New Herbarium Open!
The Herbarium has completed its move and is in operation on the first floor of the newly renovated Temple Hall (the former student health clinic), at 1818 Andy Holt Ave. We invite you to visit and tour the facility!
Lou Gross to Lead NSF Biology Ideas Lab
Three five-day National Science Foundation Ideas Labs —one for biology, one for engineering, and one for geosciences—are being held this month through April 4 in the Washington, D.C., area. Each lab involves participants from various disciplines and backgrounds, as well as prospective employers and representatives of scientific and professional societies. The goals of the labs are to incubate innovative approaches to improve undergraduate STEM education and produce research agendas that address workforce development needs.
Louis Gross, director of the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis at UT, will serve as director of the Biology Ideas Lab, to be held March 30 to April 4 in Leesburg, Virginia.
Read the full Tennessee Today article.
Bailey Wins Visiting Professor Fellowship
Dr. Joe Bailey has won a Visiting Professor Fellowship at the Center for Ecological Research at Kyoto University, Japan (June-Aug. 2014). http://www.ecology.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/visitor.html
Hollingsworth et al. Article
A new paper by Hollingsworth et al. has come out in BMC Evolutionary Biology that provides the most complete phylogeny to date of North American minnows.
Hollingsworth, P.R. Jr., A.M. Simons, J.A. Fordyce, and C.D. Hulsey. 2013. Explosive diversification following a benthic to pelagic shift in freshwater fishes. BMC Evolutionary Biology. 13:272.
The article is open access:
NSF Grant for O’Meara and Gilchrist
Congratulations to Brian O’Meara and Mike Gilchrist, who were recently awarded a new grant from NSF for “Population genetics-based codon models.” They will be developing new methods of phylogenetic reconstruction using protein coding sequences of DNA. Unlike most work in this area, their methods will be based on evolutionary models that explicitly include the forces of mutation, natural selection and genetic drift. Their work will result in more accurate inferences of the evolutionary relationships between different taxa and, simultaneously, estimates of the strength of natural selection on the coding sequences.
DOE Grant for Classen
Aimee Classen has received more than $880,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy to investigate often-overlooked carbon cycle players.
She and her team will examine factors that influence carbon cycling below the ground and are not included in today’s carbon-cycle models, such as bacteria and fungi.
For more information about Classen’s proposed research, read the full TN Today article. Her research was also picked up by the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
E.O. Wilson to receive honorary degree
E.O. Wilson will receive an Honorary Degree in Science and Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UT’s Spring 2014 Commencement.
Wilson has had a long association with UT. More information about his connections with UT and his career can be found in the Tennessee Today article below.
October Events for Health Professions Students
Gaining Admission into Highly Competitive Graduate Programs
Wednesday October 2nd, 4:00-5:30
University Center Auditorium
All students, first year and beyond, considering graduate or professional school are invited to this presentation by nationally known author and speaker, Donald Asher. Learn the ins-and-outs of the graduate admissions process and steps you can take to set yourself apart. Mr. Asher has presented this topic at UT for nearly 20 years and students consistently find him both informative and engaging. Co-sponsored by Career Services, Student Success Center, Arts and Sciences Advising Services, The College of Business Administration Undergraduate Programs and The College of Engineering. Find additional graduate school resources and a video link to a prior Asher presentation at http://career.utk.edu/students/graduate-school/
US Army Forward Surgical Team Display
Monday, October 7, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
University Center Brown Lounge
You are cordially invited to a special event showcasing the technology, advancement and flexibility of medicine in the military. From medical surgery and dental to health services and physical therapy, you’ll see first-hand what the military’s capabilities are in a variety of medical fields. The event will feature the Army’s Forward Surgical Team display—a field medical tent recreating an actual emergency/operating room, complete with military experts, showing the equipment used by first responders in deployed locations or during natural emergencies. Here’s your chance to learn more about the military’s capabilities and ask questions about how a medical or health-related education can lead to a military career as a physician, dentist, nurse or other medical professional. You can also learn about scholarship and loan repayment opportunities.
Health Fair for Students Considering Careers in the Health Professions
Tuesday, October 15, 11-3
University Center Ballroom
On Tuesday, October 15, UTK is hosting several admissions representatives from health professions schools. They are coming to campus to talk with pre-health students who are interested in their schools/programs. You can come to talk with the representatives in the University Center Ballroom any time between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. This will be a great opportunity for you to learn more about the schools, learn how you can become a more competitive applicant, and ask questions about the admissions process. The following programs will be represented: Medicine, Osteopathic Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Physician Assistant, Optometry, Podiatry, Physical/Occupational Therapy, Clinical Laboratory Science, Graduate Health Sciences, and other allied health programs.
MED SCHOOL CLINIC
Tuesday, October 15, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
University Center 223-224
To help pre-med students increase their knowledge about their medical career options and prepare to overcome the admissions hurdles ahead, UTK’s Alpha Epsilon Delta Pre-Health Honor Society and Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions will hold a free Medical School Clinic Event on Tuesday, October 15th. The seminar will be from 4 pm to 5:30 pm in 223-224 University Center. At this free event, attendees will engage with and listen to a panel discussion on practicing medicine, careers in medicine, and applying to medical school. Pre-med students will benefit from the lively exchange between practicing doctors, med school admissions officers, and current med students. The panel members will provide an array of perspectives on the opportunities and the challenges specific to the medical field today. We will help attendees reduce anxiety about preparing for the MCAT and completing applications by increasing their knowledge about the admissions process. The panel will include representatives from University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Quillen College of Medicine and LMU-Debusk College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Complex Societies in PNAS
Sergey Gavrilets has a new open-access paper in PNAS, which is getting a great deal of media attention in places like Nature (links below). The paper is entitled, “War, space, and the evolution of Old World complex societies.”
Significance: How did human societies evolve from small groups, integrated by face-to-face cooperation, to huge anonymous societies of today? Why is there so much variation in the ability of different human populations to construct viable states? We developed a model that uses cultural evolution mechanisms to predict where and when the largest-scale complex societies should have arisen in human history. The model was simulated within a realistic landscape of the Afroeurasian landmass, and its predictions were tested against real data. Overall, the model did an excellent job predicting empirical patterns. Our results suggest a possible explanation as to why a long history of statehood is positively correlated with political stability, institutional quality, and income per capita.
Press Coverage:
| Austrian Tribune | Nature |
| The Conversation | Pacific Standard |
| El Mundo | Popular Mechanics |
| Huffington Post | Science World Report |
| Los Angeles Times | Smithsonian |
| National Monitor | Wired |
Cichlids in Science
A recent paper that Ben Keck and Darrin Hulsey of UTK co-authored was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B and written about in the journal Science:
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2013/09/tracing-cichlids-through-seas
Link to the open access publication:
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