Professional foresters have long relied on the 135-page "Service Forester's Handbook" for on-the-go access to the formulas, facts and figures they need. The pocket-sized weather-resistant field guide helps foresters convert figures, calculate volumes and dozens of other key calculations.
University of Georgia Extension and Southern Regional Extension Forestry recently released the first electronic and interactive version of the field guide, known as the "Service Forester's Toolkit."
The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia is attracting attention in Washington, D.C., this summer for its free educational program Art Adventures. The Association of Art Museum Directors and the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C., is presenting "Museums: pARTners in Learning" through Aug. 29. The exhibition features student art and creative writing from AAMD member museums' educational programs offered in partnership with their local schools.
Scientists at the University of Georgia Skidaway Institute of Oceanography participated in Ocean Sampling Day—an ambitious, international project to produce a single-day snapshot of microbial populations around the world. On Saturday, June 21, researchers collected water samples at 185 global sites, ranging from Antarctica to the Arctic Ocean and from New Zealand to Iceland. This was the first global, simultaneous sampling of microbes in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes waters.
Veterinary surgeons in the University of Georgia Veterinary Teaching Hospital successfully performed a kidney transplant in a domestic cat and used stem cells harvested from the patient to optimize the cat's acceptance of the new kidney. The surgery, performed in May, is the second successful feline kidney transplant using feline adult stem cells performed at the hospital.
New work published by a University of Georgia researcher helps explain why consumers gravitate toward "Got milk?" rather than "I'm lovin' it." Slogans convey information about products and brands in pithy, bite-sized bits designed to be memorable and functional. Yet slogans offer companies another opportunity: To demonstrate likability. While marketers have long understood the inner workings of memorable slogans, research on slogan likability is just emerging.
The University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of statistics and State Farm Insurance Companies will cooperate on a new program beginning this fall that will partner students pursuing a master's degree in statistics with the Fortune 50 company. The Modeling and Analytics Graduate Network, or MAGNet, program will provide participating students with support—such as paid tuition and fees and financial compensation—while they pursue a master's degree at UGA. In return, students will spend 20 hours a week—40 hours a week during the summer semester—conducting real-life research on projects directed by the Strategic Resources Department of State Farm.
Toby Graham, who has served in a variety of leadership roles at the University of Georgia Libraries for more than a decade, has been named university librarian and associate provost following a national search, Provost Pamela Whitten announced recently. His appointment is effective Sept. 1.
Smitha Ganeshan, a May University of Georgia graduate, was one of six students nationwide to receive a $15,000 Marcus L. Urann Fellowship from the Phi Kappa Phi honor society. Ganeshan was a UGA Honors student, a recipient of UGA's Foundation Fellowship and a 2013 Truman Scholar. She earned a bachelor's degree in biology with a minor in anthropology from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. She will begin her studies at Harvard Medical School in the fall.
Researchers at the University of Georgia report in the Journal of Biological Chemistry that an enzyme known as Tumor Progression Locus 2, or Tpl2, plays a key role in directing and regulating several important components of the body's immune system. Their discovery may one day lead to new treatments for many common autoimmune diseases.
The promise of affordable transportation fuels from biomass—a sustainable, carbon neutral route to American energy independence—has been left perpetually on hold by the economics of the conversion process. New research from the University of Georgia has overcome this hurdle allowing the direct conversion of switchgrass to fuel.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, documents the direct conversion of biomass to biofuel without pre-treatment, using the engineered bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor bescii.
Pre-treatment of the biomass feedstock—non-food crops such as switchgrass and miscanthus—is the step of breaking down plant cell walls before fermentation into ethanol. This pre-treatment step has long been the economic bottleneck hindering fuel production from lignocellulosic biomass feedstocks.
