................................................... COLLEGE NEWS ................................................... AG WEEK BEGINS TODAY Several activities will recognize agriculture at Iowa State this week. The official kick-off will be during a barbecue from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today. Also included is Ag Career Day on Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Memorial Union. The Ag Student Council website has a listing of activities. IOWA AG SECRETARY TO SPEAK AT HORT SEMINAR TODAY The importance of horticulture in Iowa’s economy will be the subject of Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Patty Judge’s presentation. It begins at 4:10 p.m. in 116 Horticulture. Light refreshments will be served. HORT CLUB APPLE SALE THIS WEEKEND Jonathan, Golden Delicious, Liberty and Chieftain apples will be on sale 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 26-27, at the Horticulture Farm. The farm is located one and a half miles east of Highway 69 at the Gilbert Corner. SUTHERLAND GIFT HONORS JAY LUSH: A LEGEND IN ANIMAL BREEDING Iowa State alumnus Tom Sutherland and Jean Sutherland, Fort Collins, Colo., have taken the lead in establishing the Jay Lush Endowed Professorship in Animal Breeding and Genetics with a $500,000 contribution. Lush was Sutherland's major professor during graduate school. RUPRI OBSERVES ITS 10TH ANNIVERSARY The Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI) hosted the national symposium "Rural Matters: Making Place and Culture Count" last week in Nebraska City, Neb. At the event, RUPRI celebrated its 10th anniversary of assessing the rural impacts of public policies and programs. RUPRI is a consortium involving researchers at Iowa State, the University of Missouri and the University of Nebraska. Dan Otto, economics, and Jan Flora, sociology, coordinate RUPRI’s work on campus. For more information: http://www.rupri.org PAINTING UNVEILED IN MEMORY OF AGRONOMY STUDENT A ceremony was held last Wednesday in Agronomy Hall to unveil a painting in memory of an agronomy student who died three years ago. Amy Loutsch, who was a sophomore, died Oct. 16, 1999, from complications of respiratory distress syndrome. Faculty members Russ Mullen and Mary Wiedenhoeft worked with Agronomy Club students to raise money and commission a painting to remember Loutsch and inspire students. The painting depicts Loutsch studying in the Agronomy Commons, looking out a window towards farm fields with ISU campus landmarks in the background. Heather Straszheim, who graduated from ISU this year in biological pre-med illustration, was the painter. SCHOLARSHIPS LAUNCH COLLEGE CAREERS FOR AG STUDENTS The 2002 Successful Farming-Bayer Corporation Crop Protection Scholarship recipients include three students attending Iowa State. The students are: Luke Harris from Eddyville, Aaron Lantz from Stanton and Jacqueline Wenke from Douds. Eric Hoiberg, associate dean, was a member of the committee that selected 30 students out of 284 applications to receive scholarships. The deadline for next year is March 14. The committee will award 20 scholarships for $1,000 and 10 for $500. WINNERS OF BORLAUG LECTURE POSTER COMPETITION Sixteen students participated in the Norman Borlaug poster competition at the first annual Borlaug lecture held Oct. 15. The undergraduate winners were: first, Carmen Alvarez, senior, nutritional science; second, Ching-ching Fong, senior, food science and human nutrition; and third, Miki Katayama, senior, food science and human nutrition. Graduate student winners were: first, Sylvia Wawrzyniak, animal science; and tied for second, Guillermo Fernandez, toxicology, and Stanley Prawiradjaja, food science and human nutrition. COLLEGE HELPS SPONSOR FFA SOIL JUDGING COMPETITION The Davis County FFA Chapter Soils Judging Team placed first at the 2002 Iowa FFA Soil Career Development Event, which was co-sponsored by Iowa State. Gerald Miller helped coordinate the competition that drew twenty-nine teams on Oct. 19. The contest included the judging of four soil pits, plus a written test on soils in Iowa. The top five teams qualified to represent Iowa in the 52st Annual International Land Judging Career Development Event in May 2003 in Oklahoma City, Okla., sponsored by the Farm Credit System. Besides the Davis County team, those qualifying are: Denison FFA, Orient-Macksburg FFA, Emmetsburg FFA and Montezuma FFA. ISU SOY PROTEIN STUDY NEEDS PARTICIPANTS Iowa State researchers are in immediate need of women to participate in a soy protein research study. Participants must be healthy, postmenopausal women with a body mass index between 20 and 32. Participants must be willing to avoid or limit phytate-rich foods (nuts, peas, whole grain and soy products) and isoflavone-rich foods (soy products, beans and peas) and discontinue any vitamin, mineral and herbal supplements. Participants will consume 40 grams of soy protein daily during the six-week study. Call 4-8673. IOWA STATE AGRONOMY STUDENTS FILL TIME CAPSULE As part of the on-going Department of Agronomy centennial celebration, ISU agronomy students will fill a time capsule to be opened at the department's 150th anniversary. The students will place their items in the time capsule on Oct. 24 at 3 p.m. in the Agronomy Hall commons. Refreshments will follow. Among other things, the time capsule will include a listing of current market prices for ag commodities, samples of corn, soybeans and soil, a photo of a farm family, a cell phone, a population map of the world, a manure management plan and toy tractors. RESEARCHERS SAY BT CORN NOT TO BLAME FOR SOW PROBLEMS Researchers have concluded that genetically altered corn isn't to blame for higher-than-normal pseudopregnancy rates in sows on five Iowa farms. ENTOMOLOGIST TALKS ABOUT WEST NILE VIRUS Iowa State and University of Iowa teamed up to begin the state's mosquito-monitoring program 34 years ago. "When West Nile hit, we were ready to go," says ISU entomologist Wayne Rowley. Learn more in "Agriculture in Action." STATISTICS DEPARTMENT RECEIVES NATIONAL HONOR The Department of Statistics has been awarded the first Statistical Partnerships among Academe, Industry and Government Committee Award from the American Statistical Association. The award was given to Iowa State for its General Motors and Mayo Clinic partnership. DEADLINES AND REMINDERS Oct. 21: Professional development seminar on digital television, Bill Hayes, chief engineer at Iowa Public Television, 12:10 - 1 p.m., Room 8 Curtiss Hall Oct. 22: Ag Career Day, Memorial Union, https://www.career.cals.iastate.edu/cals-career-day Oct. 23: “Strengthening Linkages between Researchers, Extensionists and Farmers: An example from western Kenya,” lecture by Cheryl Palm, visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley who is the wife of the 2002 World Food Prize laureate, 3 p.m., Pioneer Room, Memorial Union Oct. 24: World Food Prize Laureate Ceremony, 7:30 p.m., Stephens Auditorium Oct. 24-25: World Food Prize International Symposium, "From the Middle East to the Middle West: Managing Freshwater Shortages and Regional Water Security," Des Moines Oct. 26: “Four Iowans who fed the world,” symposium, noon, Herbert Hoover Library, West Branch, more info: (319) 643-5301 Oct. 28: Think Tank on Animal Agriculture, 6 p.m., Cardinal Room, Memorial Union, RSVP by Oct. 25 to Julie Roberts, jrober@iastate.edu Oct. 30: Art tour with Dean Woteki, noon, meet in Agronomy Hall courtyard Nov. 1: North Central Soybean Research Programs soybean research pre-proposals due Nov. 1: National Science Foundation’s Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research program preliminary proposals due Guidelines are at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?nsf02154 Nov. 1: Insect Horror Film Festival, 6 p.m., Sun Room, Memorial Union Nov. 18: Deadline for college and university award submissions Nov. 20: Competitive grants funding session, by Mark Bailey, national program leader of USDA’s CSREES economic and community systems unit, 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in room 179 Scheman, RSVP Elena Polush, 4-8493 or elenap@iastate.edu by Nov. 11 ................................................... COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK ................................................... KEEPING DIGITAL IMAGES CLEAN Do you have problems with “noisy” digital photos, those with extra pixels of colors that don't belong in the image? The problem can be caused by several factors, according to The MacAuthority journal: 1. Underexposed images, which can be fixed by increasing your exposure compensation or shutter speed. 2. Blue skies are difficult for digital cameras to reproduce. Usually the best fix is with image-editing programs. 3. Automatic sharpening filters can emphasize noise. Try turning this feature down or off. 4. Shadows become noisy, especially when a majority of the scene is bright. Try using your camera's manual settings or slightly underexposing the shot and then lighten up the remainder of the image with image-editing software. 5. Compressing images into a JPEG can increase noise. Use the highest quality JPEG setting or choose the higher quality TIFF or RAW format, if available. 6. Night shots increase the time the image sensor is exposed to light and raise the possibility that noise will develop. Experiment with exposure settings to see what works for your camera. 7. Temperature can affect noise. Wait for the camera to adjust to its surroundings. ................................................... INFOGRAZING ................................................... DEWITT CONTRIBUTES TO SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE BOOK “People Sustaining the Land: A Vision of Good Science and Art” was recently published featuring the photography of Jerry DeWitt, interim director, Agriculture & Natural Resources Extension, and Cynthia Vagnetti, an independent photographer and video producer. The book features images and first-person accounts of 26 farmers across the country who practice sustainable agriculture. Another book with his photos, “Renewing the Countryside—Iowa,” is scheduled to be published next year. NRI GRANT PROPOSAL DEADLINE COMING UP Several National Research Initiative program areas have a Nov. 1 deadline for grant applications. They are: managed ecosystems, soils and soil biology, watershed processes and water resources, entomology and nematology, biology of plant-microbe associations, food characterization/process/product research, nonfood characterization/process/product research. INSTRUMENT ACQUISITION PREPROPOSALS SOUGHT Jim Bloedel, Vice Provost for Research and Advanced Studies, invites preproposals for the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Program. Proposals may be for a single instrument, a large system of instruments or multiple instruments that share a common or specific research focus. Iowa State’s internal deadline is Nov. 12. MRI guidelines can be found online. IOWA ENERGY CENTER REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS The Iowa Energy Center seeks preproposals for research and demonstration projects that would begin July 1, 2003. Preproposal deadline is Nov. 14. Funds are from 2002 utility revenues and are anticipated to be reduced, making competition stiffer than in past years. ................................................... MARGINALIA ................................................... THE FIRST FARMERS About 50 million years ago, farming was invented . . . by ants, termites and beetles, which cultivated crops of fungi. According to Oct. 15 The New York Times, farming appears to have evolved only once among ants and at least seven different times among beetles. European researchers now are studying fungus-farming termites. They have found that termites and fungi joined together once and have not separated since. Next issue: Oct. 28 Deadline: Oct. 25 ........................................................ AG ONLINE ........................................................ EDITORS Ed Adcock, edadcock@iastate.edu, and Brian Meyer, bmeyer@iastate.edu Phone: (515) 294-5616 Web site: http://www.ag.iastate.edu/aginfo/ SUBSCRIBE Ag Online, the newsletter for faculty and staff in Iowa State University's College of Agriculture, is e-mailed every Monday. To subscribe, send your name, e-mail address and the message "Ag Online subscribe" to edadcock@iastate.edu. To unsubscribe, send "Ag Online unsubscribe." Iowa State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, sex, marital status, disability or status as a U.S. Vietnam Era Veteran. Any persons having inquiries concerning this may contact the Director of Affirmative Action, 1031 Wallace Road Office Building, Room 101, (515) 294-7612.