Division of Natural Sciences

Students learning dam good lessons from nature's busy builders

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 13:54:40 +0000

Students learning dam good lessons from nature's busy builders Rachel Sauer Fri, 10/31/2025 - 07:54

Rachel Sauer

In a capstone project partnership with the Boulder Watershed Collective, Masters of the Environment students study what it means to live alongside beavers

Beavers are so much more than nature’s most eager builders. In many ecosystems, they play a key role in nature-based solutions to flood control, habitat restoration and fire mitigation.

They are a keystone species that can increase biodiversity in suitable habitats, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), but they also are a source of human-wildlife conflict in Colorado. For example, beavers have been known to build dams and inadvertently flood areas that ranchers or homeowners don’t want flooded.

Jack Carter, Amanda Opp and Colin McDonald (left to right) completed a Masters of the Environment capstone project studying beavers and how they live alongside humans in partnership with the Boulder Watershed Collective. (Photo: Masters of the Environment program)

The question for conservationists, land managers and any human who cares about wildlife, then, is how to live alongside this native species that broadly engenders mixed feelings. It’s a question that ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Masters of the Environment (MENV) students Amanda Opp, Jack Carter and Colin McDonald addressed in their capstone project, which they will publicly present today at the 2025 MENV Capstone Symposium.

Partnering with the Boulder Watershed Collective (BWC), Opp, Carter and McDonald examined the social perceptions and ecological impacts of beavers via surveys, research and data collection. They talked with land and wildlife managers across the Front Range to study how public agencies make beaver management decisions, and they participated in two beaver reintroductions, developing a monitoring plan to measure ecological metrics at the sites where the beavers were reintroduced.

“I think we all read the book ‘Eager’ by Ben Goldfarb, about beavers in America and how there was a high reduction in numbers from trapping in the 19^th century,” Carter explains. “Now there’s a movement to reintroduce them, and we have this thing about ‘coexistence’ as one of those kind of trigger words. We tried to come up with multiple things like ‘living with beavers’ in place of ‘coexistence’ or ‘reintroduction,’ which somehow give off the vibe that your life is going to change by the presence of these animals coming back, which isn’t necessarily the case.”

Back from the brink

Not too long ago, the North American beaver was on the verge of extinction because of 19th-century fashions that required the under fur of beaver pelts. At their population peak before the fur trade began in earnest, there were anywhere between 60-400 million North American beavers, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), but by 1900 there were fewer than 100,000.

As beaver populations began to rebound in subsequent decades thanks to conservation and reintroduction efforts, another issue emerged: Humans had moved into beaver habitat, converting “wildlife-rich wetlands into agricultural lands” and building towns nearby, according to USFWS.

For many years along the Front Range, beavers and humans have lived in an uneasy and sometimes nonexistent détente, so one of the goals of the students’ capstone project was to gather data that might help inform CPW’s beaver conservation and management strategy, which is currently being developed.

Some of the points of conflict that Opp, Carter and McDonald learned about as they collected data included ranchers concerned about losing rangeland to flooding and homeowners who were “very concerned about mosquitoes and thinking that if beavers are creating marshy areas, the risk for West Nile increases,” Opp says.

One of the beaver releases on private land near Nederland in which Amanda Opp, Jack Carter and Colin McDonald participated for their MENV capstone project. (Video: Colin McDonald)

Working with the Boulder Watershed Collective, they learned the nuances of effective conservation, which must include education, collaboration and partnership between stakeholders, Carter says: “Due to conflicts over public infrastructure and Colorado water law, reintroducing beavers is not as easy as it may seem.”

“I think BWC, and a lot of people involved with conservation, when they’re conveying the message of ‘Hey, these are beneficial animals,’ they have to meet people where they’re at,” Opp says. “One of biggest concerns in Colorado is fire mitigation, so when we’re thinking about unique solutions, nature-based solutions that might not have been considered in the past, beavers have been a really important pitch: ‘If you have a wet environment with wet soil and healthy grass, you’ll probably have reduced risk of fire reaching your property.’”

At the beginning of the 20th century, the North American beaver was on the verge of extinction because of 19th-century fashions that required the under fur of beaver pelts. (Photo: Amanda Opp)

Not just a cute animal

The two reintroductions in which Opp, Carter and McDonald participated happened on private land near Nederland, with the landowners inviting BWC to release beavers in ponds or wetlands on their land. Several of the reintroduced beavers came from Aurora, where they had been causing problems, McDonald says, so BWC and Aurora wildlife officers worked together to ensure that the beavers were trapped in families so they could be released together.

“Beavers aren’t endangered anymore, so there’s zero protection for them,” Carter explains, adding that the areas in which the beavers were released are far from settlements, hopefully giving the beavers the greatest chance to thrive.

At one of the relocation sites, the beavers had monitors attached to their tails, enabling researchers and wildlife officials to track their movements, Opp says. And at both locations, the landowners are reporting their visual observations of beaver movement to BWC, which is included in the MENV students’ monitoring plan. Their plan also includes measuring how wide the bodies of water into which the beavers were released become.

For the students, each of whom came to the MENV program as committed conservationists, their work with beavers for their capstone project was about more than busy, charismatic rodents.

“I’m really passionate about conservation and passionate about protecting animals in the wild, and this project instilled in me how rewarding this work is,” Opp says, a sentiment that McDonald echoed, adding that he appreciated learning how to build community partnerships and how to maximize impact at small nonprofits.

“Before this, I don’t think I really appreciated beavers,” Carter says. “I didn’t realize how important they are to an ecosystem. One of the biggest things that’s happening right now is biodiversity loss, and beavers create essential habitats for moose, for certain amphibian species. A lot of amphibians are going down the drain, especially in a state like Colorado, and beavers can help solve that problem.”

“The best way to move forward with all the damage humans have done is to realize we’re not separate from our environment,” Opp says. “We have to do everything we can to protect it, and beavers are a really awesome keystone species that’s not just this cute animal; they can play an important role in solving the climate crisis.”

Jack Carter, Colin McDonald and Amanda Opp (left to right) on their way to release a beaver on private land near Nederland. (Photo: Amanda Opp)

A beaver after being released on private land near Nederland. (Photo: Amanda Opp)

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In a capstone project partnership with the Boulder Watershed Collective, Masters of the Environment students study what it means to live alongside beavers.

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Top photo: Amanda Opp

Students finding strength in numbers

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 20:57:16 +0000

Students finding strength in numbers Rachel Sauer Wed, 10/29/2025 - 14:57

Rachel Sauer

Started by ��ƷSM��ӰƬ applied mathematics Teaching Professor Silva Chang, Colorado Math Circle is celebrating 20 years of bringing middle and high school students together in a community that has fun with math

It’s not always easy to be the student who does math for fun.

Even if the other kids aren’t weird about it, they still might not understand, so sometimes it can be easier to just brush it off. “Oh, math? Yeah, it’s OK.” But no, math is wonderful.

When one of Silva Chang’s high school teachers showed her a brochure for the six-week Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics (HCSSiM) program, she wasn’t necessarily doing math for fun in her free time, but she was very good at it.

Silva Chang, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ teaching professor of applied mathematics, was inspired to start the Colorado Math Circle in part from her high school experience in the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics program.

“I think he knew that I needed to get out of the city,” recalls Chang, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ full teaching professor of applied mathematics. “My parents were not college educated, they didn’t speak English, so I think he saw it as an opportunity that would open up my worldview.

“(HCSSiM) was a program where we did math 24-7, and it was the most fun I’ve ever had. I can say I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today if I hadn’t had that experience. (The program) was transformative, it made math really fun, it made it silly, it presented math as an art form that’s not just useful for practical applications, but that’s beautiful by itself.”

Chang’s experiences at HCSSiM inspired her 20 years ago to start the Colorado Math Circle, an extracurricular organization that offers opportunities and mentoring for middle and high school math enthusiasts around Colorado. Further, she was interviewed about how HCSSiM inspired her for the documentary “Hunting Yellow Pigs,” of which there will be a free screening at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 2, in Benson Earth Sciences room 180.

“I knew of certain students along the Front Range—all top students, some nationally ranked—and I wanted to be able to bring them together so they would have peer support,” Chang explains of starting Colorado Math Circle in 2005. “Some students can find peers, but some can’t. If you say, ‘I enjoy doing math problems all day,’ people might laugh at you, and you might try to hide that interest. I thought there should be a place where students didn’t have to hide their enthusiasm for math.”

‘Come and enjoy math’

For Chang, an interest in math grew from attending John Dewey High School in Brooklyn, New York, a school with a nontraditional pass/fail grading system and a longer, eight-hour day that allowed students to take more classes and explore their interests.

If you go

What: Free special screening of “Hunting Yellow Pigs,” a documentary about the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics program

When: 3:30-5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 2

Where: Benson Earth Sciences room 180

Chang’s parents had emigrated from southeast China, and while they may not have been intimately familiar with the vagaries of the U.S. educational system, they knew that education led to opportunity, Chang says. However, when Chang’s teacher suggested she attend the six-week HCSSiM, her parents initially didn’t understand the significance.

With some parental convincing and bolstered by her membership on a New York City-wide high school team of top math students, Chang applied and was accepted. Initially, her family was asked to pay a small amount to attend, “and my parents said no. They didn’t have a lot of money, but I don’t think that was their reason. They were nervous about me leaving home. So, someone from HCSSiM called me up and said, ‘You turned down the acceptance, can you tell us why?’ and I said the reason was financial, so they offered a full scholarship.”

HCSSiM was started by Hampshire College founding faculty member David Kelly, who died June 20. Program organizers describe it as “college-level mathematics for talented and highly motivated high school students. It is demanding and expanding. Participants spend a major portion of each day actively engaged in doing mathematics (not simply learning the results of mathematics).”

“(David Kelly) was running the program when I attended in the 1970s, and he set the tone,” Chang says. “He just made it fun. Some of us were coming from more competitive or grade-oriented backgrounds, but his perspective was, ‘Come and enjoy math. Math is fun, math is beautiful, get what you can out of this program, take away what you can.’ They were teaching fairly high-level math, but it wasn’t competitive at all. It was like, ‘Let’s all do math together, let’s all learn together.’”

Creating a community

Participants in the Colorado Math Circle engage in a hands-on math learning activity. (Photo: Silva Chang)

After Chang came to ��ƷSM��ӰƬ and her children entered high school, she began thinking that she’d like to create a program similar in spirit and practice to HCSSiM, where students could come have fun doing math with others who love it, too. She also thought about the New York City-wide math team of which she’d been a member and wondered if there was a way to combine the two.

In 2005, she began contacting Front Range high schools and students to assemble a 15-member team that would compete in the 2006 American Regions Mathematics League (ARML) national math competition at the University of Nevada. The team won first place in its division that year “and that was very motivating,” Chang recalls, “because we were competing against teams from around the country.”

Colorado Math Circle has sent a team comprised of students from around Colorado to that competition every year since, but after that first year Chang thought it was important to create a place for students who may not want to compete but who want to get together to do, discuss and learn math.

During the school year, students either come to the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ campus or participate in weekly problem-solving Zoom sessions. Initially created with a focus on high school students, Colorado Math Circle grew to include middle school students and help those who are interested prepare for the MATHCOUNTS competition.

“The first year we were more focused on preparing for competition, but after that we expanded it to a place where students could come learn about a variety of math topics,” Chang says. “Members of my department have come to give talks about their work, and we’ve been doing it long enough that we have math circle alumni coming back now.”

For the first 17 years of Colorado Math Circle, Chang was the sole director, but now program alumnus Thomas Davids serves as co-director and ARML coach.

In its 20 years, Colorado Math Circle has steadily grown; last year, more than 110 students from 45 Colorado schools participated. Over the years, students from as far as Grand Junction, Pueblo and Rangely have participated. “We don’t draw many students from any one school—the two largest are Fairview and Cherry Creek—it’s often one student from one school,” Chang says. “The main goal of the Colorado Math Circle is to teach students math, yes, and teach them problem-solving skills, but what we really provide is a community.

“These students teach themselves a lot of math, so the need we fill is helping them to create a community of friends who love math, too.”

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Top image: The 2023 Colorado Math Circle team that competed in the American Regions Mathematics League national competition, coached by program alumnus Thomas Davids (far left, holding plaque). (Photo: Silva Chang)

Scholar studies hydrogen gas as a clean energy source for meeting decarbonization goals

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 20:11:12 +0000

Scholar studies hydrogen gas as a clean energy source for meeting decarbonization goals Rachel Sauer Mon, 10/27/2025 - 14:11

��ƷSM��ӰƬ Professor Alexis Templeton will discuss hydrogen as a clean energy source and as an energy source for life in the Earth during her Nov. 20 Distinguished Research Lecture

As nations around the world work to decarbonize and bolster their energy security, many of them are turning to hydrogen gas as an alternative energy source.

At the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ, Alexis Templeton, a professor of geological sciences, is developing projects around the world with academic, government and industry partners to harvest naturally occurring, low-carbon hydrogen from beneath the Earth’s surface.

Alexis Templeton, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ professor of geological sciences, studies how microbial life interacts with geology in extreme environments.

“Hydrogen is one of the most powerful and versatile energy sources on Earth. It has long been used to power microbial life activity in dark, rocky parts of our planet where other forms of energy are scarce, and excitingly now humans are trying to harness this globally abundant energy source as well,” Templeton says.

Templeton’s research into the geochemistry of subsurface rocks—how they interact with water to produce hydrogen—offers the promise of clean energy innovation in the not-too-distant future. She will share details about that aspect of her research—as well as how hydrogen sustains microbial life in Earth’s deep subsurface environments—in the 126th Distinguished Research Lecture, “Hydrogen: Integrating the Searches for New Energy Sources and Novel Life Activity Within the Earth,” at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, at the Chancellor’s Hall and Auditorium, Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE). A question-and-answer session and reception will follow the lecture.

“I’m deeply honored to be selected to deliver a Distinguished Research Lecture on the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ campus. I truly appreciate the support of my colleagues here at the University of Colorado and in the international geochemistry and geobiology community who supported this nomination and the work that will be shared,” Templeton says.

About Alexis Templeton

Templeton is a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences and the CU Center for Astrobiology. Her research spans the globe—from volcanoes in the Pacific to cold springs in the High Arctic to the mountains and deserts of the Arabian Peninsula—but it all centers on one goal: understanding how microbial life interacts with geology in extreme environments.

If you go

What: 126th Distinguished Research Lecture, Hydrogen: Integrating the Searches for New Energy Sources and Novel Life Activity Within the Earth

Who: Professor Alexis Templeton of the Department of Geological Sciences and Center for Astrobiology

When: 4-5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, followed by a Q&A and reception

Where: Chancellor's Hall and Auditorium, Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE)

With funding from NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Grantham, Packard and Simons Foundations, she has led several large multidisciplinary projects to investigate the subsurface biosphere on Earth and the potential for similar life forms to exist elsewhere in the solar system.

At ��ƷSM��ӰƬ, Templeton trains students and postdoctoral scholars in the realms of geochemistry, geomicrobiology and astrobiology and co-directs the Raman Chemical Imaging laboratory, a CU-Boulder Core Facility. She is an active member of the geobiology program, and she teaches several courses in geochemistry that blend classroom learning with field experiences in the mountains of Colorado.

Templeton received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Dartmouth College, her PhD from Stanford University and her postdoctoral training from Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

About the distinguished research lectureship

The Distinguished Research Lectureship is one the highest honors bestowed by CU Boulder faculty upon a colleague. Awarded annually by the Research and Innovation Office, it recognizes tenured faculty members, research professors (associate or full) or adjunct professors who have been with ��ƷSM��ӰƬ for at least five years for a distinguished body of academic or creative work, as well as contributions to the educational and service missions. Each recipient gives a lecture in the fall or spring and receives a $2,000 honorarium.

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ Professor Alexis Templeton will discuss hydrogen as a clean energy source and as an energy source for life in the Earth during her Nov. 20 Distinguished Research Lecture.

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Top image: iStock

Space physicist Mihály Horányi honored as 2025 professor of distinction

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 19:47:36 +0000

Space physicist Mihály Horányi honored as 2025 professor of distinction Rachel Sauer Fri, 10/24/2025 - 13:47

College of Arts and Sciences leadership and peers recognize the physics professor’s service, teaching and research with the award

Mihály Horányi, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ professor of physics, has been named the 2025 College Professor of Distinction by the College of Arts and Sciences in recognition of his exceptional service, teaching and research.

Mihály Horányi, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ professor of physics, has been named the 2025 College Professor of Distinction by the College of Arts and Sciences.

The college presents this prestigious award annually to current faculty members who are scholars and artists of national and international renown and who are recognized by their college peers as teachers and colleagues of exceptional talent.

“I’m truly surprised and honored by this recognition from my peers,” Horányi says. “LASP and the Physics Department at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ are extraordinary communities of talented and passionate people who continually push the boundaries of scientific discovery and space exploration. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to collaborate with so many inspiring colleagues over the past 30 years.”

Horányi is a physicist who conducts theoretical and experimental investigations of space and laboratory complex (dusty) plasmas. He also studies electrodynamic processes and their role in the origin and evolution of the solar system, comets, planetary rings, and plasma surface interactions; dust charging, in situ and remote observations of dust; and dusty plasma laboratory experiments and space hardware development.

He received an M.S. degree in nuclear physics and a PhD in space physics at the Lorand Eotvos University in Budapest, Hungary. While a graduate student, Horányi worked on the Vega mission to comet Halley. At that time, the Russian probes Vega 1 and Vega 2, as well as the European Space Agency Giotto and Japanese missions, were happening, and “the large international interest and the excitement of building instruments that would fly in deep space was mesmerizing to me,” he recalled in an interview with NASA. “For me, figuring out the most important science questions to ask, which measurements to make, and what is the right balance between capability, reliability, mass, power needs, schedule, and cost remains challenging and exciting ever since.”

Horányi joined the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) in 1992 and the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Department of Physics in 1999. He served as a co-investigator for the dust instruments onboard the Ulysses, Galileo, and Cassini missions and as a principal investigator for the dust instruments built by LASP: the Student Dust Counter (SDC) onboard New Horizons, the Cosmic Dust Experiment (CDE) onboard the AIM satellite, and the Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX) onboard the LADEE mission. He is the principal investigator for the Interstellar Dust Experiment (IDEX) onboard the recently launched IMAP mission.

He is the author or coauthor of more than 300 refereed publications and is a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Geophysical Union. The International Astronomical Union renamed Asteroid 1998 AX9 as 164701 Horányi in his honor.

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College of Arts and Sciences leadership and peers recognize the physics professor’s service, teaching and research with the award.

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Migration no guarantee of bird biodiversity

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 01:11:14 +0000

Migration no guarantee of bird biodiversity Rachel Sauer Thu, 10/23/2025 - 19:11

Cody DeBos

��ƷSM��ӰƬ researchers challenge long-held assumptions about the relationship between bird migration and the process by which new species arise

Every year, billions of birds take to the skies, riding thermal currents and navigating with an innate sense of direction across distances that would humble even the most accomplished commercial pilots.

“Migration is one of the most spectacular natural phenomena,” says Gina Calabrese, an evolutionary biologist and postdoctoral research fellow in the Safran Lab at the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ.

Gina Calabrese, an evolutionary biologist and postdoctoral research fellow in the Safran Lab at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ, and her research colleagues, tested the theory that bird migration may be a leading force behind the genesis of new species.

Aside from inspiring awe in bird enthusiasts, this ancient ritual has also sparked many scientific theories. One suggests that migration—by way of dividing populations across different routes and destinations—may be a leading force behind the genesis of new species.

“The idea that this behavior could be a major driver of biodiversity has been an attractive one,” Calabrese says.

But does it hold up under evolutionary scrutiny? That’s what she and a team of co-researchers set out to test in a new study published in Systematic Biology.

Rethinking migration and diversity

Calabrese and her colleagues’ research challenges long-held assumptions about the relationship between migration and speciation, or the process by which new species arise. While scientists have documented cases where migratory behavior appears to be splitting populations, her team wanted to know whether this pattern was widespread enough to have shaped bird diversity at a large scale.

“There’s a body of literature that suggests migration could promote the formation of new species, by isolating populations that use different migratory routes or wintering areas,” she explains. “If this were a widespread pattern, we might expect migratory lineages to be more diverse today than other non-migrating birds.”

To test the hypothesis, Calabrese and her collaborators examined evolutionary trees called phylogenies that map out how present-day bird species are related to one another. Drawing from massive data sets of two avian superfamilies, they used statistical models to estimate how quickly different bird lineages have diversified over evolutionary time. They then compared the rates of speciation in migratory birds to those that make a home in one location year-round.

The results weren’t what they had expected.

“We found no consistent evidence that migratory birds speciate faster than non-migratory ones,” Calabrese says. “This was a surprise—especially given how much attention the idea of migration-driven speciation has received.

“There are clear examples where migration is leading to population splits—those are real,” she says. “But those examples are often recent, and they might not always result in fully separate species.”

In other words, migration might occasionally set the stage for speciation, but it’s no guarantee.

“Not every population split leaves a lasting imprint in the fossil record or leads to a new species,” Calabrese adds.

“We found no consistent evidence that migratory birds speciate faster than non-migratory ones. This was a surprise—especially given how much attention the idea of migration-driven speciation has received," says ��ƷSM��ӰƬ researcher Gina Calabrese. (Photo: Todd Trapani/Unsplash)

One reason for this, she suggests, is that many observed migratory divides are evolutionarily young. These populations may just be starting to diverge, and many might merge again over time. Others may remain distinct but not reproductively isolated.

If the goal is to understand how biodiversity has accumulated over millions of years, a short-term snapshot—whether looking at bird lineages today or thousands of years ago—may not tell the full story.

“This is a good example of how something can be true in some cases but not necessarily explain large-scale patterns,” Calabrese says.

Following evidence, not expectations

Calabrese’s recent work is also a case study in scientific humility. When she and her colleagues first set out to test the migration-speciation connection, they weren’t looking to debunk anything. However, when the results started pointing in a different direction than their hypothesis, they remained committed to following the data.

“I think it’s important that we test assumptions—even appealing ones—with data,” Calabrese says.

The process also gave her a new perspective on how the scientific method plays out in real-world applications.

“I was a little anxious at first, until I kind of really felt like I had a handle on what my results were and felt confident in them. And then at that point, your job is just to tell the story of what your data show,” she adds.

While this study might have raised more questions than it answered, that’s part of what keeps Calabrese curious and driven to study the incredible phenomenon that is migration.

“It’s a little disappointing because you want to believe that what you’re studying today is explaining the answers to your bigger questions,” she says. “But it’s also cool because our findings mean that there’s still a lot to understand about how we get the diversity we see today and there’s still some mystery out there to solve, which is cool to me.”

��ƷSM��ӰƬ Professor Rebecca Safran contributed to this research, as did Kira Delmore, Jochen Wolf and Daniel Rabosky.

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ researchers challenge long-held assumptions about the relationship between bird migration and the process by which new species arise.

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Top image: InstaWalli/Pexels

Research on python hearts has possible implications for human medicine

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 20:30:32 +0000

Research on python hearts has possible implications for human medicine Rachel Sauer Wed, 10/22/2025 - 14:30

Blake Puscher

��ƷSM��ӰƬ scientists discover the growth of new tissue in Burmese python hearts, which may be transferrable to mammals

Heart disease is the top cause of death in the United States, resulting in one in three deaths in 2023. In addition to being such a vital organ, the adult heart, unlike other parts of the body, cannot heal itself, only adapt to the damage caused by cardiac events like heart attacks.

In cases of minor injuries like skin wounds, damaged tissue grows back as the surrounding cells begin to replicate themselves and ultimately replace what was lost or damaged. Because cells in developed hearts cannot replicate, they must instead change in size and organization to adapt, but this process is itself pathological and will eventually lead to heart failure if the underlying issue is left untreated.

All of this is true in humans, but there are some examples of animals that can grow new heart cells even after the early stages of their development. Newts, zebrafish and spiny mice can all restart the mitotic reproduction of heart cells as adults in response to cardiac injury. In a previous study of hypertrophy—the process adult human hearts use to adapt to damage—in Burmese pythons, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ researchers discovered that the snakes’ heart cells can replicate themselves, too, under certain conditions.

��ƷSM��ӰƬ postdoctoral researcher Yuxiao Tan and his research colleagues are studying the mechanism by which pythons' heart cells are enabled to replicate and how it could be transferred to mammals.

Yuxiao Tan, Thomas Martin, Angela Peter, Christopher Ozeroff, Christopher Ebmeier, Ryan Doptis, Brooke Harrison and Leslie Leinwand conducted a recently published follow-up study based on this information, not only discovering a fuller, dynamic model of how pythons grow after meals, but also the mechanism by which their heart cells are enabled to replicate and how it could be transferred to mammals. According to Tan, once this transferability is fully explored, it is possible that the process could be used to treat the tissue damage associated with heart disease.

Hyperplasia vs. hypertrophy

First, it’s important to understand the difference between the kind of growth that allows for regeneration and the kind of growth that normally occurs in the adult human heart. The first form of growth is called hyperplasia and the second is called hypertrophy.

“Hypertrophy means the cell is growing in size,” explains Tan, a postdoctoral researcher in the Leinwand Lab. “Hyperplasia means the cell is dividing, proliferating, so they are growing in numbers.” Hyperplasia happens because of a cellular process called mitosis, while hypertrophy happens because of an expansion in the volume and surface area of cells.

The human heart undergoes both hyperplasia and hypertrophy, but hyperplasia only happens during fetal development; after that, the heart can only grow when its cells increase in size. Both processes cause growth, but hyperplasia can be regenerative, and hypertrophy can be adaptive. Additionally, although hypertrophy is pathological in the context of cardiac injury, it can also be healthy or physiological, in which case it is reversible. The pythons in this study underwent physiological hypertrophy because no injuries were introduced to their hearts.

Growth after meals

Burmese pythons are predators that consume large prey infrequently, sometimes going months or even more than a year without feeding. When they are between meals, their metabolism is slowed to save energy, but once they begin digesting a large meal, it increases massively.

Correspondingly, the python’s organs, including the heart, grow, expanding by 20 to 40 percent over several days. This growth was generally understood to be driven by hypertrophy because the python’s organs return to their normal size almost as quickly as they grow—it is reversible, just like physiological cardiac hypertrophy in humans. However, the researchers discovered that, if fed enough, the python’s heart would not shrink all the way back to what its weight was before feeding.

“Their organs grow after a big meal,” Tan says, “but it’s very transient, very temporary. After one standard meal, if you look at other papers, the organ shrank back to its original size.” Depending on how much and how often the pythons ate, though, the results were different, as the researchers proved by assigning 24 pythons different feeding regimens and observing how those regimens affected them. The pythons were either “Fasted,” “Normal Fed,” “Frequent Fed” or “Frequent Fed/Fasted.”

Burmese pythons are predators that consume large prey infrequently, sometimes going months or even more than a year without feeding. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

“There were frequent feeding regimens, which means we fed them every four days, and they usually average 28 days between meals,” Tan explains. As expected, the Fasted pythons grew the least while the Normal Fed animals grew a bit more and Frequent Fed and Frequent Fed/Fasted pythons grew massively. Meanwhile, although the Frequent Fed and Frequent Fed/Fasted pythons were fed the same amount for eight weeks, the fact that the latter was not fed for four weeks after led to unique results.

While the Frequent Fed/Fasted pythons’ body weight and major organ masses (such as those of the kidney and liver) decreased once they were no longer able to eat so often, the total weight of their hearts remained elevated. This indicates that, while heart growth in Burmese pythons is normally caused by hypertrophy, when they can eat often enough, a different kind of cellular signaling occurs in the heart, and hypertrophic growth is locked in through hyperplasia. So, under the right circumstances, both methods of growth occur, with hypertrophic growth preceding hyperplastic growth.

“It’s a hybrid model,” Tan says. “In the past, we only considered hypertrophy, but in my study, hypertrophy happens first, and then it’s quickly followed up by the hyperplastic process.” Tan says that hyperplasia comes with de-differentiation in this case: The cells that are able to multiply lose their adult functionality during the process.

“During hypertrophy, they don’t want proliferation yet, because cells will de-differentiate and lose contractility. That’s why, at the early stage, when they need the heart to perform, it’s just hypertrophy, but once they complete most of the process, the heart can take a short break, so the cells can divide as well. I propose that’s why hypertrophy happens first.”

Differential gene expression

This leaves an important question: How do Burmese python hearts undergo hyperplasia when adult hearts, including those of these pythons, aren’t normally able to? The answer has to do with the way that genes are expressed by heart cells.

In a previous ��ƷSM��ӰƬ study, researchers showed that the plasma of fed Burmese pythons promoted healthy cardiac hypertrophy in mammals. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Heart cells are capable of hyperplastic growth in principle—they do it during fetal development to form the basic structure of the adult heart. However, after that early stage of development, the heart changes in many ways, including its cells becoming unable to replicate. These two forms of behavior, or differential expressions of the genes, occur because some of the cells’ genes are inactivated after early development.

The genome is like a set of instructions or code that determines how cells behave, with individual genes being like one item in a list of instructions or a line of code. When a gene is inactivated, it is like an item being crossed out or a line of code being commented out: The information isn’t lost, but the way it is annotated tells cells not to follow that part of the instructions or execute that code. Still, something that is crossed out can be rewritten, or something commented out can be uncommented, and this is true for genes as well; a gene that is inactivated can be reactivated.

“You have genes involved in mitotic pathways,” Tan says, “and when they get activated, that will send cells into a mitotic stage, so the cells will prepare themselves for division.” This differential expression is studied through gene set enrichment analysis. “Enrichment simply means these genes in a cluster of genes are activated at the same time,” Tan explains.

Aside from the masses of Frequent Fed pythons’ hearts remaining elevated, the researchers know that mitosis is happening in the animals’ hearts because they observed signals associated with cellular reproduction and because the process was captured with 3D imaging.

“First of all, you see green, because the pHH3 protein is activated, and that means cells are in the mitotic stage,” Tan explains. “For a non-dividing cell, you wouldn’t see anything. Then the figure shows a cell with two nuclei. Everything has one nucleus, but in that cell, there are two, and they’re pulling apart.” This describes the process of mitosis, where the cell duplicates its DNA in its nucleus, the barrier between the nucleus and the rest of the cell breaks down, and the two nuclei—or sets of nucleus content, which will soon become distinct nuclei—are separated into their own cells.

Implications and future research

Although the researchers have good evidence that something in Frequent Fed pythons’ bodies is triggering hyperplastic growth in their hearts, what it is exactly remains unknown. Tan says that the growth was likely triggered by circulating factors in the pythons’ blood plasma. In an earlier study, the researchers showed that the plasma of fed Burmese pythons promoted healthy cardiac hypertrophy in mammals. Along the same lines, the plasma of fed pythons, and especially that of Frequent Fed pythons, activated hyperplasia.

Could pythons' wild feeding habits inspire new treatments for human heart disease?

“The python plasma started the cell cycle again, so that means there’s something there,” Tan says. “You can translate the snake biology to mammals, because the protein activated mammal cells. It’s hard to say if we could use this for drug development, but that’s provisioned here. You identify the factor, synthesize it, and use that. I think it has the potential to be something, but we just don’t know yet.”

A medicine that can regenerate people’s hearts sounds like it would change the world, but because this study did not involve Burmese pythons with injured hearts, we don’t even know how much they could recover using this process yet, much less how well it would work in humans.

“Once people get a heart attack,” Tan says, “the injuries have already happened, and some cells have died already, which will affect your heart function. You can’t just fully recover and get rid of the scar, but at least if the heart cells are able to grow back, even just a little, that’s going to help your overall cardiac function.”

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��ƷSM��ӰƬ scientists discover the growth of new tissue in Burmese python hearts, which may be transferrable to mammals.

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New learning center more than just a place to study math

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 21:30:48 +0000

New learning center more than just a place to study math Rachel Sauer Mon, 10/20/2025 - 15:30

Rachel Sauer

The Applied Mathematics Community and Learning Center, opened last month after a summer-long renovation, invites students to collaborate, hang out and learn

In one corner of the common room, Ben Sewald is writing an equation on a whiteboard. A first-year ��ƷSM��ӰƬ student, he’s still deciding whether to major in aerospace engineering or applied mathematics but knows one thing for sure: Discrete math is his favorite class.

“The whole time before this, I’ve been learning math, but in this class it’s about how we can prove that these things are true,” he explains as he writes.

Ben Sewald, a first-year ��ƷSM��ӰƬ student, writes an equation for his discrete math class in the Applied Mathematics Community and Learning Center. (Photo: Rachel Sauer)

Not far from him, but on a different whiteboard, Atticus Fretz, a sophomore studying environmental engineering, is tutoring two Calculus I students, pointing with a blue marker to explain each part of the equation as he writes it.

And through the rest of the common area—and in the three classrooms arrayed from it—the hum of applied mathematics hovers around students solo studying or clustered in groups; around tutors explaining the finer points of differential equations, algorithms and data structures and every level of calculus; and around faculty members expanding on what they taught in class—but from the comfort of a lounge chair.

It’s the middle of a Thursday afternoon, and the Applied Mathematics Community and Learning Center (CALC) is hopping.

Opened last month after a summer-long, $1.7 million renovation of a section of a classroom wing in the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Engineering Center, CALC is designed to be “a warm, inviting space for undergraduate students, especially engineering calculus students, to learn, hang out and work on their coursework,” explains Mark Hoefer, professor and department chair of applied mathematics.

The space, in ECCR 252, formerly was a computer lab, “but it wasn’t heavily used,” says Silva Chang, a full teaching professor of applied mathematics. “So, we started talking about creating a comfortable, welcoming place where students could feel at home and hang out with their friends while they study and learn.”

When it was a little-used computer lab, the space was darker and not especially comfortable, so the renovation included jackhammering through concrete walls and replacing them with glass to allow in natural light, painting the walls in lighter colors, replacing carpeting and lighting and arranging comfortable chairs and benches around the space.

“We want this to be a space that supports collaboration,” Chang says.

CALC will become a home to all-day drop-in office hours with faculty members and teaching assistants; tutoring with applied mathematics-trained tutors; small, learning assistant–led study groups; workshops on study strategies; and proactive student outreach, Hoefer says. Further, faculty and staff will continually work with students to assess how they’re using the space and what would improve or enhance their experiences in it.

“I think people are slowly discovering this space,” Silva says, gesturing to students grouped around tables and in comfortable chairs or writing on whiteboards. “It’s especially important for first-year students to have a place where they can find mentors and connect with classmates; those things are so important for student retention, so they can feel that this is a place where they belong.”

For Maxwell Minson, a first-year student studying bioengineering and, on this particular afternoon, writing Calculus 3 equations on a whiteboard, CALC is a place where “I feel really comfortable,” he says. “I’m here all the time.”

Atticus Fretz (kneeling, wearing purple hoodie), a sophomore majoring in environmental engineering, tutors Calculus 1 in the Applied Mathematics Community and Learning Center. (Photo: Rachel Sauer)

The Applied Mathematics Community and Learning Center offers drop-in hours with faculty members and teaching assistants as well as tutoring with applied mathematics-trained tutors. (Photo: Rachel Sauer)

Renovation of a little-used computer lab in the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Engineering Center included replacing concrete walls with glass ones to let in more light, including one etched with the Department of Applied Mathematics logo. (Photo: Rachel Sauer)

Elizabeth Wallis McGuire (crouched, pointing at whiteboard), a junior studying electrical and computer engineering, tutors Calculus 1 in the Applied Mathematics Community and Learning Center. (Photo: Rachel Sauer)

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The Applied Mathematics Community and Learning Center, opened last month after a summer-long renovation, invites students to collaborate, hang out and learn.

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Craft-beer pioneer is still eyeing the next big thing

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 15:23:37 +0000

Craft-beer pioneer is still eyeing the next big thing Rachel Sauer Thu, 10/16/2025 - 09:23

Clint Talbott

Keith Villa, who invented Blue Moon Belgian White, thinks cannabis-infused beer might take off; he and his wife, Jodi, both ��ƷSM��ӰƬ alums, have launched an alcohol-free brewery that could help lead the way

Keith Villa did not set out to shake up the American beer industry. He’d aimed to become a medical doctor, but his love of biology led him to become a bona fide beer doctor. That led to the kind of career that happens once in a blue moon.

Or, rather, a Blue Moon.

In 1995, Villa invented what’s now known as Molson Coors Blue Moon Belgian White beer. Ultimately, it became the largest craft beer on the market.

Keith Villa (MCDBio'86) got his start in the science of beer by responding a job posting at Coors for someone to do molecular research on how to improve their yeast. (Photo: Jodi Villa)

After more than three decades at Molson Coors, Keith Villa and his wife, Jodi Villa, launched Ceria Brewing Co., which brews alcohol-free beer and is eyeing the potential for alcohol-free beer infused with cannabis. The Villas are still busy innovating, and their latest chapter is still being written.

It’s a tale with several plot twists, but one key player was the ��ƷSM��ӰƬ.

Improving yeast

Before college, Keith Villa was inspired by his mother, who was a registered nurse at the Veterans Administration hospital in Denver. He resolved to become a pediatrician.

While in high school, Keith and Jodi met and began to forge their own partnership. They both enrolled at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ, he in a pre-med program and she in architectural engineering. Both graduated in 1986.

As a student in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, he worked in the laboratory of Professor Emeritus Lawrence “Larry” Gold, who founded NeXstar Pharmaceuticals.

In the Gold lab, Villa was helping graduate students conduct original research. In 1986, shortly before he graduated with his bachelor’s degree, Villa responded to a job posting at Coors for someone to do molecular research on how to improve their yeast.

“And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s exactly what I’m doing here.’”

Coors hired him more or less immediately, and he went to work trying to design a yeast that would make it cheaper to brew light beer. Although Villa was successful, the yeast was never used commercially, he notes.

After that project concluded, Villa told Coors he was ready to quit to pursue a PhD in biochemistry. Coors’ director of research and development made a counteroffer: Go to Belgium to join a PhD program in brewing, and Coors would foot the bill.

Keith and Jodi didn’t have a mortgage or family yet, so they said, “Let’s do it.”

Studying in Belgium

Belgium was an eye opener. Easy train rides to Germany, Switzerland and beyond widened their horizons to new beers, foods and regional dialects. He conducted his PhD research in Belgium and finished writing his dissertation in Colorado.

Villa’s bosses at Coors said, “Well, you just came back from Belgium. You know about these beers. Can you make something?”

“So that’s when I created Blue Moon,” Villa says.

The top executives at Coors had initial reservations about this new beer: Why was it cloudy and infused with orange peel and coriander, for instance? Eventually, however, Blue Moon became a billion-dollar brand, brewing 2 million barrels a year.

Keith Villa (in the CERIA lab in Brussels, Belgium) earned his PhD at CERIA and named his company in honor of it. (Photo: Jodi Villa)

By 2017, Villa had done “a lot of what I wanted to do in the brewing world,” and he retired from Coors. Soon, he and Jodi launched Ceria Brewing Co., which pays homage to Ceres, the Roman goddess of the harvest. “Ceria” also reflects CERIA, the acronym of the Belgian campus where Keith earned his PhD.

Initially, Ceria produced cannabis-infused beers sold through dispensaries in Colorado and California, and they were aimed at those who consume THC in moderation. But the products faced regulatory hurdles, not least of which is that the federal government doesn’t recognize cannabis as a legitimate business undertaking. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, even though individual states have legalized it to varying degrees.

'Bad movies, hot showers and vanilla'

Today, Ceria offers two non-infused alcohol-free beer styles: Grainwave Belgian-Style White and Indiewave Hoppy IPA. Grainwave is brewed with orange peel and coriander (sound familiar?) and is billed as pairing well with Mexican food, anything spicy, “bad movies, hot showers and vanilla.”

Indiewave, meanwhile, is said to pair well with “charcuterie, Middle Eastern cuisine, after-parties, rainy days, chocolate, your record collection.”

Ceria’s offerings are alcohol free, which differ from “non-alcoholic” beers. According to federal regulations, non-alcoholic beer must be sold with less than 0.5 % alcohol by volume. Alcohol-free beers must have 0.0%.

That distinction matters. One reason is that to infuse beer with THC, the psychotropic ingredient in cannabis, the beer must be alcohol free. And selling cannabis-infused beer could be, in Villa’s estimation, the next big thing.

Hemp-derived THC is a key ingredient. Hemp is distinguished from marijuana largely by the concentration of THC in each; hemp’s concentration is lower. In some states, it’s legal to distribute hemp-derived THC, and selling cannabis-infused beer there is more cost-effective for brewers and consumers.

In states where such sales are legal, Villa notes, consumers can buy cannabis-infused beer in many places, right next to alcoholic beers.

“And when you offer a consumer that choice, you see these beverages just start to take off,” Villa says, adding that there’s a sizable market of people who don’t want to drink alcohol, “or they want to switch back and forth, maybe alcohol this weekend, next weekend cannabis.”

“I would say that we were probably a little ahead of our time with what we did, because now when you look at hemp-derived THC, that really proves our original thesis that beverages with THC are a really great option for people that don’t want alcohol all the time, or they may find alcohol to be bad for their health.”

Now the Villas watch the national market and wait for regulatory changes that could help restart their efforts to sell cannabis-infused beer.

As Villa observed, “We socialize with beverages, and you can’t toast a bride and groom with a gummy.”

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Top photo: Jodi and Keith Villa and their daughter, Catherine (right), co-own Ceria Brewing Company. (Photo: Jodi Villa)

2025 Nobel Laureate in physics once served as mentor to grad students at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ

Kylie Clarke — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 18:46:26 +0000

2025 Nobel Laureate in physics once served as mentor to grad students at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ Kylie Clarke Thu, 10/09/2025 - 12:46

Kirsten Apodaca

Like many rockstar scientists, 2025 physics Nobel Laureate John Martinis spent time in Boulder’s rich scientific ecosystem mentoring graduate students and inspiring others in quantum computing.

In the 1990s, while working as a scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Martinis also held the position of a physics lecturer at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ. His university affiliation focused on research collaborations and mentoring graduate students as a research advisor in the Department of Physics.

“It was important to us to build partnerships with NIST scientists, to foster more research collaborations and opportunities for our students,” said John Cumalat, professor of physics and chair of the department at the time of Martinis’ appointment. “John was instrumental in recruiting graduate students to ��ƷSM��ӰƬ.”

It was important to us to build partnerships with NIST scientists, to foster more research collaborations and opportunities for our students. John [Martinis] was instrumental in recruiting graduate students to ��ƷSM��ӰƬ.

The Department of Physics history book lists Martinis as a lecturer from 1993 to 1999. He supervised several PhD students, some in partnership with John Price, emeritus professor of physics.

Price fondly recalls his research collaborations with Martinis. When Price was a new faculty member starting out in a related field, Martinis shared his circuit design and building expertise, helped make samples, and provided general guidance and wisdom.

“He was generously helpful with people who had aligned interests and wanted to see everyone do interesting science,” said Price.

While at NIST-Boulder, Martinis worked on fundamental physics and technologies that were critical to the development of quantum devices now used in NIST electronic current and voltage standards.

"John enriched the scientific community not only in quantum computing related electronics, but also in several areas related to low-temperature microelectronics,” said Price.

Much of Martinis’ work at NIST has continued under the leadership of Ray Simmonds (also a physics lecturer) and other group leaders, with physics graduate students continuing to conduct their doctoral research at NIST.

“This is the rich opportunity that our students receive –– it’s not only the classroom instruction, but also the broader scientific community,” said Price.

Among today's quantum information superstars who worked at NIST are Kent Irwin (top left), now at Stanford, who helped to develop highly sensitive single-photon sensors and John Martinis (right). This photo was taken in the 1990s at the NIST-Boulder laboratories. Photo by NIST.

CU’s partnership with NIST has flourished over the years, both through JILA, a joint institute between ��ƷSM��ӰƬ and NIST, and through the Professional Research Experience Program (CU PREP) which provides research opportunities for students and postdoctoral researchers with scientists at NIST.

Martinis was one of the co-organizers of the inaugural Boulder Summer School for Condensed Matter and Materials Physics with Professor Leo Radzihovsky, which launched in 2000. He has returned to give lectures during the annual school several times since, maintaining connections with colleagues at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ.

Martinis later became a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, before working for Google and most recently co-founded a quantum computing startup Qolab.

The Nobel

Martinis shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Clarke and Michel Devoret “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantization in an electric circuit,” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

In the 1980s, Martinis was a graduate student in John Clarke’s lab at UC Berkeley, working alongside postdoctoral researcher Michel Devoret. Their experiments focused on electrical components called Josephson junctions – devices made of two superconductors separated by a thin oxide layer that particles ordinarily can’t cross.

Martinis shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Clarke and Michel Devoret for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantization in an electric circuit.

However, thanks to a quantum effect called tunneling, pairs of electrons can pass through – even though this defies the laws of classical physics.

The idea dates back to 1928, when physicist George Gamow used quantum tunneling to explain why certain materials give off radiation, or alpha decay. Gamow later became a professor of physics at ��ƷSM��ӰƬ and is the namesake to both the Gamow Tower in the Duane Physics and Astrophysics building and to the George Gamow Memorial Lecture Series.

Superconductors, when cooled to very low temperatures, allow electricity to flow without resistance. In this environment, particles behave as one unified wave, all moving together as if they are one.

Through a series of experiments, the team discovered that these large-scale quantum states acted like individual particles, showing behaviors of quantum mechanics like tunneling and discrete energy levels.

This work created the basis for using superconducting circuits to create qubits, the fundamental unit of quantum computers. It laid the groundwork for many researchers and companies now working to build the first operational quantum computers that have the potential to revolutionize technology in many areas, like drug discovery and cryptography.

Want to learn more? ��ƷSM��ӰƬ boasts five Nobel laureates, four of them in physics. Professor of Physics Paul Beale is interviewed about the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics at this link.

Get the latest info.

Like many rockstar scientists, 2025 physics Nobel Laureate John Martinis spent time in Boulder’s rich scientific ecosystem mentoring graduate students and inspiring others in quantum computing.

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Hindsight may be 20/20, but people feel more strongly about the future

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 21:57:27 +0000

Hindsight may be 20/20, but people feel more strongly about the future Rachel Sauer Fri, 10/03/2025 - 15:57

Blake Puscher

In reviewing psychological studies, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ researcher Leaf Van Boven and colleagues find that people prioritize thinking about the future over the past

Although time travel has typically been the domain of science fiction, whenever you take a moment to remember the past or imagine the future in detail, you are in a sense travelling through time. In psychology, these processes are called retrospection and prospection. Retrospection is thinking about and creating mental representations of the past, while prospection is the same thing but for the future.

Some work in the field of psychology has suggested that retrospection and prospection are functionally interchangeable, but intuitively, they seem to be very different. After reviewing the research in a recently published paper, Leaf Van Boven, a ��ƷSM��ӰƬ professor and department chair of psychology and neuroscience, along with research colleagues Eugene Caruso and Sam Maglio, finds that people think about the past and future differently because of several assumptions that people make about the nature of time (referred to as temporal axioms in the paper), and that people prioritize thinking about the future—a conclusion with implications for how psychological research should be conducted going forward.

��ƷSM��ӰƬ researcher Leaf Van Boven, department chair of psychology and neuroscience, finds that people prioritize thinking about the future—a conclusion with implications for how psychological research should be conducted going forward.

Temporal axioms

The assumptions people make about time are called temporal axioms because they relate to time (temporal) and are self-evident (the primary definition of an axiom). There are some philosophies of time that disagree with the axioms; for example, block time theory argues that the past, present and future all exist simultaneously, like different places except separated by time instead of space. However, even if such philosophies are true, the axioms remain valid premises because they describe not only people’s perception of time but also their subjective experiences of the world. The authors propose three temporal axioms—one of direction, one of uncertainty and one of control.

The axiom of direction describes the way all things move through time. Specifically, everything moves only from past to future, with the reverse being—as far as humans know—impossible. For example, if you blow up a balloon with air and then open the end, not only will the air always come out, but it will also be impossible to get the air back in; the balloon can be re-inflated, but it won’t revert it to its original state because it will be filled with different air. In physics, this reality is called entropy, a term for the tendency of all things to progress from states of order to disorder (the collected air disperses) or high energy to low energy (the relatively high pressure inside the balloon is relieved). Entropy defines the direction of time.

The axiom of uncertainty details that as uncertain as people may be about the past, there is at least some information about it, whether in the form of memory or history. Meanwhile, to the extent that the future is known at all, it is because of inference based on information from the past. Therefore, even if people could make predictions with 100% certainty, the uncertainty about the future would be at least as great as the uncertainty about the past, and in reality, it is always greater because people cannot make perfect predictions. “There are always different possibilities for any point in the future,” Van Boven explains, “and there are not different possibilities that actually exist in the past. There were many possibilities, but one of them did happen.”

The axiom of control describes how, because time has direction, the future is more uncertain than the past. This uncertainty creates a sense of control—of being able to choose between different possibilities by acting differently. While there are arguments against people having control over the future, people tend to view the future as more controllable than the past because of its relative uncertainty. Relatedly, according to Van Boven, “people don’t think of themselves as having control over their interpretation of the past, which presents its own set of challenges about how we make sense of what has happened in our lives.”

Prioritizing proception

The way that people think about the future and past is often understood in terms of psychological distance, which is just what it sounds like: how removed a person feels from an event, whether it is in the future or past. “There are many theories of psychological distance,” Van Boven says, “and within social psychology, one of the more prominent theories is Construal Level Theory, which is the idea that when things are in the distant future, they are interpreted on a more abstract level, whereas when they are in the very near future, we tend to think of them more concretely.”

This principle is fairly intuitive. For example, when you are given an assignment, it may not even feel real until the due date rolls around. However, although people think more concretely and feel more strongly about an event three days in the future than one three weeks in the future, they don’t necessarily think and feel the same about an event three days in the future as one three days in the past. In fact, Van Boven and his colleagues found in their review that people do not.

People pay more attention to getting ready for events in the future, and as soon as they pass, that attention quickly fades so they can refocus on what is coming next, says ��ƷSM��ӰƬ researcher Leaf Van Boven.

“When things are in the future,” Van Boven says, “our affective system is highly engaged. As soon as things move into the past, the affective system and our emotional reactions subside.

“A classic example would be, if you have an upcoming presentation, your emotional system will get really jacked up as it’s getting close, and then as soon as it has passed, even if it is still objectively close in time, the affective system down-regulates itself. The same is true with attention.” People pay more attention to getting ready for events in the future, and as soon as they pass, that attention quickly fades so they can refocus on what is coming next.

The underestimation of proception

One question the review raises is why the prioritization of proception isn’t an established psychological principle when research in the field often involves people thinking about real or hypothetical events, which are necessarily either in the future or the past.

“That has to do with research methods,” Van Boven says, referring to the example about the upcoming, stressful presentation: The fact that people feel more strongly about the event when it is in the future and then tend to move on shortly after it happens could be easily demonstrated in a laboratory setting, according to Van Boven. “The problem is getting a scientific understanding of what exactly is changing. There are many confounds in that event moving through time.

“When we have an upcoming presentation, we still don’t know exactly what is going to happen in that presentation. We don’t know what the room is going to be like, we don’t know what the audience is going to be like. There’s a possibility that we might bomb, and that would have negative consequences. What we do experimentally is we try to create these situations where everything is exactly the same, and the only thing that differs is whether you’re thinking of it as something that’s in the future or in the past.” This eliminates all of the temporal axioms except for direction; unlike in real life, in the lab there is no difference in uncertainty or control between past and future.

“This is kind of analogous to an active control placebo in medical research,” Van Boven explains. An active control placebo lacks the active ingredient of the actual medicine being tested but has similar non-treatment effects. This is intended to stop people from subconsciously distinguishing between the placebo and the medicine on the basis of the medicine’s expected side effects. “The carefully controlled study gives you a very precise estimate of how big the effect is for the specific medicine you’re interested in,” Van Boven says, “but that’s not how big the effect is that people experience when they take the medicine in real life, because they’re embracing the placebo effect.”

Changing tense

“People who psychologically prioritize the future are happier and healthier than those who prioritize the past."

This review has a major implication for other research, which has to do with the necessity of taking the difference between prospection and retrospection into account, especially during studies that rely on people imagining different scenarios.

“To a large extent, researchers ignore whether things are in the future versus in the past,” Van Boven says. “It’s just that it has not historically been a dimension that people are really concerned about. So, a very common research approach is to use scenario studies.” Scenario studies involve asking people to imagine different situations, then varying those scenarios to see how it affects people’s responses to them. For example, participants could be asked to imagine two people going on a date, then to say how well it went. The scenario would vary slightly between groups of participants—for example, who paid or how the bill was split may be different in each group’s scenario—and the experiment would measure the effect of this difference on how people viewed the situation.

Often in these kinds of experiments there is an implication as to whether the event already happened or is going to happen, even just based on the verb tense used to describe the scenario, and as Van Boven says, “People have been sort of haphazard in terms of whether they present those kinds of scenarios in the future tense versus the past tense. Part of what our review and framework shows is that there may be ways in which we’re understating the effects of different scenarios when we happen to put them in the past (rather) than when we happen to put them in the future. It may be the case that the tense matters a great deal, and it’s something that we haven’t noticed because we haven’t varied that within our experimental context.”

Changing one’s focus between future and past isn’t just important in the context of research, however. “People who psychologically prioritize the future are happier and healthier than those who prioritize the past,” Van Boven says. Broadly, an orientation towards the future has been associated with positive outcomes in several areas, including financial success, health outcomes and life satisfaction. “So,” Van Boven continues, “the axioms and resulting psychological patterns are not merely oddities or biases; they help people successfully navigate through life.”

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In reviewing psychological studies, ��ƷSM��ӰƬ researcher Leaf Van Boven and colleagues find that people prioritize thinking about the future over the past.

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