BYU

When people hear about bird strikes, they usually think of airplane emergencies and grounded flights. While the danger that birds pose to planes and passengers is real, the sheer volume of these collisions goes largely unnoticed and drives a hidden toll on bird populations.

BYU students are monitoring the bird populations in and around the Provo River Delta and Provo airport to understand how management of habitat can help reduce collision risk.

Since 2017, students have been traveling to the river mouth where it flows into Utah Lake three times a week to survey the populations. Trained in their ornithology class on campus, these excursions give students a chance to gain real-world experience analyzing and caring for the wildlife in their community.

“Coming to the delta to enjoy the sights and sounds and enjoy God’s creation helps you have a deeper gratitude for it, and helps you want to protect it,” said wildlife conservation student Julyn Robinson, who just graduated earlier this year.

NOTE: All birds were captured and handled by Utah Division of Wildlife Resources with appropriate permits.

Nearly 250 years after printers rushed the Declaration of Independence into existence, BYU adjunct professor Robert Buchert is retracing history one letter, one sheet and one impression at a time.

Known today as the Dunlap Broadside, this first official printing of the Declaration became the urgent, tangible announcement that the colonies had chosen to become a new nation.

Buchert, who has taught BYU’s Intro to Letterpress class for more than two decades, set out to recreate it. The result is a painstaking replica that mirrors not only the Declaration's words but also the paper, typography and printing imperfections of the original. Buchert's re-creation required more than 1,300 hours of research, design, and hand craftsmanship.

Read the story here: https://news.byu.edu/intellect/byu-professor-replicates-first-printed-1776-declaration-of-independence

Trained to find survivors during earthquakes, APOPO's HeroRATs got a boost from BYU engineering students who helped design localization trackers that can be worn by rats who assist in search and rescue efforts.

With incredible intelligence and a sense of smell that make them ideal collaborators, East African Savanna pouched rats are being trained by the humanitarian organization APOPO to identify landmines, to detect tuberculosis, and now to help find earthquake victims in the rubble of buildings.

After meeting the rats, the students spent weeks developing a system that integrated visual odometry, an inertial measurement unit and machine learning into a Raspberry Pi computer small enough for a rat to carry. The system stores valuable data that the rat is trained to bring back to the rescue team.

https://news.byu.edu/byu-engineering-students-design-new-wearable-tech-for-search-and-rescue-rats-yes-rats