When humans construct a building, it’s intended to stand for many years, but in biological systems, cells routinely build structures and take them apart, re-using the pieces in different places and dissolving them again in an intricate process that scientists are just beginning to explore at a deep physical level, say cell biologist Patricia Wadsworth and biophysicist Jennifer Ross at UMass Amherst. 

Astronomer Daniel Wang at UMass Amherst has received a Fulbright Scholar award to make what he calls “an astronomical pilgrimage,” to Chile, the “world capital of ground-based astronomical observation” and home to more than half of the world’s largest radio and optical telescopes. He plans to collaborate with colleagues there to study the massive black hole and its environment at the center of the Milky Way.