[DIALOGnews] DIALOG and DISCCRS News Feb. 23, 2004
Susan Weiler
weilercs@whitman.edu
Mon, 23 Feb 2004 11:16:19 -0800
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
DIALOG and Disccrs News
=46eb. 23, 2004
***************************************************
Resources
Teaching Tip: Creating an Effective Power Point Presentation, Thomas
Sailor, Concord University, includes suggestions like The "joy of
six" is a helpful rule of thumb. Use a maximum of six points per
slide and six words per
point.`<http://people.csp.edu/saylor/effective_powerpoint.htm>http://people.=
csp.edu/saylor/effective_powerpoint.htm
Earth Observatory Data and Imagery, NASA, experience a highly
interactive site that allows global scale manipulation of parameters
relating to the atmosphere, oceans, land, biosphere, and radiation
budget. Over 25 parameters are available, including cloud cover, sea
surface height, land cover classification, chlorophyll content, out
going heat radiation, and much more. Build animations for different
time periods (there is selective parameter coverage for 1978-2003).
=46or example, compare land cover with fires in order to discuss
spatial and temporal trends. Click on the "Features" section and read
related archived NASA news stories like "NASA Satellites Watch Worlds
Cities Grow" and "Scientists "Reconstruct" Earth's Climate Over Past
Millennia." A site glossary mode allows quick access to the meaning
of unfamiliar concepts.
<http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Observatory/>http://earthobservatory.nasa.=
gov/Observatory/
NRC has released the 2nd report on the Climate Change Science Program
-
<http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309088658?OpenDocument>htt=
p://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309088658?OpenDocument
***************************************************
Science News
Rita Colwell Resigns as Director of the
National Science Foundation
Dr. Rita Colwell has resigned as Director of the National
Science Foundation (NSF), effective February 21. Upon her retirement
from NSF, Colwell will become Chairman of Canon U.S. Life Sciences,
Inc., a newly-created Washington-based subsidiary of Canon U.S.A.
whose goal is to identify and develop life-science solutions with
potential applications in diagnostics and medical instrumentation.
She will also serve as Distinguished University Professor at the
University of Maryland, College Park, and on the faculty of The John
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. There she will help
develop a new international center for the study of infectious
diseases, water, and health.
Colwell is the third longest-serving Director in NSF's 54 year
history. She has been director of NSF since 1998, when she was
appointed by President Clinton. Her six year term would have expired
in August. During her tenure at NSF, Colwell oversaw a major
increase in the Foundation=92s support of environmental research
through such initiatives as the interdisciplinary Biocomplexity in
the Environment Priority Area.
"I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to lead
NSF through two Administrations and major transformational changes,"
Colwell said in a press release Wednesday. "During the past five and
a half years, our budget has increased by 68 percent, our merit
review system has been recognized throughout government as the gold
standard for responsible use of public funds, and our programs have
helped U.S. science and engineering evolve into the flexible, robust
and diverse endeavors that they must become to keep America
preeminent at the frontier of research and education."
Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., who currently serves as Director of
the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), will
become interim Director. Bement has indicated that he will remain
accountable to Congress and Administration for NIST during this time,
and that he will resume his duties as full time director of NIST once
a new NSF director is appointed.
Bement has served on the National Science Board, which is the
governing board of the NSF. Before becoming Director of NIST in
2001, Bement was Professor of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue
University. Prior to that, he held a variety of positions in
academia, industry and government, including senior positions with
the Department of Defense.
***************************************************
=46orum
Submitted by Krisa Arzayus
The Mars Beneath the Waves
By Robert B. Gagosian
Saturday, February 14, 2004; Page A29
As an oceanographer, I confess that when I want a break from the blitz
of election reporting, I point my Web browser to NASA to check that, 35
million miles from any primary or caucus, Opportunity is still sending
pictures from a peaceful, still world.
When I look at the rover's photographs of the Martian surface, I feel
pride and awe at the engineering feat of visiting another world. I feel
humbled by the sense of infinite time. And I feel the same excitement of
discovery that I felt in dives in the submersible Alvin, when I saw at
the bottom of the sea what no other human had ever seen before.
I also feel a nagging frustration -- like that of a father whose son ha=
s
just decided to go to the Himalayas to "find himself" when he can't find
his socks in his own dresser drawer. Not that he won't learn something
in the mountains, but I wish he could see that frontiers at home are
also worthy of his devotion. They are frontiers he will need to confront
sooner or later.
Which brings me to oceanography. Except for the fact that one looks up
and the other looks down, oceanographers are basically space explorers
who get wet. Both work in terrifically hostile environments. Both go
where no one has gone before. Both seek to understand nature and spin
off technologies and discoveries that benefit society. Both get most of
their support from public funds. The big difference is that
oceanographers work where they live -- on a planet that is 70 percent
water, which is the wellspring of our survival.
Why is oceanography a valuable pursuit?
Despite 100 years of ship-based ocean science, less than 5 percent of
the ocean floor has been explored. Our biologists discover new species
practically every time they go to sea. Our knowledge of the oceans is
still characterized mainly by what we don't know. Today we have an
unprecedented chance to change this.
Miniaturization of sensors and telemetry technology has created a new
generation of ocean observatories that enable us to learn more at less
cost. We needn't rely only on ships for exploration. Flotillas of
battery- and solar-powered observatories, some as small as a soccer
ball, can report back measurements 24 hours a day from anywhere on
Earth, regardless of weather. Some are anchored in place or flow with
ocean currents; some are autonomous robots that swim on a programmed
path for months at a time; some are installed on the sea floor, some on
the coast, some at the sea surface and some part way down in "mid
water."
We are in a new age of oceanography, one in which giving the ocean its
own instrumentation has become an economic and technical possibility.
The cost of building a network of hundreds of sensors to wire the
oceans: about $1 billion over 10 years, a little more than the cost of
the two Mars rovers.
What's the payback?
The oceans affect climate and weather, and thus the human condition,
around the world. Ocean observatories can reveal conditions that affect
fisheries, shifts in weather and long-term climate change. They can
illuminate the migratory patterns of marine mammals, the reasons for
drought or floods, and the fate and long-term effects of pollutants.
They can detect in real time tsunamis, undersea earthquakes, volcanoes
and extreme weather at sea, improving prediction of their devastating
effects at sea and ashore. Figures we have come up with show that better
predictions of ocean conditions could produce $1 billion in annual
savings from better mitigation or prevention of damages.
When Henry David Thoreau wrote in "Walden" that "in wildness is the
preservation of the world," he probably meant that we have a spiritual
need for untamed territory. We also have a need to understand the
unknown. Indeed, our survival may lie in the uncharted, watery frontiers
of our own planet.
Oceanographers try to understand the water wilderness that covers most
of our planet, which generates most of the oxygen on Earth, controls our
climate and makes Earth habitable. They convey what they learn so that
we all may help in the preservation of our world.
I encourage us to follow in the footsteps of Thoreau, a great homebody
who realized that the answers to who we are and what we need to know are
hidden in our own backyard.
The writer is president and director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution.
***************************************************
Summer Programs, Courses, Internships, Meetings
***************************************************
Jobs for PhDs
**************************************************
This newsletter has been developed by C. Susan Weiler for the purpose
of distributing information of potential interest to recent PhDs
engaged in interdisciplinary aquatic science or climate change
research, and to build an international sense of community among
recent grads. It provides an international forum for the exchange of
information and opinions regarding research, professional and social
issues.
The views and opinions expressed are strictly those of C.S. Weiler or
of the individual who has submitted a particular item for
distribution. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those
of the funding agencies or sponsoring societies. Dr. Weiler serves as
producer and editor and reserves the right to edit or reject material
submitted to the list.
Please submit announcements of interest to recent PhDs to
phd@whitman.edu or weiler@whitman.edu.
=46or ease of transmission, please do not send attachments. Send a
short message in the body of an e-mail message, and link to any
appropriate websites.
--
C. Susan Weiler, Ph.D.
Biology Department Tel: 509-527-5948
Whitman College Fax: 509-527-5961
Walla Walla, WA 99362
weiler@whitman.edu
Programs for Recent PhDs http://aslo.org/phd.html
Minorities in the Aquatic Sciences http://www.aslo.org/mas.html
DIALOG poster http://www.aslo.org/phd/dialogposter.pdf
DISCCRS poster http://www.aslo.org/phd/disccrsposter.pdf
--============_-1134558711==_ma============
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<html><head><style type=3D"text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
--></style><title>DIALOG and DISCCRS News Feb. 23,
2004</title></head><body>
<div align=3D"center"><font size=3D"+2" color=3D"#0000FF"><b>DIALOG and
Disccrs News</b></font></div>
<div align=3D"center">Feb. 23, 2004</div>
<div align=3D"center"><font
color=3D"#0000FF"><b>***************************************************</b
></font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font size=3D"+1"
color=3D"#0000FF"><b>Resources</b></font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div><b>Teaching Tip: Creating an Effective Power Point
Presentation</b>, Thomas Sailor, Concord University, includes
suggestions like The "joy of six" is a helpful rule of thumb.
Use a maximum of six points per slide and six words per point.`<a
href=3D"http://people.csp.edu/saylor/effective_powerpoint.htm"
>http://people.csp.edu/saylor/effective_powerpoint.htm</a></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><b>Earth Observatory Data and Imagery, NASA</b>, experience a
highly interactive site that allows global scale manipulation of
parameters relating to the atmosphere, oceans, land, biosphere, and
radiation budget. Over 25 parameters are available, including cloud
cover, sea surface height, land cover classification, chlorophyll
content, out going heat radiation, and much more. Build animations for
different time periods (there is selective parameter coverage for
1978-2003). For example, compare land cover with fires in order
to discuss spatial and temporal trends. Click on the "Features"
section and read related archived NASA news stories like "NASA
Satellites Watch Worlds Cities Grow" and "<b>Scientists
"Reconstruct" Earth's Climate Over Past Millennia." A site
glossary mode allows quick access to the meaning of unfamiliar
concepts. </b></div>
<div align=3D"center"><a
href=3D"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Observatory/"
>http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Observatory/</a></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div><font face=3D"Arial"><b>NRC has released the 2nd report on the
Climate Change Science Program</b> -</font> <a
href=3D
"http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309088658?OpenDocument"
><font
face=3D"Arial"
>http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309088658?OpenDocum<span
></span>ent</font></a></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font
color=3D"#0000FF"><b>***************************************************</b
></font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font size=3D"+1" color=3D"#0000FF"><b>Science
News</b></font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><font face=3D"Arial" size=3D"+1"><b>Rita Colwell Resigns as Director
of the</b></font></div>
<div><font face=3D"Arial" size=3D"+1"><b>National Science
=46oundation</b></font></div>
<div> Dr. Rita Colwell has resigned as
Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), effective February
21. Upon her retirement from NSF, Colwell will become Chairman
of Canon U.S. Life Sciences, Inc., a newly-created Washington-based
subsidiary of Canon U.S.A. whose goal is to identify and develop
life-science solutions with potential applications in diagnostics and
medical instrumentation. She will also serve as Distinguished
University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and
on the faculty of The John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
There she will help develop a new international center for the study
of infectious diseases, water, and health.</div>
<div> Colwell is the third
longest-serving Director in NSF's 54 year history. She has been
director of NSF since 1998, when she was appointed by President
Clinton. Her six year term would have expired in August.
During her tenure at NSF, Colwell oversaw a major increase in the
=46oundation=92s support of environmental research through such
initiatives as the interdisciplinary Biocomplexity in the Environment
Priority Area.</div>
<div> "I am extremely grateful to
have had the opportunity to lead NSF through two Administrations and
major transformational changes," Colwell said in a press release
Wednesday. "During the past five and a half years, our budget has
increased by 68 percent, our merit review system has been recognized
throughout government as the gold standard for responsible use of
public funds, and our programs have helped U.S. science and
engineering evolve into the flexible, robust and diverse endeavors
that they must become to keep America preeminent at the frontier of
research and education."</div>
<div> Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., who
currently serves as Director of the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST), will become interim Director. Bement has
indicated that he will remain accountable to Congress and
Administration for NIST during this time, and that he will resume his
duties as full time director of NIST once a new NSF director is
appointed. </div>
<div> Bement has served on the National Science
Board, which is the governing board of the NSF. Before becoming
Director of NIST in 2001, Bement was Professor of Nuclear Engineering
at Purdue University. Prior to that, he held a variety of
positions in academia, industry and government, including senior
positions with the Department of Defense. </div>
<div><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font
color=3D"#0000FF"><b>***************************************************</b
></font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font size=3D"+1"
color=3D"#0000FF"><b>Forum</b></font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div>Submitted by Krisa Arzayus</div>
<div><b>The Mars Beneath the Waves</b></div>
<div>By Robert B. Gagosian</div>
<div>Saturday, February 14, 2004; Page A29<br>
As an oceanographer, I confess that when I
want a break from the blitz<br>
of election reporting, I point my Web browser to NASA to check that,
35<br>
million miles from any primary or caucus, Opportunity is still
sending</div>
<div>pictures from a peaceful, still world.<br>
When I look at the rover's photographs of the
Martian surface, I feel<br>
pride and awe at the engineering feat of visiting another world. I
feel<br>
humbled by the sense of infinite time. And I feel the same excitement
of<br>
discovery that I felt in dives in the submersible Alvin, when I saw
at</div>
<div>the bottom of the sea what no other human had ever seen
before.<br>
I also feel a nagging frustration -- like that of a
father whose son has<br>
just decided to go to the Himalayas to "find himself" when
he can't find<br>
his socks in his own dresser drawer. Not that he won't learn
something<br>
in the mountains, but I wish he could see that frontiers at home
are<br>
also worthy of his devotion. They are frontiers he will need to
confront</div>
<div>sooner or later.<br>
Which brings me to oceanography. Except for
the fact that one looks up<br>
and the other looks down, oceanographers are basically space
explorers<br>
who get wet. Both work in terrifically hostile environments. Both
go<br>
where no one has gone before. Both seek to understand nature and
spin<br>
off technologies and discoveries that benefit society. Both get most
of<br>
their support from public funds. The big difference is that<br>
oceanographers work where they live -- on a planet that is 70
percent</div>
<div>water, which is the wellspring of our survival.</div>
<div> Why is oceanography a valuable
pursuit?<br>
Despite 100 years of ship-based ocean
science, less than 5 percent of<br>
the ocean floor has been explored. Our biologists discover new
species<br>
practically every time they go to sea. Our knowledge of the oceans
is<br>
still characterized mainly by what we don't know. Today we have
an</div>
<div>unprecedented chance to change this.<br>
Miniaturization of sensors and telemetry
technology has created a new<br>
generation of ocean observatories that enable us to learn more at
less<br>
cost. We needn't rely only on ships for exploration. Flotillas of<br>
battery- and solar-powered observatories, some as small as a
soccer<br>
ball, can report back measurements 24 hours a day from anywhere on<br>
Earth, regardless of weather. Some are anchored in place or flow
with<br>
ocean currents; some are autonomous robots that swim on a
programmed<br>
path for months at a time; some are installed on the sea floor, some
on<br>
the coast, some at the sea surface and some part way down in
"mid</div>
<div>water."<br>
We are in a new age of oceanography, one in
which giving the ocean its</div>
<div>own instrumentation has become an economic and technical
possibility.<br>
The cost of building a network of
hundreds of sensors to wire the<br>
oceans: about $1 billion over 10 years, a little more than the cost
of</div>
<div>the two Mars rovers.</div>
<div> What's the payback?<br>
The oceans affect climate and weather, and
thus the human condition,<br>
around the world. Ocean observatories can reveal conditions that
affect<br>
fisheries, shifts in weather and long-term climate change. They
can<br>
illuminate the migratory patterns of marine mammals, the reasons
for<br>
drought or floods, and the fate and long-term effects of
pollutants.<br>
They can detect in real time tsunamis, undersea earthquakes,
volcanoes<br>
and extreme weather at sea, improving prediction of their
devastating<br>
effects at sea and ashore. Figures we have come up with show that
better<br>
predictions of ocean conditions could produce $1 billion in
annual</div>
<div>savings from better mitigation or prevention of damages.<br>
When Henry David Thoreau wrote in
"Walden" that "in wildness is the<br>
preservation of the world," he probably meant that we have a
spiritual<br>
need for untamed territory. We also have a need to understand the<br>
unknown. Indeed, our survival may lie in the uncharted, watery
frontiers</div>
<div>of our own planet.<br>
Oceanographers try to understand the water
wilderness that covers most</div>
<div>of our planet, which generates most of the oxygen on Earth,
controls our<br>
climate and makes Earth habitable. They convey what they learn so
that</div>
<div>we all may help in the preservation of our world.<br>
I encourage us to follow in the footsteps of
Thoreau, a great homebody<br>
who realized that the answers to who we are and what we need to know
are</div>
<div>hidden in our own backyard.<br>
The writer is president and director of the
Woods Hole Oceanographic</div>
<div>Institution.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font
color=3D"#0000FF"><b>***************************************************</b
></font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font size=3D"+1" color=3D"#0000FF"><b>Summer
Programs, Courses, Internships</b></font>,<font size=3D"+1"
color=3D"#0000FF"><b> Meetings</b></font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font size=3D"+1"
color=3D"#0000FF"><b><br></b></font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font
color=3D"#0000FF"><b>***************************************************</b
></font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font size=3D"+1" color=3D"#0000FF"><b>Jobs for
PhDs</b></font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font color=3D"#0000FF"><b><br></b></font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font color=3D"#0000FF"><b><br></b></font></div>
<div
align=3D"center">**************************************************</div>
<div align=3D"center"><br></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font size=3D"-1">This newsletter has been developed
by C. Susan Weiler for the purpose of distributing information of
potential interest to recent PhDs engaged in interdisciplinary aquatic
science or climate change research, and to build an international
sense of community among recent grads. It provides an international
forum for the exchange of information and opinions regarding research,
professional and social issues.</font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font size=3D"-1">The views and opinions expressed
are strictly those of C.S. Weiler or of the individual who has
submitted a particular item for distribution. The opinions expressed
do not necessarily reflect those of the funding agencies or sponsoring
societies. Dr. Weiler serves as producer and editor and reserves the
right to edit or reject material submitted to the list.</font></div>
<div align=3D"center"><font color=3D"#0000FF"><b>Please submit
announcements of interest to recent PhDs to phd@whitman.edu or
weiler@whitman.edu.</b></font></div>
<div align=3D"center">For ease of transmission, please do not send
attachments. Send a short message in the body of an e-mail message,
and link to any appropriate websites.</div>
<div align=3D"center"><font color=3D"#0000FF"><b><br></b></font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div><br></div>
<x-sigsep><pre>--
</pre></x-sigsep>
<div>C. Susan Weiler, Ph.D.
</div>
<div>Biology
Department <span
></span> Tel:
509-527-5948 <br
>
Whitman
College <span
></span
>
=46ax: 509-527-5961<br>
Walla Walla, WA 99362<br>
weiler@whitman.edu <br>
Programs for Recent
PhDs <span
></span> http://aslo.org/phd.html<br>
Minorities in the Aquatic Sciences
http://www.aslo.org/mas.html<br>
DIALOG poster
http://www.aslo.org/phd/dialogposter.pdf<br>
DISCCRS poster
http://www.aslo.org/phd/disccrsposter.pdf <span
></span> </div>
</body>
</html>
--============_-1134558711==_ma============--