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A Judiciary without Trust?
No full textPublic hand wringing over waning faith in the Supreme Court, this Essay contends, mistakes symptom for cause. The real crisis is not distrust but the Court’s persistent failure to earn trust in the first place. Trust is a feeling; trustworthiness is a record. This Essay adopts a common understanding of trustworthiness that evaluates the demonstrated ability of the trusted party to protect the vulnerable trusting parties, and analyzes the Court’s trustworthiness against that yardstick. From Dred Scott, Plessy, and Korematsu to modern “shadow docket” interventions and undisclosed donor funded travel, the Court has too often shown itself untrustworthy by this metric. Its ethical controversies and reflexive defensiveness sharpen the point: a tribunal that shields itself from scrutiny while wielding final authority over constitutional meaning has offered scant evidence that it deserves the confidence it demands. This Essay engages in a three stage inquiry. First, drawing on political theory and social psychology, it disentangles the concepts of trust, distrust, and trustworthiness, proposing a metric rooted in transparent reasoning, procedural fairness, and ethical rigor. Second, it applies that metric to the Court’s historical and contemporary record, demonstrating how signature failures—and the Court’s traditions of opacity, privilege, and self-aggrandizement—have produced a deep reservoir of suspicion among vulnerable communities. Finally, it confronts the self reinforcing nature of distrust and assesses proposed reforms: intellectual humility, public apologies for past harms, external ethics oversight, and greater daylight on the shadow docket. While each could cultivate genuine trustworthiness, the Court’s institutional culture renders such shifts improbable. The Essay thus reframes legitimacy debates, insisting that the path to restored confidence runs not through exhortations to “trust the Court” but through the Court’s willingness to commit to the work of demonstrating its own trustworthiness
Lessons from the \u3cem\u3eVieth\u3c/em\u3e Dissents: Partisan Gerrymandering, Party Construction, and the Challenge of Judicial Intervention
No full textNo topic endured more uncertainty over the past fifty years than the legality of politicized districting. In 1986’s Davis v. Bandemer, the Supreme Court first indicated that sufficiently egregious partisan gerrymanders might be unconstitutional, while offering a test so vague that federal courts virtually never found districtings to be illegal. In 2004’s Vieth v. Jubelirer, a plurality of the bench announced the Supreme Court lacked appropriate constitutional tools to identify such partisan gerrymanders—but Justice Kennedy’s concurrence suggested that while no test had yet been found, one might be found in the future. It was not until 2019’s Rucho v. Common Cause that a conservative majority finally laid the struggle over partisan gerrymandering to rest by concluding that politicized districting was a political problem beyond the competence of the federal judiciary.
The functionally fruitless partisan gerrymandering debate was full of sound and fury, but it did signify something: the multifaceted nature of party organization and subsequent complexities in judicial oversight of partisan democracy. While the Rucho Court ultimately used the political question doctrine to justify judicial abstention, this is only a formalist wrapper. Underlying it is the nature of parties as emerging from the interplay of popular will and elite maneuvering. The partisanship that politicized districtings exploit is as much an expression of democratic preference as a prospective tool of technocratic oppression. This Article draws forth this tension by looking to an underappreciated contribution to the understanding of parties in democracy: the three ardent dissents in Vieth, each of which articulated a different view of when partisanship should be illegal. Together they illustrate the difficulty of neutral judges decisively imposing a view of the legitimate role of parties.
This Article uses the Vieth dissents to demonstrate the intrinsic complexity of party governance and the subsequent challenges for robust judicial intervention. It first reconstructs the role of parties in governance and law (Part I) and then reviews the reception of parties in legal scholarship (Part II). These understandings have been marked by significant variation in the desirability of parties as participants in democratic governance. Part III offers a detailed doctrinal construction of the Supreme Court’s 40-year foray into the partisan gerrymandering challenge. Part IV observes how the Vieth dissents themselves reveal the foundational difficulty with innovative judicial intervention: partisan gerrymandering is one of the (less savory) practices by which party composition is dynamically constructed. Part V observes other available mechanisms for judicial intervention in party politics that enhance rank-and-file participation, rather than constrain party practice
Plant Nutrient Interactions in High-yielding Soybean Environments
No full textPlant nutrient demands and limitations are usually studied individually by nutrient. Here, we investigated how nitrogen (N) limitation in high-yielding soybean environments affects the uptake, removal, and residual of other plant macro- and micronutrients. The objective of this study was to quantify the uptake, removal, and residual levels of soybean macro- and micronutrients under N-limited conditions and to identify nutrient priorities for high-yielding soybean systems. Aboveground plant samples at physiological maturity were collected in 19 high-yielding soybean fields with N limitation across the state of Nebraska. Reference plots with ample N supply were included within each field to compare macro- and micronutrient uptake, removal, and residual against a non-limited N condition. Plant samples were analyzed for macronutrients N, phosphorus (P), potassium (K), sulfur (S), magnesium (Mg), and calcium (Ca)—as well as micronutrients—zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), boron (B), and molybdenum (Mo). Plant nutrient internal efficiency (NIE) and harvest index (NHI) of NPKS were calculated across fields and treatments to understand changes in total nutrient uptake, removal, and residual. The N limitation in high-yielding soybean environments reduced the total uptake and removal of N, K, and S, but did not affect P. Similarly, for the soybean residue, the N and S decreased, while P slightly increased and K remained unchanged under N limitation. The uptake of most micronutrients was also affected by N limitation. The NHI did not change for P, K, and S, but N limitation increased the fraction of plant N that was exported from the system with the harvested seed. The NIE was not affected by N and S, but NIE for P and K was reduced under N-limited conditions. Nutrient interaction results and their implications are discussed. These findings contribute to a balanced plant nutrition for high-yielding soybean crops.
Advisor: Nicolas Cafaro La Menz
Evaluating the Effects of Row Spacing, Legume Intercropping, Fertilizer Source, and Fertilizer Timing on Intermediate Wheatgrass in Eastern Nebraska
No full textKernza® is the trademarked name of the perennial crop intermediate wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium). In addition to its potential for dual-use as a grain and forage crop, Kernza is marketed to provide needed environmental services by increasing crop biodiversity, sequestering soil carbon, and reducing nitrate leaching. However, more work is needed in cultivar selection and crop management to increase total grain yields and prevent long-term grain yield decline. Furthermore, research in quantifying and understanding Kernza’s ability to affect soil properties and water dynamics is limited.
Two field experiments were conducted at the Eastern Nebraska Research Extension and Education Center in randomized complete block designs over multiple harvest years (2022-2024) with varying severity of drought. One trial evaluated five of the latest Kernza cultivars in combination with factors of row spacing (38 cm, 76 cm), cropping system (monoculture, legume intercropping), and legume species (alfalfa, red clover) to determine effective combinations of genetics and management for yields and biomass. Results largely showed no differences between cultivars. Overall, monoculture stands in narrower rows produced the highest total yields and biomass with the lowest weed pressure, while legume-intercropped treatments produced the most consistent yields.
The second experiment evaluated a single cultivar grown using a single N rate (180 kg/ha N) under different fertilizer sources (urea, poultry manure) and timings (spring, fall) in comparison to a corn-soybean rotation (180 kg/ha urea) to primarily evaluate effects on soil and water dynamics. The results of this experiment suggest that observed changes in soil properties, such as pH, Ca, and Mg were a result of fertilizer source differences, whereas changes in SOM and P were only affected by year and were most likely a result of drought. Furthermore, Kernza tended to have less soil moisture than the corn-soybean rotation, suggesting the potential for reduced water losses and nitrate leaching under Kernza.
Together, these experiments demonstrate the potential to maintain grain yields with legume intercropping or poultry manure, and to increase grain yields with narrower rows. Furthermore, fertilizer source impacts the crop’s potential to enhance soil properties without yield penalties. Finally, Kernza has potential for reduced water or nitrate loss.
Advisor: Andrea D. Basch
Overcoming Maternal Antibody Interference in Swine Influenza: Advancing DNA Vaccine Strateies for Enhanced Immune Protection in Piglets
No full textMaternally derived antibodies (MDAs) play a vital role in protecting neonates from infectious diseases, but their presence at the time of vaccination can interfere with vaccine-induced immune responses, thereby reducing vaccine effectiveness. MDA interference has been documented in pigs vaccinated with whole inactivated virus (WIV) vaccines against swine influenza A virus (IAV). In this thesis, we evaluated the efficacy of a lipid nanoparticle encapsulated DNA (LNP-DNA) vaccine against swine IAV in the presence and absence of MDAs, comparing it to a WIV vaccine. In MDA-negative piglets, both the LNP-DNA and WIV vaccines induced strong immune responses and effectively prevented the vaccinated animals from being infected with the homologous IAV strain. However, in MDA-positive piglets, the WIV vaccine failed to trigger significant antibody or T-cell responses and offered no protection against viral shedding or lung damage. In contrast, the LNP-DNA vaccine elicited stronger immune responses in MDA-positive pigs, reduced nasal viral shedding, and prevented lung lesions. These findings demonstrate that the LNP-DNA vaccine overcomes MDA interference, making it a promising strategy for enhancing vaccine efficacy in neonatal animals despite maternal antibody presence.
Advisor: David Scott McVe
Examining Microbial Biomass and Soil Organic Carbon in Annual vs. Perennial Agricultural Ecosystem Soils
No full textSoil systems have the ability to store large amounts of carbon for both short and long periods of time, much like other carbon pools such as oceans and forests. As increased amounts of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere via anthropogenic means, including the agricultural industry, scientists have been researching how to increase the amount of carbon cycled from the atmosphere and into soils as a climate change mitigation strategy. Soil systems have the capacity to sequester carbon in part due to fungal and bacterial community activity. Differences in soil microbial biomass levels between annual and perennial agricultural systems will affect the amount of carbon sequestered from the atmosphere. Prior studies have shown that annual agricultural systems tend toward lower microbial biomass levels due to the constant disturbance in soils via management practices such as tilling (which breaks up fungal hyphal and bacterial communities) and relatively shallow root systems. On the other hand, perennial agricultural systems tend toward higher microbial biomass levels due to less routine disturbance of the soils and deeper root systems. In this study, we examined the relationship between microbial biomass (fungal, bacterial, and total) and percent organic carbon in soils systems managed for annual crops (diverse vegetables) versus perennial crops (apple orchard) at Loy Farm, a one acre farm located on Elon University’s campus. We used a standard loss-on-ignition (LOI) procedure and the microBIOMETER® test kit to determine total soil organic carbon (SOC) and microbial biomass levels in 200 soil samples (50 at 0-10 cm depth and 50 at 10-30 cm depth in each condition). The five research questions explored in this study are:
RQ1: Will the annual field or perennial field contain more soil organic carbon (SOC)?
RQ2: How will SOC vary with depth (0cm-10cm vs. 10cm-30cm) in annual and perennial conditions?
RQ3: How will fungal, bacterial, and total microbial biomass compare between perennial and annual conditions?
RQ4: How will fungal, bacterial, and total microbial biomass vary with depth (0cm-10cm vs. 10cm-30cm) between perennial and annual conditions?
RQ5: Will the annual field or perennial field show a stronger correlation between microbial biomass and SOC?
Data analysis determined that the annual field at Loy Farm contains more soil organic carbon than the perennial field at all depths. On the other hand, the perennial field contains more fungal, bacterial, and total microbial biomass compared to the annual field at all depths. Finally, the annual field showed a stronger correlation between microbial biomass and soil carbon than the perennial field. The data collected in this experiment will contribute to future climate change mitigation research and soil health analysis
Flea News 96 (November 2025)
No full textFlea News is a twice-yearly newsletter about fleas (Siphonaptera). Before including in publications any of the citations given here, please review for accuracy and correct formatting. Many of our sources are abstracting journals and current literature sources, and editors have not necessarily checked citations.
Announcements
Obituary: Lane Douglas Foil (June 16, 1949 - June 22, 2025)
Siphonaptera Literature (2025): Taxonomy, Conservation, Hosts and Distributions, Physiology and Morphology, Evolution, Ecology, Pathology and Control, Microbial Symbiont
Campus Legends and Mysteries: Building Institutional Identity through Campus Lore
No full textThis essay presents an honors course designed to help students develop a holistic understanding of institutional history and identity while engaging with university culture. Author describes how students conduct research on the history, traditions, and local lore of both their home institution and broader geographic region by using a variety of campus resources and archival collections. Strong and personal bonds with the university are the touchstone for creating projects (n = 17) that contribute to campus lore, thereby extending student narratives to add to, enrich, and preserve an evolving institutional identity. Author suggests that course offerings such as this can improve retention rates and build lasting alumni engagement. Curricular resources, sequencing, activities, and assessments are presented
Building Place-based Experiential Learning into the Honors Curriculum at Ohio University
No full textObserving the demand for interdisciplinary experiential learning opportunities post-COVID, authors present a place-based curriculum in honors. Workshop-style special topics classes provide students with an immersive and flexible learning environment, energize faculty, and engage alumni and community partners. Coursework, fieldwork, internships, and study abroad opportunities all contribute to the development of an informed and engaged citizenry. Authors address challenges in funding, access, and equity, and they suggest ways these challenges might be met
Honors in Practice, Volume 21, 2025: About the Authors
No full textAbout the authors, Honors in Practice, volume 21 (2025)