Indiana University

• Sierra Space , a leading commercial space-tech company and next generation defense-tech prime building a platform in space to benefit life on Earth and protect the freedom of economic activity in the Orbital Age®, is pleased to announce the appointment of Amish Patel as Chief Operating Officer.
• In his new role, Amish will oversee all aspects of the company’s operations, including purview over Sierra Space’s global supply chain and manufacturing.
• View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240327862906/en/
  Amish Patel has joined Sierra Space as the company's Chief Operating Officer (PHOTO: SIERRA SPACE)
  With nearly two decades of extensive experience in supply chain and operations spanning various industries including aerospace and automotive, Amish brings a wealth of high-tech operational expertise to his new appointment.
• “I am honored to join Sierra Space at such an exciting time in the aerospace industry,” said Amish Patel.

• Nimble Therapeutics announced that Dan Flynn and Brian Cali have joined the company’s Board of Directors.
• Both bring deep entrepreneurial and drug development track records that will guide Nimble as it continues to pursue its internal pipeline.
• He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Jnana Therapeutics, a role he has held since 2018.
• "We are pleased to welcome Daniel and Brian to our Board of Directors at this important stage of Nimble’s evolution," said Jigar Patel, founder & CEO of Nimble Therapeutics.

• In rats with kidney injury akin to Stage 3 AKI, the rats treated with placebo died while those on Auxora survived and showed modest recovery of GFR.
• We are excited as these studies support clinical observations of Auxora that suggest the drug may be beneficial for AKI patients."
• The data presented at AKI & CRRT was from a series of studies referred to as Study 1 and Study 2.
• These results indicate that Auxora has the ability to hasten the recovery of kidney function and improve survival in rat models of AKI.

• The total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, coincides with an exciting time for wild birds.
• Local birds are singing for mates and fighting for territories as they gear up for their once-a-year chance to breed.
• Tens of millions of migrating birds will be passing through the path of totality, and they mostly migrate at night.

There’s an app for that

On average, a total solar eclipse occurs in the same place only once every 375 years. Most wild animals, like most people, have never seen the sky quickly switch to night in the middle of the day. These rare events are a natural experiment that can help scientists like us understand how animals respond to an unusual sudden change in light.

• Observers have reported that zoo animals acted distressed or went into their enclosures.
• With collaborators across our campus – including Jo Anne Tracey at the Office of Science Outreach and Paul Macklin at Indiana University’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering – we have created an app called SolarBird.
• The app asks participants to find a bird and watch it or listen to it for 30 seconds, while clicking a few prompts on what the bird does before, during and after totality.

Technology and bird behavior

• For example, during the August 2017 solar eclipse, researchers collected data from weather stations across the United States, including several sites along the path of totality.
• The team saw some changes in activity – mainly, the birds didn’t follow their typical daytime activity patterns as much, but they saw no consistent increase in night-like activity.
• Because they used radar, it’s not clear exactly which bird behaviors increased or decreased.
• Bird songs generally convey two critical messages: “keep away” to a rival and “come here” to a prospective mate.

• Software advances help to automate the process of identifying bird songs by species with less work on the human end.
• We started recording the last week of March to collect song rates at a typical dawn and a typical dusk.
• For example, artificial light at night can affect bird physiology, behavior and abundance, and the total solar eclipse gives us a new way to test how light pollution affects behavior.

Kimberly Rosvall receives funding from the National Science Foundation. Liz Aguilar receives funding from the National Science Foundation and Indiana Space Grant Consortium.