Pulsar research published by Dan Stinebring

New publication from Stinebring, et al., using the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) radio telescope, as indexed in Web of Science:

Millisecond pulsar scintillation studies with LOFAR: initial results
Authors:
Archibald, Anne M.; Kondratiev, Vladislav I.; Hessels, Jason W. T.; Stinebring, Daniel R, Francis D Federighi Professor of Physics.

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS, 790 (2) AUG 1 2014  [view at IOPScience]

Getting ready for the new year!

Summer is fleeting away, and some of us are trying to squeeze just a little vacation into what is left of August.

Meanwhile, orientation for new faculty has begun and the class of 2018 will be moving in next week.  It's an exciting time of year.  Many of our colleagues around the state have already welcomed incoming and returning students and are in full academic year mode.  By mid-September, these waning days of summer will be a fading memory.  For now, enjoy the relative peace in the science library, where the new book shelves are still brimming with fascinating tomes and a new printer sits gleaming in the copy room, promising reliable performance (hurray!).

Recent Publications by Calcut, Whelan, Wojtal, et al.

Newly indexed publications by science faculty and students, as reported in the Web of Science:

Borromean rays and hyperplanes.

Calcut, Jack S., Assistant Professor of Mathematics; Metcalf-Burton, Jules R. ’15; Richard, Taylor J. ’14; Solus, Liam T.   Journal of Knot Theory and its Ramifications  23 (4) Article 1450020,  April  2014.  Access at World Scientific

---
MUC16 (CA125): tumor biomarker to cancer therapy, a work in progress.

Felder, Mildred; Kapur, Arvinder; Gonzalez-Bosquet, Jesus; Horibata, Sachi; Heintz, Joseph; Albrecht, Ralph; Fass, Lucas; Kaur, Justanjyot; Hu, Kevin '11; Shojaei, Hadi; Whelan, Rebecca J., Associate Professor of Chemistry; Patankar, Manish S.   Molecular Cancer 13, Article UNSP 129,  MAY 29 2014.  Access at BioMedCentral.  A "highly accessed" open access article.

---
Microstructures and rheology of a calcite-shale thrust fault.

Wells, Rachel K.; Newman, Julie; Wojtal, Steven, Professor of Geology.  Journal of Structural Geology  65: 69-81, Aug. 2014.  Access at OhioLINK EJC

New Book Shelves are Overflowing!

We have received over 200 new books in the past month - it's a bit overwhelming!  So much wonderful reading for us all.  Come and check out something so we will have room for the next shipment of new books.  Just three are noted here:

Mental biology : the new science of how the brain and mind relate / W.R. Klemm

The oldest living things in the world / Rachel Sussman

Dinosaurs without bones -- dinosaur lives revealed by their trace fossils / Anthony J. Martin

Angiosperms to Dipeptides: publications by Altheimer, Manish, Moore, et al.

Two recent publications by faculty and alumni, as indexed in Web of Science:

Altheimer, Benjamin D. (OC '12), & Mehta, Manish A., Professor of Chemistry (2014). Effects of structural differences on the NMR chemical shifts in isostructural dipeptides. Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 118(14), 2618-2628. [access at ACS, for subscribers]

http://systbiol.org

Drew, B. T., Ruhfel, B. R., Smith, S. A., Moore, Michael J., Associate Professor of Biology; Briggs, B. G., Gitzendanner, M. A., Soltis, P.S., Soltis, D. E. (2014). Another look at the root of the angiosperms reveals a familiar tale. Systematic Biology, 63(3), 368-382. [access at Oxford Journals, for subscribers]  Published by Oxford on behalf of the Society of Systematic Biologists.

Eco Tour app available for download - share it!

Bridget Flynn, OC's Sustainability Coordinator, made the following announcement today:
---
Oberlin College's Eco Tour app [for iPhone, iPad or iPod] is now live and available for download on the Apple App Store. This app highlights various sustainability-related places of interest on campus.

The campus sustainability map can also be viewed in a Google map online and will be up on the OES website by the end of this week.

OES student intern Parker Oka-Wong developed the app, with guidance and support from CIT, Communications Office, and others over the past year.
---

Congratulations to the OES team.  Even if you know Oberlin very well, you'll learn something new and interesting and enjoy the images on the app - give it a try!

Keystone & Beyond -- download the ebook, understand the issues.

This information is taken directly from a message from Inside Climate News.  This is important reading/viewing for understanding the complexities surrounding the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline and development of Alberta tar sands.  Free download of this ebook (can be viewed on your computer) is available for just one week.  

"Keystone & Beyond: Tar Sands and the National Interest in the Era of Climate Change traces the Keystone’s origins to energy policy decisions made by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the first months of their administration, and to expectations about energy development that have turned out to be wrong.

"The Keystone has since divided the nation on the fundamental questions of how we should respond to climate change and what our energy future should look like.

"Standing at this crossroads is President Obama who must decide whether or not to approve a project started under his predecessor’s administration. What are the implications for our country and our climate? John H. Cushman, Jr., former reporter for The New York Times, answers this and other questions by constructing a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Keystone saga."

New Publications: Faculty and Students in Chemistry and Geology

Oberlin affiliated authors are indicated in bold:

Journal home page @ ACS

Easterday, Clay C. (OC’11), Dedon, Liv R. (OC’12), Zeller, M., & Oertel, Catherine M., Associate Professor, Chemistry. (2014). Helical (1)(infinity)[Pb2O] chains in polymorphs of Pb2O(C6H5COO)(2). Crystal Growth & Design, 14(4), 2048-2055. [full text at American Chemical Society, subscribers only]

Qiao, X., Schmidt, Amanda H., Assistant Professor, Geology; Tang, Y., Xu, Y., & Zhang, C. (2014). Demonstrating urban pollution using toxic metals of road dust and roadside soil in Chengdu, Southwestern China. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 28(4), 911-919. [full text at Springer, subscribers only]

Exams, Day 1. The place is busy, with an intense quiet.

Day 1 of Exams and the concentration is apparent.  Laptops, headphones, all checked out.  Calculators will be next…

Printers and the stapler are getting a near constant workout.

Best wishes for a successful end to the semester for everyone!

Going to Hell in a hand basket

"We are all going to Hell in a hand basket" was something my grandmother said, and who can blame her?  She lived through two World Wars, the Cold War and two regional wars, plus enormous social change throughout the world. The proverbial hand basket is carried by more than one entity, to be sure, and some are gathering us up in bushel loads and with front-loaders… forget the hand basket.

If you have any doubt, read the latest IPCC report (note - authored by qualified scientists, not political/economic pundits), and consider its implications beyond your immediate vision.  The latest issue of EcoAméricas will also open your eyes and thinking.

Recent Faculty and Alumni Publications in Science

As found in Web of Science, April 18, 2014.  Oberlin affiliated authors are shown in bold lettering:

Katzner, T. E., Daniel S. Jackson (OC '06), J. Ivy, E. A. Bragin, and A. DeWoody. 2014. Variation in offspring sex ratio of a long-lived sexually dimorphic raptor, the Eastern Imperial Eagle Aquila heliaca. Ibis 156:395-403.

Money, E. S., L. E. Barton, Joseph Dawson (OC '12), K. H. Reckhow, and M. R. Wiesner. 2014. Validation and sensitivity of the FINE Bayesian network for forecasting aquatic exposure to nano-silver. Science of the Total Environment 473:685-691.

Owen, J. C., E. A. Cornelius, D. A. Arsnoe, and Mary C. Garvin (Biology). 2013. Leukocyte response to eastern equine Encephalomyelitis virus in a wild passerine bird. Avian Diseases 57:744-749.

Plosone.org: article full-text

Owen, J. C., Mary C. Garvin (Biology), and F. R. Moore. 2014. Elevated testosterone advances onset of migratory restlessness in a nearctic-neotropical landbird. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 68:561-569.

van Vugt, M. K., Patrick Simen (Neuroscience), L. Nystrom, P. Holmes, and J. D. Cohen. 2014. Lateralized readiness potentials reveal properties of a neural mechanism for implementing a decision threshold. PLOS One 9:e90943.

Endocrine Disruptor Week - learn how to avoid the dirty dozen

https://www.facebook.com/ewg.org

Environmental Working Group has declared this to be Endocrine Disruptor Week, in an effort to educate more people about the dangers of toxic chemicals in the environment.  Just posting the announcement has created an interesting spate of comments on the pros and cons of eating soy, fermented or otherwise.  Should be an interesting week on Facebook. 

Background information can be found in any one of these books, all accessible online through OBIS:

• Multi-system endocrine disruption
• Endocrine disruptors and puberty
• Endocrine-disrupting chemicals 
• Endocrine disrupters: hazard testing...
• Toxic bodies: hormone disruptors and the legacy of DES (also available in print in the science library)

Perlik Commons terrazzo gets a make-over. Wow!

Friday morning:
applying the finish, from a reservoir backpack.

At the end of the day, Thursday

Spring break has been quiet in terms of student traffic in and out of the library, but not at all quiet in terms of work being done right outside our door.  The project began Monday, moving all of the furniture from the Perlik Commons.  Intense cleaning and stripping of old wax took at least a dozen people working together, Monday-Thursday, finally resorting to hours of scraping, even on hands and knees with a razor blade, to get the terrazzo stone completely clean.  It's been quite the process to witness.  Today, layers of a protective finish are being applied.  Beautiful result!  Everyone involved should take pride in a job well done - those of us who walk through the Commons on a daily basis will thoroughly enjoy the new look.  Thank you.

We are slow learners when it comes to oil transport

This is very dispiriting news, on the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez spill: Collision and oil spill closes Houston ship channel.

NPR's Morning Edition is presenting in-depth stories on the Exxon Valdez disaster every day this week, so we can better understand the immediate impacts on the natural environment and human communities of Prince William Sound, as well as the enduring legacy of oil in sediment and long-lived species (like us!).  Good listening, thoughtful interviews, rigorous research into all facets of this tragedy.  Remembering the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill series.

Relevant books (print and electronic), government documents, conference proceedings, and Web-based resources abound, for further reading.  Try this keyword search in OBIS: "exxon valdez" or search the subject heading oil spills--cleanup.

"Ripples in the Fabric of Space Time"

Gravitational waves have been detected from the very "first sliver of cosmic time," and are being hailed as the "signature of a universe being wrenched violently apart when it was roughly a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old." This is the "long sought proof" of the Theory of Inflation, or the Big Bang, and Dennis Overbye of the New York Times does a fine job of explaining it all (March 17, 2014).  Take a look!

We have dozens of books on the big bang, great reading for a bit of background knowledge.  You might like to start with The Big Bang: theory, assumptions and problems / Jason R. O'Connell and Alice L. Hale, editors.  Nova Science Publishers, 2012.

Plastic Bottle Sheds Light Equal to 55 Watt Bulb

Watch this video, from EcoWatch.  Very cool.  Installing water-filled plastic bottles in the metal roofs of some of the poorest homes in the world provides interior lighting where there was none, and creates new possibilities for living and productivity. "This video, shot in the Philippines around the time of the initiative’s launch, shows how the bottles are made and the vast improvement it’s given residents, including some who said they simply slept or always spent their time outside because they couldn’t see inside their own homes."  What a great use of discarded plastic!

Related e-book to check out:  Plastics and sustainability: towards a peaceful coexistence between bio-based and fossil fuel-based plastics / Michael Tolinski.  Wiley, 2012.

The Climate Risks of Natural Gas

From the Union of Concerned Scientists, a new Infographic on the climate risks of natural gas - full of information you can use, now, to help slow the release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and educate others about the risks of over-reliance on natural gas.

Here's my quick takeaway:
"Can renewables realistically provide more than 80% of U.S. electricity?
Absolutely. A comprehensive study by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has demonstrated that currently available renewable technologies could affordably and reliably provide 80 percent of U.S. electricity needs by 2050."

So why aren't we moving faster?  This book addresses that question.  Find it on the new book shelf:
The burning question : we can't burn half the world's oil, coal and gas. So how do we quit?

Having doubts about global warming? Don't. Keep up with climate literacy.

We're getting tired of snow and ice and want the polar vortex to swirl around the north pole where it belongs, thank you very much.  Plenty of individuals with limited "climate literacy" point to the enduring heaps of snow and extended periods of below freezing temperatures and doubt the evidence of a warming planet caused by human activity.  The disruption of typical climate cycles and weather patterns (flood and high-wind warnings today!) increases the urgency that more people understand the complexity and interrelatedness of climatic features.

The library has over 2450 items in the collection with subject headings of Climatic changes or Climate change mitigation.  Where to begin?  Perhaps a quick review for non-specialists, online for free from an independent, scientifically reliable source, is a good starting point.  Two suggestions:

Climate Change: Evidence, Impacts, and Choices.  National Research Council
Climate Literacy: the Essential Principles of Climate science.  U.S. Global Research Program

National Research Council

These reports were distributed at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and are at the science library reference desk, in print.  Prefer to get your information through a video?  See Climate Change at the National Academies - videos & multimedia.

For up to the minute news stories from around the world, see EcoWatch Climate Change News.  And don't forget the thousands of books and other items found through OBIS.  Far better to rely on those sources of information than so-called climate change "debates" on Fox News or other media outlets with dubious credentials for accurate coverage of scientific topics.

Can you explain color to an 11-year old?

Alan Alda challenged thousands of attendees at the AAAS Annual Meeting to Take the Flame Challenge!  I feel sure someone on campus can do so, in such an engaging and enlightening manner that any 11-year old would be enthralled.

www.flamechallenge.org

This science communication competition, hosted by the Alan Alda Center for Community Science, relies upon nearly 20,000 real kids as judges (and they are not at all shy about pointing out exactly how and why the explanation did not measure up).

Feeling up to the challenge?  Deadline is March 1, 2014.

Recent Faculty Publications (Dec-Jan)

The following publications by science faculty were published December 2013-January 2014.  Online access to each of the articles requires a current subscription.

Calcut Jack S (Mathematics Dept), Gompf RE (2013) Orbit spaces of gradient vector fields. Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems 33:1732-1747. [access at OhioLINK EJC]

Demaison J, Csaszar AG, Groner P, Rudolph HD, Craig Norman C (Chemistry Dept) (2013) Semiexperimental equilibrium structures for cis,cis- and trans,trans-1,4-difluorobutadiene by the mixed estimation method and definitive relative energies of the isomers. Journal of Physical Chemistry A 117:13166-13175. [access at ACS pubs]

Gillis KM et al (2014) Primitive layered gabbros from fast-spreading lower oceanic crust. Nature 505:204-+. Co-authored with Andrew Horst (Physics Dept) [access at Nature.com]

Mroue AH, Scheel MA, Szilagyi B, Pfeiffer HP, Boyle M, Hemberger DA, Kidder LE, Lovelace G, Ossokine S, Taylor NW, Zenginoglu A, Buchman LT, Chu T, Foley E, Giesler M, Owen Rob (Physics Dept), Teukolsky SA (2013) Catalog of 174 binary black hole simulations for gravitational wave astronomy. Phys Rev Lett 111:241104. [access at APS]

Page F. Zeb (Geology Dept), Essene EJ, Mukasa SB, Valley JW (2014) A garnet-zircon oxygen isotope record of subduction and exhumation fluids from the franciscan complex, california. J Petrol 55:103-131. [access at Oxford journals]

Scofield John H (Environmental Studies Program) (2013) Efficacy of LEED-certification in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission for large new york city office buildings. Energy Build 67:517-524. [access at science direct.com]

Walsh James (Mathematics Dept), Widiasih E (2014) A dynamics approach to a low-order climate model. Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems-Series B 19:257-279. [access at AIMS]