News Archive
Monday, March 9 2009
News
Iowa Power Fund advances Iowa State development of clean energy technologies
Researchers from Iowa State University, Frontline BioEnergy and Hawkeye Energy Holdings are using a $2.37 million grant from the Iowa Power Fund to develop new burner and catalyst technologies. The technologies will use gas made from biomass to efficiently produce ethanol and provide clean, renewable power for heating and drying equipment.
Student is passionate about dancing with bulls
When Lucas Moore talks about nimble footwork and all the right moves, he's not talking tango. He's talking bull. The Iowa State University freshman is a bullfighter -- a type of rodeo clown that protects bull riders who dismount or are bucked off. The bullfighter distracts the bull before it hooks or tramples the cowboy.
White
ISU human sciences dean search narrowed to one
The committee searching for the next dean of the College of Human Sciences at Iowa State University has unanimously recommended one finalist to move forward in the process. That candidate is College of Human Sciences Interim Dean Pam White, who also is a University Professor of food science and human nutrition.
ReCAP report finds state per capita retail sales are down 4.0 percent since 2000
Iowa's retail per capita sales (taxable sales and not total retail sales) have gone down 4 percent between 2000-08, according to the new Retail Sales Analysis & Report for Fiscal Year 2008 by Iowa State University's Regional Capacity Analysis Program (ReCAP), authored by ISU economist Meghan O'Brien.
University leaders discuss budget issues with legislative subcommittee
President Gregory Geoffroy and the other regents university presidents met with the Iowa Legislature's Education Appropriations Subcommittee March 3 to discuss the effects of reduced state appropriations to the universities.
ISU research examines how plants produce high-energy storage organs
David Hannapel, ISU horticulture, and Guru Rao, ISU biochemistry, Biophysics and molecular biology, are studying how plants produce storage organs that humans use as food.
Avoid self-handicapping at work, advises an Iowa State management professor
An Iowa State management professor advises against self-handicapping on the job. James McElroy, a University Professor of Management at ISU; and J. Michael Crant, a management professor at the University of Notre Dame, published a study last year that found the more times an individual turned to self-handicaps, the less credible those handicaps became to their co-workers -- particularly if the project eventually failed.
Iowa State researchers receive awards for Parkinson's Disease study
Two researchers in the Iowa Center for Advanced Neurotoxicology (ICAN) at Iowa State University have received awards totaling more than $4 million from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The awards represent innovative approaches to funding biomedical research in Parkinson's Disease by NINDS.
Plans for fans
Check out the plans for Cyclone fans at the Big 12 Championship Basketball Tournaments in Oklahoma City this week.
In the news
Eyewitness: How accurate is visual memory?
60 Minutes
ISU Distinguished Professor Gary Wells tells CBS' Lesley Stahl that reinforcement alters memory when it comes to identifying suspects in a lineup. And for that matter, Wells says, viewing photos of people one at a time is a more accurate way to identify a suspect than comparing people to one another.
Environmental studies enrollment soars
The New York Times
Iowa State has seen the number of students enrolled in environmental studies and environmental science soar 50 percent since fall 2003. "I had this sense that environmental issues got a lot more press -- or maybe more effective press -- in the last four to five years," says William Crumpton of ISU's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology.
Buy local: Food tastes better, and it's fresher
Albany Democrat Herald
Locally grown food can be produced four times more efficiently, uses four times less fuel and emits four times less carbon dioxide than items produced on the global market, says Rich Pirog, associate director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State.