Adam Watts, Ph.D., associate research professor of fire ecology, and colleagues from the Dayton Research Institute deploy DRI's unmanned aircraft system (UAS) with special sensors developed by DRI postdoctoral researcher Kellen Nelson, Ph.D., to measure air quality and sample wildfire smoke during the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium’s 2018 research burn, hosted by the Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy and the U.S. Forest Service. 

Photo courtesy of David Goodwin of the Southern Fire Exchange.

If you want to know about your ancestors today, you can send a little saliva to a company where – for a fee – they will analyze your DNA and tell you where you come from. For scientists trying to find out about ancient peoples, however, the challenge is more complex.

Research published in the journal PLOS ONE by a team of archaeologists and microbiologists from DRI and Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIU) showcases the use of modern research methods to uncover clues about the genetic ancestry of Native Americans who inhabited the Desert Southwest during the last thousand years.

To learn about the rise and fall of ancient European civilizations, researchers sometimes find clues in unlikely places: deep inside of the Greenland ice sheet, for example.

In a new study published in PNAS, a team of scientists, archaeologists and economists from DRI, the University of Oxford, NILU – Norwegian Institute for Air Research and the University of Copenhagen used ice samples from the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP) to measure, date and analyze European lead emissions that were captured in Greenland ice between 1100 BC and AD 800. Their results provide new insight for historians about how European civiliztions and their economies fared over time.

"Public’s help necessary to keep Lake Tahoe blue,"
Lake Tahoe News, May 28th

"Cybersecurity education growing in Nevada as threats increase," 
Las Vegas Review-Journal, May 20th

"These Owl Chicks Have Two Mums and a Dad—a First,"
National Geographic, May 2nd

Meet Saroj Dhital, a Ph.D. student in atmospheric science. At DRI, Dhital is working with Dr. Michael Kaplan from the Division of Atmospheric Science (DAS) to study dust storms that develop over the Sahara Desert, and the dynamics of dust transport. He is originally from Nepal.

On May 3, 2018, DRI welcomed more than 2,800 community members to DRI's Las Vegas campus for the third annual “May Science Be With You” event. This Star Wars-themed open house, held in collaboration with the Las Vegas Science and Technology Festival,  presentations from DRI faculty and staff and our partners at the National Atomic Testing Museum, hands-on activities for all ages, and tours of DRI labs.

In early May, the two great horned owlets that hatched on DRI's Reno campus this spring successfully left the nest, marking the end of an incredible phenomenon never before observed by scientists: two female owls laid eggs side-by-side while one male brought prey to both of them. When one female's clutch of eggs didn't hatch, she took to co-parenting her neighbor's two owlets. 

Throughout the spring, the owlets and their parents attracted international attention from biologists and bird enthusiasts alike for their unique nesting situation. The live nest cam video, set up by DRI's IT team in coordination with the Nevada Department of Wildlife and streamed on YouTube, logged over 20 million hours of viewing and garnered media attention from such outlets as the Audubon Society and National Geographic.