Need a COVID-19 test for travel? If you must travel, we encourage you to TRAVEL SAFE, TRAVEL SMART. Call the Bozeman Health COVID-19 Hotline at 406-414-2619 to get an order for a travel test. Travel testing is available at the efficient and convenient Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital drive-thru testing site from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday - Friday. For the most up-to-date information CLICK HERE.

Montana State University physicist Dana Longcope was awarded the National Academy of Science’s Arctowski Medal on Thursday. The medal, given every other year, is a recognition of significant contributions to the study of solar physics. Awardees are nominated by peers in the field.

“What I really love is doing the work,” Longcope said. “But to know my colleagues all around the world, all around the country find it worthwhile, it’s very humbling that they found my work to be of that caliber,” Longcope said.

Longcope, who is the head of the Department of Physics in the College of Letters and Science, conducts theoretical research into the storage and release of magnetic energy around the sun. It is same the type of energy that leads to solar flares and the solar winds that cause the northern lights.

A nomination letter from Department of Physics colleagues Charles Kankelborg, Jiong Qiu and Neil Cornish describes Longcope as a “creative and prolific physicist” whose work has had widespread impact.

“It’s bringing order to the chaos,” Cornish said. “He is able to come up with these elegant models to describe the essential physics of the sun.”

Longcope helped define the nature of the sun’s magnetism by creating a framework for the rope-like bundles of magnetic field lines known as thin flux tubes that permeate the sun. By outlining the basic structure of the system and developing fundamental equations of motion for the flux tubes, Longcope’s work explained how the tubes move and store magnetic energy around the corona, the outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere.

Kankelborg pictures this topology as a sort of wiring diagram, or “a map made out of spaghetti.”

“If you know where everything is connected and if you know whether this magnetic field wraps around that one on the way to the other pole where it’s anchored, then you know the overall configuration and it tells you something about the storage of energy,” he said.

This framework led to a three-dimensional, unified picture of a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection, wherein Longcope describes how the movement of these flux tubes — and breaking and rejoining of the magnetic fields inside — releases massive amounts of energy and predicts how energy could be released in a solar flare based on the magnetic fields on the surface.

“He brought the theory and the observations together, which is a tremendous achievement,” Kankelborg said. “Every theoretical physicist wants to not have just a pretty theory but to be able to make predictions about things you can actually measure.”

This research has research helped hone solar flare forecasting. Right now, scientists can calculate when high-energy particles from solar eruptions may reach Earth, but not their trajectory. While effects like the aurora are celebrated, these solar events may interfere with technology like wireless communication and GPS. Geomagnetic storms can also impact air travel and the electrical grid. In his former role as head of the American Academy of Sciences Solar Physics Division, Longcope briefed congressional offices on the importance of space weather.

Longcope, who has always loved puzzles, sees physics as the fundamental explanation for how the world works. Looking out the window of his office on campus, he can see the clouds moving over the Spanish Peaks and knows the various forces that control their movement. He contemplates the physics of the mundane – such as water flowing though a faucet – and keeps asking questions.

“It’s wonderful to be able to pose a question for yourself and then figure out the answer and realize you’re the first person to have ever answered that question,” Longcope said.

Longcope received his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in 1986, where he started studying the physics of plasma, a fourth state of matter where gases become so hot their atoms are torn apart. He stayed at Cornell for graduate school, receiving a doctorate in applied physics in 1993 and parlaying an interest in plasma to researching its most dramatic example: the sun’s atmosphere. Aside from the inherent drama of solar flares, Longcope said he is drawn to the counter-intuitive nature of their energy release.

“You wouldn’t think that suddenly the sun would be producing 50 million Kelvin plasmas when the surface is only 5,700 Kelvin,” he said, referring to the unit of temperature measurement used by solar physicists.

After post-doctoral research at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University and the University of California, Berkeley, Longcope was recruited to MSU’s budding solar physics group by Loren Acton, who is now a professor emeritus. Longcope joined the faculty in 1996, drawn, he said, by a desire to pass on knowledge to younger scientists while conducting research amidst an esteemed group of colleagues.

Even now, a solar physics group is a rarity in American academia, Longcope said. In his time at MSU, Longcope has taught a wide variety of physics courses, from quantum and classical mechanics to mathematical physics and electricity and magnetism. He also currently co-leads NASA’s Heliophysics Summer School in Boulder, Colorado, and is helping the school go virtual for this year’s students.

“Dana is such a broad and profound physicist, but he’s motivational too,” said Qiu, who has been a member of the solar physics group since 2005. “He’s really very modest and always promoting others. I’m really impressed by that. It makes MSU such a good place.”

As a young professor and researcher, Longcope merited a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant in 1997. In 2000, it was the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), and in 2003, he earned the Karen Harvey Prize from the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical. In contrast, the Arctowski Medal honors his body of work.

The Arctowski Medal was established in 1958 to honor Polish-American meteorologist and Antarctic explorer Henryk Arctowski and recognizes “outstanding contributions to the study of solar physics and solar terrestrial relationships,” according to the National Academy of Sciences. The medal is now given every two years, along with an award of $100,000 plus a $100,000 grant to support research.

Longcope and other award winners will be honored in a virtual ceremony during the National Academy of Sciences' 158th annual meeting April 24-26. The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and provides advice to the federal government and other organizations.

Montana State University political science professor Franke Wilmer had spent many years studying war and its effects on human rights until a chance meeting in Bozeman turned her research toward those who effectively work for peace.
 
Wilmer will speak about successful efforts to build peace in the West Bank, one of the planet’s most war-torn locations, during the next MSU Provost’s Distinguished Lecturer Series. Her free lecture, “Breaking Cycles of Violence in Israel and Palestine: Empathy and Peacemaking in the Middle East,” will be available online beginning at 7 p.m. Feb. 9.

Provost Bob Mokwa said Wilmer was invited to deliver the lecture because her work is emblematic of the tripartite principles of the university’s land-grant mission.
 
“She brings to the classroom the same attributes that have made her an internationally recognized scholar,” Mokwa said. “Dr. Wilmer emboldens our students to think critically, to be inquisitive and to consider local impacts of global issues and what it means to be an engaged, informed citizen.”
 
Wilmer, a professor in the Department of Political Science in the College of Letters and Science, has long studied war criminals in Bosnia as well as women’s and Indigenous rights around the globe, writing several books on those topics. However, a reception at her rabbi’s Bozeman home in 2016 for Israeli peace negotiator Gershon Baskin led Wilmer to turn from the study of the causes of violence to think about the causes of peacemaking. Baskin is a mediator and the founder of the Institute for Education for Jewish Arab Coexistence. He was a key negotiator between Hamas and the Israeli government for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was held by Palestinians for five years.

 
Meeting Baskin prompted Wilmer to wonder: If some people were drawn to violence, why are others drawn to peace, even in the most complex situations? And how do they achieve it?
 
“I had been interested in why people do bad things, but these people made me think about people who resist violence and political conflict,” she said. “It got me curious.”
 
That question led Wilmer to make five research trips to Israel in four years where she spent considerable time in the West Bank. During one of those visits to Tel Aviv, machine gun fire rang out as she was having dinner at a nearby restaurant. Yet, despite the strife, she found the people there to be universally generous, kind and caring and hospitable.

Baskin suggested that Wilmer contact the Parents Circle Family Forum, a group of parents and families of both Israeli and Palestinian children killed in the conflict who work for peace rather than revenge. Despite their extreme personal loss, group members were willing to work together across ethnic groups to work for a lasting peace.

 
Wilmer’s book on the topic, “Breaking Cycles of Violence in Israel and Palestine: Empathy and Peacemaking in the Middle East,” was published this month by Lexington, Rowman and Littlefield. Wilmer said her work has made her believe that empathy and moderation on both sides is one of the keys to solving the conflict.

“I don’t think people know how empathic these peace activists on both sides are,” Wilmer said. She said three chapters of her book are their personal stories. “Their stories can bring tears to your eyes.”
 
She said that in talking to the peace activists, who have all experienced great loss, she realized that nonviolent solutions really can work.
 
“Empathy is central to this work,” she said. She said that even though we live in a society of insults and injuries, for peace to be made, both sides must be empathetic to the lives of those on the other side.
“You have to realize you can never really walk in someone else’s shoes, but …making the effort is what touches another person.”
 
Wilmer said that while the book is an academic resource, she also hopes that it inspires students, scholars and activists working for peace. And while the work is based in the war-torn Middle East, Wilmer said she thinks it has universal application, including to the divisions in contemporary American society. She hopes that it may provide guidance for people who are identified with a group ethnically and culturally to overcome victimization and transform their thinking about themselves, as the nonviolent peace activists from the Middle East have done.

 
To that end, last fall Wilmer worked to bring her work to MSU when she partnered with the MSU Leadership Institute to livestream from the West Bank the webinar Enemies to Allies: A Rabbi and a Palestinian Activist.”
“Breaking Cycles of Violence in Israel and Palestine” is Wilmer’s fourth book. Her previous books are: “The Indigenous Voice in World Politics,” “The Social Construction of Man, the State and War: Identity, Conflict and Violence in Former Yugoslavia” and “Human Rights in International Politics.”
 
In addition to her academic work, Wilmer previously served in the Montana House of Representatives, and she is a past chair of the Montana Human Rights Commission. She also was a co-founder of the Gallatin Valley Human Rights Task Force.
 
A graduate of the University of Maryland, where she received her doctorate in political science, Wilmer has taught at MSU since 1991 and travels extensively internationally speaking about human rights.
 
For more information about Wilmer’s upcoming lecture or the Provost Distinguished Lecture Series, go to: montana.edu/pdl/.

Bozeman, Montana is a unique American city in that it is a large urban area bordered by vast, barren wilderness. This has the unique effect of forcing many types of nuisance animals into the city of Bozeman to look for food, shelter, and warmth. Since this city in the American West is so unique, there might be some surprising pests located there. Continue reading to find out more about what the most common pests found in Bozeman are.

Ticks
Obviously, ticks were going to make the list. These arachnids are found in many locations in the United States. Ticks are capable of spreading a wide variety of diseases to humans. Some of these diseases include Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

Rats and Mice
Rats and mice are found throughout the urban areas of America and Bozeman is no different. These rodents spread many diseases through direct bites, their droppings, and food contamination. Some of the diseases they spread can potentially kill humans. In addition to their health risks, rats and mice also cause a lot of damage within buildings. They will chew on wires, creating fire hazards, chew up insulation which causes decreased energy efficiency, and they will even chew through wood, weakening structures.

Raccoons
No city would be complete without having a raccoon population running around. Bozeman has many raccoons around town, due to the wide variety of easy food sources commonly found by restaurants and homes. Raccoons have the potential to cause a real mess and serious damage to your property, due to their nature of getting into virtually anywhere to find food. In addition, raccoons carry several different diseases including rabies and raccoon roundworm.

Opossums
The opossum is best-known for its ability to “play dead”, but there is actually far more to understand about this creature. They often wander around urban areas in search of some kind of food they can scavenge. In addition, they may be looking for a warm place to stay during the cold months. Opossums carry diseases that can be harmful to humans and their pets, so people should definitely be cautious around these critters.

Birds
There are all kinds of pest birds that can be found in Bozeman. These birds primarily spread diseases through the droppings that they leave everywhere. In fact, birds have been found to carry roughly 70 different viruses and bacteria in their droppings, most of them very dangerous to human health. In addition to the diseases they carry, their droppings can cause corrosion of metals and potentially cause the catastrophic failure of any weight-bearing metal structures.

Fox
Since Bozeman is located in Montana, it is no surprise that foxes are often seen in town. Foxes generally stay close to humans so that they are not pursued by larger predators, such as coyotes and mountain lions. Foxes generally do not present harm to humans, although they could be aggressive if they have rabies or if you have small children or pets.

Coyotes
The coyote is seen less often than the fox, but it happens once in a while in Bozeman. Coyotes often come near urban areas in the search of food. If you have any chickens or small livestock, they may present a direct threat to them. In addition, any small children or pets should also be kept away from coyotes. Coyotes can sometimes have rabies, making them more aggressive, which can be serious to humans.

Snakes
Snakes commonly make their way into Bozeman, due to the abundance of prey for them to eat. While rare, the prairie rattlesnake is Montana’s only venomous snake, so there should be great caution exercised around any snakes that look remotely close to the rattlesnake. Every other snake presents little harm, as even if they bite a human, the worst thing that could happen would be an infection that should be easily treatable with antibiotics.

Montana State University announced that it will extend free asymptomatic COVID-19 testing for students living on campus beyond the first two weeks of spring classes. 

The tests are offered by appointment at MSU’s Student Testing Center near Bobcat Stadium. Only students living in the campus residence halls are eligible for asymptomatic testing, though any student showing symptoms of the virus can also receive a free COVID-19 test at the site without an appointment or referral.

The asymptomatic tests were originally offered only for the first two weeks of classes, but supplies of test kits will allow the testing to be offered beyond that period. MSU is encouraging residence hall students to schedule tests regularly, even on a weekly basis. 

Both symptomatic and asymptomatic testing for students complement the other precautions already in place on campus to reduce the risk of COVID-19, including a campus-wide face mask requirement, strict social distancing in MSU’s classroom and laboratories, and the distribution of personal Clean 'Cat Kits to all students, faculty and staff. 

More information about COVID-19 and Montana State University is available at montana.edu/coronavirus.

Massive marine creatures will be the focal point of the new changing exhibit at the Museum of the Rockies. Opening on Saturday, Jan. 23, “Savage Ancient Seas” will feature more than 30 prehistoric casts and real fossils from specimens that lived in North America as far back as 70 million years ago.

The exhibit will be staged as an ancient aquarium, with some fossils and casts suspended from the ceiling. Many of the specimens will be on display in Montana for the first time.

Highlights of the exhibit include:

• A 45-foot long Bunker Tylosaurus
• An Archelon, one of the largest sea turtles to have lived, sporting a 17-foot flipper span.
• A Pteranodon, with a wingspan more than 20 feet.
• A Xiphactinus, also called the X-fish, one of the largest bony fish from the Western Interior Sea. The specimen on display exceeds 20 feet.
• An Elasmosaurus, the largest species of the long-necked plesiosaurs. The specimen in display is over 40 feet long, and its neck, which is 23 feet long, has more than 70 vertebrae.

At educational kiosks around the exhibit, museum visitors can learn how these creatures lived and became extinct. Visitors can also learn how they sank to the bottom of the sea when they died and turned into fossils amongst layers of sediment.

“Savage Ancient Seas” will run until May 2 and is open daily 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The exhibit is included in admission and children under the age of four are free. The museum has limited daily admission capacity due to COVID-19 restrictions and face masks are required. More information on visitation policies can be found at https://museumoftherockies.org/visit. For more information on the exhibit visit museumoftherockies.org.