20 OregonStater.org CREDIT TK B R I E F S N EWS ELECTRIC DISCOVERY Cheng Li, Ph.D. ’17, and Distinguished Professor Emerita Clare Reimers identified a novel species of bacteria that acts as electrical wiring, potentially ushering in a new era of bioelectronic devices for use in medicine, industry, food safety, and environmental monitoring and cleanup. The researchers discovered it in sediment samples from the Yaquina Bay estuary and have named it Ca. Electrothrix yaqonensis in honor of Native Americans of the region. AI CAN IMPROVE CREATIVITY A new study from Oregon State University indicates that artificial intelligence can significantly enhance creativity in student fiction writing, but only when instructors teach students how to incorporate it into the creative process. Researchers found that when students receive instruction on how to use AI, there was an increase in creativity over both their original writing and their AI use without instruction. “It took us less than 20 minutes of instruction to change the way students interacted with the technology,” noted lead author J.T. Bushnell, senior instructor in the School of Writing, Literature and Film. PHARMACY PROGRAM BOUND FOR PORTLAND Oregon State University’s College of Pharmacy will relocate its Pharm.D. program primarily to Oregon Health & Science University’s Portland campus in 2026, expanding a long-established partnership that will create more opportunities for students. OSU and OHSU jointly award the Doctor of Pharmacy degree, which currently enrolls around 250 students. The partnership offers both institutions various academic, research and clinical connections within a shared space. WHERE SCIENCE MEETS STORY STEINBECK’S WESTERN FLYER SAILS THE SEA OF CORTEZ ONCE AGAIN. By Nancy Steinberg Jack Barth, professor of ocean- ography in Oregon State University’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, has been on a lot of ships in his time. He has deployed instruments and collected data aboard research vessels throughout the Pa- cific and Atlantic, with an emphasis on the California Current ecosystem that spans the U.S. West Coast. This spring, he set out on a research vessel like no other, on an incredible voyage that traveled as much through history as it did through the waves of Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. And it involved Oregon State people every step of the way. Barth spent two weeks aboard the Western Flyer, the California sardine fishing vessel chartered in 1940 for a sample-collecting trip by
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