Issue: 307

................................................... COLLEGE NEWS ................................................... ISU A PARTNER IN EPA WATER QUALITY GRANT ANNOUNCED TODAY An announcement ceremony for the 2004 Watershed Initiative program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was held today at Grays Lake in Des Moines. National EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt announced the agencys Targeted Watershed Grant awards. A project of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and Iowa State University, in collaboration with the Iowa Drainage District Association and Pocahontas and Palo Alto County Boards of Supervisors, is one of 14 to receive a grant. The project will be conducted over the next five years to develop and implement new technologies for reducing nitrate movement through drainage systems to streams, to protect Iowa drinking water supplies and address hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Iowa State project team members attending todays announcement were: William Crumpton, ecology, evolution and organismal biology; Bill Batchelor, agricultural and biosystems engineering; Matthew Helmers, agricultural and biosystems engineering; and James Baker and Stewart Melvin, both recently retired from agricultural and biosystems engineering. Other ISU officials attending were Gerald Miller, College of Agriculture associate dean for extension and outreach programs; Ramesh Kanwar, chair, Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering; and Jonathan Wendel, chair, Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology. FACULTY TO SPEAK AT CHEMICAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE Several College of Agriculture faculty members will speak at the 18th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education on campus this week. The conference is open to middle school science teachers, secondary school chemistry teachers and college chemistry instructors from across the nation. The colleges symposium, Applications of Chemistry in Agriculture, will be held 1:30 to 4 p.m., Wednesday, July 21. There will be an information booth to promote the college. Those scheduled to speak include: Diane Birt, food science & human nutrition; Terri Boylston, food science & human nutrition; Cheryll Reitmeier, food science & human nutrition; Tom Sappington, USDA-ARS and entomology; Joel Coats, entomology; and Dick Gladon, horticulture. TWO ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS NAMED AT IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY Two endowed professorships have been established in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management. NEW EXPERTS REPLACE RETIRED ISU AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERS On June 30, five key faculty members of the Iowa State University agricultural and biosystems engineering department retired. Some new faculty already have arrived, and others will soon. Details in "Agriculture in Action." SCOFIELD NAMED INTERIM DIRECTOR OF BRENTON CENTER Gaylan Scofield has been named interim director of the Brenton Center for Agricultural Instruction and Technology Transfer. He replaced Richard Carter, who retired as director. Scofield has worked at the Brenton Center since its creation nine years ago, mostly recently as systems support specialist. He has been at Iowa State since 1990. NEW TOOL TO HELP SOYBEAN PRODUCERS INCREASE YIELDS A new ISU Extension publication is designed to help producers improve soybean yields. The 28-page book will help soybean producers more fully understand how the soybean plant develops. Learn more: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/newsrel/2004/jul04/jul0413.html KIRSCHENMANN TO SPEAK AT JULY 24 PFI FIELD DAY Fred Kirschenmann, director of ISUs Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, will present an introduction to sustainable agriculture Saturday, July 24, during a Practical Farmers of Iowa field day that helps launch a new two-year program at Marshalltown Community College (MCC). The Leopold Center is providing a $25,000 grant to Marshalltown Community College for its Sustainable & Entrepreneurial Agriculture program. More: http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/news/newsreleases/2004/MCCfield_071304.h… DEADLINES AND REMINDERS 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 28: deadline for abstracts for the 13th annual Growth Factor and Signal Transduction Conference to be held Sept. 16-19, Scheman Building 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 Aug. 6: Abstracts due for an international scientific symposium on alternative swine housing systems, which is set for Sept. 15, Aug. 23: Registration deadline for the 13th annual Growth Factor and Signal Transduction Conference to be held Sept. 16-19, Scheman Building ................................................... COMMUNICATIONS KIOSK ................................................... WHEN TO HYPHENATE COMPOUND WORDS A compound word is a combination of two or more words that function as a single unit of meaning. There are three types of compounds: single words, with no hyphenation, are called closed compounds, as in the word "flowerpot" hyphenated compounds, such as "merry-go-round" and "well-being" and those called open compounds are written as separate words, as in the nouns "school bus" and "decision making." Keep in mind that compounds can function as different parts of speech. In such cases, the type of compound can change, too. "Carry over," for example, is an open compound as a verb but a closed compound ("carryover") as a noun and an adjective. (Get it Write, 2003) ........................................................ INFOGRAZING ........................................................ CSREES SEEKS GLOBAL GRANT PROPOSALS USDA CSREES new International Science and Education Competitive Grants Program requests applications to support the internationalization of food, agriculture and related programs at U.S. universities and colleges. Projects are intended to strengthen the global competence of students, faculty and staff in agriculture and related areas. Projects are intended to enhance business performance in international agriculture and related sectors through extension, research and/or teaching programs. Each institution may submit no more than two proposals as the lead institution. Preproposals should be submitted to the Vice Provost for Research office by Aug. 3. Preproposals may be submitted by campus mail or hand-delivered to 2810 Beardshear or faxed to 4-7288. E-mail communications will be accepted but only if sent to dpimlott@iastate.edu. A review committee will choose the project to be forwarded to CSREES. These guidelines are for preparing preproposals: prepare a description of the project of no more than a page; provide who at ISU will be involved, who will benefit and how they will benefit; provide an estimate of the budget. Contact: Dorothy Pimlott, 4-4933 or dpimlott@iastate.edu. ........................................................ EXTERNAL VOICES ........................................................ FDA COMMISSIONER SAYS PHARMACEUTICALS STILL PROMISING The Food and Drug Administration views plant-made pharmaceuticals as a highly promising means of building and securing the world's drug supply despite challenging obstacles, according to FDA Acting Commissioner Lester Crawford. He made the comments last Tuesday at the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting and Food Expo. Plants have become a focus for production of pharmaceuticals because of their complex biology and the similarity of their cellular structures to human cells. Crawford said that the plant-made pharmaceuticals could offer needed relief as the FDA stretches itself to monitor manufacturing facilities around the world that provide food to this country. "As this industry develops, I think it will be a very useful adjunct to the security and integrity of the world drug supply," said Crawford. (Institute of Food Technologists newsletter, July 14) ........................................................ MARGINALIA ........................................................ MOSQUITOES IN THE CROSS HAIRS Donald Hall has taken aim at mosquitoes with several ingenious devices designed to eradicate the disease-carrying pests in neighborhood back yards. He recently received a patent for a chip-equipped birdbath that attracts egg-laying females, and then periodically flushes the water out, catching the eggs in a fine-mesh filter and crushing them. Another patented device uses a shallow tray powered by a bimetal coil to raise and lower a fine-mesh filter that catches eggs and then raises them up to bake in the sun during the day. In the evening the coil cools and contracts and lowers down below the water's surface to catch more eggs. (New York Times, July 5) Next issue: July 26 ........................................................ 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.