Today’s weather forecast is predicting partly to mostly cloudy skies with a high of 28 degrees and a low of 19 degrees. For the weekend, it looks like it will be high 30’s with mostly cloudy skies.

MSU shooting survivor has been discharged, Sparrow Hospital confirms

One student who was critically injured after last week’s mass shooting at Michigan State University was discharged from Sparrow Hospital after previously being in ‘serious but stable’ condition yesterday morning, Sparrow Hospital Senior Media Relations Specialist Corey Alexander confirmed.

The name of the student who was discharged yesterday morning was not identified.

One student remains in fair condition, one student remains in serious but stable condition and one student remains in critical condition.

Two of the students who were injured had families who confirmed their identities via GoFundMe fundraisers, which were set up to negate various costs of travel and care. These two students are hospitality business junior Guadalupe Huapilla-Perez and international student John Hao.

MSU Deputy Spokesperson Dan Olsen confirmed the university would be paying the hospital bills of the five students who were injured.

All five were originally in critical condition on Feb. 13, while three others died in the shooting and they were Brian Fraser, Alexandria Verner and Arielle Anderson.

Student workers at MSU Union given help to find other jobs on campus

Following the shooting that took place in the Union and Berkey Hall last week, the Union has been closed indefinitely. This has displaced many student workers employed at Spartan Spirit Shop, the Sparty’s Cafe and the Union’s food court, commonly called The Roost.

Chief Communications Officer of Student Life and Engagement Kat Cooper said MSU is in the process of relocating workers who previously were employed in the Union. Apart from the MSU Federal Credit Union, all of the businesses housed in the Union are owned and operated by MSU. Cooper said she is not sure how many workers will be displaced because of the Union’s indefinite closure.

Spartan Spirit Shop clerk and social relations and policy junior Abraham Frank said workers were told the Union would be closed at least until March 13 and that spirit shop workers should look for work elsewhere or work at another spirit shop location on campus.

Frank said he was offered a security and greeter role at the Breslin after expressing his interest in looking for other work.

Spartan Spirit Shop clerk and clinical social work masters’ student Alyssa Fisher expressed concerns about there not being enough open jobs on campus to which they could relocate.

Job relocation efforts come in part as a coping mechanism for student workers who may feel uncomfortable returning to the Union for employment.

Cooper said she understands each worker at the Union will have their own timeline for reacting to the shooting and that the Union management would “try and honor that the best we can to help people through this.”

MSU researchers discover how switchgrass can reach full potential as a biofuel candidate

MSU researchers have discovered a way to allow the switchgrass plant to reach its full potential as a biofuel crop, following a discovery of one of its growth limitations. The discovery could ease dependence on fossil fuels as a source of energy.

MSU Department of Energy research associate Mauricio Diego Tejera-Nieves and Department of Plant Biology professor Berkley Walker discovered that photosynthesis in these promising biofuel crops declines halfway through the season. This causes the plant to not grow in size.

Tejera Nieves said this led him and Walker to investigate why the plant’s photosynthesis stops and what they can do to keep it growing so the plant can become larger and provide more energy and biofuels.

Walker and Tejera-Nieves’ first theory was that this stunt in growth was caused by water limitations. To test this, they put rainfall exclusion shelters in the middle of the field so plants could receive sunlight, but no water.

The lack of water played no part in how much the plant grew — after the experiment was conducted there was no striking difference between the plants under the rainfall exclusion and the plants that were outside of it.

Walker and Tejera-Nieves then decided to look inside the plant to see if there were any inner components contributing to the limitation.

A look inside allowed Tejera-Nieves to find that the perennial grasses they had been working with have roots that also serve as storage compartments for the plant.

With this knowledge, Walker said they now have an idea of how to find the plants that keep growing even when the storage compartment is full as well as that this research is something unique to MSU.

Based on original reporting by Wajeeha Kamal, Siya Modi and Hannah Holycross.

To end our last episode of the week, here are a few announcements!

Here is the MSU home athletic line-up for the weekend.

Today

• Women’s Tennis will go up against Xavier at 10AM as well as Chicago State at 2PM both in the MSU Indoor Tennis Center.

Sunday

• Women’s Tennis will play Illinois State at 11AM at the MSU Indoor Tennis Center