Coming soon!

The Graduate Certificate in Water Conflict Management and Transformation is designed to provide decision-makers, graduate students and water professionals with the required specialized resources and skills that go beyond the traditional physical systems approach to water resources management. It will explicitly integrate human, policy and scientific dimensions of water resources within the framework of governance and sustainability.

Read all about it on the program’s website: http://www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu/training/certificate.html

Those of us who don’t study bugs are just laboring under false illusions, apparently.

An excerpt from CBC radio’s Quirks and Quarks program, which is downloadable:

“There are plenty of hypotheses about why the dinosaurs went extinct. The most popular is that an asteroid hit the Earth and created a cloud of debris that cooled the planet, leading to the dinosaurs’ eventual demise. But that scenario has never been universally satisfying, and now Dr. George Poinar is proposing his own idea. He’s an entomologist in the department of Zoology at Oregon State University, and the author of What Bugged the Dinosaurs. In his book, he explores an often overlooked aspect of life in the Cretaceous period: the role of insects in ecology. He believes invertebrates played a major role in shaping the world at that time, including spreading disease to a largely naive dinosaur population. That, he suggests, may have pushed them to the edge of extinction, and combining that with changes to the environment may have pushed them over the edge to total loss.”

To learn more about Dr. Poinar’s research: click here.

PNW amphibian experts have found evidence of a fungal scourge in frogs that has previously wiped out amphibian populations around the world–think ebola for frogs. And that’s not all.

As reported in a recent Seattle Times article:

“…killer fungus is only one of the perils amphibians face today, said Oregon State University biologist Andrew Blaustein, whose own research has shown that UV radiation can harm amphibians and their eggs. Chemical contaminants, parasites and other diseases also take a toll. Susceptibility varies by species, and factors interact, Blaustein pointed out. A frog whose immune system is weakened by UV radiation or toxins may be more vulnerable to infection. Global warming adds another level of stress.”

More than just a handsome prince waiting to be kissed by a princess, frogs are vital to the ecosystem. For one thing, they eat lots and lots of insects. And princesses aren’t the only ones who would suffer if frogs didn’t eat all those bugs. 

Remarkable things are happening in the College of Science at Oregon State and we want to share the news with you - on a daily basis. We hope you’ll drop in when it is convenient for you (and often!) to learn about research coming out of the College, student achievements, star faculty and occasionally a few highlights about the benefits of private support in advancing science at OSU.

Experience. Explore. Discover. Achieve.

And now… Steward!

From Smithsonian Magazine, April 2008:

Gasping for Breath
An ocean “dead zone” has been discovered off the Pacific Northwest. The water has so little oxygen that it “kills any marine animals that cannot swim or scuttle away,” says Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University. She and her colleagues analyzed 60 years of data and found that oxygen levels dropped in 2002. Most of the hundreds of dead zones worldwide are caused by pollution. But this one was caused by winds and currents that disrupted the ecosystem and fueled oxygen-depleting bacteria.

Visit Jane’s webpage here: http://lucile.science.oregonstate.edu/lubchenco/

http://www.coloradodaily.com/articles/2008/03/18/news/c_u_and_boulder/news3.txt

Prior to say, 1997, when such programs came into existence, scientists may have been on their own finding themselves rising a corporate or non-profit ladder and making all kinds of business-type decisions. Similarly, business-minded folks may have felt out of their element working in a science-oriented industry. OSU has a solution to this conundrum in the The OSU Professional Science Masters Degree Program. (PDF document)

The program was featured in OSU This Week on April 3rd:

PSM students currently enroll in one of four tracks: applied biotechnology, environmental sciences, applied physics and applied systematics in botany. In addition to completing two years of coursework in their scientific discipline, students receive 19 credits of professional training in business management, communications, and research ethics, and they complete an internship in a business or government agency.

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/otw/backissues/2007-2008/april03.pdf

A Lasting Impression: The U.S. Postal Service Honors Linus Pauling

In early March, the U.S. Postal Service released a stamp honoring Linus Pauling’s lifetime of achievements. OSU celebrated the release with an unveiling and a commemorative postmark:

Also see the Pauling Blog, maintained by the OSU Libraries Special Collections department.

Bundled within the tens of thousands of web pages that we’ve developed are any number of fascinating stories – stories about Dr. Pauling and stories about, indeed, the history of twentieth century science. It is the primary aim of this blog to extract some of those stories and present them here in easily-digestible form for those who might be interested. Along the way we’ll also be sharing news from within our department – be it upcoming events, new projects soon to be released or extra insight into projects already completed.