Issue: 299

................................................... COLLEGE NEWS ................................................... ALUMNI HEAR FROM COLLEGE AT REUNION RECEPTION Eric Hoiberg, associate dean, welcomed about 70 alumni and spouses to the College of Agricultures Alumni Days reception last Friday. Department chairs and representatives from economics, agronomy, sociology, agricultural education and studies, natural resource ecology and management, horticulture and animal science spoke to the alumni. Mike Gaul, career services director, filled in alums on current graduates. Alumni from 1954 offered updates on what they have been doing the last 50 years. Jerry Palmer (BS Animal Science, 54), said, I sat next to Merrill Parsons (BS Animal Science, 54) in every animal science class, and look, were still doing it. VOLUNTEERS SOUGHT FOR SOY FLAKES STUDY Fifteen volunteers are needed for a sensory evaluation study on flavor of toasted soy flakes. Participants will sample soy-based food products. Volunteers are asked to participate in two training sessions and nine 15-minute evaluation sessions. Volunteers will receive $30 after completing all the sessions. The training sessions are set for 3 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, May 25, and Wednesday, May 26. The sensory evaluation sessions are scheduled for 1 to 2 p.m. on June 28; July 1, 5, 26 and 29; and Aug. 2, 23, 26 and 30. All sessions will be held in the Food Sciences Building. Contact: Like Yan, 4-1873 or lkyan@iastate.edu. ISUS YANG A LEADING EXPERT ON SOYBEAN RUST X.B. Yang, Iowa State plant pathologist, is one of the nation's leading experts on Asian Soybean Rust. His expertise has earned him a place on a national assessment team that will be called upon to survey the problem within 24 hours after it is found in the continental United States. A team of experts has been organized by the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to respond if rust is found in the United States. Yang began studying the disease in the USDA Foreign Diseases and Weed Science Research Unit in 1989. He now chairs the North Central Soybean Rust Committee. His expertise focuses on wind-borne movement of the fungus and the use of modeling to predict how the disease could spread. More Agriculture, Veterinary Medicine and Natural Resources News from Iowa State can be found online. GENE TAKLE TO BE FEATURED IN MOVIE REVIEW ON GLOBAL WARMING The movie "The Day After Tomorrow" will be reviewed by Jeff Bruner in the Friday edition of the Des Moines Register. The movie focuses on the effects of global warming and the Register is planning a story featuring Gene Takle's work. Takle, a professor of agronomy and geological and atmospheric sciences, was recently featured in an Inside Iowa State article. NEW WEB SITE HAS LEOPOLD CENTER RESEARCH REPORTS Summaries of more than 200 sustainable agriculture research projects are available at the Leopold Center Web site, http://www.leopold.iastate.edu. The report summaries, which cover nearly all the competitive grant research projects that have been funded by the center, are organized by category and searchable by keyword. HOOP HOUSE RESEARCH VIDEO TO BE SENT TO IOWA STATIONS A USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) video featuring the use of hoop houses to raise pigs will soon be released to nine Iowa television stations. College of Agriculture staff provided video footage of an ISU project in northwest Iowa. Rod Fischer, Brenton Center videographer, shot the video. Barb McManus, Agriculture Communications Service, and Jerry DeWitt, entomology, helped with onsite production. Mark Honeyman, animal science, was interviewed about his research. The story appears 7 minutes and 42 seconds into the SARE program. NEW REPORT LOOKS AT AGRICULTURE'S ROLE IN CLIMATE CHANGE Agriculture is the focus of a new report on climate change and greenhouse gases. Bruce Babcock, economics professor and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, co-chaired a 15-member task force that developed the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology report. Learn more in "Agriculture in Action." DEADLINES AND REMINDERS June 4: 2004 Staniforth Lecture, Martin Kropff, director general of the Plant Science Group and professor of crop ecology and weed science at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, 4:10 p.m., 118 Horticulture Hall June 4-6: Sixth Annual Pet Pig Symposium, Iowa State College of Veterinary Medicine June 17: Southeast Research and Demonstration Farm field day, 1 p.m., Crawfordsville, details: https://farms.cals.iastate.edu/research-farms-field-days-and-meetings June 23: Northern Research and Demonstration Farm field day, 9:30 a.m., Kanawha, details: https://farms.cals.iastate.edu/research-farms-field-days-and-meetings June 24: Northeast Research and Demonstration Farm field day, 1:30 p.m., Nashua, details: https://farms.cals.iastate.edu/research-farms-field-days-and-meetings June 30: Northwest Research and Demonstration Farm field day, 9 a.m., Sutherland, details: https://farms.cals.iastate.edu/research-farms-field-days-and-meetings June 25: Tree Steward Conference, all day, campus, more: http://www.forestry.iastate.edu/one_steward/steward_one.htm June 28: Meeting Future Global Food Needs summer lectureship, 10 a.m. to noon, 1352 Gilman, contact: Don Beitz, 4-5626 or dcbeitz@iastate.edu June 29: Meeting Future Global Food Needs summer lectureship, 10 a.m. to noon, 1352 Gilman, contact: Don Beitz, 4-5626 or dcbeitz@iastate.edu June 30: Meeting Future Global Food Needs summer lectureship, 10 a.m. to noon, 1352 Gilman, contact: Don Beitz, 4-5626 or dcbeitz@iastate.edu July 2: Meeting Future Global Food Needs summer lectureship, 10 a.m. to noon, 1352 Gilman, contact: Don Beitz, 4-5626 or dcbeitz@iastate.edu July 12: Horticulture Station fruit and vegetable field day, TBA, Gilbert, details: https://farms.cals.iastate.edu/research-farms-field-days-and-meetings July 13: Lauren Christian Pork Chop Open, Veenker Memorial Golf Course, details: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/newsrel/2004/may04/may0406.html July 20: Muscatine Island Research and Demonstration Farm field day, 5 p.m., Fruitland, details: https://farms.cals.iastate.edu/research-farms-field-days-and-meetings July 22: Horticulture Station turfgrass field day, 9 a.m., Gilbert, details: https://farms.cals.iastate.edu/research-farms-field-days-and-meetings July 23: Horticulture Station aquaculture field day, 6 p.m., Gilbert, details: https://farms.cals.iastate.edu/research-farms-field-days-and-meetings July 30: Allee Research and Demonstration Farm field day, 11 a.m., Newell, details: https://farms.cals.iastate.edu/research-farms-field-days-and-meetings ................................................... COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK ................................................... WEBSITE OFFERS SHORTENED URLS Sometimes when you try to e-mail a long URL, you end up sending something with breaks that cant be used by being clicked on. Telling someone such a URL over the phone would be nearly impossible. Element K Journals reports one solution is using http://tinyurl.com. The free service allows you to enter or copy a long URL and the site creates a shorter URL that redirects people to the original URL. And the new URL will never expire, according to the site developer. ................................................... INFOGRAZING ................................................... ALLEN TO HEAD WESTERN RURAL DEVELOPMENT CENTER John Allen, director of the Center for Applied Rural Innovation at the University of Nebraska, has been named director of the Western Rural Development Center at Utah State University. Allen has served as a member of a member of the advisory board of the Harry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University since 2001. ........................................................ EXTERNAL VOICES ........................................................ ACADEMIC WORK: A JOB BIG ENOUGH BY ITSELF Performing academic work responsibly and at the highest level is a job big enough for any scholar and for any institution. And, as I look around, it does not seem to me that we academics do that job so well that we can now take it upon ourselves to do everyone else's job too. We should look to the practices in our own shop, narrowly conceived, before we set out to alter the entire world by forming moral character, or fashioning democratic citizens, or combating globalization, or embracing globalization, or anything else  One would like to think that even the exaggerated sense of virtue that is so much a part of the academic mentality has its limits. If we aim low and stick to the tasks we are paid to perform, we might actually get something done. Stanley Fish, retiring dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago (New York Times, May 21) ........................................................ MARGINALIA ........................................................ PENNSYLVANIA SOIL BILL HASNT MEANT MUDSLINGING . . . YET Pennsylvania legislators are getting down and dirty over a bill to name the official state soil. The state House voted 177-22 to designate Hazleton soil as the official state soil. The Pennsylvania Association of Professional Soil Scientists has pressed for the designation, which awaits Senate action, but some lawmakers say the Legislature should be dealing with more important issues. State Rep. Kelly Lewis said, "I'm sure Hazleton soil is important to someone in the state. My people didn't elect me to worry about that stuff." But Bruce Willman, president of the soil association, said that having a state soil would bolster Pennsylvania's credibility when it hosts the 18th World Congress of Soil Science in Philadelphia in 2006. (Associated Press, May 24) Next issue: June 1 ........................................................ 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 Equal Opportunity and Diversity, 3680 Beardshear Hall, (515) 294-7612.