01-27-2006

The Student Conservation Associatoin (SCA) and Unilever Corporation have partnered to offer a unique congressional internship opportunity that will give students the chance to change the world. Working in either a Democratic or Republican office they’ll experience first-hand how government policy shapes our National Park System. After spending 15 weeks on Capitol Hill, Interns will then be placed in the field at a National Park to help implement those policies.

Minimum Requirements:

Detailed resume
Directed writing sample (see the link below for prompts) and transcripts
Strong communication skills, verbal and written
Current undergrad or recent graduate with a GPA of 3.0 or greater
Interest in policy and environmental issues
A willingness to work with either a Republican or Democratic Congressional office

11-10-2005

The Chicago Botanic Garden offers paid 5-month internships for recent graduates interested in conservation and land management. Interns work with the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management to carry out research and restoration work on federal lands, mostly in the West. The internship starts with a one-week training session in Chicago, then interns travel to their work locations for the remainder of the project. Travel and lodging expenses are covered, and interns receive a stipend of $750 every 2 weeks.

Intern duties may include:

Plant and animal monitoring and mapping
Endangered species reintroduction
Invasive species management
Geographic data acquisition and analysis
Biological assessments, sensitive species lists, and conservation plans
Fire ecology
Land use planning
Archaeology-related activities
Recreation area management
Rangeland assessments
Seed collection and storage.

09-27-2005

The Biology Department of GONZAGA UNIVERSITY invites applications for a tenure track Assistant Professor position, beginning Fall 2006. We seek to hire an animal physiologist, who will complement the existing faculty. Teaching assignments will include Diversity of Life (BIOL101), as well as upper division courses in area of specialization and eventually courses for non-science majors.

To receive full consideration, applications and letters (3) of recommendation should be received by 1 November 2005. Applications should consist of: Cover letter, Curriculum vita, Statement of research interests and plans for undergraduate participation, and Statement of teaching philosophy and interests. Applications and letters should be sent to: Biology Search Committee, AD Box 6, Gonzaga University, 502 E. Boone Avenue, Spokane, WA 99258. For further information about applying for this position see our website at: http://gonzology.gonzaga.edu/faculty-staff/jobs/ Gonzaga University is a Jesuit, Catholic, humanistic university looking for candidates who can contribute to its educational needs and missions. Gonzaga is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer seeking to increase its diversity.

09-20-2005

The approximately 18th, usually Annual, Biology and Chemistry (ABC) Picnic will be held at the south end of Manito Park (at the corner of 25th and Tekoa), starting at 3:30 pm Sunday, September 25.

Driving directions (see map below) and signups for sharing rides will be posted in the Hughes Hall office. Games, snacking, and socializing will start about 3:30, with the real food served around 5. For faculty, sign-up sheets for food and drinks will be in the office as well. Students do not need to worry about bringing food or drinks, but are encouraged to bring Frisbees, balls, or other park-appropriate playthings. Semi-organized softball, football, volleyball or soccer games may occur.

09-19-2005

Seniors Julie Garon and Ann Foreyt, and junior Roland Haj recently (Sept 16-17) went with Dr. Staub to Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR) to present posters of their summer's research results to the labs of Drs. Lynne Houck and Steve Arnold. They also went on a salamander collecting expedition while there and had great success. This trip was sponsored in part by a collaborative NSF grant.

09-09-2005

The hairworm Spinochordodes tellinii lives and breeds in water, but it must spend part of its life cycle eating the insides of grasshoppers and crickets. When it is fully grown, it has to return to the water and it does so by altering the grasshopper host’s behavior, causing the grasshopper to leap into a body of water.

Biologists from the French National Center for Scientific Research in Montpellier, France, led by Frédéric Thomas and David Biron, have now identified certain proteins that the worm injects into the grasshoppers brain prior to its water-seeking behavior change.

The New York Times 9/6/05 wrote:

They did their fieldwork around a swimming pool on the border of a forest near Avène les Bains in southern France. Hordes of infected grasshoppers - more than 100 a night - arrive at the pool during summer nights at the behest of the parasites. The biologists captured grasshoppers before their suicidal plunge and removed the worms. ... "We found the parasite produces and injects proteins into the brain of its host," Dr. Thomas said. Two of the proteins belonged to a well-known family of signaling agents known as the Wnt family that are deployed in developing the cells of the nervous system.

A video of the grasshoppers and hairworms can be viewed at

http://www.canal.ird.fr/canal.php?url=/programmes/recherches/grillons_us/index.htm


New York Times article

09-02-2005

In 1871, Charles Darwin proposed that the great apes, including the chimpanzee, are human's closest relatives. Now the newly sequenced chimpanzee genome allows us to see precisely the genetic differences acquired by the two species in the last 6 million years. “Reading these two genomes side by side, it's amazing to see the evolutionary changes that are occurring. I can’t imagine Darwin hoping for stronger confirmation of his ideas than what we see when we compare the human and the chimp genome,” said Bob Waterston, whose University of Washington team worked on the chimpanzeee genome project.

MOre text.

The Boston Globe wrote:

What sets us apart from apes? At latest count, about four percent of our DNA. Scientists announced Wednesday that they had completed analysis of the genome of a chimpanzee, humanity’s closest genetic relative, and found that the gap between humans and chimps is about 10 times smaller than the one between rats and mice. “The philosophical goal is that we all want to know what makes us human,” said researcher Tarjei S. Mikkelsen of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, which helped sequence the chimp genome. “The pragmatic goal is that it will help us understand diseases and conditions that are unique to humans.”

Read the Globe article (in the MIT Tech) and see the full details in Nature.

MIT Tech
Nature

04-25-2005

The Gonzaga University Chemistry Department is once again hosting the annual cheesecake baking contest. Anyone is invited to provide an entry to the contest and all are invited to the tasting.

The contest started many years ago with a challenge between Dr. McMinn and a student on who could make the better cheesecake. The challenge was on and the Department had itís first official contest. Since that time a large variety of cheesecakes have been entered, running from the esoteric (tofu based noncheese cheesecake) to the professional (a pastry chef at a Coeur d'Alene restaurant. This years contest will be held on April 29 at about 3:15 in the 3rd floor foyer of Hughes Hall. Entry forms are available from Judy Zweifel at the foyer office or from Dr. Nakamaye. Prizes are anticipated.

04-25-2005

The Biology Department honored two graduating seniors with awards at the annual Academic Honors Convocation. This year's winners were Katherine Jochim and Ryan MacDonald.

The Biology Department has two awards to honor individuals demonstrating academic excellence in biology and a commitment to their field as indicated by exceptional research or service experience. The first award is named in honor of Robert and Claire McDonald, and the second award is named in honor of Robert D. Prusch.

This year's McDonald award recognizes a student who is well known for her ability to master and integrate mountains of material. As one faculty member noted "Her answers on the exam were better than mine would have been." The 2005 Robert and Claire McDonald award for distinction in biology is awarded to Katherine D. Jochim.

This year, the Prusch award is awarded to a student who in addition to having a strong academic record has served our community in meaningful ways, from arranging for a group of students to regularly entertain hospitalized children to making significant research contributions. His work on unusual skin glands in salamanders has been accepted for publication. The 2005 Robert D. Prusch award for distinction in biology is awarded to Ryan J. MacDonald.

Each award is accompanied by a plaque and a check for $200.

02-04-2005

First Annual DARWIN BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!! In celebration of Charles Darwin's 196th Birthday, the Biology Department will host a party in the main lobby of Hughes Hall on Friday, at 3:00 pm February 11th.

Charles Darwin was born February 12, 1809, the same day and year as Abraham Lincoln. In celebration of this anniversary, the Biology Department will have a party on Friday, February 11 at 3:00pm.

Cake Competition: Bring a cake based on a theme of one of Darwin's publications. For a complete list of Darwin's publications, see the link below.

Prizes: First Annual Blue-Footed Booby Prize for the best cake.

Postscript Feb 13: A good time was had by all. Here is a sampling of the cake submissions.








Darwin's Publications

06-01-2004

The Biology Department announces the appointment of Dr. Nancy Staub to be Chairperson of the department effective 6-1-04.

Dr. Staub is an evolutionary biologist who received her undergraduate education at Earlham College and her PhD. from the University of California at Berkeley under Dr. David Wake. She joined the faculty at Gonzaga in 1992 and was promoted to Professor in 2002. Please join us in congratulating her as she begins this new position.

Other faculty promotions include Dr. Joseph Haydock to a tenure track Assistant Professor, Dr. David Boose to Associate Professor effective 9-1-04 (with tenure commencing 9-1-05) and Dr. Hugh Lefcort to Professor effective 9-1-04.

Dr. Nancy Staub
Faculty and Staff

03-26-2004

The Gonzaga University Chemistry Department is once again hosting the annual cheesecake baking contest. Anyone is invited to provide an entry to the contest and all are invited to the tasting.

The contest started many years ago with a challenge between Dr. McMinn and a student on who could make the better cheesecake. The challenge was on and the Department had itís first official contest. Since that time a large variety of cheesecakes have been entered, running from the esoteric (tofu based noncheese cheesecake) to the professional (a pastry chef at a Coeur díAlene restaurant. This years contest will be held on April 30 at about 3:15. Entry forms are available from Judy Zweifel at the foyer office or from Dr. Nakamaye. Prizes are anticipated.

03-18-2004

The Science Departments of Gonzaga University present the Nineteenth Annual Timothy J. O'Leary S.J., Lecture by Dr. Raymond B. Huey, Department of Zoology University of Washington, titled "Success and Death of Himalayan Mountaineers: an Evolutionary Perspective."

The presentation will be streamed live from the Cataldo Globe Room at Gonzaga University. For those people watching another Gonzaga event, the stream will remain available after the game. The lecture starts at 7:30 pm, Thursday March 18, 2004.

O'Leary Lecture 2004
Huey Lab
BioStream

01-11-2004

The Gonzaga University Biology Department would like to welcome returning and new students at the beginning of the Spring 2004 semester. Some changes have occured to your favorite Gonzaga Biology website.

BioServe has now been updated to allow connections over WebDav. This move was made to improve consitency across computer platforms. Unfortunately, BioServe members can no longer connect to BioServe through Apple Filesharing Protocol (afp) or Samba (smb). The BioServe Guide has been changed to reflect the new procedure required to log on to the server.

If you experience any problems please contact the BioServe administrator or Dr. Peter Pauw of the Biology Department. Thank you for your patience during this transition.

BioServe
BioServe Guide
BioServe ReadMe

10-16-2003

Two recent studies by the University of California San Francisco and Stanford University have discovered evidence that stem cells from adult bone marrow do not have the same restorative qualities as embryonic stem cells.

These recent studies could bring new controversy to the already hot topic of stem cell research. These studies are in opposition to the idea that adult stem cells could be just as useful as embryonic stem cells. If the adult stem cells are not as useful as anticipated, the ban on usage of embryonic stem cells could become troublesome.

San Francisco Gate wrote:

In both studies, the experimenters have been working with bone marrow from adult mice rather than embryos in order to learn whether -- as some scientists have claimed -- the adult marrow cells could differentiate into a wide variety of new cells that might be harvested to replace the damaged or destroyed cells that mark many diseases. Instead of differentiating, however, the researchers found that the adult marrow cells fused with existing cells of the heart, liver and brain. Each fused cell contained two curiously distinct nuclei -- one from the original bone marrow cell and one from the cell with which the marrow cell had fused.

The Stanford scientist have hope that marrow stem cells could potentially still help form new therapies for brain disorders.

San Francisco Gate
University of California San Francisco
Stanford University

10-16-2003

Octopus eyes are helping the field of robotics create eyes for future generations of robots. The new silicon chip, called the o-retina, seeks to mimic the structure and function of the eye.

This new chip is anticipated to be useful for exploring underwater environments. With this new chip, the robot won't need to have constant human attention. The chip extracts relevant information so the robot has an easier time processing its environment.

Christian Science Monitor wrote:

"We'd like to be able to explore new things in a more intelligent way, to have a vision system that perceives its environment and makes decisions without a human always telling it what to do," says Titus. One big challenge is figuring out how the brain uses information to understand and reconstitute an image, and then translating that process onto a chip. The octopus retina provides a simple, yet elegant visual system which, Titus says, is relatively easy to simulate in silicon.

Currently the o-retina is limited to seeing things horizontally and vertically, it cannot see an X or a person. However, this is not a draw back for the chip since these functions may not be necessary during remote-site exploration. Future additions to the chip will include the ability to see polarized light.

Christian Science Monitor
University of Buffalo

10-07-2003

There will be a lunch and informational meeting with UW School of Medicine (UWSOM) Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for people that will be applying to UWSOM this year or next year.

On Tuesday, Oct 14, Daniel Hunt, University of Washington School of Medicine Associate Dean of Academic Affairs will be in Spokane.†He would like to talk with students about the University†of Washington School of Medicine.†They will be serving lunch for†students at 12:30 and from 1-2 he will give a brief presentation to be followed by a question and answer session.

An RSVP is needed to send to UWSOM to tell them how many students to expect for lunch. So please contact Dr. Ettinger ASAP to let him know if you are interested.†Dr. Ettinger will then send you an e-mail with the location.

Space is limited, so only contact Dr. Ettinger if you plan on apply to UWSOM this year or next year.

Contact Dr. Ettinger
UW School of Medicine

08-29-2003

The Gonzaga University Biology Department welcomes new and returning students to the new Hughes Hall. The addition of the north wing is complete and the remodeling of the south wing is underway.

Look here for more updates on the construction and other information about the Biology Department. In addition, all students are welcome to join discussions in the Gonzology Forums.

Gonzology Forums (Free Registration Required)
Biology Course Catalogue
Gonzaga University Website

04-11-2003

If you missed the O'Leary Lecutre 2003, you can now see the lecture online. QuickTime 6 and a broadband connection are required.

BioStream wrote:

The Eighteenth Annual Timothy J. O'Leary S.J., Lecture, presented by Eugenie C. Scott, titled "The Old and the New Creationism: Antievolutionism Evolves" from the Jepson Center Auditorium at Gonzaga University.

The current stream is a rebroadcast of the live stream from the night of the event. An edited stream will be posted soon.

O'Leary Lecture 2003
National Center for Science Education

04-01-2003

Biologists need help from Californians to watch for tagged butterflies. These tags will help the biologists track the monarch butterflies' paths during the summer.

SFGate.com wrote:

Biologists tagged more than 20,000 monarchs between November and February, when they clustered in wintering grounds in coastal Marin, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz counties. The white, round tags are attached to the hindwing of the butterflies. Each is imprinted with an identification number and a toll-free telephone number -- (877) 897-7740 -- that anyone spotting the tagged insect is asked to call with details of the sighting.

The butterflies were tagged during the winter when they cluster together in known locations. It is also asked that the tagged butterflies be released once the proper tag information is copied.

SFGate.com
Monarch Alert

03-03-2003

Following the "new usage" theme of the day, a recent study by the Madigan Army Medical Center shows that duct tape is effective at removing warts. However, it is still unclear if duct tape can stop biological attacks.

The Washington Post wrote:

Doctors at the Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash., tested duct tape in a study of 51 patients ages 3 to 22 whose warts were to be removed by freezing them with liquid nitrogen. Instead, half the patients had their warts covered with duct tape continuously for six days, then uncovered, soaked in water, left uncovered for 12 hours and then covered again. This was repeated until the wart disappeared.

The duct tape appears to be more effective than liquid nitrogen in these initial tests. It is thought the tape irritates the skin and activates the immune system, thus destroying the warts.

Washington Post
Madigan Army Medical Center

03-03-2003

The deadly toxin, botox, is now being looked at to treat new afflictions. Recently botox was approved by the FDA as a safe method to smooth wrinkles.

The New York Times wrote:

In studies around the world, botulinum toxin is being tested -- often with encouraging results -- as a treatment for stroke paralysis, migraine headaches, facial tics, stuttering, lower back pain, incontinence, writer's cramp, carpal tunnel syndrome and tennis elbow. Scientists are testing its ability to treat morbid obesity by weakening the muscle that lets food out of the stomach, to prevent ulcers by weakening the muscles that force gastric acids into the esophagus and to calm spasms in vaginal muscles that make sex painful. Botox is rescuing newborns with clubfoot from surgery and giving patients with spastic vocal cords back their voices.

Although none of the new usages have been approved by the FDA, many doctors are continuing testing and devising new delivery methods for new treatments and to reduce side effects from misplaced injections.

New York Times (free registration required)
Neurology Magazine

02-28-2003

One patient that received gene therapy to treat a fatal immune deficiency is now suffering from leukemia. Although this treatment is one of the first to show therapeutic results, the side effects of the current gene transfer mechanisms are also becoming apparent.

The Washington Post wrote:

Fischer's approach was to remove some of the boys' faulty white blood cells and mix them in laboratory dishes with viruses that had been genetically engineered to contain the gene the boys lacked. The viruses infected the boys' cells, delivering the new genes to the cells' DNA. Then doctors infused the repaired cells into the young patients, who ranged in age from 1 month to 12 months. The results were spectacular: Nine of the 11 boys were apparently cured. But in September, about three years after treatment, rampant overgrowth of white blood cells was diagnosed in one of the boys. Molecular analyses showed that some of the viruses had dropped their therapeutic payloads in a bad location: atop another gene, called LMO2, which when disrupted can lead to untrammeled cell division and cancer.

It is uncertain if the LMO2 disruption causes leukemia. The FDA has suspended gene therapy trails until the cause is found.

Washington Post
Necker Hospital, Paris (google translation)

02-27-2003

A common assumption of economists is that people will take money under every circumstance. Neuoeconomics hopes to predict and explain why some people will not accept money to punish the stingy if they feel the charity is insincere.

The New York Times wrote:

"Even though we can't see each other and we don't know each other, we understand the other person as a human being," Professor Zak said. Extrapolating from animal results, he hypothesized that the hormone oxytocin, which is associated with social bonding, might play a role. "When you read the studies on lower mammals," he said, "everything suggests that this is a candidate to induce trustworthiness because it's something that you would not consciously be aware of and yet it would influence decision making."

Although Neuroeconomics is a new field, economists feel it show promise.

New York Times (free registration required)
Claremont Graduate University

02-26-2003

A panel of 17 experts are critical of the new environmental plan proposed by the White House. They call the plan commendable for effort but overall lacking in useful specifics.

The New York Times wrote:

The president has said that more research is needed before the administration can even consider mandatory restrictions on heat-trapping greenhouse gases linked to global warming. The expert panel, convened by the National Academy of Sciences at the administration's request, said some of the plan's proposals for new research seemed to rehash questions that had already been largely settled. It also found that the plan listed dozens of disparate research goals without setting priorities -- a particularly important failing, it said, inasmuch as the plan is intended to integrate about $1.7 billion a year in climate research now being conducted by more than a dozen agencies. The plan, the experts concluded, lacks "a guiding vision, executable goals, clear timetables and criteria for measuring progress, an assessment of whether existing programs are capable of meeting these goals, explicit prioritization and a management plan."

The administration defended the proposal, citing that it was meant to be a rough draft. The experts still do not think the plan is good enough since more funding is needed to help the lagging environmental research in the United States.

New York Times (free registration required)
National Academy of Sciences