The geosciences department, internationally known as host to one of the top electron microprobe laboratories in the world, will add a new, state-of-the-art $1.1 million microprobe to its toolkit later this year, say professors Michael Williams and Michael Jercinovic, who direct the electron microprobe/scanning electron microscope facility in Morrill Science Center.

Some molecular biologists who study the proteins that regulate cell operations, including Elizabeth Vierling at UMass Amherst, do not confine their research to understanding the molecules’ current roles. They also look deep into the proteins’ evolutionary past to explore what structures have allowed proteins with new functions to develop in response to new needs.

In researchers’ quest for evidence of dark matter, physicist Andrea Pocar of UMass Amherst and his students have played an important role in designing and building a key part of the argon-based DarkSide-50 detector located underground in Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory.

Colin J. Gleason, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at UMass Amherst, has received a five-year, $530,000 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant to conduct a detailed study of Arctic river flows and how they respond to changes in the climate.