College of Sciences E-newsletter

October 2006

In this issue:

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NSF Award for Andrew Hanson, Associate Professor of Geology

Andrew Hanson, associate professor of geology, has received a 2006 National Science Foundation (NSF) Award in the amount of $164,077 for a project entitled, "Orogen Hinterland Evolution: Testing Hypotheses using the Cretaceous to Eocene Stratigraphic Record in Eastern Nevada, USA."

Abstract: The deposition of the Sheep Pass Formation and correlative units of east-central Nevada records a critical geologic history of the Sevier hinterland during Late Cretaceous to Late Eocene time. This study provides a critical test to a variety of models pertaining to the kinematic role of the Sevier hinterland through time, how hinterland processes relate to the foreland, and how orogenic plateaus may evolve from the culmination of shortening to extensional collapse. In particular, questions pertaining to the timing and depositional setting of megabreccia deposits at the base of the Sheep Pass Formation relate directly to whether the Sevier hinterland experienced extension related to mid-crustal flow, or out-of-sequence shortening indicating that the upper crust was effectively decoupled from the mid-crust during the latest Cretaceous to Paleocene. Additionally, this study tests whether megabreccia deposition and the development of major angular unconformities overlying the Sheep Pass Formation indicate a major shift from shortening to extension within the Sevier hinterland during the Middle to Late Eocene. As part of this project, we are conducting 1:12,000 scale geologic mapping, detailed stratigraphic measurements, and structural analyses to determine the tectonic setting of megabreccia deposits and syndepositional faults within the Sheep Pass Formation type section. Our new 40Ar/39Ar dating provides the first absolute age control for the Sheep Pass Formation, brackets major angular unconformities and megabreccia at the top of the Sheep Pass Formation, and allows for regional correlations of tectonic events. Newly obtained fossil data also provides new opportunities for relative dating. We are currently compiling stratigraphic measurements, fossil data, geochronology, provenance and paleodispersal data from additional localities within the Sheep Pass Formation throughout east-central Nevada to reconstruct the Late Cretaceous to Eocene geologic history and paleogeography of the region. Additionally, our ICP-MS U-Pb detrital zircon dating in collaboration with the University of Arizona provides opportunities to reconstruct the regional unroofing history, to identify the timing of initiation of Cenozoic volcanism, and the links between volcanism and tectonics within the Sevier hinterland. Similarly, our collaboration with Stanford University in measuring the d18O ratios of lacustrine carbonates within the Sheep Pass Formation will help determine how isotopic shifts relate to tectonic events. Although our focus is on what happened in one part of the Sevier orogenic system, our results have implications for ancient orogens in other regions, as well as modern orogenic systems. Our improved understanding of the tectonic and paleoelevation history of the hinterland plateau allows us to make a more comprehensive comparison to the well-determined evolution of the external fold-thrust belt. Research findings related to this project are being shared with the research community through presentations at national and regional conferences and through the eventual publication of maps and peer reviewed scientific journal articles. Results will both benefit and be of interest to workers within the fields of tectonics, structural geology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, geochronology, igneous petrology, paleontology and isotopic geochemistry. This project facilitates the professional development of Peter Druschke, a Ph.D. student, and two undergraduate students. Druschke in particular is receiving exceptional multidisciplinary training of great breath in basin analysis, and preparation for competitive research in an academic career, through study and interaction with a sedimentologist-stratigrapher, a structural geologist, stable isotope geochemist, two geochronologists, and a paleontologist. The undergraduate students additionally will work closely with the Druschke and the PI's and will benefit immensely from opportunities for investigative field research, exposure to a variety of advanced analytical techniques, and data analysis. In addition, students and collaborators involved with this project will benefit from cooperation and exchange between multiple academic institutions.

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"HOT PURSUIT: Expert Detects Rare Life-Forms," Las Vegas Review Journal, by Lawrence Mower, September 29, 2006

Many of Nevada's hot springs know Brian Hedlund by now. The 34-year-old microbiologist and assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has been extracting small amounts of water and mud from the boiling springs for three years. The only problem is, Hedlund still doesn't know the hot springs, or, rather, what's in them. After researching the state's hottest springs, he has found several groups of microorganisms -- single-celled creatures that can be seen only with a microscope -- that defy classification in the scientific universe.

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School of Life Sciences (SoLS) Web Site

The School of Life Sciences has launched a revised website to reflect its new organizational structure and to provide enhanced access to information on its teaching and research programs, students and faculty, and related facilities and activities

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Habitat for Humanity Project, Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED)

On Saturday, September 9th, approximately 40 members of Alpha Epsilon Delta (AED), the Pre-Health Honor Society that coordinates such student activities as: the Physician Shadowing Program, Dentist Shadowing Program, Humanitarian Service Program, Bone Marrow Donor Registration Drive. and Organ Donor Registration Drive participated in a Habitat for Humanity event. The students gutted a warehouse to facilitate renovation for a new base of operations office. The AED members successfully removed all debris generated by the demolition of the interior walls, which required separation of dry wall from the aluminum support frames. The students then loaded the debris into dumpsters for disposal at the city dump. Our students surprised the on-site supervisor, who estimated the work would require more than a full day, by completing the project at 11:30 a.m. The remaining time was consumed by lunch (courtesy of Habitat for Humanity) and sweeping the floors to prepare for the renovation.

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University Forum Lecture, Professor George Rhee

On September 21, 2006 professor George Rhee of the physics department delivered a University Forum lecture entitled, "A Tour of the Solar System," at the Barrick Museum Auditorium. In his lecture professor Rhee surveyed the solar system featuring recent discoveries and the latest images of the planets. He started his journey at the sun progressed beyond Pluto to the outer reaches of the solar system to 'visit' the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud of comets.

A September 25, 2006 Rebel Yell article reported on the lecture (http://www.unlvrebelyell.com/article.php?ID=9686). Excerpts from the article, entitled "Gazing Into Space: An Inside Look at Our Solar System," appear below.

"Venus is a warning to us as to what can happen," Rhee said when talking about the harmful effect of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, urging the audience to become aware of global warming and to do their part in helping the problem...Rhee put the solar system into perspective by saying if it were to be shrunken to the size of the UNLV campus, the sun would be the size of a grapefruit and the next closest star would be New York...The sky is littered with galaxies, he explained, and there is nothing particularly special about our location. "I still love each and every one of you," Rhee joked. "I'm not trying to make you feel insignificant."

Rhee, a native of Geneva, Switzerland, studied at the University of Cambridge and worked as a professor at New Mexico State University before coming to UNLV, where he has been teaching for the past 12 years.."Science is very important to society," Rhee responded when asked about what he enjoys about teaching. "These issues of global warming and conserving energy are issues we all have to live with. In a democracy, it's good to have educated people holding their lawmakers to a higher standard."

Rhee is happy at UNLV because he says some of the best researchers of astronomy in the world are here, and the physics department, which will be renamed the Department of Physics and astronomy, has state-of-the-art facilities and grants from NASA..."My dream would be, if there is some millionaire reading the Rebel Yell, we would like to build our own telescope," Rhee said. Currently he is discussing the project with people in Utah.

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Career Services Survey of Recent Graduates

A recent survey of May 2006 graduates, conducted by Career Services, generated responses from 41 undergraduates (from a possible total of 117) and 16 graduate students (from a possible total of 30) in the College of Sciences. Some 78% of responding students reported working while attending school, and 49 % reported working full-time. Both these figures are below the university-wide averages. Some 61 % reported working part-time, above the university-wide average of 48 %. These recent College of Sciences graduates reported an employment rate of 66 %, with 75% of those employed in a desired career related position. Some 37% reported actively pursing graduate studies, above the 26 % figure university-wide.

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Future Scholars Day

At Future Scholars Day, held on September 12, 2006, visiting area high school students with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher enjoyed a presentation of resources available at UNLV. Joseph Nika described the Pre-Health Science Professional Program and Steve Roberts discussed degrees offered by the School of Life Sciences and highlighted recent the success stories that involved students with biology degrees matriculating to nationally renowned medical schools. IN addition, department chairs presented career opportunities for students in academic programs across the college and members of the Undergraduate Council discussed life at UNLV from a student's perspective.

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College of Sciences Seminars Listserve

The College of Sciences has established a listserve to better publicize and promote scientific seminars offered throughout the academic year. Approximately once a week, subscribers will receive an email announcement with news of the latest seminars, including a link to a webpage offering more details (http://cmse.unlv.edu/seminar/).

The listserv will be particularly valuable to scientists, teachers, and individuals in the greater Las Vegas community, who might otherwise not receive information about the seminars. Please recommend the listserv to any and all interested parties.

If an individual wishes to subscribe (or unsubscribe) please follow these instructions:

For Mary Jones to subscribe to the list, she should send an email to: listproc@nevada.edu

The body of the email should read: subscribe unlv_science_seminar@nevada.edu Mary Jones

Text in the subject line will be ignored.

To unsubscribe, send an email to: listproc@nevada.edu

The body of the email should read: unsubscribe unlv_science_seminar@nevada.edu

or signoff unlv_science_seminar@nevada.edu

Text in the subject line will be ignored.

For more information, please contact professor John Farley, (physics@johnwfarley.com).

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Mathematical Sciences Department Seminar

On Friday, September 8, 2006, Professor Peter Monk, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Delaware, presented a seminar entitled, “Forward and Inverse Electromagnetic Scattering.”

Abstract: For the forward scattering problem, we are interested to compute the scattered field resulting from the interaction of a known object (the scatterer) and a known incident field electromagnetic. Such problems are usually well-posed and there is a great deal of theory and experience to guide numerical analysis in this area. On the other hand, electromagnetic waves are often used to try to determine properties of an inaccessible scatterer. This problem, in which the incident and resulting scattered field are known, but the scatterer, or it's electromagnetic properties, are unknown is termed an inverse scattering problem. Such problems are ill-posed and non-linear. In contrast to the forward problem, numerical methods and theory are much less well developed in this case.

The speaker presented a discontinuous Galerkin method for approximating the forward problem in the frequency domain and discuss some of the issues that influence the choice of an algorithm. In particular he discussed the use of plane wave solutions of the Maxwell system as basis functions. Switching to the inverse problem, He presented a simple algorithm for approximating the shape of a scatterer from multi-static scattering data involving only the solution of linear ill-posed problems and show some computational results using synthetic forward data. He also indicated how the same data can be used to reconstruct surface properties such as the impedance of a coated scatterer.

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School of Life Sciences Seminar

Before departing for his postdoctoral training at Harvard, Zhen Xie presented his dissertation seminar entitled:, "Roles of WRKY Proteins in Mediating the Crosstalk of Hormone Signaling Pathways: an Approach Integrating Bioinformatics and Experimental Biology," in Room 105 White Hall, on September 22, 2006.

Ray Callaway, University of Montana spoke to the School of Life Sciences on, "Exotic Invasions and the Breakdown of Evolutionary Relationships in Communities."

Abstract: The goal of my research is to understand the molecular mechanism by which hormones control seed germination. Gibberellic acid (GA) promotes, while abscisic acid (ABA) and salicylic acid (SA) inhibit seed germination. Key molecules in these signaling pathways include receptors, secondary messengers, protein kinases and phosphatases, and transcription factors. My study focuses on whether and how WRKY transcription factors modulate the expression of an alpha-amylase gene (Amy32b), which is up-regulated by GA, but down-regulated by ABA and GA in the aleurone cells of germinating seeds.

My research started with the annotation and phylogenetic analyses of the WRKY gene superfamily, followed by functional studies of roles of WRKY proteins in mediating ABA responses. Eighty-one WRKY genes were identified in the rice genome through comprehensive computational analyses. Phylogenetic analyses based on WRKY domain sequences suggest that extensive duplications and losses of the WRKY domain occurred during evolution of this gene family. Transient expression studies suggest that among four WRKY genes that are ABA-inducible in aleurone cells, OsWRKY72 and OsWRKY77 function as transcription activators while OsWRKY24 and OsWRKY45 are repressors of the ABA-inducible HVA22 gene. My research demonstrates the high efficiency of the bioinformatics-based integrative approach in addressing a complex cellular signaling network.

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Geoscience Seminar

On September 13, 2006 Scott Sitzman of Oxford Instruments offered a seminar entitled, "Phase ID and Microstructural Characterization of Rocks Using EBSD in the SEM," IN The Lily Fong Building, Room 102.

Abstract: Electron BackScatter Diffraction (EBSD) is a powerful and versatile materials characterization method using electron diffraction patterns generated in the SEM. Patterns collected from thin sections, polished mounts or powders are captured and automatically analyzed by the EBSD system. Phase identification may be performed on the basis of crystallography alone, or in conjunction with chemistry provided by an integrated EDS system, both from a high resolution spot selected with reference to an SEM image. Beyond phase ID, the technique is primarily used to make maps representing the microstructure of an area of the sample, on the scale of microns to centimeters. Data are collected by automatically analyzing patterns from a grid of points, at a rate of 1 to over 90 points per second. The data is then interrogated by the post-processing software for a variety of modes of quantitative characterization: Grain size (by intercept or area determination), grain shape, phase area % and distribution, crystallographically preferred orientation (LPO)/texture analysis, phase orientation relationships, residual strain, grain boundary characterization, special/twin boundary determination, and a variety of other modes. In addition, different subsets of the data may be analyzed completely separately and compared. For example, for a particular phase within a single multi-phase rock, larger and smaller populations of grains may be compared for preferred orientation, state of strain, aspect ratio, etc. The ability to extract crystallographic information from selected grains seen in the SEM, or subsets of collected data, are particularly unique capabilities of the technique.

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Physics Forum

On Friday, September 29, 2006 Dr. Jihui Yang of the General Motors Research & Development Center presented a talk entitled, "Skutterudites are for Real."

Abstract: Filled Skutterudites have been extremely exciting and technologically important materials since the discovery of their potential as high efficiency thermoelectric materials in 1994. These materials exhibit a rich spectrum of physical phenomena including electron-crystal-phonon-glass, superconductivity, heavy-fermion behavior, magnetic ordering, and large thermoelectric figure of merit at elevated temperatures. In this talk I will attempt to explain why they remain a very active focus for researchers from academia, industry, and national laboratories worldwide after a decade of effort, nearly 500 papers, and over 100 patents; and convey the excitement the thermoelectricians enjoy, by highlighting some of our recent work on these materials. Forums are held in BPB Room 217.

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Chemistry Seminar

R. Rajagopal, professor of geography at the University of Iowa, delivered a presentation entitled, "Analytical Chemistry as Problem Solving," on Friday, September. 29, 2006.

Abstract: Search and screening strategies have found wide applications in many fields, including biological, chemical, economic, environmental, engineering, public health, forensic and computational sciences. Using extensive data on chemicals in water, Professor Rajagopal illustrated the development, testing and evaluation of a variety of screening models and strategies. The results of his research over the last 30 years indicate that sequential analysis and sample compositing (two screening methods) offer enormous potential for time- and cost-savings. They are diagnostic tools for the determination of the extent to which each problem should be queried or sample should be analyzed. They fit logically into the realm of any analytical chemistry research enterprise.In the case of environmental contamination, search and screening methods will contribute considerably to the reduction of uncertainty and error in the identification of hot spots. They will also enable significant expansion in spatial and temporal coverage of sampling without a proportional increase in analytical efforts.

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Submit Your News Stories

The College of Sciences E-Newsletter is published on or about the first of each month. Please submit news items via email by the fifteenth of each month, for consideration. You may send your submissions to: Bill Brown, Director of Development william.brown@unlv.edu.

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