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Texas a&m university, division of research
Texas A&M Division of Research, Research Bulletin, Produced by Research Communications

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

How to Submit an Item to Research Bulletin   

  • Send: Research-related news about Texas A&M faculty, staff or students at our colleges, schools or member agencies, including honors, publications, presentations and appearances in news media.   
  • Note: The Research Bulletin does not publish links to scholarly or peer-reviewed journal articles. If your work appears in a journal, please work with your college or school communications team to develop a news story, then submit the link to that story for inclusion.   
  • Include: A URL that links directly to your news coverage, research story or professional development.   
  • Email: rcomm@tamu.edu 

Announcements

  • Texas A&M University named Susan Ballabina as the sole finalist for president of the university. The appointment is subject to the state’s required 21-day waiting period before final action by the Board of Regents. 
  • The Department of Animal Science launched a national survey aimed at quantifying equine endocrine disease and understanding how these horses are managed. Individuals that currently own or have previously owned a horse that was diagnosed with a metabolic disorder are invited to participate. 

News-Media Coverage

  • Brownfield Ag News, Bart Fischer (Agriculture and Life Sciences), about an analysis indicating that U.S. lawmakers are considering more than $15 billion in additional farmer aid, though details remain unsettled as existing assistance covers only a fraction of producers’ losses. 
  • Chron, Maria Pia Miglietta (Galveston), about a new moon jellyfish species, Aurelia profunda, identified when a rare Gulf specimen carrying larvae allowed researchers to track its full life cycle and confirm its genetic distinctiveness from known species. 
  • Deseret News, Valerie Hudson (Government and Public Service), about how actions taken during the Trump administration, including removing public records, reducing data reporting and declining to preserve presidential communications under the Presidential Records Act, have limited access to government information. 
  • Environment Texas, Nicholas Perez and Justin Smolen (Arts and Sciences), about the emerging science around microplastics pollution and the human body. (YouTube video) 
  • Fortune, Siddharth Misra (Engineering), about how disruptions around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz are creating physical storage and infrastructure constraints in global oil supply chains, meaning prices are likely to remain elevated on a prolonged L-shaped plateau rather than quickly recovering in a V-shaped rebound. 
  • Fortune (part 1) and Fortune (part 2), Siddharth Misra (Engineering), a two-part series about how the closing of the Hormuz Strait affects the global economy and how to solve the energy war that followed. 
  • IEEE Spectrum, Nitesh Saxena (Engineering), about “HIPPO,” or Hidden-Password Online Password, a system that generates site-specific credentials from a single master password without storing them, and how users perceive it as more secure and easier to use than traditional password entry. 
  • Institute of International Monetary Research, Jill Cetina (Business), about whether the financial sector is held back by too much regulation. (YouTube video) 
  • KBTX, Kirby Goidel (Government and Public Service), about how President Donald Trump’s public criticism of Pope Leo XIV over his stance on the Iran war marks an unusually personal clash between a U.S. president and a sitting pope, with uncertain political implications. 
  • L’ Indipendente, Jessica Atkin (Agriculture and Life Sciences), about research demonstrating that chickpeas can grow and produce seeds in a lunar soil simulant when supplemented with vermicompost, symbiotic fungi and targeted irrigation, though food safety remains under study. (Italian) 
  • The Comanche Chief, Juliana Rangel (Agriculture and Life Sciences), about a five-year study of how the reproductive health of honeybee queens and their mates shapes the survival of colonies. 
  • Traffic Technology Today, Vince Mantero (Transportation Institute), about how international conflict can impact shipping routes, energy flows and operations at U.S. ports. 

Articles From Colleges and Schools

  • Alexandra Svetlik, Taehyun Roh, Natalie Johnson, Nusrat Fahmida Trisha and Nishat Tasnim Hasan (Public Health) discovered that low levels of arsenic exposure in drinking water can increase the risk of cancer, and that the platelet-derived growth factor BB protein, or PDGF-BB, can help detect exposure. Award-Winning Study Connects Low-Level Arsenic Exposure to Increased Bladder Cancer Risk
  • Ashok Shetty, Madhu Leelavathi Narayana and Maheedhar Kodali (Medicine) developed a nasal spray that uses extracellular vesicles to combat brain aging noninvasively and improve the brain's ability to process information. Scientists Reverse Brain Aging, With a Nasal Spray
  • Bonnie J. Dunbar (Engineering) helped establish the research centrifuge in the Anthony Wood '87 Artificial Gravity Lab to study how the human body responds to partial gravity, improving understanding of astronaut health and recovery for future missions. Human Space Research Gets a Boost From Retired NASA Centrifuge 
  • Christopher Marshall (Galveston) explained how sea turtle hatchlings use the moon to guide them to the sea, how light pollution disrupts that navigation and how researchers are addressing the problem. From the Sea of Tranquility to Galveston Bay, Artemis II Highlights the Moon’s Role in Sea Turtle Survival
  • Darrell Worthy and Mianzhi Hu (Arts and Sciences) found that even strong decision-makers may still favor frequent rewards over higher-value outcomes. Rethinking ‘Irrational’ Decisions
  • Ernesto Amaral, Harland Prechel and Amber Blazek (Arts and Sciences) found that U.S. power plant emissions are driven not only by fuel sources but by systemic factors — particularly poverty, corporate ownership structures and weaker regional policies — that concentrate higher pollution in disadvantaged communities. More Than Energy: The Systems Behind Emissions 
  • Gregory Sword, Spencer Behmer, Keyan Zhu-Salzman, Keerti Rathore and Mason Clark (Agriculture and Life Sciences) discovered how to alter plant sterol blends to hinder plant-feeding insects and applied the strategy to cotton to reduce pest damage. Tweaking Plant Cholesterol Precursors Could Protect Cotton 
  • Lei Zou (Arts and Sciences), former Ph.D. student Debayan Mandal, and their team developed FlowsDT-Galveston, a geospatial digital twin of the barrier island that integrates hydrodynamic modeling and historic data to accurately simulate and visualize hyperlocal flooding, supporting real-time forecasting, urban flood management and resilience planning. FlowsDT: A Geospatial Digital Twin for Navigating Urban Flood Dynamics 
  • Marie Strader (Arts and Sciences) found that corals surviving marine heatwaves may pass on heat-resistant genes more rapidly to the next generation, suggesting a potential path for adaptation to rising ocean temperatures. Passing the Torch of Resilience: Strader Lab Uncovers How Corals Inherit Heat Tolerance 
  • Philip Matich (Galveston) tracked sharks using tags to better understand how changes in water temperature and weather influence shark behavior, with the goal of conserving marine ecosystems. When Weather Shifts, Sharks Move – and Scientists are Tagging Along 
  • Rahul Srinivasan and Michelle Hook (Medicine) studied the transition period from mild cognitive impairment to dementia, focusing on the ventral tegmental area and using cytisine to activate signaling pathways in the brain to better understand when intervention may be most effective in slowing dementia progression. The Moment Dementia Begins Is Not the Diagnosis 
  • Weihsueh Chiu (Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences) and team, along with researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, found that PFAs are transferred from mother dolphins to nursing calves through milk, revealing a pathway for early-life exposure and new insight on how these chemicals move through marine ecosystems. ‘Forever Chemicals’ Detected in Dolphin Milk, Study by Texas A&M Superfund Center Shows 
  • Ximena Garcia-Rada (Business) found that couples who need to talk about money often underestimate how positive the conversation will be and their ability to find common ground, highlighting the uncertainty people feel around uncomfortable conversations such as finances. Why Couples May Be Wrong To Dread Talking About Money 

Accomplishments

Professional Development

  • Research Development Services offers faculty development programs and research funding workshops to assist in the process of applying for grants.          
  • Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) offers virtual workshops that meet the face-to-face requirements of University SAP 15.99.99.M0.04. Please note that it is the responsibility of each college or school (with support or information from individual principal investigators) to ensure that all student and postdoctoral researchers associated with them are compliant with the RCR training requirements.          
  • High Performance Research Computing offers an ongoing series of short training courses for beginning, intermediate and advanced researchers.          
  • University Libraries presents a series of online workshops in research-related subjects, such as managing citations, managing research data, searching databases, and publishing and copyright.    
  • The Animal Welfare Office (AWO) offers virtual workshops that meet the continuing education requirements for investigators as described in the “Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals” (“the Guide”). Common topics include understanding and applying Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) guidelines and crafting a well-written animal use protocol. Course offerings change quarterly.   

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