Section A · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, September 18, 1997
Grant helps graduate students rename sea life
By Mike Porryman
Kansas staff writer
Sea anemones in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are all mixed up, and a student at the University of Kansas is in charge of reorganizing the sea anemones.
During the summer, Seattle graduate student Katherine Pearson traveled from San Diego to Vancouver Island in search of five species of sea anemones. Funded by an unprecedented $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Pearson and a team of three other KU graduate students will be researching and identifying the sedentary aquatic organisms for the next five years.
Anemones on the Pacific Coast originally had been identified as the same species found in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Europe. Pearson said European names had been inappropriately applied to the anemones found in the Pacific.
"There was a misconception that those species were worldwide," she said.
Pearson collected 85 Urticina sea anemones between California and Vancouver Island during the summer. Along the way, she redefined each of the five species of
Urticina on the Pacific coast and assigned new names to the ones formerly given European names.
"The misidentification of these anemones is a problem because scientists around the world, who work on the taxonomy of anemones, need to have the same frame of reference." she said.
The grant that Pearson and the other students are working under is a Partnership for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET) grant. There were 21 recipients in the country - four of whom attend the University.
Pearson's next destination of sea anemone study will be the East coast of the United States. After that she plans to go to Russia and Japan, she said.
Pearson's research is being supervised by Daphne Fautin, a curator at the Natural History Museum who also is a professor of entomology and systematics and ecology. Fautin is responsible for administering the grant.
"The grant was a symbol of unusually generous research support in the field of systematics and ecology," she said. "Although the grant is only $750,000, it is a lot in the field of systematics and ecology."
Katherine Pearson, Seattle graduate student, checks the sea anemones that she is helping to identify. Traveling this summer, Pearson redefined five species of
anemones and renamed some to a more scientific title. Photo by Tara Bradley/KANSAN
World's Fair
Cari Reimuth, Overland Park senior (left), talks with Carmen Boyer, Wichita senior about the possibility of studying abroad. Boyer, who spent one and a half years in Costa Rica, was helping to answer questions at a fair held by the Office of Study Abroad yesterday in the Kansas Union.
Photo by Pam Dishman/KANSAN
Computerless computer labs allow students Web access
By John Wilson
Special to the Kansan
One of the newest computer labs on campus doesn't have any computers.
The School of Business renovated two classrooms this summer and installed Internet connections for students to use with laptop computers.
The classrooms - 426 and 428 Summerfield Hall - connect students to the School of Business network, the University network and the World Wide Web via Netscape.
"These rooms give students more lab space. From a laptop computer they can connect to the world," said Mike Ettredge, professor of accounting. "They will enable students to bring in laptops and have the teacher guide them through exercises - from a World Wide Web assignment to even video conferences in the future."
included adding seating, installing video projectors and making the rooms accessible to students with disabilities.
The renovations to the rooms
"Students who use wheelchairs can now access the first rows of the classroom, and hearing-impaired students can check out headphones that amplify the instructor's voice," said Gordon Fitch, director of technology for the School of Business.
Fitch said that students also may take advantage of the rooms' Internet access while class is not in session.
"This gives students another way to access the world." Fitch said.
Students need access to these kinds of technologies to be competitive in the business world, said Shane Moser, Olathe graduate student in accounting.
"It'll be nice to sit down in class and work along with the instructor," Moser said. "The rooms are impor-
Andrew Rohrback / KANSAN
The rooms cost about $120,000 and were funded by Kansas' Crumbling Classrooms bill and by University funds allotted to computing improvements.
Giant dinosaur to descend on natural history museum
By Mike Harrity
Special to the Kansan
On a recent trip to the Natural History Museum, 8-year-old Zach Huston considered what seeing a full cast of a dinosaur skeleton would be like.
"You mean like Jurassic Park?" asked Zach, who was with Imogene Huston, his grandmother. "That will be cool. I'm coming back for that."
Zach won't have to wait long because the museum is in the process of displaying an exhibit featuring a tylosaur, or in other words, a very old, giant lizard.
"We've had this stored away for years and I have always wanted to put it on exhibit," said Larry Martin, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the museum. "It's just fortunate that we received that opportunity."
The tylosaurus is the largest kind of mosasaur, a group of marine reptiles. The one that will be on display is the largest mosasaur ever found.
The museum has had the skeleton since 1911. For much of that time it has been stored in the old library stacks in Lippincott Hall.
Money was the biggest reason the bones rested for 86 years, Martin said.
"It would cost about $50,000 to make a cast and my disposable budget is $6,000," Martin said. "So you can figure it out yourself."
Mike Treibold did just that.
Treibold, a commercial caster from North Dakota, contacted Martin about a year ago for any fossil-casting opportunities.
The tylosaur immediately came to Martin's mind.
The deal: Treibold would make a cast of the skeleton for the museum at no cost. He then could make casts of the skeleton for commercial sales to other museums. Already, one will be displayed at the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences and another in Japan.
The agreement has allowed the museum to put a cast on display at essentially no cost.
The plan is to display the piece right above the main entrance of
the museum. But the skeleton's size, which is between 46 and 50 feet long and about four feet high, has caused a delay in the opening of the exhibit. Museum officials said they hoped to complete the exhibit by late October.
"By the time we put this together, it will weigh between 500 and 700 pounds," said Tom Swearingen, director of exhibits at the museum. "When visitors come in, it will be coming down through the opening chasing a fish, which will also be suspended from the ceiling. But if we don't make sure our plans are right, we're liable to have the tail going right into the ladies' bathroom there."
services at the museum, works at the desk right inside the front door. She said she had faith in Swearingen's ability and that she was not worried about a 600-pound dinosaur looming above her — or in the bathroom.
Beth Huerter, director of visitor
She said the impact of displaying the world's largest mosaasaur was unquestionable.
"The thing you remember most about the museum is your first impression. And with that hanging inside the front door, people will remember that," she said. "Little kids who can barely talk will go home and say, 'I want to go back to that place where that big thing is hanging above your head.'"
Andrew Rohrback / KANSAN
Board of Class Officers
and
Student Union Activities
Nominations are now being accepted for the
Ex.C.E.L. Award $500 Scholarship
EXcellence in Community, Education, and Leadership
One male and one female KU student will be chosen on the basis of their capacity for leadership effective communication skills, involvement in the KU community, academics and their ability to work with a wide variety of students and student organizations. Each recipient of the Ex.C.E.L. Award will receive a $500 scholarship.
- Organizations and Activities Office, 4th Floor. Kansas Union
Nomination forms available at:
Nomination forms are due by 5 p.m., Friday, October 3, 1997, to the SUA Office.
- SUA Office, 4th Floor, Kansas Union
For more information, call SUA at 864-3477
You don't want to miss it!
Rebate payments are now beginning for cash or check receipts from the Spring '97 semester. 7% of your KU Bookstore purchases will be returned to you, in cash, with valid KU student I.D. & presentation of receipts. Please return these receipts by December 30,1997.
KU Bookstores Kansas and Burge Unions 785-864-4640 www.iavhawks.com
Rebate period #101. Spring '97 receipts.
See store for complete details