Worm love <3

Fwd: Graduate Positions: UToronto.Two.FungalEvolution

Begin forwarded message: > From: [email protected] > Subject: Graduate Positions: UToronto.Two.FungalEvolution > Date: 12 August 2022 at 05:16:35 BST > To: [email protected] > > > 2 Ph.D. positions, -Omics analysis on Host-Fungus interactions, University > of Toronto > > 2 Ph.D. positions are available to join the Laboratory of Evolutionary > Genomics of Fungi (https://ift.tt/RAdDCVs) in > the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of > Toronto (https://ift.tt/vwp4hdT), > Scarborough campus (https://ift.tt/WUQRIkJ) starting in > spring or fall 2023. > > Successful applicants will work on fungal biodiversity in aquatic > systems, ecology and evolution of microbial fungi, and host-fungus > interactions using multi-Omics approaches.  Position 1 will focus on > mosquito-fungus interactions with an aim to identify host-specific > genes with transcriptome data collected at different conditions, and > Position 2 will apply Phylogenomics and single-cell genomics to study > and identify missing branches on the fungal tree of life using samples > collected across Canada and the globe. > > Applicants for either position should have strong interests in data > analyses and writing and should be highly motivated to work at the > interface of evolutionary biology, molecular biology, and computational > genomics. Specifically, applicants for Position 1 should have a strong > background in Microbiology and/or Entomology with experience with > dissecting scopes. Applicants for Position 2 should have a strong > background in molecular biology and/or fieldwork experience. Coding > experience with R and/or Python will be an asset, but training will be > provided once on board. Multiple data science courses will be offered in > the EEB department and the SciNet supercomputing centre at the University > of Toronto. > > To apply, please send the following documents to the PI (Dr. Yan Wang) > via email [email protected] with the title "Ph.D. student > position application). > 1) your most recent CV > > 2) unofficial transcripts of all past and ongoing studies > > 3) a brief statement of research interests (1 page) summarizing your >   academic background, qualifications, and interest in either or both >   of the advertised positions. > > Kind regards, > > Yan > > -- > > Yan Wang, PhD > > Assistant Professor &Connaught Scholar > > Department of Biological Sciences & > > Department ofEcology and Evolutionary Biology > > University of Toronto - Scarborough Campus > > 1265 Military Trail,Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4 > > Councilor forGenetics and Cell Biology > > Mycological Society of America > > Tel: 416-208-2739 > > Email:[email protected] > > Twitter:@funganomics > > Lab:https://ift.tt/2GX839Q > > > > Yan Wang

Powdermill at a Glance

Facilities: Comprising 2,200 acres with various habitats typical of central Appalachia, Powdermill Nature Reserve is one of the larger private experiment stations in the USA. We maintain 20 buildings including the Nature Center (12,800 sq. ft), a state-of-the-art DNA laboratory, and eight fully furnished buildings for overnight guests, totaling about 40 beds and featuring campus wide Wi-Fi. For material, mechanical, and motorized support, we have a carpentry shop, barns and garages, two pickup trucks, passenger car, two-person ATV with dump bed, tractor, and mini backhoe. Our ample technical gear includes laptop computers, GPS devices, and two helicopter-type drones with cameras and spectral sensors.

Staff: The number of employees varies with grant funding. Presently, we have 15 year-round staff and up to 12 seasonal staff. These are (full time) Director John Wenzel; Operations Coordinator MaryAnn Perkins; maintenance workers Bobby Ankney, Rick Paesano, and Ryan Carter; educators Lauren Horner and Sara Klingensmith; scientists at Powdermill are Luke DeGroote, Annie Lindsay, Mary Shidel, James Whitacre, and Andrea Kautz; scientists stationed in Oakland are Chase Mendenhall, Jonathan Rice, and Mallory Sarver. Seasonal (temporary) staff include about two for avian research in spring and three in autumn, four or five summer camp instructors, and usually two summer assistants in other programs.

Visitors: About 5,000 people visit Powdermill per year, of which 600-700 are school groups, some of which get transportation grants from us to pay for bussing. We host about 2,000 person-nights in our lodging by visiting researchers and students, primarily from May to September.

Education: Our free public programs include “Storytime And More” every first Sunday of the month. Every second Sunday (fall, winter, and spring) a “Science And Nature” lecture for adults is offered concurrently with “Nature Explorers” for children. Every third Wednesday, we host “Nature At Night,” nighttime nature walks or films. Themed, seasonal special events attract approximately 100 visitors. In 2019, these events were “Cicada-Palooza” and “Pollinator Festival.” Children’s summer camps support about 110 enrollments every year. For researchers, we host professional workshops that offer advanced technical training. In 2019, 100 people participated in seven such programs, the most notable of which was our award-winning Latin American graduate-level training, now in its ninth year. Our gardens are home to more than 200 species of native plants in their typical environment, and our web site provides information to gardeners for growing about 120 of these featured plants.

Public profile: The Powdermill Facebook page, which has 3,950 followers, reached 450,000 users and engaged 58,000 of them in 2019. We have a separate website for anyone interested in following our avian research programs closely, and that website logged 45,000 visits by 21,146 visitors in 2019. We appeared in popular media outlets nine times in 2019, including twice in National Geographic. A number of scientific datasets are made available through web tools we created, including the definitive resource for tracking unconventional (hydro-fractured) gas wells in PA, a water quality data set of 1.3 million specimens from nearly 7,000 surface water locations across PA, an interactive gigapixel digital teaching collection for identifying aquatic macroinvertebrates, and a tool to explore the data compiled in a vegetation survey of Powdermill.

Scientific productivity and roles: Our staff members are annually featured in approximately 20 presentations at scientific society meetings. The staff also serve regularly as Councilors, Associate Editors, Board members, etc., of professional societies in their fields, currently collectively holding 22 such offices. Powdermill as a research site is prominent. In the last three years, 32 papers in journals were published by our staff, or other scientists who conducted their research at Powdermill or used publicly archived Powdermill data. Using Google Scholar to assess significance, Powdermill publications earn an H index of 25, meaning that Powdermill’s importance as an engine of research is comparable to a Full Professor at a major university. Our main research threads include biology of migratory birds (for which we are known historically, and still provide international leadership), Geographical Information Services, pollination and aquatic entomology, and forest plant ecology. We enjoy close partnerships with more than 40 scientists and institutions that share our research goals and efforts.

Extramural funding: Our funding sources in the last three years include grants and contracts from National Science Foundation, Richard King Mellon Foundation, Colcom Foundation, Laurel Foundation, US Fish and Wildlife Foundation, PA Wildlife Resource Conservation program, American Bird Conservancy Foundation, and Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. These proposals are conceived, initiated, and largely written by Powdermill staff, with strong support from Advancement and Community Engagement, and total more than $2,000,000. We currently have about $3,000,000 in proposals under review.

John Wenzel is the Director at Powdermill Nature Reserve, Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s environmental research center. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.

NOTE: Information about educational programming and visitors refers to activity before the COVID-19 pandemic. Visit Powdermill’s website for information about visiting and programs in 2020. 

i hunger,,,,, pls feed me the post entity headcanons i need more of my happy kids

Heck yeah Anon!

Laurie ends up studying from home a lot, so she can stay with Michael, and teach him, but she enjoys it. Michael is smart, and he’s a quick learner in general. Laurie’s a good teacher, because her brother gets frustrated easily, and she’s great at navigating around that so he won’t quit whatever she’s trying to help him learn. It’s hard for Laurie at first, emotionally, to be walking her brother through reading elementary school age kids books, because it’s so unfair he wasn’t given an education, but after a little while, she gets used to it, and enjoys working with him a lot more than is made sad by it. She’s very proud of him for getting things, and makes him feel good about his progress. He is proud of himself too.

Dwight is a weenie when it comes to outdoorsy stuff bc he never did it, but after the realm, he’s happy to try out hiking and stuff with Jake, and they really enjoy it. Jake is willing to play games and go on tv show binges with Dwight in return, and they round each other really well. They’re extremely happy. They also are way more social than they thought, because they never had and real friends before (for wildly different reasons) and cannot /stand/ Quentin and Claudette going away to college, and go up to hang out and take them on trips all the time bc they miss them, although Jake tries to keep that low-key and on the dl way more than Dwight does (he’s actually more distressed about his absent friends he didn’t know he needed tho lol).

Quentin and Claudette go to the same college, and Nancy goes to Grad School with them. Philip goes too, to audit, since he never got a complete formal education, growing up during a war, and straight up going from where he is to /taking/ courses would be stressful. He takes all of Claudette’s classes w her and she walks him through stuff and is teaching him abt plants. The four of them share an appartment close to campus & enjoy it a lot. Nancy and Claudette share an interest (canon to both) in entomology, and love talking about it.

Meg does end up becoming a PI and working with Tapp, who helps her get certified too. They work missing persons cases for extremely cheap, and try to help people. They’re really poor but really good at it, and David bankrolls the whole squad any time someone looks like they’re in need or maybe would just be happy to see cash. Susie stays with her and supports her through school, and decides to try out a lot of things to kind of find her own way in life. Meg loves her very much and helps her figure herself out. They (and Tapp) stay with Meg’s mom Rachel and Gabriel and his daughter Adrianna (the people she made a deal w who helped her survive her cancer treatment), and get along well. David buys Gabriel and Adrianna a house, bc he’s David, but they live across the street and spend a lot of time all together. Rachel moms Susie very effectively.

Adam’s book is successful. He gets a job teaching again, creative writing this time & literature, and enjoys it. He keeps writing too. Jeff, Kate, Ace, and David are his volunteer beta group and do book club over his new chapters and he loves them so much he has cried about it at least twice. Ace and Adam honor their idea to have people all get together at least twice a year for cool trips. In all honesty, they’re kind of all constantly with each other, just rotating from house to house, but biannually they go somewhere new, or out of the country and new to some of them. Min gets to take Nea to China and shows her favorite spots, and shows Quentin shrines, which she’d really wanted to do. They go to China four years after escaping, at which point Anna is rehabilitated, so she gets to go too.

Anna stays with Min, Ace, and Nea most of the time while Quentin is in college, once she’s deemed no longer a threat and is okay to be out in society. It’s very hard for her, because the world is so different, but her kids are FIERCECLY protective, and make her life really good in spite of all the things that should make it impossible. She and Alan have a really weird relationship, because he’s Quentin’s dad and she’s his weird feralish kidnap/adoptive mom, but after an initially weird phase, they get along pretty well, and Anna spends a good deal of time there too, and at the Cabin in Indiana (which officially becomes Jake, Dwight, and Adam’s place of residence, but is also more or less home to everyone forever). Alan has a hard time figuring her out, because she’s so weird and it’s surreal, but she really loves his kid and after seeing them interact enough and how protective and loving she is, he decides he likes her. He tries to go out of his way to be nice to her and make her feel wanted and welcome and like she fits in. Anna likes him too, although she takes a /long/ time to get used to the concept of a Dad entirely. It actually helps her broach a lot of her lingering distaste for men. Eventually he’s someone she looks forward to seeing, and will bring gifts she makes to, along with her kids and their friends.

In June, graffiti supporting calls for the Univeristy of Cambridge to remove a stained glass window memorializing statistician Ronald Fisher, a supporter of eugenics, appeared on a campus building. The university later removed the Fisher window. AP IMAGES

Amid Protests Against Racism, Scientists Move to Strip Offensive Names From Journals, Prizes, and More! “Dismantling White Supremacism in Science Has Taken on a New Urgency.”

— By Eli Cahan | July 2, 2020

*Update, 6 July: This story has been updated to include the American Society of Ichthyology and Herpetology’s decision to change the name of its flagship journal, Copeia, to Ichthyology and Herpetology beginning with the first issue of 2021. It also includes the Entomological Society of America’s decision to change the name of its student trivia competition.

*Update, 3 July: This story has been updated to include Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's decision to remove the name of biologist James Watson from its graduate program.

For Earyn McGee, terminology matters.

McGee, a herpetologist, studies the habitat and behavior of Yarrow’s spiny lizard, a reptile native to the southwestern United States. The University of Arizona graduate student and her colleagues regularly pack their things—boots, pens, notebooks, trail mix—and set off into the nearby Chiricahua Mountains. At their field site, they start an activity with a name that evokes a racist past: noosing.

“Noosing” is a long-standing term used by herpetologists for catching lizards. But for McGee, a Black scientist, the term is unnerving, calling to mind horrific lynchings of Black people by white people in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. “Being the only Black person out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of white people talking about noosing things is unsettling,” she says. McGee has urged her colleagues to change the parlance to “lassoing,” which she says also more accurately describes how herpetologists catch lizards with lengths of thread.

McGee isn’t alone in reconsidering scientific language. Researchers are pushing to rid science of words and names they see as offensive or glorifying people who held racist views.

This week alone, one scientific society is considering renaming a major journal that honors a renowned 19th century researcher who held racist views, and another is voting on changing the name of a trivia competition that canonizes a prominent eugenicist. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) decided to change the name of its graduate school because of Nobel laureate James Watson's past racial comments. And a prominent university has said it will remove from a campus building the name of a famous scientist who supported white supremacy. The moves come in the wake of last month’s decision to rename a major statistical prize—and in tandem with efforts to change the names of animals and plants that include ethnic slurs or honor researchers who were bigots.

Unifying these initiatives is reinvigorated resistance to institutional racism. Kory Evans, a marine biologist at Rice University, says, “Dismantling white supremacism in science has taken on a new urgency” amid the broader reckoning ignited by the killing of George Floyd, the Black man suffocated by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May. The buildings, journals, prizes, and organism names that have come under scrutiny “lionize figures … who specifically took actions to undermine the humanity of people of color … [and] who laid the academic foundation for actual discrimination, sterilization, and genocide,” says Brandon Ogbunu, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University.

The current movement isn’t the first to target scientists whose actions were judged unconscionable by subsequent generations. After the fall of Nazi Germany, apartheid in South Africa, and various communist nations, the names of scientists who supported oppressive policies were stripped from institutions and awards. And even before the recent demonstrations against systemic racism in the United States, many scientists had lobbied universities and science groups to stop honoring prominent researchers who had bigoted views. In 2018, for instance, years of activism prompted the University of Michigan (UM), Ann Arbor, to remove the name of Clarence Cook Little, an influential 20th century geneticist who supported eugenics, from a science building and a transit hub.

Universities concerned about creating diverse and empowering atmospheres are wise to reconsider whose names adorn their buildings, says UM historian Alexandra Minna Stern, who has chronicled the evolution of eugenics in the United States. The names, she says, “make visible the values and priorities and beliefs of an institution.”

This week, the University of Maine, Orono, followed UM’s lead, announcing on 29 June it would strip Little’s name from a building. “Little made an enduring positive contribution to science,” a university task force wrote. However, it added, “Major areas of his professional life violate the ideals that are central to the educational mission of the University of Maine and its commitment to the public good.” Drivers of the decision included Little’s high-profile support of eugenics and his work for the U.S. tobacco industry to dispute evidence linking smoking to cancer.

At the University of South Carolina, officials on 19 June moved to remove the name of physician J. Marion Sims from a women’s dormitory. He is known for inventing the Sims vaginal speculum, as well as for pioneering surgical techniques for vaginal fistula repair, both of which are still used in obstetrics today. Activists have noted that the tool and the surgery were developed through experimental surgeries on enslaved women conducted without anesthesia. The university’s move has been controversial in the state: “Changing the name of a stack of bricks and mortar is at the bottom of my to-do list,” tweeted Senator Harvey Peeler (R–SC).

On 1 July, according to a CSHL statement, its board of trustees "voted to restore the original name of the graduate program to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory School of Biological Sciences." The move, which required 75% of the board to approve changing the institution's charter, came after 133 CSHL students and alumni sent a 21 June letter saying Watson's name was "inextricably linked with racism" given comments he had made since at least 2007, when a newspaper quoted him saying Black people were of inferior intelligence. CSHL removed him as chancellor then and in 2019, after he told PBS his views had not changed, the lab stripped his remaining honors except for the school's name.

U.K. universities are also taking a hard look at whom they honor. On 24 June, the University of Cambridge decided to remove a stained-glass window named after biostatistician Ronald Fisher, who has been celebrated as “the single most important figure in 20th century statistics” but was also a prominent supporter of eugenics. The university acknowledged Fisher’s “remarkable scientific discoveries,” including his application of mathematical theory to the process of natural selection, but decided to strip the name to “broaden and strengthen our community for all its members.”

At University College London, officials are evaluating whether to rename buildings celebrating geneticist Francis Galton (who coined the term “eugenics”) and mathematician Karl Pearson (founder of the Annals of Eugenics). Pearson derived the correlation that now bears his name—a commonly used statistical technique—through studies designed to demonstrate “[the] problem of alien immigration into Great Britain.” Joe Cain, a philosopher of science at the university, says, “The science behind these discoveries may be groundbreaking,” but institutions need to “consider the man and his data set, too.”

He adds, “Students should be able to look at a name and ask, ‘Who is that?’ and have their professors respond: ‘That’s a person you can aspire to.’”

The swell of support for inclusive placemaking has not been limited solely to campus grounds. Earlier this month in Geneva, residents submitted a motion to the municipality’s Grand Council to rename a street memorializing Karl Vogt. The 19th century German zoologist is known for his influence on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. But Vogt was also a vocal advocate of irreconcilable differences in cranial capacity between Black and white people, claiming in his Lectures on Man that Black people were closer anatomically to apes than humans.

Scientific societies that fail to similarly reflect on the spaces they construct contribute to “an extremely poisonous … ambiance for people of color,” Ogbunu says. At the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, an effort to change the name of its flagship journal—Copeia, named after Edward Cope, a scientist who held racist views—is nearing its end. Motivated in part by a June survey that found the society’s membership is 82% white and less than 1% Black, the society’s board voted on 3 July to remove the eponym. Beginning with its first issue of 2021, the journal will be known as Ichthyology and Herpetology.

Also under scrutiny: prizes and other accolades bestowed by societies, including those awarded to exceptional early-career scientists. This month, the Society for the Study of Evolution and the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies both renamed awards that honored Fisher, the statistician. Still, resistance to such name changes persists. “We can at once celebrate and benefit from scientific contributions while disagreeing wholeheartedly with the personal beliefs of the scientists responsible for them,” wrote three researchers—statisticians Harry Crane of Rutgers University, Joe Guinness of Cornell University, and Ryan Martin of North Carolina State University—in a public letter opposing the change. Stripping Fisher’s name, they write, would “damage public trust in science by signaling that the evaluation of scientific advances reflects not only scientific achievement but also social acceptance.

Event names are also being re-evaluated. Some members of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) are calling for renaming the society’s annual Linnaean Games, a student trivia competition named after Carl Linnaeus. The 18th century botanist invented the system for classifying species, including Homo sapiens, which he categorized based on race, assigning negative social traits to nonwhite populations. “For those of us who have ever been called Black, brown, or yellow, Linnaeus’s legacy lives on every day,” says Taylor Tai, an entomology graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and co-author of a petition to rename the games.

On 3 July, ESA board members discussed renaming the event. “By today’s standards, there is no way to read [Linnaeus’s] classification of humans as anything other than racist,” Chris Stelzig, the society’s executive director, said before the session. But, he added, some members opposed to removing Linnaeus’s name wondered whether it was “right to judge our ancestors by today’s standards.” Today, the society announced the board’s decision to rename the Linnaen Games as the Entomology Games. Explaining the decision, ESA President Alvin Simmons said: “The loss of any student competitors who felt unwelcome because of the name of the Games went against ESA’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and students as the future of entomology.”

Some researchers are also pushing to change species names they find objectionable. Graduate students around the world have contributed to a spreadsheet that lists potentially problematic common and scientific names of plants and animals. It includes a scorpion, a duck, and a buttonquail that carry the name hottentota, hottentotta, or hottentottus; colonialists in the 17th century used “Hottentot” as a derogatory term for Indigenous Black people in Africa. Researchers say other names—including those of the Nasutitermes corniger termite, the Orsotriaena medus butterfly, Speke’s weaver, McCown’s longspur, and the flowers, chives, and turtles named after Linnaeus’s apostles—also include slurs or glorify bigots.

“Nomenclature is in service to hierarchies,” says Harriet Washington, an ethicist who has written about structural racism in medicine. “Toppling these statues, so to speak, is not eroding history so much as issuing a correction to it.”

McGee, who co-organized last month’s #BlackBirdersWeek, favors such name changes. And she says she has been blindsided by the pervasiveness of racialized taxonomy, learning only recently that the lizard she studies is named for H. C. Yarrow, who “objectif[ied] the bodies of ‘others’ in order to explain and justify … [racial] dominance,” according to Museums and Empire: Natural History, Human Cultures and Colonial Identities, a book by historian John MacKenzie. McGee was “disappointed but not surprised” by that history, she says.

McGee’s campaign to change her field’s term from “noosing” to “lassoing” has made limited headway, she says, but she is not discouraged. “What is customary or convenient to a previous generation [of scientists] is not a good excuse for retaining racism,” she says. “I’ve accepted I’m the type of person who will speak up so the next Black herpetologist doesn’t have to go through this.”

Posted in: Scientific Community

— Eli Cahan is an intern on the News staff of Science.

Building a Career in Agricultural Science B.Sc (Hons) @ Usha Martin University

Usha Martin University, Ranchi is recognized by the University Grants Commission as a self-financing Private University empowered to award certificates, diplomas and degrees. It is also member of Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi. To carry its mandate of providing inclusive quality higher education in different fields for sustainable development of the society in the state, Usha Martin University offers a wide range of UG & PG professional levels programmes at jharkhand. The University provides the best learning experiences and the faculty discusses issues in a fair and frank environment. The University provides scholarship to all students from the state as well as to meritorious students, particularly female students so as to offer cost-effective quality education. The UMU is providing technologically rich learning environment.

At UMU, BSc (Hons) in Agriculture students learn agriculture courses such as agronomy, horticulture, disease resistance, microbiology, plant biotechnology, soil science, plant genetics and breeding, entomology, plant pathology, agriculture meteorology, etc. The Classroom teaching is supported by field trips, which helps in enhancing their pragmatic outlook. Students are also exposed to Commercial farms. This knowledge creates an opportunity for them to engage and tone up their endurance, confidence and managerial skills. Students are engaged keeping in view the RAWE Program to build interpersonal skills. It is said that learning by doing is the way to develop competences. With this in view, the University provides rich laboratory experience to its learners in well equipped labs

UMU has experienced faculties, well equipped labs, lecture rooms with A/V devices and library.  Campus is Wi-Fi enabled with high speed internet connectivity. To cater to developmental issues in agriculture and tribal affairs, the University has instituted Birsa Munda Chair for Agriculture and Sustainable Tribal Development. The dynamic learning environment so created offers multifaceted education and spearheads skill development, and innovation led entrepreneurship. Special emphasis is placed on educating students about the openings an agriculture graduate can get such as Research Officer, Agripreneur, Quality Assurance Officer, Agriculture Officer, Agriculture Loan Officer (in Banks), Production Manager, Operations Manager, Farm Manager, manager at plantations, as officer at fertilizer manufacturing firms, agriculture machinery industries, agricultural products marketing firms, food processing units etc. These efforts help students gain know-how and tone up their endurance, confidence and management skills.

Through the Faculty of Agriculture, Usha Martin University plans to play a flagship role in turning the rural Jharkhand and its people to first rate agricultural entrepreneurs and agri-business managers. The eligibility for admission in B.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture programme is 10+2 with science ( PCB/PCBM/PCM/10+2 Agriculture) and having scored not less than 50% marks in aggregate. Candidates coming from different streams are required to opt for remedial courses as prescribed.

Dr. Lopamudra Satapathy,

Head, Faculty of Agriculture, UMU

I don't know if you already talked about it, or I just couldn't find it, but I heard that Gonta's translation/localization wasn't really accurate and he doesn't talked in "hulk speech" in the original, so I wonder how did he talked then? there it is much difference?

Gonta’s localization definitely wasn’t very accurate to theoriginal Japanese. It’s… oh boy, how to put it. From the moment that it wasrevealed in the first trailer NISA released for ndrv3, I and a lot of othertranslators felt that it was perhaps thesingle worst decision taken in the entire game. I believe toning down Gonta’sdialogue to be “Tarzan speech” or “Hulk speech” skewed many things about hischaracter.

After having finished the localization, I still stand bythat opinion. Of all the mistakes or errors in the localization, I feel thatGonta’s “Tarzan speech” is still the worst, even moreso because it wasdeliberate, rather than accidental. Intentionally choosing to omit or alterthings about his character in a way that makes him seem considerably differentfrom his original counterpart in the Japanese version of the game just doesn’tsit well with me. It feels to me as though Gonta’s translator simply wantedGonta to “match” what they perceived his character as, rather than translatingwhat was actually there directly.

The most important thing to note is that in the originalversion of the game, Gonta does not talk in any noticeably “stupider” fashionthan his classmates. He is certainly naïve and trusting, prone to fall forothers’ lies; he’s also unfamiliar with many terms related to technology orelectronic advancements, because he grew up in the forest removed from societyfor such a long time. But his Japanese is perfectly fine, very much in linewith what you would expect from a typical high schooler of his age. Thisreflects something very central to his character—that he’s not nearly asunintelligent or dumb as others, and even he himself, perceive him to be.

In the original, Gonta refers to himself exclusively in thethird-person, which I think is perhaps one reason the translator thought itwould be comparable to change his speech to “Tarzan/Hulk speech” (i.e. “Hulkangry!! Hulk smash!!”). But that’s hardly a fair decision, considering bothAngie and Tenko also exclusively refer to themselves using third-person. WhileTenko’s speech is perhaps a bit more polite than the other two, all three ofthem nonetheless talk in a generally similar fashion, so using the “third-person”excuse as a reason to change only Gonta’s dialogue makes no sense.

Referring to oneself in the third-person is, in fact, muchmore common in Japanese than it is in English. It’s even common for some peopleto switch between referring to themselves in the third-person, and byfirst-person pronouns. All in all, it’s far less strange of a practice thanmany English-speakers would think, and it typically has no bearing on acharacter’s intelligence.

Also worth noting is the fact that Gonta’s grammar, tense,and general vocabulary are all completely unaffected. He doesn’t talksimplistically, nor does he struggle to string his sentences together in theoriginal version of the game. If that had been the case, then I could’veunderstood deciding to localize his speech in a comparable way—but in fact,Gonta is pretty polite and well-spoken, which fits his overall image ofbecoming a “gentleman,” even if he feels his physical size and backstory don’t.

The localization of Gonta’s speech does his character a lotof harm for pretty much the entire game, but I feel like the chapter where itdid the most damage was the chapter where Gonta himself gets the mostscreentime: Chapter 4. Chapter 4 subverts both the players’ and othercharacters’ perception of Gonta as someone who was well-intentioned and sweetbut ultimately “not very useful.”

The reveals that Gonta is not only smarter and moreperceptive than anyone, even himself, gives him credit for, but also moredesperate to contribute to the overall group, are much harder to grasp in thelocalization, as pretty much all of his dialogue tones down how smart heactually is. In the end, most of the reason why the players are tricked intothinking that Gonta “isn’t very smart” is because the other characters andGonta sort of gradually lead you to that assumption, by calling him an “idiot”or asking why he’s “so dumb.”

But whereas there were plenty of hints in the originalJapanese proving that Gonta was, in fact, quite knowledgeable in his own areaof expertise and in practical, hands-on experience, the original plays up the “dumbTarzan-man who grew up in the woods” routine so much that it’s nearlyimpossible to discard it. It makes it very hard, in my opinion, to realize justhow much he actually contributes to the class trials or how perceptive heactually is, because the translation itself treats him as though he’s an idiot.By comparison, the original dialogue only ever has Gonta call himself stupid,rather than ever acting as such.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see what I mean about Gonta beingfairly perceptive. Due to his eyesight, he notices the “tiny bugs” around thecampus quicker than anyone. He also comments on the state of the stars outsideafter the Chapter 2 trial, noting that they must be “very far away” from hishome, since he doesn’t recognize any of the constellations. Clearly he’sfamiliar not only with entomology, but also has a firm grasp of astronomy and avariety of other skills, all due to his experiences.

He also arguably contributes more solutions to the classtrials than major characters like Momota or Himiko. In Chapter 2, for instance,Gonta was the first person to catch on to the way the ropeway could’ve beencreated; his suggestion about tying the two ropes together was perfectly on-point.In Chapter 3 again, he was incredibly knowledgeable about the state of thefloorboards in the empty rooms and the way in which the see-saw trick might’vebeen carried out. These things clearly show that he’s not stupid, but rather naïve and simply unfamiliar with some of thethings his classmates treat as normal (like technology).

In the localization, though, even these contributions to theclass trials are hard to take note of. Gonta’s speech is simplified so much tothe point that even when he’s talking about very rational, understandablethings that are easy to make sense of, he still comes across as unintelligent. Itjust feels like such a break from his original character, where there were somany signs that he was trying to participate in group discussions and beingleft out only because other characters’ perception of him, as well as his ownself-perception. His problem was never that he was actually an idiot, butrather that everyone, including himself, thought of him that way.

This is precisely why the other characters have so muchtrouble believing that Gonta could possibly have been the culprit in Chapter 4.Not only do they think he was too nice to ever hurt someone, but they also allemphasize that he “wasn’t smart enough.” But the Chapter 4 post-trial makes itemphatically clear that while Ouma led Gonta to the flashback light and showedhim “the truth of the outside world,” Gonta himself willingly went alongwith  Ouma’s plan and made the conscious decisionto kill another person. It’s something the AI Gonta accepts full responsibilityfor, and it’s a pivotal point of his character—that despite the fact that therest of the group didn’t think him capable of it or smart enough to do so, hewas fully capable of making his own decisions.

The localization makes it much, much harder to come to termswith this reveal, though. In the original version of the game, it’s certainlydifficult to reconcile the idea that someone as kind and compassionate as Gontawould ever kill someone else, but it becomes evident through the sincerity andemotion in the post-trial (both with regular Gonta and with AI Gonta) that he’stelling the truth, especially about the “truth of the outside world.”

The localization’s “Tarzan-speech,” by contrast, takes almostall the sincerity and emotion out of those speeches. It’s very hard to takeGonta’s claims of responsibility in the localization seriously when histranslation makes it seem as though he’s barely even capable of takingaccountability for his own actions. It’s infantilizing, and in my opinion itcompletely misses the point of everything about his character that was used tosubvert people’s expectations in Chapter 4.

Gonta is as kind, caring, and generous as it gets. He’sperhaps not the brightest—but he’s certainly not dumb. His problems manifestfrom a lack of self-confidence, reinforced by how other people perceive him. Hedidn’t grow up in society like a normal person, so he’s unfamiliar with thingsthat everyone else takes for granted, and his eagerness to please means that he’snaïve and quick to fall for other people’s schemes. But in the original versionof the game, it was so much easier to pick up on the fact that he was neveractually “stupid” or “useless,” while the localization treats him… well, prettymuch like a pet.

It’s sad, really; Gonta doesn’t get a lot of time to shineoutside of Chapter 4 and what little time he did get was pretty hard to enjoydue to those bad localization decisions. There are plenty of other decisions inthe localization I don’t agree with or would’ve changed personally, but I stillfeel that Gonta’s is the worst simply because it ruins the point of his entirecharacter and it’s a decision that is used consistently throughout 4 out of 6chapters. No other decisions in the entire game ruined a character sothoroughly, so I really, really wish they had translated his speech properlyand shown more of what he was actually like rather than just trying to play upthe Tarzan tropes.

I hope I was able to clear up your questions, anon! I’vewanted to talk about Gonta’s localization for a while too, so thank you forgiving me a chance to do so.

Research Supports Change in Heartworm Protocol

A groundbreaking study by John McCall, MS, PhD, highlights the necessity to alter the approach in fighting the rising incidence of heartworm infection in dogs.  McCall's research indicates the value of topical repellent insecticidal products in a"double defense" protocol for protecting dogs from heartworm disease and the vector -- the mosquito.  Rather than rely solely on an oral heartworm preventative, McCall's study supports also using a topical parasiticide to repel and kill mosquitoes.  

A professor emeritus at the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, McCall's study proves that Vectra  3D, a topical parasiticide, plays a major role in a dual defense protocol of killing and raping mosquitoes.  Major findings of McCall's research include:

Vectra  3D was 95 percent effective in killing and raping mosquitoes for 28 days after treatment.Vectra  3D was 100 percent effective in blocking the transmission of microfilariae from puppies . "A multimodal approach to the prevention of heartworm by reducing populations of vector mosquitoes, preventing mosquito killing and biting mosquitoes, as well as the bi-annual administration of macrocyclic lactone preventives should be strongly encouraged," McCall finishes from the study.  (See the complete details about the plan and results of this new study in FightHeartwormNow.com.) "After fighting heartworm the same way for decades, it's time for a new approach," McCall says.  "That includes combating the vector in addition to the heartworm."

The new protocol comes because the prevalence of heartworm disease continues to skyrocket.  In just the two years from 2013-2015, there was a 166 percent increase in documented favorable heartworm cases, according to the Companion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC).  Additionally, the American Heartworm Society (AHS) has monitored the geographical spread of heartworm disease to all 50 states and its increased prevalence in many regions of the nation.

"The AHS continues to recommend year-round protection to prevent the severe and frequently deadly consequences of heartworm disease," says C. Thomas (Tom) Nelson, DVM,'' AHS executive board member and co-author of the society's recommendations for the prevention, diagnosis and management of heartworm infection.  "We also see the massive benefit of a multimodal strategy by mixing a macrocyclic lactone along with a topical ectoparasiticide with mosquito repellent properties and efficacy in murdering the vector."

Recent events have drawn worldwide attention to the dangers of mosquitoes and the horrific consequences of vector-borne diseases, says Robert Wirtz, PhD, retired chief of the Entomology Branch of the Centers for Disease Control.  "We all know full well that parasites and a number of other parasites inflict serious damage to both people and our pets," Wirtz says.  "The CDC has considerable evidence of the importance of vector management in limiting the possibility of injury to individuals.  The same holds true for pets.  Fortunately we have the resources to fight this.  It's incumbent upon veterinarians to continue to teach pet owners and utilize every tool possible to stop disease transmission and, equally if not more important, eliminate the vector to decrease the spread of any diseases."

For the last several decades, most veterinarians relied upon a unimodal approach to safeguard dogs by prescribing oral drugs but vector control has received little attention.  Nancy Soares, VMD, owner and medical director of Macungie Animal Hospital, sees the validity in a multimodal strategy.

"There has to be a dialog every time you find a patient along with the pet owner," Soares says.  "The entire relationship which you have with the client is enhancing the human-animal bond.  Dogs have gone contrary to the barnyard to the backyard to the sack so we must work diligently to educate pet owners on the importance of repelling and removing the mosquito and other possible parasites.  Additionally, heartworm is a really preventable disease.  We will need to do all we can to communicate the need for a dental preventative.  As veterinarians, it is our obligation to maintain pet owners informed of the best possible ways to enhance that bond and safeguard their beloved dogs.  A multimodal approach accomplishes these objectives."

Ceva Animal Health has begun an extensive campaign to educate the vet community on the groundbreaking research.  "This independent investigation uncovers an important advantage of the mosquito repellency characteristic of Vectra  3D," says Elizabeth Hodgkins, Technical Services Director for Ceva Animal Health.  "This research shows that Vectra  3D could provide an excess layer of protection against heartworm disease, by killing and raping mosquitoes that may transmit the disease.  This is exciting news, and the study supports a brand new “Double Defense” protocol -- Vectra  3D and a heartworm preventative – for protecting dogs from heartworm disease transmission. ” #FightHeartworm

Concerning Ceva Animal Health: Ceva's key companion animal products include the Vectra  line of parasiticides, Adaptil ? (formerly D.A.P.) and Feliway  pheromone behavior assists and Senilife  neuroprotection for aging pets.  Ceva Biomune's key poultry products comprise CEVAC  Transmune IBD, Vectormune  FP and Vectormune  HVT.  Ceva Biomune Campus and the North America Zone headquarters are both located in Lenexa, Kansas.  Stop by www.ceva.us.

About Ceva Sant  Animale: Ceva's parent company is a global veterinary health company focused on the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceutical products and vaccines for pets, livestock, swine and poultry.  Its headquarters is in Libourne, France.

Meet Billy Almarinez, entomologist

1) What do you do? 

I’m an entomologist specializing on the biological control of insect pests. In particular, I study the taxonomy, biology, and ecology of natural enemies--parasitoids and predators, in particular--of insect pests of agricultural and medical importance to assess their potential for biological control. Eventually, our goal is to develop mass rearing protocols, field conservation, and release strategies for these biological control agents. 

I tend to view what I've been studying both in the laboratory and in the field as being like a crossover between the films "Alien" and "Godzilla" (the 2014 Hollywood version), so my work has never been boring.

2) Where do you work? 

I work in De La Salle University, currently as a postdoctoral research associate under the Biological Control Research Unit (BCRU) of the Center for Natural Sciences and Environmental Research (CENSER). 

BCRU's research laboratory and insect rearing facilities are located at the DLSU Laguna Campus (previously known as the DLSU Science and Technology Complex, the former De La Salle Canlubang).

3) Tell us about the photos!

[Top:] Here I am counting Aspidiotus rigidus (a.k.a. "cocolisap") under the microscope. These pests caused a major outbreak in the coconut planting areas in Southern Tagalog from 2010 to 2015. 

In 2014, my collaborators and I discovered a native endoparasitoid that can be used as a biological control agent for "cocolisap", Comperiella calauanica. We found and described this encyrtid wasp as a new species, hence my name is among the three authors appended to its scientific name.

[Bottom:] This photo was taken at the XXV International Congress of Entomology (ICE 2016) in Orlando, Florida. I am with the Florida branch of my academic lineage: Dr. Divina Amalin, my Ph.D. supervisor (academic "mom") and current head of the DLSU-BCRU, Dr. Jorge Peña, University of Florida professor and biological control specialist and Dr. Amalin's Ph.D. supervisor (thereby making him my academic "grandpa"), and Mr. Daniel Carrillo, Dr. Peña's Ph.D. student (my academic "uncle"). 

I would never have had the chance nor the resources to go abroad and experience the US (and most recently China), meet my academic "lolo", and make new friends and potential collaborators internationally if it weren't for my Ph.D. "mom", my work as a scientist, and my home institution.

4) Tell us about your academic career path so far. 

I completed basic education at the now-defunct Colegio San Antonio (formerly Saint Anthony School of Biñan) in Laguna. After obtaining my Bachelor of Science in Biology for Teachers degree from the Philippine Normal University and a 1-year stint as a college Biology instructor in the same institution immediately after graduation, I pursued my Master of Science in Biology degree at DLSU (where I eventually ended up working as a faculty member of the Biology Department) as a full-time graduate student under scholarship from the Department of Science and Technology.

I obtained my Ph.D. in Biology also from DLSU, which very kindly afforded me with much-needed financial support (through the Student Financial Assistance program, and later through the Ph.D. Research Fellowship program) for my doctorate studies. I can attest to the not-so-known fact that even the cash-strapped can actually earn a degree from what is probably considered by many to be "the rich kid's institution" among the Philippines' so-called Big Four.

5) Anything else you’d like to share?

Unlike some scientists who see scientific discoveries as independent of their faith (or lack of it) and perhaps even see conflict between scientific concepts and the Holy Scriptures, I am one who views and does science as a means not only to understand how our world and the universe works, but more importantly to be able to better understand and appreciate the truly awesome ways by which God actually works in everything in our world and in the universe. For me, there is complementarity between science and Christian faith, hence, my motto as a scientist: #SoliDeoGloria

It has also been my advocacy to promote the culture of scientific research to our youth–the potential research and innovation drivers of our country. Our country may lag behind our international counterparts in terms of financial resources and facilities for research and innovation, but we have never, ever run out of intellectual resources (both tapped and untapped). For this reason, I have considered it my "side quest" to encourage young people in high school, college, and graduate school to strive for excellence in their chosen field and get into research. And I'm not talking about doing research just for the sake of having one's name either appended to the name of a new species, or included among a high-impact publication's co-authors. I'm talking about research whose fruits can really be appreciated by and actually benefit not just the scientific community but all the stakeholders in our society. #AghamParaSaLahat

Student Spotlight: Megan Bazin, Integrated Pest Management Intern

My name is Megan Bazin and I just graduated from Temple University with a BS in Horticulture. I'm from South Jersey and am the year-long Integrated Pest Management intern here at Longwood.

What is your favorite plant?

My favorite plant is the white pine, because I used to climb them a lot as a kid. I also really love their form when they mature.  Being from the pine barrens, the smell of pine trees is very nostalgic for me.

What is your favorite Garden? What is your favorite part of Longwood?

My favorite garden is the arboretum at the Temple University Ambler Campus. I worked there for 3 years while I completed my degree, and it has a lot of sentimental value for me. My favorite part of Longwood is either Pierce's Woods or the Hillside garden.  I like native perennials and natural-feeling environments.

What is the best part of being a student?

Being able to ask as many questions as I want. At many jobs, you're expected to just do your work as quickly as possible and not ask questions. When you're a student, you have the opportunity to understand why you're doing what you're doing; what the bigger picture is. Understanding the bigger picture means you can come up with your own innovative ideas and creative solutions to problems.

What is your background in horticulture (or whatever field you are in)?

I have done various internships and volunteer programs in the fields of horticulture, urban agriculture, and organic farming in addition to my four years at Temple University Ambler. At Ambler, I was the Native Plant Intern, where I took care of our Native Formal Garden and helped catalog plant records. I also cared for and forced plants for Temple's Philadelphia Flower Show exhibit for three years in a row.

Why did you want to come to Longwood and what do you think helped you get the position?

I wanted to come to Longwood because I wanted a specialization in addition to my general education in horticulture. Longwood's year-long internship position was a perfect opportunity for me. I chose the IPM specialization because it's applicable to a variety of areas within the field, but also because plant pathology and entomology were my favorite classes in college. I think I got the position because I interviewed well, and had good recommendations. Longwood and Temple work together often, so I think my being a senior horticulture student there was a bonus.

What do you do at work? 

My favorite thing to do at work is when I get to research a problem about a plant and find out a solution to the problem. I like being a scientist and feeling like I am really contributing to our stewardship of plants. Sometimes this involves using a map and accession number to locate a plant, and I feel like I'm treasure hunting, which is especially fun.

What are your future plans or what is your intended career path?

I would be happy with any job working with plants and the outdoors. I really enjoy IPM, so I am hoping to utilize this specialization.

Temple's 'Next Stop' interview in my beloved arboretum.

Diagnosing plant diseases in the Longwood IPM lab.

Water Lilies field trip into the ponds!

Installing a garden with fellow Horticulture Honor Society members (Pi Alpha Xi).

Getting very excited about the china during a trip to the Hagley Museum.

Wildlife at TCC South Campus

Here I am on a recent hike with some our our Student Activity members during our recent spring fest. I have always wanted to lead a hike on campus and share with people just just how many organisms we have on site and how important they are to our campus ecosystem. TCC South Campus may not look like the best place for wildlife but you would be totally mistaken. There is plenty of things to look at if you know where to look. 

I have been studying Tarrant County Community College Wildlife on two campuses the Southeast and South Campus. I still go to the South Campus but I did go to the Southeast Campus at times. I still go out to their ponds to look for wildlife. I must say that both are rich in wildlife but South Campus holds some particularly special creatures that always make me stop and start observing them. Let me dive into a few from years past and my most recent findings. Let me point out that this is something that was suggested to me in a round about way. 

A particular special creature that I always look for in late April to early May is the little chirpy and lively Cliff Swallow. We get two types of Swallow on Campus but these are my favorite. They like to nest at the Technology building often and they gather in great numbers and build their nests from mud and saliva. They often get into minor disagreements and pick on each other if someone winds up at the wrong nest. They are just minor squabbles with very little violence. They may peck a little and may flit around and slap another with their wings but it is over pretty quickly. This year I have not seen them yet which is kind of odd for them. Normally they are here now but this year they are coming in late. We do have their close cousin which is just as lively. The Barn Swallows are there now making their nests. These guy are migratory and come all the way from Capistrano and nest in this area of Texas and a few southern areas. They are one of my favorite things to watch when I am on study break. I always take my camera with me just in case I make some sort of personal discovery. I have to stand back a little because these guys are fast and I have had a few close calls with some of these birds. I had one almost run right into me and let me tell you that wouldn’t have felt good if he hadn’t veered off. Still a fun bird to watch when I am on campus. 

 On hot and muggy days we get a ton of moths. I was walking around the engineering building which is one of our hot spots for insects and birds. I was walking along the breeze way path that has a solar panel canopy and was walking along the side where the classrooms were and I spotted this moth and almost stumbled. This is Tersa Sphinx moth caught me off guard and I almost fell. This is the first and only time I have ever seen this moth. I have friends who have seen them before many times but for me I don’t get to see big moths that often but we get quite a few big moths as I may have mentioned in the past. There are times where I want to do a moth night on campus and see what goes on in the nocturnal world on campus. It is a world rarely seen by some but in my experience you see some of the coolest things at night. Basically in the day time you see some moths that are sleeping. This guy was waiting for the night to return. I don’t see too many big moths on campus but there are quite a few that I have to say totally blew me away. TCC South Campus has a lot of interesting moths. Let us visit another moth that I saw late summer day. 

Here is one that I found near the Nursing Building a couple of semesters back. It was when I was still taking math courses at the Nursing Building and I was outside just before my class started. I had run into a married couple I know from the Texas Master Naturalist program and the Native Plant Society of Texas North Central Texas. They had just walked into their exercise class when I saw it. This guy was on the round wall that looks like something you would see in the film Lord of the Rings the wall looks like something from the Shire. Anyway this Vine Sphinx caught me completely off guard too. I love giant moths and I have documented about five big moths on campus most of them are Sphinx Moths. This guy was easily three inches from head to tail and three inches at widest point. Some of my friends call this guy the “Stormtrooper” or it may remind you of Darth Vader for it looks like one of the masks from the Star Wars franchise. I have to agree that it looks more like a Stormtrooper. South Campus is home to many kinds of moths but there is also some interesting beetles to be found here. Some of them are considered to be rare. 

A few projects have been made on the iNaturalist site dedicated to TCC Wildlife. I have actually made one that encompasses all of the colleges in the TCC District. This guy came off to me as a little strange. I was walking one day before class. I was at the library which is another hot spot on Campus. Insects like to hang around on the pillars and just chill. This leaf beetle struck me as very unusual. He has a pattern that make me think of tribal print from Africa or something. This is a kind of Leaf Beetle that is called Zygogramma Heterothecae. I know that is a mouthful but it is the only name that I know this one by. This is one of my favorite beetles for when I documented it on the site it turned out to be the first one on spotted in the Metroplex. I didn’t expect to have such rarities on campus. Before 2016 I didn’t really do photography on campus. I did it else where but not here. It was not until 2016 when I became a Texas Master Naturalist and began to study the wildlife on campus. As they say better late than never. Still I have made over three hundred observations on Campus in just the matter of a few years. I haven’t seen too many rare things on Campus but I have seen a few. 

On our recent Spring Fest Hike that I lead we found this guy. This is one of those ant-mimic beetles. When we saw it looked just like an ant; it was small and even moved like an ant but it was far from it. It is a beetle in the Checkered Beetle family and is known but (here comes another technical name)  Phyllobaenus unifasciatus. This is one that had never been found in Fort Worth before according to iNaturalist. I use iNaturalist as a guide in many cases. It has become the tool that I normally use in all my outdoor adventures. It was kind of a cool spotting. I know the photo is a little dark but there was a lot of cloud cover. So this is all I got of the beetle. 

Today I made a very interesting find at the Wildflower Restoration area at the front of the Campus that goes all the way from the front parking lot to I-20. This guy is the Colorado Potato Beetle. I found him sitting in a Desert-Chicory plant. I wanted to get a better shot of him so without any hesitation. He did wind up barfing orange goo all over my hand but it that is when I put him back. These guys in the wild feed primarily on the members of the nightshade family but in the agriculture world these guys are very devastating to Potato crops. Though not rare this was the first one to be found on Campus grounds. It had been one I had been searching for since high school. I was in the Future Farmers of America Program and I participated in the State Entomology ID Contest and this was one that we had to study about. I had seen it in the contest arena but I have never seen it live until now. It is almost dime sized but much smaller than I had anticipated. I love it when I can find really cool things like this on campus.

Along the exercise track on the left side of the Wildflower Restoration area lies the area I called the “Mud Puddle” It is just a low area that collects with water and last winter I decided to walk around there to see if there was any winter birds that I could see. Ever so often I would walk around the tall grass and a bird would shoot out from the tall grass. This was the only shot I could get of any of the birds. This bird is one of the many winter visitors that TCC South Campus gets called the Wison’s Snipe. I did a report on these back in high school and this one kind of hit home for me. They are know for their elaborate flight displays and often make loud whistling sound with their tail feathers. they maybe a drab colored bird but their patterns (shown here) are dazzling. the dark stripes down the back, the little ruddy colored tail feathers, the black secondaries of their wings. At first I thought they were another bird called the American Woodcock or what some people refer to as the Timberdoodle. It almost has the same body shape but the Woodcock sits lower to the ground and makes a little Weemp! or  Meemp! that sounds nasally. These guys let out a loud barking alarm call that sometimes startles me. Sometimes things are so quite and I am focused then I get too close and then I hear that and my heart jumps to my throat. This is one of those special birds I see at Southeast Campus too. 

 In the summer time we have a plant that grows at the corner of the sceince building nearest to the corridor that takes you down the path to the engineering building. The plant (seen here) is called the Flame Acanthus. One day I was out making my rounds just killing time when I saw something moving with jerky movement. I stopped and got my camera in focus and took this photo of a hummingbird. I am still in a debate if it is Black-chinned or Ruby-throated but it is one of the two. This is the best shot I have of a Hummer feeding on a flower. This is one of the truly magical shots I have ever taken on Campus. 

A declining species that we have on Campus is the raptor like Loggerhead Shrike. Some days when I am on my way to school and I come to pull into the campus drive way closest to the Football Stadium across the street I will see these birds on power lines. However on the day I took this one I was walking the track with my mother. We had some time to kill and we deiced to take a brisk winter walk. I spotted this guy in a tree and knew exactly what is was. These guys are known for being a bird of pray (raptor) trapped in a song-bird’s body. These guys have a beak like a raptor and a the sounds of a songbird. They have a problem they can’t tear prey with their small birdie feet but they have a solution. They will catch what they find and impale them on a sharp barb. I have seen mice and snakes on some of the trees on campus and my only thought is that the Loggerhead Shrikes have been there. They are sadly declining due to human interference by architectural advancement. It is a pity really these birds are one of my favorites and we need to do all we can to protect these birds for they keep rodent, insect, and snake populations in check. They are one of the good guys of the open prairie and that is the place they call home. So we should be making more prairie and not tearing up more land to put parking lots and things. The more food that these guys have on a tree will make him more attractive to the ladies as I saw in a PBS nature special. With more food in the fridge so to speak he is stronger and able to provide more for their young.

  Let us not forget about the cute little furry guys that call our campus home. This is one that doesn’t always occur on campus but it does from time to time; meet the Striped Skunk. The engineering building is a hive of wildlife like I have said many times. This skunk was just one of the many species I found out there. This guy was in the blue drain pipe when I came around from making a bug run. I saw something black and furry and it didn’t look exactly like a feral cat. So I walked around to see if he would come out again. I then came back and then I saw that white part of his head and I then raised my camera and began to tell myself it was a skunk. He didn’t seem to sure if he wanted to come out of the pipe or not. He was pretty hesitant to come out. He would pull in and come out and make little sounds. Then finally he jumped out and startled himself and raised his tail. I was pretty far back and not anywhere near his firing range for he was turned away from me. This guy is the first wild skunk I have ever seen in my life. May not be a rarity for some people but for me it is. Normally these guys are seen the night so this could have wound up a dicey encounter but he didn’t try anything. Normally they are solitary only coming up to another one during breeding season. The males mate with the females and then wonder off the females raise their young by themselves and then once the young are able to fend for themselves they will leave mom and then she is back to being solitary. Skunks are one of my favorite mammals. I used to feed one at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge so this was a really neat encounter. 

Let me take sometime to show you one of the most common of our mammals. We get a lot of Virginia Opossums on our campus. This one I got the day before spring fest. This guy was in a rush to find a place to rest. He looked like he was in a fever state looking for shelter. He was running around the Rotunda and going back and forth not knowing which direction to go. When I took this shot he almost looked like he was at a loss. He put his hand on the outer wall and was looking right at me. It was almost like he was saying “Talk about a rut.” I love the opossum but many people don’t seem to appreciate them because they look like big rats. They are not all that bad in fact you should consider yourselves very lucky to have these in your backyard and in your forests for they are the number one tick zappers on the planet. They eat more ticks than any other animals and that helps cut back on Lyme Disease and other horrible tick related ailments. In my book the Opossum is Awesome! It is one of the heroes of the natural world for it keeps the human and pet pests away and help save lives. So the next time you see an opossum just think it is on the prowl to do you a big favor. 

So this is a representation of the three main groups of animals we have on campus. I wish I could go into all of them for they all have something wonderful to tell. Each animal and person have a story. TCC South Campus is known for its quite atmosphere, clubs, and its bell tower but for me TCC South has a lot more to be recognize for. It may just be a school to some but to me it is a wildlife hot bed, a wild place; a place for wildlife to thrive. It is a habitat for countless species. Many people don’t take the time to notice the wildlife on campus. However when I am on campus I am always checking out every nook and cranny that I can get to to find the next best thing. Their is a magic to TCC South and it is not too hard to find it. The wildlife on campus is really special to me for I have been studying it for a while. It is vital that we take care of it and keep planting native vegetation and keeping it clean so that way more things can show up. Most of the things we get are arthropods but we get a lot of birds too. We get a good cross section of things. Some people don’t take the time to enjoy what I think is the most special thing about the campus. It is a hidden world to most but for me it is a world I love to lose myself in. Observing these things and documenting and discovering what other creatures call this campus home. For me this the true magic of TCC. Sure it is a peaceful place but the animals that we share with it add to that natural ambiance of the campus. The South Campus is by far the wildest place I have ever attended for schooling. It has a whole plethora of wildlife that I love to explore and even if it is just for a few minutes a day or about an hour a day I never miss out on personal discovery. This is what I want to share with people on campus. There is a whole world different from our own out there and that is why I created the South Nature Club to help people understand and appreciate the world of wildlife on campus and beyond. It is a wonderful feeling to meet a new creature on campus and it makes me want to tell people the value of that creature or organism. I hope this has been a little window to my feelings on Campus wildlife. A little window from the eyes of a student and a budding naturalist. 

I am Zachary Chapman and I will see you on the trail. 

CHP Spotlight: Natalie Gregg

Natalie Gregg is a member of the Chancellor’s Honors Program 2015 Cohort. Natalie is a senior from Hendersonville, TN, double majoring in Flute Performance and Music and Culture. Upon graduation, she plans to pursue a masters in Music Performance. One day, she hopes to win an audition in a major orchestra and play flute and piccolo. 

During her time at UT, Natalie serves a secretary of the Music and Culture Society, and she plays piccolo in the Men’s Basketball pep band. Natalie is also minoring in Music Business and Entomology and Plant Pathology, she spends a lot of time in the labs on the agriculture campus. This past summer, she worked at the Ellington Agricultural Center in Nashville, an extension location of UT Agriculture. Her job was to survey for invasive insects in the Middle Tennessee area. Natalie’s hobbies include cooking, gardening, and collecting insects. Natalie teaches flute lessons at the Joy of Music School, is a substitute flutist for Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, and has interned at the KSO office for a semester. 

One of Natalie's favorite college experiences was marching the Circle Drill with the Pride of the Southland Marching Band. Natalie was a member of the Pride of the Southland for her first two years at UT. Natalie says, “I used to make my parents take me to UT games when I was on the field and perform this with the band.” Another of Natalie’s favorite college experiences was playing the flute solo in Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun with the UT Symphony Orchestra. She notes that it was a great experience, and she thinks that this piece is one of the most beautiful pieces ever written. 

Natalie’s favorite part of CHP is the Becker Seminars. She also enjoyed teaching ESL classes in her community to fulfill her “Ready for the World” requirement. This helped her to stretch her comfort zone and be more comfortable communicating with people who speak different languages. Finally, Natalie chose to be a part of CHP because she loves the added challenge of honors classes compared to regular classes. 

Written by Hannah Liang_ January 11, 2019 

Fwd: Graduate Positions: UToronto.Two.FungalEvolution

Begin forwarded message: > From: [email protected] > Subject: Graduate Positions: UToronto.Two.FungalEvolution > Date: 12 August 2022 at 05:16:35 BST > To: [email protected] > > > 2 Ph.D. positions, -Omics analysis on Host-Fungus interactions, University > of Toronto > > 2 Ph.D. positions are available to join the Laboratory of Evolutionary > Genomics of Fungi (https://ift.tt/RAdDCVs) in > the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of > Toronto (https://ift.tt/vwp4hdT), > Scarborough campus (https://ift.tt/WUQRIkJ) starting in > spring or fall 2023. > > Successful applicants will work on fungal biodiversity in aquatic > systems, ecology and evolution of microbial fungi, and host-fungus > interactions using multi-Omics approaches.  Position 1 will focus on > mosquito-fungus interactions with an aim to identify host-specific > genes with transcriptome data collected at different conditions, and > Position 2 will apply Phylogenomics and single-cell genomics to study > and identify missing branches on the fungal tree of life using samples > collected across Canada and the globe. > > Applicants for either position should have strong interests in data > analyses and writing and should be highly motivated to work at the > interface of evolutionary biology, molecular biology, and computational > genomics. Specifically, applicants for Position 1 should have a strong > background in Microbiology and/or Entomology with experience with > dissecting scopes. Applicants for Position 2 should have a strong > background in molecular biology and/or fieldwork experience. Coding > experience with R and/or Python will be an asset, but training will be > provided once on board. Multiple data science courses will be offered in > the EEB department and the SciNet supercomputing centre at the University > of Toronto. > > To apply, please send the following documents to the PI (Dr. Yan Wang) > via email [email protected] with the title "Ph.D. student > position application). > 1) your most recent CV > > 2) unofficial transcripts of all past and ongoing studies > > 3) a brief statement of research interests (1 page) summarizing your >   academic background, qualifications, and interest in either or both >   of the advertised positions. > > Kind regards, > > Yan > > -- > > Yan Wang, PhD > > Assistant Professor &Connaught Scholar > > Department of Biological Sciences & > > Department ofEcology and Evolutionary Biology > > University of Toronto - Scarborough Campus > > 1265 Military Trail,Toronto, Ontario M1C 1A4 > > Councilor forGenetics and Cell Biology > > Mycological Society of America > > Tel: 416-208-2739 > > Email:[email protected] > > Twitter:@funganomics > > Lab:https://ift.tt/2GX839Q > > > > Yan Wang

Image: iStock

The Fallacy of Open-Access Publication

By Andrew V. Suarez and Terry McGlynn

Information is more accessible than ever. If you are curious about the cast of a TV show from 1975, or lyrics to your favorite ‘80s pop song, you’ll be satisfied in seconds. Yet if you want to read scientific research articles, you are likely to come up empty-handed. And that "open access" model that was supposed to offer a solution? It’s created new problems.

Academic publishing has fallen into disequilibrium and desperately needs a new approach. Time and again, when new efforts have emerged to facilitate broad access to publicly funded research, private companies have intervened and fought to restrict it. In our information age, it is simply unacceptable that the public cannot readily gain access to research paid for with public dollars.

Scholarship is typically locked up in journals that are so expensive that even university libraries may be priced out of the market. One example is Oecologia, a highly reputable journal in our discipline (ecology). Its publisher, Springer, charges campus libraries more than $10,000 a year for a print copy and electronic access. Publishers often bundle journals — much like cable companies package channels together — driving prices higher by making a library pay for products it doesn’t want in order to get the ones it does want.

In short, we are getting fleeced. The major scientific publishers enjoy profit margins in excess of 30 percent. Such profits are stratospheric, well over the average for every business sector of the Fortune 500. Publishers are getting rich on the backs of underfunded academic libraries and the unpaid labor of academics who serve as editors, reviewers, and authors. That system is unsustainable.

Just as cable viewers are finding new ways of watching TV, researchers are using digital tools to get access to articles without university subscriptions. Enter open-access publishing — a model that emerged in response to the excessive cost of journals. Open-access articles are not copyrighted by the publisher, and are free to everybody. Yet if anything, that model may be limiting the communication of science.

Open access has turned out to be a misnomer. Of course, free access to research findings is good for science and society. However, open access is clearly not freely open to the scholars who are required to pay exorbitant fees to publish their results, often out of their own pockets. Graduate students who wish to publish two open-access articles a year in the journals of their choice might need to use more than a quarter of their annual income to do so, if they don’t have large grants to cover the fees. One journal that is exclusively open access required graduate students to provide copies of personal bank statements in order to be considered for a fee reduction. That same journal also has denied fee reductions to students who don’t have external funding and who earn less than $20,000 a year.

Advocates of open access are quick to bemoan the "paywall" that keeps people from reading research findings. The adoption of open-access publication does not eradicate the paywall, but instead moves the cost burden in front of researchers themselves. Open access has been around long enough for us to recognize that its cost cannot be borne by the external funding of individual research labs.

There are also sincere academic-integrity concerns about scholars paying money to have their work published, especially as many open-access journals are run on a for-profit basis. In a sense, open access is — or can be — payola. The only source of integrity is the faith that the editors are acting honorably.

We find both the traditional and the open-access models to be unacceptable because they impose substantial barriers among researchers, publication, and the public.

Let’s turn to the publications that do not have huge open-access fees for authors, but have low subscription costs. A good example in our field is Oikos, published by Wiley, and it costs libraries a quarter of the cost of Oecologia.

Why is Oikos priced more reasonably? It is published by the for-profit megapublisher Wiley, under contract with the Nordic Society Oikos. The scholars who operate the journal negotiated a contract with Wiley that keeps the subscription cost down. The story is the same for many other academic-society journals that contract with for-profit and university presses. Moreover, the contract with the publisher subsidizes the operation of the societies, which typically use those funds to support junior scientists and academics in developing nations. While this example may not hold for all academic societies in all fields, it provides a model for moving forward.

Historically, most scholarly journals were published by academic societies. But in recent decades, as the rate of scientific publication has increased exponentially, many new journals have sprung up independent of scholarly societies and operate with corporate governance models. The emergence of such independent journals has far outpaced the efforts of most academic societies to create new publishing venues.

One exception — and a good example of leadership on this front — has come from the Ecological Society of America, which has steadily added new journals to keep up with the heightened rate of publication. ESA recently ended its publishing agreement with a small academic press, and is now publishing with Wiley. That move will ensure the fiscal stability of the society and keep its journals affordable and accessible. In turn, scholarly societies like ESA benefit from shared profits that are used to promote society goals and fund grants for students to attend meetings. Some small academic societies are even footing the bill for open-access journals that are entirely free to authors.

Journals connected to a scholarly society tend to have low subscription costs and are far more accessible than the independent for-profit journals that charge libraries an arm and a leg. Academic societies are positioned to negotiate with large publishers for reasonable library-access rates, which means that academics would encounter fewer paywalls.

Moreover, part of ESA’s arrangement with Wiley is the right to self-archive articles in public depositories — also known as "green open access." That ensures that anyone without access to an academic library can see new results as soon as they are published.

Other academic societies should follow ESA’s example, and negotiate with their publishers to provide green open access for their own journals. Regardless, any researcher who encounters a paywall will find the email of the corresponding author on the same page, and in our experience, authors readily share copies of their academic articles on request and sometimes engage in valuable, science-advancing correspondence. Authors who publish their research are typically pleased to provide reprints upon request.

But of course that kind of accessibility to research articles is not uniform. That is why academic societies should take the lead on this. They are well positioned to collectively bargain with for-profit publishers to broaden access, on behalf of the authors and the editors of academic journals.

Publication through academic societies will improve science delivery and communication, and provide support to the other missions of these organizations, including public outreach and advocacy for sound science policy. Moreover, a greater share of revenues from journals could be directed toward the societies, instead of the gargantuan profit margin of the publishers. These funds can invested into comprehensive efforts to make research findings accessible to the public.

What can we as academics do to improve access to scientific research papers?

We can support scientific societies by supporting their journals. When we have time to volunteer as a journal editor or reviewer, make sure it’s for a journal that is part of a nonprofit scholarly society.

We should expect compensation if the journal is not part of a scientific society and is published solely for profit. Scientific publishers could pay editors and reviewers a flat fee for handling and reviewing manuscripts. Alternately, the company could waive the publishing fees for any future articles written by volunteer editors and reviewers in its journals. Compensation would probably also increase the quality of reviews.

We need to support our societies, but also hold them accountable to their constituency. While small academic societies tend to look directly after the needs of their members, large organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science run their journals much like the academic megapublishers. The flagship publication of AAAS, Science, is notorious for restricting public access to important original research papers. Many of us are members of AAAS, and scientists serving on its board of directors can work for policies that more effectively serve the membership and the public.

We need to continue to promote open access for scientific publication. However, open access is not the solution to all problems in academic publishing. Our scholarly societies are capable of taking robust steps to serve scientists in this changing environment. The capacity of society journals to meet our needs will grow when we choose to publish in, review for, and subscribe to society journals.

Andrew V. Suarez is head of animal biology and a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Terry McGlynn is a professor of biology at California State University at Dominguez Hills and a research associate at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

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Fwd: Job: VirginiaTech.EvolutionaryEntomology

Begin forwarded message: > From: [email protected] > Subject: Job: VirginiaTech.EvolutionaryEntomology > Date: 22 September 2021 at 06:58:55 BST > To: [email protected] > > > > > Candidates with a background in evolutionarybiology that work on urban > entomologicalpests will be considered. > > *** > > Virginia Tech's Department of Entomology seeks a faculty member in the > area of Urban Entomology. The position is a nine-month, tenure-track > appointment and will be filled initially at the rank of Assistant or > Associate Professor. > > The recently-established Joseph R. and Mary W. Wilson Endowed Urban > Entomology Professorship will provide immediate support to the > faculty member’s program. Once the faculty member is promoted to > the rank of Professor, it is expected that the faculty member will be > appointed as the Joseph R. and Mary W. Wilson Endowed Urban Entomology > Professor. Responsibilities of this primary research position include > a 70% research appointment and a 30% teaching appointment which may be > adjusted to meet the research and instructional needs of the faculty > member and department. This position will be based on the main campus > of Virginia Tech, a Research I public land-grant university located in > Blacksburg, VA, USA. > > Responsibilities: The successful candidate for this position will > be expected to develop a nationally and internationally recognized, > extramurally funded research program focused on the discovery of new > and innovative ways to manage urban pests. The applicant should possess > expertise and resources that will synergize current research, teaching, > and Extension strengths in the department. The ideal candidate will have > the opportunity to strengthen their research program with Virginia Tech > Institutes and Centers.  The incumbent is expected to build research > collaborations on urban and non-native invasive species affecting the > human condition and could find opportunities for collaboration with the > Fralin Life Science Institute. The influence of climate change-urbanized > environments and their impact on urban pests would align with the Global > Change Center. The incumbent could also collaborate at the intersection of > engineering, sciences, and humanities through the Institute for Critical > Technology and Applied Science. > > The successful applicant is expected to develop a research program at the > interface of science and society that addresses critical needs focused on > sustainable management of urban pests as a result of urbanization, rapid > environmental change, and/or biological invasions (e.g., non-native, > invasive, or adaptive species; resistant strains).  Specific research > focus areas could include, but not limited to, understanding extant and > emergent urban pest biology, management, behavior, ecology, evolution, > population genetics, pathology, or chemical ecology.  Further, research > should contribute to the development of technologies that address > challenges in monitoring and management of urban pests. The successful > applicant will be expected to support the department’s missions in > research, scholarship, and teaching.  This includes a strong commitment > to the recruitment and mentoring of graduate students and serving on > graduate student committees. The incumbent will also be expected to > develop a teaching program within their area of expertise that complements > the mission of the Department of Entomology. The incumbent will support > the mission of the land-grant university by participating in outreach > and engaging local, state, and regional stakeholders. As the successful > candidate’s career advances, they are expected to contribute to Virginia > Tech’s reputation in global engagement. Participation in institutional > and professional service activities that align with the candidate’s > strengths will also be expected. > > Required Qualifications > Applicants are required to hold a Ph.D. in entomology or a closely > related field. > > Preferred Qualifications > Preference will be given to individuals with an established record of > research accomplishments in urban entomology, a desire to address urban > issues complicated through non-native invasions and a changing climate, > a demonstrated ability to secure extramural funding, and publications in > high-quality peer-reviewed journals. Furthermore, preference will also > be given to individuals with documented teaching experience, demonstrate > a clear understanding of inclusivity and diversity, and have a clear > vision to grow their research portfolio complementing existing strengths > and resources in the department. > > Assistant OR Associate Professor, Urban Entomology > > Apply nowJob no: 517320 > Work type: Teaching & Research Faculty > Senior management: Agriculture & Life Sciences > Department: Entomology > Location: Blacksburg Area > Categories: Agriculture / Life Science > > https://ift.tt/2ZkF0we > > Dr. Margaret J. Couvillon,Assistant Prof. of Pollinator Biology & Ecology > Department of Entomology, Virginia Tech > Office phone:540-231-5707 > Pronouns: she, her, hers > Google scholar page: > https://goo.gl/I36PB0 > Personal Zoom Room:https://ift.tt/3nmL2F0 > Visit our lab's website: > https://ift.tt/3Ch2Vv0 > > Margaret Couvillon > via IFTTT