Book review

Book review

Scientists and educators from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and George Mason University broke ground June 29 on a green-design conservation complex that embodies the concept of the living classroom.

The post Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and George Mason University expand partnership appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation, a unique program in terms of its academic offerings and contributions to the field of conservation, celebrated the completion of its expansive new academic facilities today, Oct. 18, at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va.

The post Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and George Mason University dedicate new academic facilities in Front Royal, Va. appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This past summer, Laura Walker became the first scientist to collect slime molds from soils at the Barro Colorado Nature Monument in Panama, a reserve administered by the Smithsonain since 1946.

The post Panama’s slime molds get attention from Arkansas University grad student appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

A 57-acre research plot at a University of Michigan forest preserve northwest of Ann Arbor has been added to a Smithsonian Institution global network used […]

The post University of Michigan forest preserve joins Smithsonian global network appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The studio arts program at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, Calif., includes courses in painting. ; Credit: Photo courtesy of Cal Lutheran/Brian Stethem

California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks has taken the first steps toward building a new, art center with a commitment of at least $8 million in contributions and matching funds.

Over the weekend, the university's board of regents voted to spend $300,0o0 on design and planning for the new project. The complex will include offices and art studios in about 25,000 to 30,000 square feet of space.

RELATED: Top 10 arts education stories for 2014

The center will be the new home for the school's art department, which is currently spread out across the campus. 

"The facilities that they're in now are really not optimal," said Karin Grennan, the media relations manager for the university. 

The school offers instruction in studio arts, design and commercial art, digital art and art history. 

Grennan said the new project will add to the university's recent art initiatives: in 2012, the faculty members launched an art conference that's attracted international interest. Two conferences have been held so far and the next one will take place in November. The university is also raising funds to build a new performing art center on campus. 

Art collector and real estate developer William Rolland pledged up to $4 million toward the art center project, an amount the university will match. 

Rolland has previously donated money to the university, including contributions for the football stadium and art gallery. Rolland spent several decades as a real estate developer in Ventura County, and once lived in Thousand Oaks. 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The Transportation Research Board’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) recently selected winners for its University Design Competition for Addressing Airport Needs.

The winners of the sixth annual D.C. Public Health Case Challenge were announced at this year’s National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Annual Meeting.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) announces the appointment of May R. Berenbaum as Editor-in-Chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the official journal of the Academy. Berenbaum will begin the editorship on January 1, 2019.

The winners of the seventh annual D.C. Public Health Case Challenge were announced at this year’s National Academy of Medicine (NAM) Annual Meeting. The challenge aims to promote interdisciplinary, problem-based learning around a public health issue of importance to the Washington, D.C., community.

Paleontologists with the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and the University of Washington have discovered a Tyrannosaurus rex, including a very complete skull. The find, which paleontologists estimate to be about 20 percent of the animal, includes vertebrae, ribs, hips and lower jaw bones.

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Last week, a brand new and highly topical exhibition of contemporary art opened to the public at the University of Hertfordshire. Visually stunning and extremely thought-provoking, Plastic Matter is a unique group exhibition that explores plastic’s potential to become something more treasured, looks at how hastily we consume and dispose of it, its environmental impact and its future role in society.

...

The school plans to fund a study on the effects of fracking by allowing the controversial extraction process to take place on 8,000 acres in Cumberland Forest.

'Hackergate' — a desperate attempt by climate skeptics to revive the manufactured 'Climategate' scandal in advance of U.N. climate conference — will backfir

The Ivy League campus is now home to 50 LEED certified green building projects.

Today hundreds of universities and colleges offer online programs that range from improving your basic skills all the way to graduate study courses.

Even before you decide which course is your best proposition, you need to know which university can offer what your career needs. Read On!

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A Navy SEAL workout is no longer just for the military. With online workout plans customized to fit the individual, anyone is a candidate for obtaining maximum fitness and health benefits.

Matthew Nemeth of Penn State University has always loved soccer, but this 21-year old college senior is immersed in the study of finance and looks forward to a long and successful career in that field.

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The two-day Certified Ethical Hacker course will teach attendees how to test for weaknesses in online security systems that could be exploited by malicious hackers.

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Fuller's presentation centered on her new book on aging, 'Helping Yourself Grow Old', that offers an intimate, personal perspective on aging for retirees, people with aging parents, the elderly, counselors and those approaching retirement

In a sagging global economy where gold and silver have lost value for three years in a row, and banks are resorting to negative interest rates, some new investments are booming. Bitcoin values rose in 2015, and are poised for more gains this year.

New Community Education Initiative for New York City's Older Adults by Multi-Service Nonprofit Agency PSS

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The New Jersey Youth Symphony performs works by women composers: Yvonne Desportes, Ann Holler, Julia Perry and Florence Price on Sunday, January 26 at Princeton University.

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Beginning today, Northwestern University's Transportation Library begins its Google Books Digitization Project.

The University Libraries and Google are partnering to digitize hundreds of thousands of print volumes from their collections, rendering the contents readily available to scholars and researchers worldwide.

This is no small undertaking. The Transportation Library alone is one of the most extensive in the United States, containing over 500,000 items.

The Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a consortium of the Midwest's Big Ten Schools' plus the University of Chicago, signed on to digitize their libraries in June, 2007 but the process is just getting underway this Fall.

The project is expected to take several years, but the Transportation Library is one of the first campus libraries to send library items to Google for digitization. Google covers the transportation and digitization costs and Northwestern has received a generous donation from the Office of the Provost to help cover other technical costs.

We are told that books sent to Google for digitization may be off the shelves for up to three months. Once everything eligible for converting into electronic format has been digitized, those searching the library catalog will have the choice of borrowing the original print item or accessing the full-text document online.

Results from Google Book Search show up in both general Google searches as well as through the dedicated Google Books site.

The entire Google Books project has been a source of controversy over the last decade. Some hail the initiative's capacity to provide "anytime, anywhere" access to all of human knowledge. Others question the application of copyright laws for works published in one place but accessed around the world.

The Google Books enterprise is a complicated endeavor. While access to the ever-increasing (and increasingly digitized) world of knowledge is great, how can Google maintain a high-level of retrievability from a growing pool of millions of items? A recent article in The Atlantic highlights this challenge, with a concise overview of "Rich Results," Google's latest search algorithm that helps users find what they're looking for...even when they don't specifically ask for it.

Last month, Google speculated that it had scanned more than 15 million books from more than 100 countries in over 400 languages since 2004. Google Books' Engineering Director James Crawford went on to state:

"Our shared vision of bringing all the incredible content stored in the world's books online depends on working with libraries, publishers, authors and book lovers.

The greater the diversity of content on the web, the more useful it becomes. And the more people who can access the information cataloged in books, the more enlightening those works become."

AP Photo/John Minchillo

• The Ohio State University will pay $40.9 million to settle lawsuits brought by 162 men who allege a former university team doctor sexually abused them.
• An independent investigation in 2019 found that Dr. Richard Staruss sexually abused at least 177 students during his tenure from 1979 to 1997.
• The investigation found that OSU personnel had knowledge of allegations against Strauss and repeatedly failed to act.
• Strauss died by suicide in California in 2005.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Ohio State University announced on Friday it will pay out $40.9 million as part of a settlement of a combined series of lawsuits brought on by 162 men who said a team doctor who worked at the university for nearly two decades sexually abused them.

"The university of decades ago failed these individuals — our students, alumni and members of the Buckeye community," university President Michael V. Drake said in a statement. "Nothing can undo the wrongs of the past, but we must do what we can today to work toward restorative justice."

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Two students of the Jadavpur University have developed an intelligent device which will analyse if a coughing person is a COVID-19 carrier.

Texas A&M is the first US institution in the clinical trial to have federal clearance for testing on humans. Researchers hope to demonstrate that Bacillus Calmette-Guerin or BCG mitigates the effects of the novel coronavirus, allowing fewer people to be hospitalised or to die from COVID-19.

The University of Washington in Seattle is a big place. It includes the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which has produced a widely-circulated and widely-criticized coronavirus model. As we’ve discussed, the IHME model is essentially a curve-fitting exercise that makes projections using the second derivative of the time trend on the log scale. […]

iHEARTMEDIA News-Talk KOA-A-K231AA-K231BQ/DENVER has agreed to a three-year extension of its deal with rightsholder LEARFIELD IMG COLLEGE's BUFFALO SPORTS PROPERTIES to serve as radio … more

Nicholls State University located in Thibodaux, Louisiana provides unique educational opportunities and services to the people in the heart of cajun country and beyond. Why it’s in the Showcase: Nicholls has a multisite installation with a custom theme based on a...

Associated Students, Inc. serves as the official governing body of the Sacramento State University students and through operation and sponsorship of programs and services meets the varied needs of students. Why it’s in the Showcase: This site is not only...

Georgia State’s website represents its colleges and schools, centers of creativity and discovery, and provides visitors an opportunity to discover how Georgia State has a major impact on Atlanta, the nation and the world. Why it’s in the Showcase: This...

This site is a fully customized news portal for the University of Manitoba. The new site allows University staff writers and contributors to publish new, relevant, and fresh content—including photography, video and social media. The site is fully responsive so...

The City University of New York (CUNY) is the public university system of New York City, and the largest urban university in the United States.

IOWA CITY — The University of Iowa on Thursday unveiled new sustainability goals for the next decade that — if accomplished — would cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half from...

IOWA CITY — The University of Iowa on Thursday unveiled new sustainability goals for the next decade that — if accomplished — would cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half from a decade ago and transform the campus into a “living laboratory for sustainability education and exploration.”

But the goals fall short of what a collective of Iowa City “climate strikers” have demanded for more than a year — that the UI end coal burning immediately at its power plant, commit to using only renewable energy by 2030 and unite with the city of Iowa City in a “town-gown” climate accord.

“It’s ridiculous for the UI to announce a 2030 climate plan as it continues to burn coal for years and burn methane-spewing natural gas for decades at its power plant,” said Massimo Paciotto-Biggers, 14, a student at Iowa City High and member of the Iowa City Climate Strike group.

The university’s new 2030 goals piggyback off its 2020 goals, which former UI President Sally Mason announced in 2010 in hopes of integrating sustainability into the campus’ mission.

Her goals included consuming less energy on campus in 2020 than in 2010, despite projected growth; diversifying the campus’ energy portfolio by using biomass, solar, wind and the like to achieve 40 percent renewable energy consumption by 2020; diverting 60 percent of solid waste; reducing the campus transportation carbon footprint with a 10 percent cut in per capita transportation and travel; and increasing learning and research opportunities.

The university, according to a new report made public Thursday, met or surpassed many of those goals — including, among other things, a slight dip in total energy use, despite 15 new buildings and major additions across campus.

The campus also reported 40 percent of its energy consumption comes via renewable energy sources, and it reduced annual coal consumption 75 percent.

As for waste production, the university diverted 43 percent from the landfill and reported diverting 70 percent more waste than in 2010.

In just the first phase, the new 2030 goals — a result of collaboration across campus involving a 2030 UI Sustainability Goal Setting Task Force — involve fewer numbers and hard percentages. Aside from the aim to cut greenhouse emissions by 50 percent compared to a 2010 baseline, the phase one goals aim to:

• Institutionalize and embed sustainability into campus culture, allowing individual units across campus to develop plans to meeting campus sustainability goals.

• Expand sustainability research, scholarship and other opportunities.

• Use the campus as a “living laboratory” capable of improving campus sustainability and ecosystems.

• Prepare students to live and work in the 21st century through sustainability education.

• Facilitate knowledge exchange among the campus community and with the state, nation, and world.

PHASE 2 EXPANDS ON GOALS

As the campus moves into phase two of its 2030 plan, it will expand on first-phase goals by identifying specific and measurable tasks and metrics.

Leadership plans to finalize that second phase later in the fall semester.

“This approach has meant including units engaged in activities such as academics, research, operations, planning, engagement, athletics, and student life,” Stratis Giannakouros, director of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, said in a statement.

‘Ambitious and forward-looking’

Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, who serves as outreach and community education director for the UI Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, told The Gazette the new goals are “ambitious and forward-looking.”

“The new goals will engage students and research faculty to help build a sustainable path for the campus and broader community,” he said.

The university recently made big news on the utilities front by entering a $1.165 billion deal with a private French company to operate its utility system for 50 years. The deal nets the university a massive upfront lump sum it can invest and pull from annually. It gives the private operator decades of reliable income.

And the university, in making the deal, mandated its new provider pursue ambitious sustainability goals — promising to impose penalties if it failed to do so.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com