The sight of the stars the first time he peered into a telescope floored Danny Milisavljevic. There, right before his eyes, was an entire universe full of planets and details, unexplored and unexpected. Now an assistant professor of physics and astronomy in Purdue University’s College of Science, Milisavljevic is helping bring details from the world’s newest and most powerful telescope: the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which allowed humans to see farther into space and deeper into time.

It is hard enough for humans to interpret the deeper meaning and context of social media and news articles. Asking computers to do it is a nearly impossible task. Even C-3PO, fluent in over 6 million forms of communication, misses the subtext much of the time. Natural language processing, the subfield of artificial intelligence connecting computers with human languages, uses statistical methods to analyze language, often without incorporating the real-world context needed for understanding the shifts and currents of human society. To do that, you have to translate online communication, and the context from which it emerges, into something the computers can parse and reason over.

An active metabolite of vitamin D—(not the over-the-counter version) — is involved in shutting down inflammation, which could potentially be beneficial in patients with severe COVID-19. Previous studies have shown vitamin D’s ability to reduce the inflammation caused by T cells — inflamed cells in the lung characteristic of the most severe and dangerous cases of COVID-19. But as important as understanding that a drug works is understanding the how and the why. This is both to maximize benefit and minimize harm (such as preventing people from eating livestock dewormer or injecting household cleaners into their veins) as well as to pave the way for future treatments.

Guam rails are only the second bird in history – after the California condor – to recover from being extinct in the wild. The Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute breeds Guam rails for release into the wild, and is making important discoveries about their health and anatomy.

Black-footed ferrets, North America’s only native ferret species, were thought to have gone extinct in 1979. On Sept. 26, 1981, a black-footed ferret was discovered on the Wyoming prairie. From that unlikely occurrence, an entire species began its comeback — one of the most remarkable conservation stories on Earth. In honor of the 40th anniversary of the discovery of the last black-footed ferret colony, here are five of this miraculous species’ momentous conservation milestones.

Not all heroes wear capes; some wear GPS-enabled backpacks and have feathers. Joe Kolowski is a wildlife ecologist and animal tracking expert with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation. He leads a remarkable project to study the breeding ranges of kestrels by fitting them with tiny tracking backpacks.

Wildlife is priceless, but wildlife conservation is far from free. Being able to assess the value of land is vital to the success of land conservation. In an effort to bolster this understanding, a Kenyan ecologist, Peter Tyrrell of the University of Oxford and the South Rift Association of Landowners, turned to data science methods to mine data from real estate websites to determine how land is valued across Kenya.

On agricultural landscapes, pesticides travel through food webs and can negatively affect local wildlife populations. However, few studies have considered the long-term, cumulative effect of multiple pesticides on avian species, and most are carried out with treated food in a laboratory setting, not in the living landscape. Other studies have analyzed pesticides in the soil and water, but not in the food web itself.

Butterflies and moths have beautiful wings: the bright flare of an orange monarch, the vivid stripes of a swallowtail, the luminous green of a Luna moth. But some butterflies flutter on even more dramatic wings: parts of their wing, or sometimes the entire wing itself, are actually transparent.

Humans have not set foot on the moon for nearly 50 years, but the Apollo moon missions aren’t over. The echoes from Neil Armstrong’s first steps are still helping scientists make giant leaps in understanding the moon’s geology.

Humans can do lots of things that plants can’t do. But plants have one major advantage over humans: They can make energy directly from the sun. That process of turning sunlight directly into usable energy – called photosynthesis – may soon be a feat humans are able to mimic to harness the sun’s energy for clean, storable, efficient fuel. If so, it could open a whole new frontier of clean energy.

Humans have been trying to stick things to other things for millennia. But shellfish have been doing it for eons longer. And they are far better at it than humans. Which is why Purdue chemists got to wondering: Why don’t we just use whatever they’re using? Anyone who has ever tried to unstick a barnacle from a rock knows that it’s nearly impossible. That success is something Jonathan Wilker, a Purdue professor of chemistry and materials engineering, and his lab are hoping to learn from – and build on.

Self-curing concrete, self-healing roads, and concrete that reduces the global carbon footprint. Purdue University engineers are looking at new ways to pave roads, ways to extend the life of roads and ways to make roadwork less resource- and carbon-intensive.

The next generation of treatments for cancer may be found, not by scientists peering through microscopes, but by computer scientists crunching numbers. Thanks to unprecedented amounts of data, Purdue University scientists are using innovative data science techniques to better understand the genetics and cellular biology of cancer cells and tumors.

As the emergence of 17-year cicadas, commonly referred to as Brood X, approaches, animal keepers are gearing up to keep an extra close eye on their charges, especially those that eat insects, to make sure they don't over-indulge. But of course, zoo animals aren't the only ones that eat cicadas. Local songbirds, including chickadees, bluebirds and cardinals, will take advantage of their abundance too, something Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center scientists are eager to study.

The Stone Age. The Bronze Age. The Iron Age. The Industrial Revolution. Eras tend to be defined by their technology, and humans may be headed for a new one: the Quantum Age. As the Digital Revolution ushered in an era of computer scientists, software engineers and electrical engineers, the evolution of quantum technology needs human hands and minds to develop it.

A professor at Purdue University is teaching his students astronomy by letting them touch the stars. Danny Milisavljevic, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, is using innovative new technology for his students to use virtual reality headsets to explore space.

They slumber underground for 16 summers, nestled near tree roots, sipping xylem — the nutrient-poor water inside tree tissues. Then, as ground temperatures rise on the 17th summer, they emerge and begin blindly burrowing their way toward the surface, bursting forth to a summer of song, flight and love. It sounds like a spooky fairy tale but in fact, it’s the actual true story of the 17-year Brood X cicadas and for some Zoo animals, the beginning of a tasty bug buffet.

Social grooming plays an important role in vervet monkey society, helping concrete social bonds and increase an animal’s chances of reproduction. However, anthropologist Brandi Wren’s research reveals that monkeys suffering from certain gastrointestinal parasites may not participate in grooming as much as infection-free monkeys.

Inspired by a rare compound found in a shrub native to North America, Mingji Dai, professor of chemistry and a scientist at the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research, discovered a cost-effective and efficient way to synthesize it in the lab. The compound — curcusone D — has the potential to help combat a protein found in many cancers