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BEANS, BEANS
Nedim Mutlu, a doctoral candidate from Turkey, inoculates a bean plant as part of a breeding experiment Nov. 11 in the Agronomy greenhouses on East Campus. Mutlu, working with Dermot Coyne, is attempting to breed pinto and great northern beans that will be resistant to common bacterial blight. Grad Student Accompanies Johanns on Trade MissionTrip to China Promises to Be Educatonal for Nebraskan Bruce Kroese, an Agribusiness MBA student, is accompanying Gov. Mike Johanns and State Agriculture Director Merlyn Carlson on a trade mission to Hong Kong and China Nov. 10 to 21. Kroese is part of a Nebraska delegation including leaders of commodity boards and associations, agribusiness representatives, manufacturers, state officials, and past trade mission participants. "It's a tremendous opportunity," Kroese said. "It's very humbling for a farm kid from Nebraska to have this kind of access. In repayment for this opportunity I'm going to be a sponge and bring back any insight I gain to help Nebraska agribusiness." Kroese, raised near Firth, has had first-hand experience with international agribusiness through involvement in the family's purebred cattle company. He earned his bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1993, and after five years in journalism and advertising, returned to NU in 1998 to pursue the Agribusiness MBA. Kroese, who will graduate in December, maintains a 3.8 grade point average while serving as a graduate student assistant for the Agribusiness MBA program. Kroese says he looks forward to the opportunity to experience the Chinese culture and meet with foreign leaders. He is particularly interested in the challenges Nebraska agribusiness faces when developing trade relationships with the Chinese, as well as the marketing strategies they intend to employ. In preparation for the trip, Kroese compiled an analysis of China highlighting social, political, geographic, and business factors that might affect trade. The analysis was part of his course work and was distributed to trade mission participants. Overseas, he will document events and meetings associated with this mission for the Department of Agriculture. NU's Agribusiness MBA Program was awarded a grant by Nebraska Network 21 to cover trip expenses for an outstanding Agribusiness MBA student with a career interest in international trade. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; stuff like this just doesn't happen to me," Kroese said. Warm Weather Is Possible La Niña CarryoverResearchers at the High Plains Climate Center expect the La Niña which began last year to continue through this coming winter. That means it could be a winter of extremes. NU Research Climatologist Ken Dewey examined the climate records for southeast Nebraska to see how the climate fared during the past 14 La Niñas. A La Niña is the occurrence of unusually cold ocean currents off the west coast of South America. This is the opposite of the El Niño, which is unusually warm ocean currents off South America. Dewey says either event can have profound impact on the weather in North America. La Niña conditions have persisted since the summer of 1998 and show no signs of decreasing. "Based on the past La Niñas, it appears a warmer than normal December would be expected and it is a toss-up for the rest of winter; it could go either way, warmer or colder than normal," Dewey said. "After a drier than normal December it appears that the rest of winter has the greatest chance of being above normal in precipitation." "Snowfall has the greatest likelihood of being below normal in both December and February with only January showing signs of being above normal. January La Niñas have a tendency to be quite snowy and as a result even with below normal snowfall in December and February, La Niña winters average snowier than normal." These outlooks are not as exact as daily weather forecasts as they refer only to the general pattern of being above or below normal, Dewey said. Outlooks don't take into account the large regional differences that can occur in temperature and especially in precipitation from individual storms. "It is best to use these outlooks as a 'heads up' first approximation of what the future weather patterns might be like and recognize that the climate system, with its built-in variability, is always subject to dramatic changes and reversals in pattern," Dewey said. Additional information about the weather and climate of Nebraska can be found at the High Plains Climate Center Website at http://hpccsun.unl.edu/nebraska.
What 14 La Niñas Tell Us About Winter
Some Materials Moving to Offsite Storage Library Prepares For Renovation WorkTo make way for renovation work beginning soon in Love South, selected materials are temporarily being shifted from the Love stacks into a storage facility. Storage 1, as the facility is called, is just east of the State Fair grounds off North 27th Street. Some books will also be shifted to Love North. Materials being moved to Storage in November are 000-100s, selected Qs and Rs, 300s, Gs, and some Archives/Special Collections materials. IRIS records are being updated as materials move so location and availability status information should be current. Signage in the stacks areas will also indicate where materials have moved. All materials in Storage 1 may be retrieved. Requests may be made at any circulation desk or online via InfoQuest. Requests will be filled within 24 hours. Requests for Archives/Special Collections materials will be filled in Archives/Special Collections. To help you keep track of the developments in Love Library, a renovation web page has been created. From the IRIS homepage at http://iris.unl.edu, click on Love Renovation Update. If you have any questions about the storage project, please contact
Agnes
Adams, collection development coordinator, at agnesa@unllib.unl.edu,
or 472-3628, or your liaison librarian.
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, artist's conception, NASA Gogos Reviews Possible Space Station ExperimentGeorge Gogos recently served for NASA as a reviewer on a research proposal on "Bi-Component Droplet Combustion" for consideration on the International Space Station. Gogos, associate professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering and Technology, was invited to review the research proposal along with Thomas Avedisian of Cornell University and Cary Presser from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Gogos has been invited to review the project again after its yearlong progress and development phase. The experiment in droplet combustion is one of several proposed for inclusion in the International Space Station, and will be the first one to be conducted in 2005 in its Combustion Module, if everything goes as planned. The International Space Station is currently under construction. Gogos, an expert on microgravity droplet combustion, attended the review conference last spring in Cleveland at the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field. The committee reviewed documentation and proposal, questioned the experiment's author Benjamin Shaw of the University of California, Davis, and provided several suggestions for consideration by Shaw and NASA. Gogos will attend the proposed experiment's evaluation again in March at the Glenn Research Center to review data and theory as updated by Shaw's team, in order to determine whether the proposal advances to final stages of ground-based, pre-flight research. |
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