
Hawaii becomes a young researcher's classroom.

INVITING DISCOVERY
Some of UM's most engaging research takes place in two centers of the University's College of Health Professions and Biomedical Sciences.

Sidebar: Neurons get their close-up

Sidebar: Core facility models molecules

UNDERSTANDING A HAZARDOUS WORLD
Center studies environmental impacts on human health

Sidebar: Useful tools: toxic agents and air pollution

Sidebar: Genes, the environment and you

ARCHIVE
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000

Cover: An illustration of UM's Main Hall tower bathed in the glow of a fictitious smoldering Earth.

Vision is published annually by The University of Montana Office of the Vice President for Research and Development and University Relations. It is printed by UM Printing & Graphic Services.

PUBLISHER: Daniel J. Dwyer. MANAGING EDITOR AND GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Cary Shimek. PHOTOGRAPHER: Todd Goodrich. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Brianne Burrowes, Brenda Day, Judy Fredenberg, Joan Melcher, Rita Munzenrider, Patia Stephens and Alex Strickland. WEB DESIGN: Patia Stephens. EDITORIAL OFFICE: University Relations, Brantly Hall 330, Missoula, MT 59812, 406-243-5914. MANAGEMENT: Judy Fredenberg, Office of the Vice President for Research and Development, 116 Main Hall, Missoula, MT 59812, 406-243-6670.

Last year UM paleontologist and reef expert George Stanley returned from a New York City conference with some chilling news: We should be concerned — even alarmed — by the changes now under way in our oceans.

About half the excess carbon produced by humans is absorbed into the oceans, and Stanley says this CO2 forms carbonic acid — the same substance that makes a can of Coke fizz. And like Coke, an acidic ocean can dissolve things — even the skeletons of calcifying organisms that make up basic plankton and corals.

If it gets as bad as some scientists suggest, ocean acidification could cause a collapse of food chains under the waves, mass extinctions, and starvation for people dependent on the sea for food.

Scientists at the ocean acidification conference revealed pictures of micro-plankton — the basis for oceanic food chains — already showing little pits
and scars and signs of dissolving in surface waters.

Stanley says scientists don’t know exactly when the tipping point will occur in which the ocean becomes too acidic for many forms of marine life. Expectations range from about 2020 to 2075 or farther, but the day is coming if current trends continue unabated.

Cary Shimek, Managing Editor
Judy Fredenberg, Office of the Vice President for Research and Development
The University of Montana-Missoula
32 Campus Drive | Missoula, MT 59812
phone 406-243-2522 | fax 406-243-4520
Copyright 2007 The University of Montana