Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

Paper or plastic?

Dr. Tammy Melton, chemistry, is not a crime scene investigator, but she knows her way around DNA. In a recent Honors Lecture, Melton advised nursing students concerned with preserving the integrity of specimens not to put anything into plastic bags. “We tend to think that’s the best place to put things because they’re drippy and wet,” Melton says. The problem is that the evidence stays too wet in plastic bags. Paper bags are preferable. Also, DNA evidence should be kept cool because it starts to degrade at 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. “You can have a lot of DNA, but if it’s completely degraded, it won’t matter how much of it you’ve got,” Melton says. “Imagine trying to photocopy a piece of paper that’s been wadded up and run through the washing machine. … If it’s too degraded, it doesn’t matter how many copies you make. You still can’t read it.”

Contact Melton at 615-898-2626.
tmelton@mtsu.edu

Women and the atom

“History Rewritten: The Pioneer Women of Atomic Science” will be the topic of the MTSU Women in Science lecture at 7 o’clock TONIGHT in Room 102 of Wiser-Patten Science Hall. Dr. Geoff Rayner-Canham, a professor of chemistry at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Canada, will be the first male keynote speaker in the history of the event, which is free and open to the public. He will be joined by his wife, Marelene Rayner-Canham, now retired, who was a physics laboratory instructor at Greenfell. “Traditional accounts of the history of atomic science make it appear that it was solely a ‘man’s world,’” Geoff Rayner-Canham wrote in the abstract about his talk. “Certainly, except for Marie Curie, the top positions were held by male scientists. Nevertheless, there were at least 23 pioneering women scientists involved, and it was their dedication at the lab bench that produced several of the key discoveries.”

Contact Dr. Judith Iriarte-Gross, chemistry, at 615-904-8253.
jiriarte@mtsu.edu

Drop and give me 20!

A groundbreaking ceremony for the Campus Recreation Center expansion and new Health and Wellness Center will be held at 2 p.m. FRIDAY in the dance aerobics room at the Rec Center. The expansion program will include an enlarged weight room, sport club/dance room, outdoor recreation equipment room, cardiovascular room, group meeting room, office suite, new entrance lobby, health assessment room, and family changing room. Another part of the expansion program already well underway is the multi-sport field complex on East Main Street. The project will include a field house, three fields, a jogging track, and parking area. This project is slated for completion this August. Recreation Center/Health and Wellness staff and Campus Planning officials will be on hand at the groundbreaking to answer questions. Media welcomed.

Contact Arthur Reed, manager, campus planning, at 615-494-8867.
adreed@mtsu.edu

TR EXTRA

BEAUTIFUL BIWA--The Japan-U.S. Program of MTSU will present the Junko Tahara Biwa Ensemble at this year’s Music from Japan concert at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 26 in Hinton Hall in the Wright Music Building. Tahara has performed extensively in Japan and at major venues around the world, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in the United States. Her instrument, the biwa, is a fretted lute frequently used in the performance of traditional Japanese music. The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. To obtain tickets by mail, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the Japan-U.S. Program, Box 167, MTSU, Murfreesboro, TN, 37132. For more information, contact Dr. Kiyoshi Kawahito at 615-898-2229 or japan@mtsu.edu.

WE’RE NOT PUTIN YOU ON.--Dr. Vladimir Mukomel, lead researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, will speak at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 26, in the State Farm Lecture Hall of the Business Aerospace Building. Mukomel will discuss the ethnic aspects of migration in Russia and President Vladimir Putin’s policies in the area of civil liberties. The holder of doctorates in sociology and economics, Mukomel has published more than 120 academic works, including 13 books. He regularly comments on Russian politics for the Russian and international media. This event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the American Democracy Project, GLOBAL (Get Lost Outside Boundaries and Limitations), and Americans for Informed Democracy (AID).Contact Dr. Andrei Korobkov at 615-898-2945 or korobkov@mtsu.edu or GLOBAL President Candi Nunley at global@mtsu.edu or AID President Angie Feeney at amf3g@mtsu.edu.

“PERFORMING GENDER”--Discussions, performance art, and feminist films are all part of the 2007 Interdisciplinary Conference in Women’s Studies slated for THURSDAY THROUGH SATURDAY in the James Union Building. The theme of the 2007 gathering, which is held every two years, is “Performing Gender.” Special guests include keynote speaker Jill Dolan, author of Presence and Desire: Essays on Gender, Sexuality, and Performance; Marissa Richmond, historian and president of the Tennessee Transgender Action Committee; and Deb Margolin, playwright and performance artist and founding member of Split Britches Theater Company. To register, please visit http://womenstu.web.mtsu.edu/ and click on “Women’s Studies Conference.” For more information, call the Women’s Studies program at 615-898-5910.

YES, THERE’S LIFE AFTER COLLEGE, BUT IS THERE MONEY?--“From Student Poverty to Financial Security: Planning to Get from Here to There” is the theme of the 14th annual Adult Learning in Tennessee Conference THURSDAY AND FRIDAY. This year’s gathering will focus on giving “both adult students and the educational professionals who work with them some new insights about preparing for financial security after graduation,” according to conference literature. The luncheon and keynote speaker Feb. 22 will be Dallas Nichols Ruddell, a 1996 alumna who lived on food stamps while earning her degree. After graduating with a degree in psychology, Ruddell moved to the San Francisco area, where she recruits and trains insurance agents and financial advisers. For more information, contact the Adult Services Center at 615-898-5989.

GIVE ME JUST A LITTLE MORE TIME--Officials at MTSU have extended the deadline to March 1 for prospective students wanting to apply for the EdScholar scholarships and approximately 70 MTSU Foundation scholarships offered by the Office of Financial Aid, Bonnie McCarty, assistant director of scholarships, says. The deadline was to be Feb. 15. A transition to a new computer software system from an old one is the reason for the extension. In addition to applying for the scholarships (EdScholar can be done online), students must apply for admission to the university. For information, call Admissions at 615-898-2111 or Financial Aid at 615-898-2830, or visit their Web sites at http://www.mtsu.edu/.

SOUTH OF THE BORDER--“Landscapes of Mexico,” a photography exhibit featuring the works of Hector Montes de Oca, is on display through February 28 at Baldwin Photographic Gallery in the Learning Resources Center. The exhibit is made up of 40 silver gelatine black-and-white prints. He is considered to be one of the most prominent Mexican photographers of his generation. He is especially distinguished for his black-and-white landscapes, which reveal his native country in a most striking and intimate manner. The exhibit will be open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Mr. de Oca will present a slide show/lecture on his work at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 28, in the State Farm Lecture Hall of the Business Aerospace Building. Exhibitions and lectures are free and open to the public. Contact Tom Jimison at 615-898-2085 or tjimison@mtsu.edu.

DOUBLE YOUR PLEASURE--Guest artists Linda Pereksta (flute), Michael Rowlett (clarinet) and Brian Osborne (piano) will perform under the Doubled Air moniker at 8 p.m. TOMORROW in a free and open recital in Hinton Hall of Wright Music Building. Pereksta and Rowlett have performed together for more than 10 years, most recently under the Doubled Air name. They are members of the Flute/Clarinet Duos Consortium, an organization that commissions new compositions for this combination of instruments. The program will include such works at Georg Philipp Telemann's Canonic Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Jacques-Martin Hotteterre's Ecos, Leonard Bernstein's Sonata for Clarinet, Steve Reich's Clapping Music, and Charles Ives's At the River. Contact Tim Musselman at 615-898-2493 or

“THE EMPIRES OF THE FUTURE ARE THE EMPIRES OF THE MIND.”—WINSTON CHURCHILL--The cigar-chomping bulldog of Britain during World War II, Winston Churchill’s wartime leadership is legendary. But what about the other Churchills—prisoner of war, disgraced politician, painter, and Nobel Prize-winning author? MTSU is offering a July 2007 study-abroad history course which will take students to the Cabinet War Rooms underneath London, as well as Parliament, Churchill’s birthplace, his country estate, and other sites related to the life of this great statesman. The instructor will be Dr. Jim Williams, a Churchill Fellow of Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., site of Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946. Contact Williams at 615-898-2633 or jhwillia@mtsu.edu or Jennifer Campbell, MTSU Study Abroad Office, at 615-898-5179 or jjcampbe@mtsu.edu.