Will Ratcliff, the John C. and Leslie C. Sutherland Professor in the School of Biological Sciences, has been awarded a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The philanthropic organization’s awards are reserved for scientific research into awe-inspiring topics and will enable Ratcliff to continue groundbreaking research into the origins of multicellular life. 

Ratcliff’s lab has pioneered one of the world’s longest-running evolution experiments.  For more than a decade, the lab’s snowflake yeast has completed tens of thousands of life cycles. This work has provided a unique lens for studying how single-celled organisms make the leap to multicellularity, gradually evolving from simple clumps of cells into organisms. It’s among the first to demonstrate how single cells grow into the multicellular organisms that form the basis of all life, from fungi to fauna. 

“This grant is based on a conceptual breakthrough that emerged only after more than a decade of observing multicellular life evolve,” Ratcliff said.

The research is now at the stage when funding from organizations like Templeton is crucial. Ratcliff’s grant focuses on the concept of “agency,” or how a cell determines its function. 

“The human body contains 39 trillion cells — most of which help us survive and reproduce — yet they themselves won’t pass on their genetic material,” Ratcliff said. “For example, skin cells are never going to make a new human. 

“Multicellular organisms began as small groups where every cell contributed to reproduction. Over time, some cells shifted to supportive roles that didn’t reproduce, instead helping specialized reproductive cells, like sperm and eggs, succeed.”

This shift, in which most cells in an organism have given up the ability to reproduce, represents a fundamental shift biological agency. 

“It’s a key step in the evolution of complex life, as it allows organisms to make things like muscles, neurons, and skin cells,” Ratcliff said. 

But how did it begin? The researchers hypothesize that this shift in agency can occur very early in evolution, as a physical side effect of creating large, tough bodies. As multicellular organisms grow physically larger, cells on the interior may effectively become “stuck,” unable to ever leave the group. Much like a nerve cell in the body, these cells will never form a new organism. Instead, they are incentivized to help the reproductive cells in the organism succeed. 

“We’ve long thought that this type of specialization could only occur after a great deal of genetic modification,” Ratcliff said. “Yet that’s not what appears to be happening in snowflake yeast — it seemingly happens ‘for free’ as a side effect of simple cellular biophysics very early in the transition to multicellularity.” 

With the funding, Ratcliff and his frequent collaborator, School of Physics Associate Professor Peter Yunker, will be able to test this hypothesis using the group’s existing yeast. 

"This award will enable us to address crucial questions about the evolution of multicellularity — and the role that physics plays in the process,” Yunker said.

Their results could fundamentally reshape our understanding of evolution, showing how the simplest life forms can give rise to extraordinary complexity. With each yeast cell, the researchers are uncovering the building blocks of life itself.

 

 

311 chatbots make it easier for people to report issues to their local government without long wait times on the phone. However, a new study finds that the technology might inhibit civic engagement.

311 systems allow residents to report potholes, broken fire hydrants, and other municipal issues. In recent years, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to provide 311 services to community residents has boomed across city and state governments. This includes an artificial virtual assistant (AVA) developed by third-party vendors for the City of Atlanta in 2023.

Through survey data, researchers from Tech’s School of Interactive Computing found that many residents are generally positive about 311 chatbots. In addition to eliminating long wait times over the phone, they also offer residents quick answers to permit applications, waste collection, and other frequently asked questions.

However, the study, which was conducted in Atlanta, indicates that 311 chatbots could be causing residents to feel isolated from public officials and less aware of what’s happening in their community.

Jieyu Zhou, a Ph.D. student in the School of IC, said it doesn’t have to be that way.

Uniting Communities

Zhou and her advisor, Assistant Professor Christopher MacLellan, published a paper at the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) Conference that focuses on improving public service chatbot design and amplifying their civic impact. They collaborated with Professor Carl DiSalvo, Associate Professor Lynn Dombrowski, and graduate students Rui Shen and Yue You.

Zhou said 311 chatbots have the potential to be agents that drive community organization and improve quality of life.

“Current chatbots risk isolating users in their own experience,” Zhou said. “In the 311 system, people tend to report their own individual issues but lose a sense of what is happening in their broader community. 

“People are very positive about these tools, but I think there’s an opportunity as we envision what civic chatbots could be. It’s important for us to emphasize that social element — engaging people within the community and connecting them with government representatives, community organizers, and other community members.”

Zhou and MacLellan said 311 chatbots can leave users wondering if others in their communities share their concerns.

“If people are at a town hall meeting, they can get a sense of whether the problems they are experiencing are shared by others,” Zhou said. “We can’t do that with a chatbot. It’s like an isolated room, and we’re trying to open the doors and the windows.”

Adding a Human Touch

In their paper, the researchers note that one of the biggest criticisms of 311 chatbots is they can’t replace interpersonal interaction.

Unlike chatbots, people working in local government offices are likely to:

• Have direct knowledge of issues
• Provide appropriate referrals
• Empathize with the resident’s concerns

MacLellan said residents are likely to grow frustrated with a chatbot when reporting issues that require this level of contextual knowledge.

One person in the researchers’ survey noted that the chatbot they used didn’t understand that their report was about a sidewalk issue, not a street issue.

“Explaining such a situation to a human representative is straightforward,” MacLellan said. “However, when the issue being raised does not fall within any of the categories the chatbot is built to address, it often misinterprets the query and offers information that isn’t helpful.”

The researchers offer some design suggestions that can help chatbots foster community engagement and improve community well-being:

• Escalation. Regarding the sidewalk report, the chatbot did not offer a way to escalate the query to a human who could resolve it. Zhou said that this is a feature that chatbots should have but often lack.
• Transparency. Chatbots could provide details about recent and frequently reported community issues. They should inform users early in the call process about known problems to help avoid an overload of user complaints.
• Education. Chatbots can keep users updated about what’s happening in their communities.
• Collective action. Chatbots can help communities organize and gather ideas to address challenges and solve problems.

“Government agencies may focus mainly on fixing individual issues,” Zhou said, “But recognizing community-level patterns can inspire collective creativity. For example, one participant suggested that if many people report a broken swing at a playground, it could spark an initiative to design a new playground together—going far beyond just fixing it.”

These are just a few examples of things, the researchers argue, that 311 services were originally designed to achieve.

“Communities were already collaborating on identifying and reporting issues,” Zhou said. “These chatbots should reflect the original intentions and collaboration practices of the communities they serve.

“Our research suggests we can increase the positive impact of civic chatbots by including social aspects within the design of the system, connecting people, and building a community view.”

A 30-year “snapshot study” of birds in the Pacific Northwest is showing their surprising resilience in the face of climate change. The project started when School of Biological Sciences Assistant Professor Benjamin Freeman found a study by Louise Waterhouse detailing birds in the mountains near Vancouver three decades ago. What followed was an ecological scavenger hunt: Freeman revisited each of the old field sites, navigating using his local knowledge and Waterhouse’s hand-drawn maps.

Freeman, who grew up in Seattle, mainly studies the ecology of tropical birds — but the discovery of Waterhouse’s paper made him curious about research closer to home. The results were surprising: over the last three decades, most of the bird populations in the region were stable and had been increasing in abundance at higher elevations.

The study, “Pacific Northwest birds have shifted their abundances upslope in response to 30 years of warming temperatures” was published in the journal Ecology this fall. In addition to lead author Freeman, the team also included Harold Eyster (The Nature Conservancy), Julian Heavyside (University of British Columbia), Daniel Yip (Canadian Wildlife Service), Monica Mather (British Columbia Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship), and Waterhouse (British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Coast Area Research).

“It is great news that most birds in the region are resilient, and by doing this work, we can focus on the species that do need help, like the Canada Jay, which is struggling in this region,” Freeman says. “Studies like this help us focus resources and effort.”

Songbirds and snow

Conducting the fieldwork was a detective game, Freeman says. Each day, he would wake up at four in the morning to locate and visit the research areas — often navigating trails, open forest, and rough terrain on foot.

This area of the Pacific Northwest is punctuated with old-growth stands of trees — sections of forest that have never been logged or altered. “These areas feel like islands,” Freeman shares. “They feel ancient and untouched, but even in pristine habitats, birds are still responding to climate change.”

Most of the work was conducted during the birds’ breeding season, from late May into June. This is when the birds are most vocal, which is ideal for surveys, Freeman says. The downside? Even in June, there is often snow in the mountains. “I was out at dawn, hiking through snow in the freezing cold, wondering why I didn’t stay in bed,” he recalls. “But then I’d hear birds singing all around me and realize it was all worth it.”

Upward expansion — and resilience

By comparing the two “snapshots,” the team showed that while temperatures have increased over the last 30 years, most bird populations in the region haven’t declined — but they have become more abundant at higher elevations. “It’s encouraging,” Freeman says. “Thirty years of warming has led to changes, but for the most part, these bird populations are mostly stable or improving.”

One reason for this resilience could be the stability that old growth forests provide, and Freeman suggests that conserving wide swaths of mountain habitat might help birds thrive as they continue to adapt, while still supporting populations at lower elevations. The study also helps identify which bird species need additional support, like the Canada Jay — a gray and white bird known for following hikers in pursuit of dropped snacks.

It’s just one piece of Freeman’s larger research goal — he aims to do this type of snapshot research in many different places to identify general patterns, especially differences in temperate versus tropical environments.

“In the tropics, most bird species are vulnerable, with only a few resilient species. In the Pacific Northwest, we saw the opposite,” he says. “A pattern is emerging: temperate zones show more resilience, tropics more vulnerability.” 

Freeman is also conducting research with a group of students in Northern Georgia. “We predict that these Appalachian birds will be resilient as well,” he says, “but we need to study and understand what’s happening in nature — not just make predictions.”

 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70193

Funding: Packard Foundation

Cryptocurrency continues to reshape the financial landscape. As cryptocurrency moves from niche to mainstream, companies are grappling with how to account for these volatile digital assets. New research from Scheller College of Business accounting professor Robbie Moon, and his co-authors Chelsea M. Anderson, Vivian W. Fang, and Jonathan E. Shipman, sheds light on how U.S. public companies have navigated crypto holdings and accounting practices over the past decade.
 

ASU 2023-08, the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) newly enacted rule, aims to bring clarity and consistency to crypto asset reporting with the mandate for fair value reporting. Moon’s research, which examined a comprehensive set of companies from 2013 to 2022, looks at the exponential rise in corporate crypto investments and the diverse, and often inconsistent, ways firms have reported them.

In “Accounting for Cryptocurrencies,” Moon and his co-authors work to better understand this pivotal point in financial reporting with research that dives into why firms hold crypto – whether for mining, payment acceptance, or investment – and how reporting practices have evolved to meet this current moment.

Keep reading to learn more about Moon’s research and why it matters right now.

Why do companies hold cryptocurrencies, and how has this changed over time?

Companies hold cryptocurrency for three main reasons: they mine it, they accept it as payment, or they consider it an investment. Early on, most businesses kept crypto because customers used it to pay for goods and services. Around 2017, that trend declined, and more companies began mining crypto themselves. Today, mining accounts for about half of corporate crypto holdings, while payment acceptance and investment make up the rest.

What were the main challenges companies face when trying to report cryptocurrency holdings in their financial statements?

Until the end of 2023, there were no official rules on how companies should report cryptocurrency on their financial statements. Back in 2018, the Big Four accounting firms (Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG) stepped in with guidance, suggesting that crypto be treated like intangible assets, similar to things like patents or trademarks. This is known as the impairment model.

What is the difference between the “fair value model” and the “impairment model” for accounting crypto assets, and why does it matter?

The two accounting methods differ in how they handle changes in crypto value. The fair value model updates the value of a company’s crypto to match current market prices every reporting period. If the price goes up or down, the change shows up on the company’s income statement as a gain or loss.

The impairment model only lets companies record losses when the value drops below what they paid. If the price goes up, they can’t record the increase.

The difference in the two approaches can best be seen when crypto prices rise. Under the impairment model, companies’ balance sheets understate the true value of the crypto since the gains cannot be recorded. The fair value model allows companies to adjust the balance sheet value of crypto as market prices change.

What factors led ASU 2023-08 to favor fair value reporting?

When the FASB was trying to decide if they should add crypto accounting to their standard setting agenda, they reached out to the public for feedback. The response was overwhelming and most practitioners and firms called for the use of the fair value model. 

How do big accounting firms, like Deloitte or PwC, influence how companies report their crypto holdings?

When there aren’t official rules for complex issues like crypto accounting, the Big Four firms often step in to guide companies. In 2018, they recommended using the impairment model, which they viewed as most appropriate based on existing standards. After that, most companies switched from fair value reporting to the impairment approach.

Their guidance in 2018 was based on what was allowed under the standards at that time. With the new rule in place, the firms will likely help clients manage the transition.

Does using fair value accounting for crypto make a company’s stock price more volatile or its earnings reports more useful to investors?

The primary downside of using a fair value model for a risky asset like crypto is how volatility affects earnings.  Moon’s research suggests that stock price volatility increases for firms using the fair value model, and it doesn’t appear the model makes earnings more useful for investors. That said, the results should be viewed cautiously because the study’s sample largely consisted of smaller companies.

Why does this research matter right now?

This research matters because more companies are investing in cryptocurrency. That trend is only expected to grow. This research looks at how businesses handled crypto before official rules came out in 2023, showing that many treated it like traditional investments. This provides a baseline against which future research can evaluate the new rule. The research also warns that the fair value approach could make stock prices more volatile without necessarily making earnings reports more useful for investors.
 
Read More: Accounting for Cryptocurrencies