College of Sciences E-newsletter

February 2007

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National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant for Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU): A Broad View of Environmental Microbiology ($229,637)

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas will offer a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site Program in partnership with the Desert Research Institute DRI) for three years beginning in 2007. Undergraduate students will participate in a 10-week summer program involving research in the area of environmental microbiology. Students will collaborate with faculty mentors in developing and carrying out hypothesis-based projects on microorganisms from diverse habitats such as hot springs, the deep terrestrial subsurface, hypersaline lakes, arid soils, and ephemeral water sources.  Students may also choose to explore the mechanisms of magnetotaxis, microbial adaptation to stressful and nonhost environments, or the dynamics between primary producers and consumers.  All students will receive training in current molecular techniques and the ethics of science, and they will participate in weekly discussions on their project.  At the conclusion of the program, students will present their research results at a scientific colloquium.  In addition, all students will be encouraged to present their research at a regional or national scientific conference.  Students will receive a stipend, housing and meals, and a travel subsidy.  First generation college students and members of an underrepresented group are strongly encouraged to apply.  Assistant professors Kurt Regner (principal investigator) and Eduardo Robleto (co-principal investigator), School of Life Sciences are leading this effort.

Program Goals:

Provide a capstone experience in environmental microbiology to highly motivated undergraduates, which will contribute to their career development.

Offer research experience for interested students from two-year and smaller four-year colleges that do not typically have access to these opportunities.

Reinforce the relationships between UNLV, DRI and their colleagues at historically black colleges and universities.

Faculty Mentors:

Microbial Ecology of Boiling and Near-Boiling Springs in the Great Basin
Brian Hedlund, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, UNLV

Microbial Community and Functional Ecology in Ephemeral Aquatic Ecosystems
Peter L. Starkweather, Ph.D., Professor, UNLV

Microbial Ecology of Desert Aquatic Systems: Deeply-Sourced Springs and Aquifers, and Saline Lakes
Duane Moser, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, DRI

Biology of Shigella in Extra Host Environments
Helen Wing, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, UNLV

Magnetotaxis of Bacteria
Dennis Bazylinski, Ph.D., Associate Professor, UNLV

Genetic Determinants of Adaptation of Pseudomonas Fluorescens Pf0-1 to Diverse Soils
Eduardo Robleto, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, UNLV

Mutagenesis in Nutrient Limiting Conditions
Ronald Yasbin, Ph.D., Professor, UNLV

Accumulation in Microbial Ecosystems of Bacterial Peptidoglycan Remnants
Henry Sun, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, DRI

Athropogenic N Loading and Impact on Microbial Biomass
Kumud Acharya, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, DRI

Bioinformatic Approaches to Gene Regulation
Christian Ross, Ph.D., Bioinformatician, UNLV

More information is available by contacting Kurt Regner at kurt.regner@unlv.edu or 702 895-1071.

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"Moratorium on Earmarks in 2007 Puts Pork Lovers in Academe on a Diet," Chronicle of Higher Education, January 12, 2007, by Jeffrey Brainard

College officials are bracing for some hard braking on one of their favorite gravy trains. The Democratic majority in Congress plans to increase oversight of earmarks, the noncompetitive grants that members steer to academic institutions, and to decrease sharply their number in the 2007 fiscal year. The change comes after a dozen years of Congressional generosity with pork-barrel spending, including for research, laboratory construction, and other campus projects. After Republicans gained control of Congress in 1994, lawmakers provided a rapidly accelerating amount of money for colleges, universities, and other specific constituents. As the decade rolled on, a federal surplus appeared, and lawmakers viewed earmarks as vital for helping their districts as well as their own re-election prospects. But in December, senior Democrats announced a moratorium on most earmarks for the remainder of the 2007 fiscal year, which ends in September. Democrats call this a necessary part of their wider plan to provide level spending for most federal programs for the rest of the year. The move will allow lawmakers to avoid spending weeks on completing appropriations bills, most of which were left unfinished last year.

Democratic leaders say they expect earmarking will return in the appropriations bills for the 2008 fiscal year, but only after lawmakers overhaul the controversial practice to improve accountability, and then perhaps only at half the level of projects paid for in 2006. All of this means different things for different colleges. Some that have relied heavily on pork-barrel spending say they are scrambling to bridge the gap for this fiscal year to avoid disrupting research and having to let staff members go. Officials at other institutions project a modest effect, felt mostly as a postponement of planned construction. Still, those officials are nervous about the future availability of earmarks.

Although many are frustrated with the moratorium for 2007, even some officials whose colleges have reaped bounties in earmarks concede that there could be an upside if it pushes faculty members to find new sources of money -- as critics of earmarking have been saying those scholars should have done a long time ago. "We're up to the challenge, but we'll be hurt in the short run," said Ronald W. Smith, interim vice president for research at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. There, a moratorium on earmarks for research on renewable energy might force as many as 100 researchers and students to find new projects. "It's absolutely a big hit," Mr. Smith said.

New Scrutiny of Earmarks

For academe as a whole, a suspension of earmarks will take away a significant chunk of money: Congress provided more than $2-billion to 716 institutions in 2003, the last year for which The Chronicle estimated a grand total. And the pace of earmarking appears not to have declined since. The practice has remained controversial in academe because it circumvents the open competitions traditionally used by federal agencies to distribute federal grants. The blow in 2007 will be softened for some universities because Congress approved last fall two of the 11 appropriations bills that finance the federal government. Those two bills provided money for the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and both contained tens of millions of dollars in academic earmarks.

What's more, the moratorium on earmarks at other agencies may have some wiggle room: Lawmakers are expected not to forbid federal agencies from choosing to finance projects that have been earmarked in past years, said a Congressional staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity. The agencies might have little money to spare, however, because appropriations committees will probably divert billions of dollars spent last year on earmarked projects to pay for other spending priorities. Those could include the Pell Grant program, which Democrats have promised to expand, and a $3-billion shortfall in veterans' health programs. The cash might also go simply to help the agencies keep pace with inflation and avoid laying off their staff members, Congressional aides said.

Congress could make a final decision to continue financing most programs in 2007 at their 2006 levels by the end of January. (For now, Congress is continuing the level financing only through mid-February). Assuming that Congress resumes earmarks in 2008, colleges may find them harder to get. Democrats won control of Congress in the November elections in part by promising to clean up ethical lapses, including abuse of the earmarking process. The Democrats' ability to preserve and expand their gains in the 2008 election is expected to depend in part on how they deliver on that promise. This month the House of Representatives moved toward greater accountability by approving a bill to make public the details of each future earmark's sponsors, intended recipient, and purpose. The Senate is considering a similar bill.

As part of the Democrats' effort to control overall federal spending, the number of earmarks could fall by half starting in 2008, the new House majority leader, Steny H. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said this month. President Bush also proposed that goal this month. (So far he has not vetoed any appropriations bills because of earmarks or for any other reason.) Aside from affecting the number of earmarks, the switch in party control will almost certainly skew the geographic distribution of earmarks in 2008 toward states represented by senior Democrats. While members of both parties have shown an appetite for pork-barrel projects, the majority of them have historically gone to states represented by the party in control.

Some observers expect that the number of earmarks remaining will be concentrated among districts represented by members of the appropriations committees, who have in past years secured significantly more academic earmarks than have other lawmakers. (Indeed, some House Republicans have defended the explosive growth in pork-barrel spending under their watch as fair because their party consciously chose to spread the largess nationally.)

Heavy Reliance on Pork

But for some academic institutions, like the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, that have relied heavily on earmarks, the moratorium for the rest of 2007 will force some hard adjustments. Las Vegas's quest for the set-asides has been supported by a powerful ally in Congress, Sen. Harry M. Reid, the Nevada Democrat who became majority leader this month. The university was scheduled to receive at least $37-million in earmarks in the 2007 fiscal year, under an appropriations bill that was approved in committee last year but never enacted. Las Vegas received roughly the same sum in the 2006 version of that bill, a larger amount than most other universities.

Compared with other universities' take of earmarked funds, Las Vegas's share represented a disproportionately large portion of its overall research budget, which reached about $100-million from all sources in 2006. The earmarked funds for 2007 were to continue a range of renewable-energy research projects. One, for example, would use solar energy and photovoltaic cells to economically derive hydrogen from water, for use in hydrogen-powered cars. Nevada is naturally suited to such work because of its large open spaces and frequent sunshine, said Mr. Smith, the interim vice president for research at Las Vegas.

The university started the research about five years ago, largely using Congressional earmarks as seed money, and earmarks have continued to provide the bulk of the support. Mr. Smith offers the same justification for earmarking given by many other college officials who have sought and received such funds: His researchers have worthy ideas for research projects but lack the money for equipment and other needs, like supporting students as assistants, to carry the projects out. As a result, the institution cannot consistently compete with larger, older research universities in the Darwinian struggle for competitively awarded federal research grants. Some projects at Las Vegas that were begun with earmarked funds have gone on to win competitively awarded grants from the Energy Department, Mr. Smith said.

The effect of an earmark moratorium probably will not be felt until the fall, because the university is still spending some of the set-aside money it was allocated in appropriations for 2006, said Oliver A. Hemmers, an assistant research professor who directs an office at Las Vegas that manages the research. The moratorium's burden would fall on about 50 faculty members and research scientists, a handful of whom are supported entirely by the earmarked funds and may have to transfer to other, non-earmarked projects. About 50 postdoctoral researchers and graduate students would also have to complete their appointments early or switch study topics. But Mr. Hemmers and Mr. Smith said the energy research would continue in some form. In part to make up for the lost funds, the university plans to competitively award faculty members about $500,000 in additional institutional money for research in 2007 -- not enough to plug the expected shortfall, but a start. The money will be open to all faculty researchers as seed money to develop competitive research projects, not just those in renewable energy.

Replacing Dollars

Encouraging self-sufficiency is something "we need to do anyway, and we have been, but we are greatly accelerating that" since the Democrats moved to cut earmarks, Mr. Smith said. He said he tells faculty members that the earmarked money "is a wonderful blessing, but we can't grow dependent on it." The university will also seek some directed funds for research from Nevada's Legislature to tide over the programs for 2007, Mr. Smith said, although the prospects are uncertain. For other institutions, the effects of the moratorium earmarks will be less pronounced but still felt.

Eastern Michigan University, for example, will try again in 2008 for a $500,000 earmark to help educate workers laid off from the automobile industry and other companies in its area, said Brian D. Anderson, a university official who oversees its requests for earmarks. The money, for training, tutoring, and counseling, was promised in a Senate appropriations bill for 2007 that was never enacted. "It's something that the university is already doing, but this would enhance our ability to do it," Mr. Anderson said. However, the university will get a separate earmark for $1-million, included in the Defense appropriations bill for 2007, for a project meant to develop new kinds of textiles resistant to contamination from a chemical or biological attack that could be used in soldiers' uniforms.

At the University of Southern Mississippi, officials hope they will succeed in persuading federal agencies to continue to finance earmarked projects included in previous years' appropriations bills. The university, which obtained $102-million from all sources for research in 2006, was promised about $30-million in set-asides in all of the 2007 appropriations bills, and has been one of the top recipients of such funds in past years. Most of the 2007 money was for equipment to help researchers develop better polymers and to improve the aquaculture of shrimp, and only about 10 percent was slated for salaries.

Bridging the Gap

The institution can probably tap other sources of money in the short term to minimize any disruption to the work, said Cecil D. Burge, vice president for research and economic development at Southern Mississippi. But he predicted that officials at the Commerce Department and other federal agencies would not risk incurring the wrath of Congress members by diverting money formerly spent on those projects to other priorities. Besides, he said, his university seeks earmarked funds only for projects that it knows fit a priority of the agency directed to provide the funds.

The new chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, is renowned for his support of earmarks -- although he also announced the earmark moratorium. One of Mississippi's senators, Thad Cochran, is the panel's senior Republican. "Those agencies know that in many cases, they'll go back to that appropriations committee in next year's budget," Mr. Burge says. "I may be naïve, but I simply refuse to believe" that earmarks will just go away "cold turkey," he said. Rather than rely solely on the good will of the Agriculture Department to continue financing earmarked projects, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges hopes to persuade lawmakers to specifically preserve about $180-million in such funds in 2007.

Earmarks for agricultural research have been somewhat less controversial than others because Congress has historically provided substantial amounts of agricultural-research money through population-based formulas rather than competitive awards. To spare the $180-million from the earmark moratorium, Congress could shift the money into those so-called formula funds, suggested Jennifer T. Poulakidas, the association's vice president for Congressional affairs. For many colleges, the moratorium for 2007 also means that they will have little to show for the millions they collectively spent on Washington lobbyists last year to help them obtain earmarks. A growing number of colleges have hired federal lobbyists in recent years, with 558 spending nearly $62-million in 2003, mostly to seek earmarks.

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The 2007 Juanita Greer White Distinguished Lecture, February 15, 2007, 7:00 pm, White Hall Auditorium

The School of Life Sciences (formerly the Department of Biological Sciences) established the Juanita Greer White Distinguished Lecturer Series in 1991. This seminar series honors Dr. Juanita Greer White (1905-1997), a pioneer of women in the sciences and a strong advocate of higher education in the State of Nevada.

This year’s White Distinguished Lecturer is Dr. Jonathan B. Losos, Museum of Comparative Zoology and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University.

Professor Losos is considered by many to be the finest evolutionary ecologist of his generation. The title of his lecture is "Evolution on Tropical Islands: A Lizard's Tale." The lecture will be held on Thursday, February 15, 2007, at 7:00 pm, in the White Hall Auditorium. Admission is by ticket only. Free tickets are available in the School of Life Sciences (WHI 101) beginning February 6. A reception in the Atrium of White Hall will follow the lecture.

Professor Losos will also offer a seminar at UNLV entitled "Ecological and Evolutionary Determinants of Biological Diversity in West Indian Anolis Lizards," on Friday, February 16, 2007 at 3:30 pm, in White Hall Auditorium. Tickets are not required for this talk..

Read more about the seminar.

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University Forum Lecture: Assistant Professor of Geoscience Adam Simon, January 24, 2007

On Wednesday, January 24, 2007 at 7:30 pm in the Barrick Museum Auditorium assistant professor, of Geoscience, Adam Simon delivered a University Forum lecture, "Harnessing a Dragon: The Study of Active Volcanoes in Russia," Simon presented a photographic survey of volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia with an emphasis on Mutnosvky Volcano, active with at least 15 eruptions recorded in historic times. He also discussed the importance of studying active volcanoes and explored the implications for predicting eruptions and for harnessing their energy to power our ever-growing population.

The Rebel Yell reported on this lecture in a January 29, 2007 article entitled, "Rebel Science: Ring of Fire Power."

Full text: http://www.unlvrebelyell.com/article.php?ID=10276


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2007 Meeting of the California/Nevada Amphibian Population Task Force

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas hosted the 2007 Annual Meeting of the California/Nevada Amphibian Population Task Force on January 18th-19th. Scientists and resource mangers from California, Nevada, and surrounding states presented a series of talks on issues pertaining to the conservation of amphibian populations.  Topic areas included: Active management of populations or habitat, Agency programs and perspectives, Chemical contamination effects, Disease & malformations, Ecology, Invasive species effects & management, Land management effects, Legal actions, New methods and tools, Population genetics and phylogeography, and Population status and distribution.

More information (PDF):

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UNLV Libraries: Review Process for New Acquisitions

The UNLV Libraries will be reviewing suggestions for new journal subscriptions, databases, and other resources this semester in its annual Serials Review Group meeting.  If you would like to make a request for a new resource, please contact science librarian JD Kotula (jd.kotula@unlv.edu) as soon as possible to have your suggestion included in time for review.

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"An Inconvenient Truth," Documentary Film Cosponsored by the College of Sciences and CSUN

The College of Sciences, in collaboration with CSUN, cosponsored the showing of "An Inconvenient Truth," on January 30th at 6:00 pm in the Moyer Student Union.  Following the movie, Professors Stan Smith and Peter Starkweather served as moderators for a discussion.  

"An Inconvenient Truth," offers a look at former Vice President Al Gore’s efforts to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. With 2005, the worst storm season ever experienced in America just behind us, it seems we may be reaching a tipping point - and Gore pulls no punches in explaining the dire situation. Interspersed with the bracing facts and future predictions is the story of Gore's personal journey: from an idealistic college student who first saw a massive environmental crisis looming; to a young Senator facing a harrowing family tragedy that altered his perspective, to the man who almost became President and now returns to this cause.

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"The Ultimate 'What If': Weather Channel Show Focuses on Effects of a Quake in the Valley," Las Vegas Sun, January 9, 2007, By Launce Rake

"...Scientists have long known that Las Vegas is crisscrossed by earthquake faults and even more active faults are a few hundred miles away in California. Small earthquakes, many that are barely or not even detectable to the casual observer, are common in the region. Larger earthquakes capable of significant damage have occurred here too, but not for about 1,000 years. "It is long odds, but we definitely do have the potential," says Catherine Snelson, a UNLV geosciences assistant professor who was interviewed for The Weather Channel documentary. Snelson is one of several experts in the program who also were interviewed for a Nov. 27 Las Vegas Sun story on the potential for earthquakes in Southern Nevada. "The geologists would say we're overdue," Snelson says. "It is a real possibility that we could see one of those earthquakes in our lifetime." She says the odds are 20 percent to 30 percent that Las Vegas could have a damaging earthquake in the next 50 years. "The time between big earthquakes is a real long time, but when they do go, they go in a big way," she says. For the show, Snelson and her UNLV colleague, Wanda Taylor, discuss the possibility of an earthquake hitting Frenchman Fault, a 20-mile fault on the east side of the Las Vegas Valley that some scientists believe could be the epicenter of a big earthquake. "

Read the Full text Article

"It Could Happen Tomorrow," a Weather Channel television program was broadcast on Friday, January 12th and Sunday, January 14th at 6:30 pm, 9:30 pm, and again at 11:30 pm.

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"Magnetic Insoles Attract Interest, But Do Healing Claims Stick?" by Chris Woolston, Special to Los Angeles Times, December 25, 2006

Professor of physics John Farley added a scientific perspective to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times that explored the healing value of magnetic fields. Among his comments, Farley noted that, "Human bodies simply aren't very sensitive to magnetic fields. Try sticking your hand inside a horseshoe magnet," he says. "Nothing happens."

Farley sees irony in the magnet therapy craze. He well remembers recent alarmist claims about the dangers of electromagnetic radiation created by power lines. People living beneath power lines receive a much lower dose of radiation than people who wear magnetic products, he says.

Read the full text article.

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Upcoming Seminars

The College of Sciences has established a listserve to better publicize and promote scientific seminars offered throughout the academic year. For more information on upcoming seminars and to subscribe to the listserve, please visit: http://cmse.unlv.edu/seminar/.

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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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