News Archive
Tuesday, September 11 2012
-
Hosts of NPR's 'Planet Money' will bring live show to Iowa State on Sept. 19
Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg, the charismatic team from National Public Radio's (NPR) "Planet Money," will deliver an informative and entertaining live stage show at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. A co-production of NPR and "This American Life," "Planet Money" helps listeners understand how dramatic economic change impacts their lives. The program uses substantive, intelligent economic reporting that is funny, engaging and accessible. Their presentation is free and open to the public.
-
ISU architecture professor pursues groundbreaking work on energy and buildings
Buildings account for about 40 percent of all U.S. energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In the move toward renewable energy and green building technologies, considerable effort has gone into developing standards for energy-efficient materials, processes and systems, while little has been done to measure how well buildings actually perform once they’re in use. An Iowa State University architecture professor hopes her work with a five-year, $20 million National Science Foundation project will lead to better understanding of building energy-performance data to determine whether systems perform as expected, as well as what strategies work best in Iowa’s climate. (Video.)
-
Iowa State, Ames Lab researcher developing new computing approach to materials science
Iowa State University's Krishna Rajan is using data mining, information theory and statistical learning concepts to develop a new approach to discovering materials. Like other methods, Rajan's approach can collect large amounts of data. But he's also developing ideas to target the data that's most relevant to solving a particular problem.
-
Design on Main connects ISU College of Design with Ames community
The College of Design is joining Main Street with a satellite facility for classes, exhibitions and community outreach. The college’s newest venture — Design on Main — provides studio space for 20 graduate students in the integrated visual arts program and a small gallery space to showcase artwork and other projects. In addition to providing much-needed space, the facility offers a new connection with the Ames community. An open house at Design on Main will be held during the Octagon Art Festival on Sunday, Sept. 23. The public is invited.
-
ISU researchers looking for improved diagnostic tools to detect re-emerging disease in pigs
Veterinary researchers at Iowa State University are developing improved methods to diagnose a re-emerging swine disease that was essentially a non-issue five years ago but has become increasingly more common since then. Swine dysentery, also known as bloody scours, is a disease in pigs that causes diarrhea containing mucus and blood and eventually leads to uneven growth and increased mortality among infected herds. The disease virtually disappeared in the late 1990s but has re-emerged in recent years.
-
Iowa State University enrollment tops 31,000
It’s another one for the record books at Iowa State University. This fall’s student body of 31,040 is the largest in school history. It’s the fourth year of record enrollment and the sixth consecutive year of growth at Iowa State.
-
ISU’s Hixson-Lied Small Animal Hospital dedication set for Sept. 12; public invited
After two years of construction and years of planning and design, Iowa State University will dedicate its new Hixson-Lied Small Animal Hospital at the College of Veterinary Medicine on Sept. 12 at 4:30 p.m. The dedication of the hospital marks the completion of the two-phase renovation and expansion project of the Dr. W. Eugene and Linda Lloyd Veterinary Medical Center that began in 2006 with the construction of Phase I, the large animal and equine hospital.
-
Iowa State physicists excited about Higgs studies, look forward to new physics
Iowa State University physicists -- faculty, scientists, post-doctoral researchers, graduate students and undergraduates -- are contributing to the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. They're part of the international effort to hunt down the Higgs boson and an explanation for how subatomic particles acquire their masses. They're looking forward to collecting more data about a new "Higgs-like" particle announced this summer. And they're excited about the possibility of discovering new physics as collider energies ramp up.
-
ISU experts predict rise in 2013 grocery prices to reflect today’s high grain costs
Americans can expect to pay more for groceries due to high commodity prices driven by this year’s drought, but food prices likely won’t hit their peak for a few months, said ISU grain market and agricultural experts this week. Corn prices have soared throughout the summer due to the historic drought that has withered much of the nation’s prime farmland, which has driven up feed costs for livestock and poultry producers. Those high prices will be passed onto consumers in the form of increased costs at the grocery store, but it will take several months for those increases to show up on store shelves.
-
Public invited to Iowa State president's formal welcome
Seven months into the job, Iowa State University president Steven Leath soon will receive his formal welcome to the university. The presidential installation ceremony welcoming Iowa State's 15th president is set for Friday, Sept. 14, in Stephens Auditorium. The public is invited.
-
Erskine Bowles will speak about the national debt Sept. 13
Erskine Bowles, president emeritus of the 17-campus University of North Carolina (UNC) system, a former White House chief of staff and co-chair of a bipartisan national commission on debt reduction, will speak at Iowa State University about the country's fiscal health. Bowles' talk, "A Conversation on the National Debt," will be at 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13, in the Memorial Union Great Hall. On Friday, Sept. 14, Bowles will introduce Steven Leath during Leath's celebratory installation as Iowa State's 15th president. Leath served as a vice president for the UNC system during Bowles' tenure as president (2006-10). -
Iowa State, Ames Lab researchers study the structure of drug resistance in tuberculosis
A research group led by Edward Yu of Iowa State University and the Ames Laboratory is beginning to study disease resistance in tuberculosis. The researchers started their TB studies by describing the structure of a regulator that controls the expression of a pump that removes toxins from the bacteria. The finding was recently published online by the journal Nucleic Acids Research.
-
This season’s influenza strain among pigs and humans appears mild
Increasing reports this month of humans infected by influenza after close contact with pigs at county and state fairs shouldn’t send pork producers – or anyone else, for that matter – scrambling for the panic button, veterinary and animal science experts at Iowa State University said this week.
-
Leath named to IFDC board of directors
Iowa State University President Steven Leath has been elected to a three-year term on the board of directors of the Muscle Shoals, Ala.-based International Fertilizer Development Center. IFDC focuses on increasing and sustaining food security and agricultural productivity in developing countries through the development and transfer of effective and environmentally sound crop nutrient technology and agribusiness expertise.
-
Iowa State researchers feed pigs, chickens high-protein fungus grown on ethanol leftovers
An Iowa State University research team led by Hans van Leeuwen is feeding high-protein fungi grown on the leftovers of ethanol production to pigs and chickens. The feed-production process also cleans some of the water used in ethanol production, allowing more water to be recycled back into biofuel production. The process was recently named a global grand winner of the International Water Association's Project Innovation Awards in Applied Research.
Video: Movin' in
Thousands of students are moving onto campus, with lots of help from their families and university volunteers. Some are getting surprise visitors in their new rooms.
Video: In the show ring
Watch President Leath show a steer during the Governor's Charity Steer Show at the Iowa State Fair. It was the 30th anniversary of the fundraiser Iowa's Ronald McDonald Houses.