Petersen article in Marine Ecological Processes

A recent publication from John Petersen, Associate Professor/Director of the Environmental Studies Program, was selected for inclusion in the treatise Marine Ecological Processes (2010), edited by J.H. Steele [borrow through OhioLINK]. Petersen's article first appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, 2nd ed., which subscribers can access on sciencedirect.com.

Petersen, John E. & W.M. Kemp. 2008. Mesocosms: enclosed experimental ecosystems in ocean science. Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences.  Elsevier, New York, pp 732–747.

New publications from faculty & students

Five recent publications by science faculty, some co-authored with current students or recent alumni, are higlighted here.  Oberlin affiliated authors are noted with bold text:

Craig, Norman C., Clay C. Easterday, Deacon J. Nemchick, Drew F.K. Williamson, Robert L. Sams  2012. Rotational analysis of bands in the high-resolution infrared spectra of cis,cis- and trans,trans-1,4-difluorobutadiene-2-d(1). Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy 272(1):2-10.

De Smet I., P. J. White, A. G. Bengough, L. Dupuy, B. Parizot, I. Casimiro, R. Heidstra, Marta Laskowski, M. Lepetit, F. Hochholdinger, X. Draye, H. Zhang, M. R. Broadley, B. Peret, J. P. Hammond, H. Fukaki, S. Mooney, J. P. Lynch, P. Nacry, U. Schurr, L. Laplaze, P. Benfey, T. Beeckman, and M. Bennett. 2012. Analyzing lateral root development: how to move forward. Plant Cell 24(1):15-20.

Glass B. P., Bruce M. Simonson. 2012. Distal impact ejecta layers: spherules and more. Elements 8(1):43-48.

Moran Sean D., A. M. Woys, L. E. Buchanan, Eli Bixby, Sean M. Decatur, and M. T. Zanni. 2012. Two-dimensional IR spectroscopy and segmental C-13 labeling reveals the domain structure of human gamma D-crystallin amyloid fibrils. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109(9):3329-3334.

Schmidt, Amanda H., A. S. T. Robbins, J. K. Combs, A. Freeburg, R. G. Jesperson, H. S. Rogers, K. S. Sheldon, and E. Wheat. 2012. A new model for training graduate students to conduct interdisciplinary, interorganizational, and international research. Bioscience 62(3):296-304.

Contentious Bird Flu Research Will Be Published

From the NPR health blog on March 30, 2012:
by Nell Greenfieldboyce

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity "has reconsidered its advice to keep certain details of bird flu experiments secret. Revised versions of manuscripts that describe two recent studies can be openly published, the committee now says. The decision could help end a contentious debate that has raged within the scientific community for months."

Nature and Science are the two journals in the process of publishing the reports.  Nature's blog, in a post by Ed Yong, featured this headline last week: "Mutations behind flu spread revealed.  Details of one of two controversial mutant flu papers discussed in London."

Yoshihiro Kawaoka, of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, revealed that an altered form of the H5N1 virus was able to reproduce in a ferret's airways, and that spontaneous mutations of that form of the virus resulted in three new mutations (not represented in any virus database) which allowed the virus to go airborne between infected and healthy ferrets.       

Read more about the research and the controversy surrounding it in Nature‘s mutant flu special and in news analysis dated April 6 from Science, by Jon Cohen and David Malakoff.

Open Access from Nature Climate Change

This comes from The Nature Publishing Group at Nature.com, in an email dated April 4, 2012:

"Nature Climate Change is one! To celebrate, the editors have pulled together a collection of highlights from the journal over the last year – free to view until the end of April 2012."

See the First anniversary highlights 

"Launched in April 2011, Nature Climate Change is a monthly journal dedicated to publishing the most significant and cutting-edge research on the impacts of global climate change and its implications for the economy, policy and the world at large. The journal is interdisciplnary and strives to forge and synthesize ideas across the physical and social sciences." 
While at Nature.com, read the news note "How carbon dioxide melted the world," summarizing research findings published yesterday: Shakun, J. D. et al. Nature 484, 49–54 (2012). NPR adds insight with a story from Christopher Joyce this morning: Shake it off: earth's wobble may have ended ice age.

Neurobiology books on exhibit, coincides with presentation by Jeffrey Burgdorf

From the book display
in the Science Library

First In Family Speaker Series features Jeffrey Burgdorf on Wednesday, April 4. Dr. Burgdorf will present "The Neurobiology of Positive Emotions: from laughing rats to a novel antidepressant in clinical trials for depression."  Stop in the science library to peruse a selection of books from our neurobiology section, on exhibit in conjunction with Burgdorf's talk.

Copies of recent papers by Burgdorf and collaborators are also on display, including "Frequency modulated 50 kHz ultrasonic vocalizations reflect a positive emotional state in the rat : neural substrates and therapeutic implications" by Jeffrey Burgdorf and Joseph R. Moskal in Handbook of behavioral neuroscience, v. 19.

From the OC Events calendar:
First In Family Speaker Series
WHEN: 4:30pm - 6:00pm
WHERE: Science Center, Norman C. Craig ’53 Lecture Hall @ 119 Woodland Street, Oberlin, OH 44074

Dr. Burgdorf earned a doctorate in 2005 at Bowling Green State University, where he validated that rat ultrasonic vocalizations reflect distinct positive and negative emotional states relevant to depression, and further explored the neuronal basis of these vocalizations. 

Poetry in Science

April is National Poetry Month; while the science library is full of instructive, enlightening and absorbing prose, poetry is harder to find in our stacks.  But poems with scientific imagery are not hard to find!  Try this book, as a starting place: Curve away from stillness : science poems / John Allman ; afterword by Peter S. Coleman. New York : New Directions, c1989.
Available in the OhioLINK ebook center or from the Main library.  There are enough poems in this little book to read one a day during the entire month (one per day for each workday, that is).

If you loved every minute of CHEM254 or BIO213 you are sure to appreciate the Biochemists' Songbook (complete with selected scores and detailed biochemical pathways).  It is in the Science library and also online.