Research Stories

Through GlobalResolve, faculty and students from across ASU are tackling public health and environmental problems in developing nations. --by Adelheid Fischer

For decades there has been a controversy about whales eating fish in the tropics. The debate has been at the heart of policy decisions about the culling of whales and is pivotal to the future of commercial whaling in the region. New research, however, shows that culling whales in an attempt to restore fish populations is not scientifically sound. --by Margaret Coulombe

What makes some people natural leaders? Business professor Pierre Balthazard believes it's all in their heads, and he's working with neuroscientists to look into the brain and find out how. --by Jessica McCann

You shouldn't use your teeth to open a beer bottle or crack a nut--you'd break a tooth or even your jaw. But our earliest ancestors could have done it. Super-strong jaws in our 2.5-million-year-old relatives helped them adapt to changes in food sources in their environment. --by Jodi Guyot

It has taken 230 years for scientists to describe 1.8 million species of creatures living on Earth. Quentin Wheeler says that five times as many species need to be described in a fraction of the time before many creatures that are still unknown to science disappear into extinction. --by Adelheid Fischer

The United States is a "litigation-happy" society, with citizens just waiting for the opportunity to sue. This belief is widely accepted and widely proclaimed–but is it true? Not really. --by Diane Boudreau

People narrate their lives through stories, especially as they age. Kevin McHugh has found that the cinema offers a compelling laboratory for examining this process. --by Melissa Olson-Petrie

Cuatro Cienegas, in Mexico's Chihuahuan desert, might hold the key to secrets about microbial evolution, the Cambrian Explosion, speciation, extraterrestrial life, and just about everything else. That key is phosphorus. --by Margaret Coulombe

It looks like an ant. It moves like an ant. It even smells like an ant. It's an ant--right? Or maybe it's a cleverly disguised spider. --by Margaret Coulombe

Laura Fulginiti's students call her "The Bone Doctor." The forensic anthropologist teaches ASU students how to get information out of bones, and shows them the reality of life in a career glamorized by shows like CSI and Bones. --by Jeff Crane