Next to water, coffee is the most popular beverage on Earth and is the world's second most traded good, trailing only oil. It is estimated that humans drink more than 2 billion cups of coffee per day with over 60% of Americans having a cup each day. As a result, over 8 million tons of spent coffee grounds are disposed of on an annual basis. A new study from Srinivas Janaswamy, associate professor in South Dakota State University's Department of Dairy and Food Science, has revealed how spent coffee grounds can be made into biodegradable films—material that could one day replace plastics. 

Lora Perkins, associate professor in South Dakota State University's Department of Natural Resource Management, is working with the National Park Service on a three-year, $900,000 project to restore native grasses and wildflowers to the many national parks of the northern Great Plains. 

Farmers across the United States will be able to monitor their crops in real time, thanks to a novel algorithm from researchers in South Dakota State University's Geospatial Sciences Center of Excellence. Yu Shen, a research assistant in the GSCE, and Xiaoyang Zhang, professor in the Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences and co-director at the GSCE, believe this algorithm will greatly help farmers in their crop management practices and in predicting yield size prior to harvest.

River otters are semiaquatic mammals that at one time could be found in rivers across the entirety of the Great Plains. Due to overharvesting and habitat degradation, the river otter became nearly extinct in the region. In the late 1990s, the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe reintroduced approximately 35 river otters into the Big Sioux River. Since then, the population has slowly stabilized, and now two South Dakota State University researchers are attempting to learn more about the population and the otters' habitat needs.

Research in the News

Smithsonian Magazine - "What's Killing Minnesota's Moose?"

Minnesota Public Radio - "Research sheds light on how brainworm is killing Minnesota's moose"

Daily Montanan - "How deadly brainworms jump from deer to moose" 

National Institute of Food and Agriculture - "Can Avocado Peels Curb a Plastic Waste Problem?"

Farm and Ag - "Midwest farmers worry about the cost of adopting precision practices"

Waste Management Review - "Could spent coffee grounds provide an alternative to plastic packaging?"

Packaging Insights - "Researchers brew up biodegradable plastic alternative using discarded coffee grounds" 

South Dakota Public Broadcasting - "New research may have identified neutralizing agent for mustard gas"

DevX - "Revolutionary Algorithm Transforms Crop Monitoring"

The Daily Yonder - "Study Looks at Climate Change Effects on Rural Electrical Grids"