University of Miami joins new NOAA Cooperative Institute to advance sustainable US aquaculture
Grant and Award Announcement
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 11-Jun-2026 11:15 ET (11-Jun-2026 15:15 GMT/UTC)
The University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science is a core partner in a new national effort to strengthen America's seafood supply through aquaculture research and technology development.
As cases of a deadly cattle disease rise in Arkansas, researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station are testing two treatments they hope will help ranchers protect their herds. No approved drugs or vaccines to treat or prevent the pathogen are currently available in the United States, but research on the two methods to control it is now underway at the experiment station thanks to a two-year, $492,218 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Short video apps boost rural households' food consumption and dietary diversity. Improvement in nutrition awareness mediates the positive relationship between short video app use and dietary diversity. Effects are stronger for high-income rural groups and remote villages with access to express delivery services.
This study reports a labor-saving strategy for hybrid rice seed production using a small flag leaf mutant, ym66, derived from radiation-mutagenized indica rice 93-11. The mutant exhibits extremely short, narrow, and stiff flag leaves due to a 6-bp insertion in the OsGATA15 gene, which leads to cell death and reduced vascular development. Using this mutant, the researchers developed a novel restorer line, NP27, which requires no manual leaf cutting during hybrid seed production. Field tests showed that NP27 achieves seed yields comparable to traditional leaf-cutting methods, while reducing labor costs by approximately 150–180 CNY per mu. Additionally, NP27-derived hybrids display more compact plant architecture, uniform panicles, and improved grain quality. This work provides a "leaf-cutting-free" germplasm resource that simplifies hybrid rice seed production and lowers production costs.
A rapid, precise, on-site, portable, and naked-eye visualization method for genotyping the FecBB mutation in sheep has been established. A genotyping strategy for important SNP site in livestock breeding programmes is provided, theoretically applicable to any SNP site.
The University of New Hampshire (UNH) will lead a new national effort to grow and strengthen America’s seafood supply through aquaculture research. After a highly competitive application process, UNH, which has a long history of innovation in the farming of aquatic species, was selected to oversee the first-of-its-kind NOAA Cooperative Institute Fostering Aquaculture Research and Markets (CIFARM). With approximately $13.5 million in initial funding, CIFARM will support research and partnerships that will make it safer, more environmentally friendly and cost-effective to produce seafood domestically.
A project led by University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture researchers will help reduce the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer by designing corn plants that better use nitrogen already in the soil.
Scott Lenaghan, associate professor of food science, and Neal Stewart, professor of plant sciences, secured $2.5 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). Their project, “SyN-Fix: Synthetic Biology to Improve Nitrogen Cycling in the Maize Rhizosphere,” is one of nine awarded to develop technologies that reduce synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use in corn and sorghum farming, which are key crops for U.S. ethanol production.
A Virginia Tech study found that the female brain forms fear memories using a molecular process not seen in the male brain. The findings suggest that treatments for PTSD may need to be tailored differently for men and women, said the study’s lead researcher, Timothy Jarome, an associate professor of neurobiology in the School of Animal Sciences located within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.