6A
Thursday, October 10, 1996
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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SKYDIVE KANSAS
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Open Weekends year round!
For a free brochure call
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MADRID $265
ROME $299
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TAIPEI $348
Council Travel
TAPE1
AUTHORITY WAY from KANSAS CITY BASED ON A PURCHASE AND ARE STUDENT FACES. FAIMO NOT INCLUDE DEMONSTRATED FACES OR PPCS TODAYING BELOW $350, DEPENDENCY ON OR DEPARTURE FROM THE STUDENT FACES.
622 WEST 12TH STREET • LAWRENCE, KS 66044
7 49 - 3 900
http://www.cice.org/travel.htm
What is Open Rush?
- An informal way to meet women in the Greek community
- An opportunity to see what sororities have to offer in an informal setting
- A chance to learn more about the Greek community
If interested, please call the Panhellenic office at: 864-4643
Internet database provides information about many species
Online museum studies life
By Bradley Brooks Kansan staff writer
It may not have the religious importance of Noah's Ark, but a group of KU scientists are building an online vessel of knowledge about biological life that will include almost 500 million species.
Richard Devinki/ KANSAN
Julian Humphries, director of the Kansas Environmental Informatics Lab, or KEIL, said that KU scientists from several areas of study were creating an extensive graphical and textual database about all life on the planet. It is available on the World Wide Web at www.keil.ukans.edu/
"It is a cross-disciplinary campus consortium whose mission is the integration, analysis and visualization of bio-diversity and environmental data." Humphries said.
Julian Humphries, director of the Kansas Environmental Informatics Lab, is leading a group of KU scientist in building an online catalog containing information about biological life. The catalog will allow students as well as scientist to research information ranging from where the species was collected to descriptive details about the subject.
Sound confusing? Humphries and his team are trying to change that.
Essentially, the program will take the components of a natural history museum, such as exhibitions and research collections, and transfer the information to the online database.
"Typically, this information has been used between scientists," Humphries said. "There has been a limited audience for all the information." Humphries said he wanted to provide the infor-
"Students will have better access to data about natural environment," he said. "There will be a greater abundance of basic information."
This information will include data about specific species and facts about specimens, such as when and where they were collected, who collected them and any descriptive details of the
subjects, whether they be flora or fauna.
By making it widely available on the Internet, the program is expanding the role of museums, said Brad Kemp, public relations coordinator for the Natural History Museum.
Kemp said that what Humphries and the program were doing would allow museums to survive.
"What is exciting is that he is in a way reinventing the Natural History Museum," Kemp said. "He is taking information and putting it together in a way that provides accessibility to a broad range of people that wouldn't have had that in the past."
Reuse protects environment
By Dave Breitenstein Kansan staff writer
Potting plants in coffee cups, building birdhouses out of milk jugs and mixing bathroom cleaners from common chemicals can make students and the environment happy.
Not only can students save money by reusing products, but they can save the environment as well. Homemade items eliminate packaging waste and create less demand for new products.
"I have two or three plants growing out of old, broken coffee cups," said Ken Moritz, Seattle sophomore. "It's easier to just use a coffee cup to plant something instead of buying a new pot at the store."
"Some people grew up in a family where if something broke, they just bought a new one," he said. "If
something is still useful, I'll use it again."
Moritz said that he had also used old containers to hold paper clips, rubber bands, screws and nails. He tries to reuse everything, but not everyone is so thrifty, he said.
Victoria Silva, KU environmental specialist, said that most items could be used for many purposes. Old kitchen towels can be used for waxing cars, and empty milk cartons provide a large ice cube mold.
For students interested in art, scrap paper and water can create a pasty substance for molding. Instead of buying croutons, students can use their dry bread. Silva said that students could use ingredients they already had to make another product.
bottle could be reused many times.
"There are some alternatives women can use," Silva said. "Instead of buying a face mask, you can make your own, which saves money and helps the environment since you reduce packaging waste."
Household cleaners can be made from mixing common ingredients, such as vinegar, baking soda, soap and lemon juice. Silva said using homemade cleaners was better than buying new ones because the same
Instead of buying bug sprays, students can cut up Osage oranges. Certain oils keep fleas away from pets. For those with gardens, mixing garlic and cyan provides a safe alternative to pesticides.
"The main reason to make your own cleaning solutions and bug sprays is to eliminate exposure to hazardous compounds normally found in solutions," she said.
While using hazardous chemicals, students may be exposed to harmful effects, but Silva said those effects were nothing compared to future problems that could arise.
"I think it is important to conserve our resources, whether we're talking about organic materials, food items or durable goods," she said. "We cannot keep using our natural resources faster than they can be produced. We are currently using trees faster than they grow."
Silva said people today had not learned to conserve resources and that the environment's future might
Reusable Items
Ways to reuse products:
■ use newspaper to clean windows
■ use oil to keep fleas off pets
■ make household cleaners
pot plants in old cups or mugs
out on Orange oranges to keen
- put plants in cups of augs
- cut up Osage oranges to keep bugs off
jug
use yogurt cups as a paper clip or rubber band container
donate egg cartons to elementary schools
**do artwork with bottles or Popsicle sticks**
depend on efforts to reuse most products.
"People in the Depression era learned how to reuse everything out of necessity," she said. "We need to get out of the mindset of using something once and then throwing it away."
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