Leslie Kwakye publishes in Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, with six student researchers

Members of the Kwakye lab recently published an article in this highly-regarded open access journal.  View the abstract and link to similar articles and reviews (such a helpful feature!) in PubMed.

http://home.frontiersin.org/

Kyla D. Gibney, Enimielen Aligbe, Brady A. Eggleston, Sarah R. Nunes, Willa G. Kerkhoff, Cassandra L. Dean and Leslie D. Kwakye.
Visual Distractors Disrupt Audiovisual Integration Regardless of Stimulus Complexity.

Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, vol. 11, article number 1.  Jan. 20, 2017.
DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2017.00001
As of today, the article has been viewed 1,135 times, including 72 downloads.

Partial abstract:

"The intricate relationship between multisensory integration and attention has been extensively researched in the multisensory field; however, the necessity of attention for the binding of multisensory stimuli remains contested. In the current study, we investigated whether diverting attention from well-known multisensory tasks would disrupt integration and whether the complexity of the stimulus and task modulated this interaction. A secondary objective of this study was to investigate individual differences in the interaction of attention and multisensory integration... The results of this study indicate that attention plays a crucial role in multisensory integration for both highly complex and simple multisensory tasks and that attention may interact differently with multisensory processing in individuals who do not strongly integrate multisensory information."

Award honors the legacy of Dr. Eugene Garfield

We were pleased to learn of this new award from Clarivate Analytics:

"To honor the legacy of Dr. Eugene Garfield, the visionary founder of the Web of Science and a pioneer of Information Science, Clarivate Analytics created the “Eugene Garfield Information Sciences Pioneer Award.” The award will be given annually to at least one promising information scientist, selected by a board of prominent scientometricians.

"Clarivate Analytics, the home of the Web of Science and Journal Impact Factor, supports innovative research by individuals in the scientometric community through a thought leadership program, which gives researchers access to Web of Science data, as well as to scholarships such as the American Society of Information Science & Technology’s Outstanding Teacher Award and Dissertation Proposal Award. Both awards were created in the early 1980s by Dr. Garfield. This new award will enable additional researchers to advance the field and build on Dr. Garfield’s legacy.

"At least one prize will be given annually for the most innovative research in scientometrics, which can be applied to the field globally. It will be awarded to an early-career researcher (i.e., no more than PhD + 10 years) and based on the application criteria and on the researcher’s needs. In addition to the award, Clarivate Analytics will provide the successful applicant with in-kind support and access to Web of Science data."

Communicating Science: more than just the facts, please

The library is celebrating great science writers with a display of engaging, delightful to read, fact-based books that draw in the reader with compelling stories.  

It will become a rotating display (figuratively and literally, once the new display rack arrives) of new books on science topics, written for a general audience.

The Internet abounds with wonderful science writing as well, of course.  Sean Carroll speaks to this very persuasively in his 2014 blog post, "Twenty-First Century Science Writers."

In 2015, Columbia Journalism Review highlighted "Six great pieces of science writing you may have missed this year."

The description of our book display (Oberlin College Libraries tumblr, March 15) includes a long list of recommended articles - to that list, we add two by Dyani Sabin '14 (former Science Library Student Assistant):

Hawaii Could Become an All-Renewable All-Electric Car Paradise by 2045
Dyani Sabin Clean Energy February 21, 2017

The Blue Collar Job of the Future Is Solar Panel Installer
Dyani Sabin Solar Energy February 22, 2017.

It's remarkable how much one can learn (even those who are reluctant to approach science in any manner) when a good writer weaves the facts with an interesting story that brings home a strong message.

Senior Ryanna Fossum co-authors a paper in Lithos

Oberlin College geology major Ryanna Fossum worked with researchers from the American Museum of Natural History and Rutgers State University Wright Rieman Labs on this project:

Zirakparvar, N. Alex; Setera, Jacob; Mathez, Edmond; Vantongeren, Jill; Fossum, Ryanna.  2017. The pre-Atlantic Hf isotope evolution of the east Laurentian continental margin: Insights from zircon in basement rocks and glacial tillites from northern New Jersey and southeastern New York. Lithos 272, : 69-83. 

From the Abstract:
This paper presents laser ablation U–Pb age and Hf isotope data for zircons from basement rocks and glacial deposits in northern New Jersey and southeastern New York. The purpose is to understand the eastern Laurentian continental margin's Hf isotope record in relation to its geologic evolution prior to the opening of the Atlantic Ocean.  
 
Access this at sciencdirect.com or the OhioLINK EJC.

Brad Carter publishes in the journal Zebrafish

New publication from Brad Carter, Visiting Assistant Professor in Neuroscience, from research completed at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Validation of Protein Knockout in Mutant Zebrafish Lines Using In Vitro Translation Assays.
Bradley S. Carter, Christian Cortés-Campos, Xiao Chen, Jasmine M. McCammon, and Hazel L. Sive.
Zebrafish. February 2017, 14(1): 73-76. doi:10.1089/zeb.2016.1326.  (full-text access for subscribers)

Abstract:
Advances in genome-editing technology have made creation of zebrafish mutant lines accessible to the community. Experimental validation of protein knockout is a critical step in verifying null mutants, but this can be a difficult task. Absence of protein can be confirmed by Western blotting; however, this approach requires target-specific antibodies that are generally not available for zebrafish proteins. We address this issue using in vitro translation assays, a fast and standard procedure that can be easily implemented.

Publication by Matthew Elrod and current students, alumnus

New publication from the Elrod lab, as indexed in the Web of Science: 

Authors:  William C. Thomas, Class of 2015; William D. Dresser, junior; Diego A. Cortés, senior; Matthew J. Elrod, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Gas Phase Oxidation of Campholenic Aldehyde and Solution Phase Reactivity of its Epoxide Derivative.
The Journal of Physical Chemistry A 2017 121 (1), 168-180
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpca.6b08642  (access for American Chemical Society subscribers)

From the abstract: "On the basis of the rate constants determined for CA and CAE, it is likely that these species are reactive on atmospherically relevant time scales in the gas and aerosol phases, respectively. The results of the present study largely support a previous supposition that a-pinene-derived secondary organic aerosol may be influenced by the multiphase processing of various intermediate species, including those with epoxide functionality."