NEWSLETTER

AWARDS

Kevina Vulinec was selected as one of two Merit Award Designees for the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation Grant. The awards of up to $10,580 are given to projects addressing the issue of achieving and maintaining a critical balance between our scientific and technological achievements and the preservation of our natural world. Two non-funded merit awards were also given out of more than 200 proposals submitted from around the world.

Kevina Vulinec won the 1996 Dickinson Award in Tropical Agriculture. This prestigious award is given to outstanding undergraduate or graduate students to fund a trip for tropical research that integrates ecology and agriculture. The title of her proposal was "The Role of Dung Beetles in Seed Dispersal in Primary Rainforest, Secondary Growth, and Agricultural Land in Rondonia, Brazil." The award was established as a memorial in honor of Joshua C. Dickinson IV to encourage others in the field of his interest. His tropical orientation evolved from 10 years of orchid collecting in forests from Mexico to Peru. Kevina was one of two students who received this award this year.

Denise Johanowicz and Kevina Vulinec were awarded $500 scholarships from the University of Florida Agricultural Women's Club. These AWC Scholarships are given each year to four women in agricultural disciplines who have high scholastic achievements and civic contributions.

Congratulations to Ms. Shannon Gibbs for being awarded the Rhone-Poulenc Citrus Education Scholarship. Shannon is a fourth-year Entomology and Nematology major and the IFAS undergraduate ambassador.

Congratulations to Mr. Robert Smith for receiving the Grebe-Wahlberg Scholarship. Robert is a third-year Entomology and Nematology major.

FACULTY, STAFF AND STUDENTS NEWS

Marjorie Hoy was elected by the graduate faculty to serve a two-year term as its representative on the Board of Directors of the Office of Research, Technology and Graduate Education (ORTGE). The Board meets quarterly and provides input to Vice President Karen Holbrook in two areas: 1) the promotion and administration of the sponsored research program and 2) the support of the total research program of the University for maximum benefit to the University and the greatest service to the State of Florida. If you have comments and concerns about these topics, please contact Marjorie to discuss them.

Kevina Vulinec was an invited speaker at a special seminar at the Instituto de Ecologia in Xalapa, Mexico, 11 June 11 1996. The title of her presentation was "Dung Beetle Diversity in Intact Rainforest and Disturbed habitat on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica and in Rondonia, Brazil."

Dr. Tom Sanford was an invited speaker to the Fifth Ibero-Latin American Congress on Apiculture, Mercedes, Uruguay on June 1 1996. He presented a talk in Spanish, "The Digital Information Revolution and How it Relates to Apiculture." He also presented a seminar on the same subject to the faculty of medicine at the University of Sao Paul, Ribeirao Preto Campus in conjunction with the II Encontro Sobre Abelhas, given every two years to demonstrate the quantity and quality of research being done in Brazil on bees. Several international speakers from Germany, the Netherlands and United States were also on hand.

Dr. Tom Sanford presented two papers at the 6th International Conference on the Use of Computers in Agriculture, Cancun, Mexico June 9 through 14, 1996. The titles were: "Teaching Beekeeping Using the World Wide Web - The Correspondence Course Revisited," and "Electronic Newsletter Delivery - From E-mail to World Wide Web."

PUBLICATIONS

Garcia-Maruniak, A.; Pavan, O.H.O. and Maruniak, J.E. 1996. A variable region of Anticarsia gemmatalis nuclear polyhedrosis virus contains tandemly repeated DNA sequences. Virus Res. 41, 123-132.

Liu, C.-J.; Boucias, D.G.; Pendland, J.C.; Liu W.-Z. and Maruniak, J.E. 1996. The mode of action of Hirsutellin A on eukaryotic cells. J. Invertebr. Pathol. 67, 224-228.

VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY

The governors of 10 Western states have pledged to raise funds for the establishment of their "virtual university," and say the first students should be enrolled by next year. Their move is spurred by a burgeoning population and an anticipated enrollment boom, which they hope to meet through electronically facilitated learning. Next steps will focus on breaking down bureaucratic barriers to the "virtual" concept: "It's not the technology that slows you down, it's the sociology," says Utah's Governor Leavitt. (New York Times 25 Jun 96, via Edupage).

The Director of Columbia University's Institute for Tele-Information, says that "many of the physical mega universities are not sustainable, at least not in their present duplicative variations." He predicts that "ten years from now a significant share of conventional mass education will be offered electronically." (Educom Review Jul/Aug 96, via Edupage).

TREES ARE DYING IN THE SUWANNEE RIVER

John Foltz, of UF's Department of Entomology and Nematology, and James Meeker, of FDACS Division of Forestry, report a massive outbreak of southern pine beetle in Madison and Hamilton counties along the Suwannee River. They provide infestation reports and help in identifying such infestations. The information is posted in PEST ALERT under the pest survey and ornamental categories. PEST ALERT is available at http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/pestalert/

V SICONBIOL

The Fifth Biological Control Symposium was held from June 9-14 in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. Dr. Drion Boucias and Dr. Roberto Pereira were invited speakers. Posters were presented by Rejane de Moraes (Dr. Maruniak's Ph.D. student), Dr. Julio Medal (Dr. Habeck's Post-Doc), Marcos Faria (completed his Master's program with Dr. Boucias), Dr. Daniel Sosa-Gomez (completed his Post-Doc with Dr. Boucias).

NEW BOOK

The Phytoseiidae As Biological Control Agents of Pest Mites and Insects: A Bibliography [1960-1994], by Tuomas S. Kostiainen and Marjorie A. Hoy. Published by the University of Florida, IFAS. Available FREE. This bibliography is intended to provide a comprehensive list of publications from 1960 to 1994 that deal with the family Phytoseiidae. To make this bibliographic list usable we have included several indices to help in locating publications on a specific topic, including a prey species index, effects of pesticides on phytoseiid index, species description index, general subject index, and author index. To obtain a FREE COPY of this bibliography, please contact Dr. Marjorie Hoy, Department Of Entomology And Nematology, PO Box 110620, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-0620 USA. Fax: 352-392-0190; e-mail: mahoy@ifas.ufl.edu.

MEDLINE DATABASE

Medline on the Shands Library can now be accessed with a click on a button. All you need to do is use one of the Macs in the computer lab. Nik Hostettler wrote an AppleScript to accomplish this task and it is available to anyone who asks for it.

WEB BROWSER UPGRADE

NetScape's new Navigator 3.0 is available. You can download it off the net. Lots of changes, but the biggest enhancement is Live Connect, a development tool that enables HTML elements, plug-ins, Java and JavaScript to communicate with each other. Many of these plug-ins control audio and video services. It's free to people working in education.

MACINTOSH

WordPerfect 3.5 for the Macintosh is now available from IFAS Software Support and is installed on the Macs in the computer lab. You can get a personal copy for free. You can install it over the network, so no hassle with floppies or CDs.

DeltaGraph in the Macs in the computer lab has been upgraded to version 4.0. At last (after years of waiting), we can now create charts with a broken Y-axis.

The WordPerfect Suite 7 on CD for the Macintosh will be available in August, $39 plus $6 s/h.

FILM RECORDER

MacRascol version 4.0 has been installed. Version 3.8 is still available because it is not backwards compatible. MacRascolQ has been replaced by MacRascol Queuebuilder, now an application. Slides are now processed analogous to printing, it happens in the background. You must select "Process" from the file menu, double clicking on a queue now opens the Queuebuilder.

Some students created BLL files exceeding 1 MB, which require 6 minutes processing time at low resolution. Thirty MB files were processed within two minutes at high resolution! If you use PowerPoint and then the Mac to process such large files, you should do all the work on the Mac. Note: We have the Corel Gallery in PICT format among others, and before embedding bitmap (scanned) images, read Nik Hostettler's handout. If you have questions ask Nik.

LOST DICTIONARY

A big red American Heritage Dictionary is missing from the Entomology/Nematology Insect Virology Lab. The name Alejandra Garcia-Canedo is written in the first page. She desperately needs it to improve her English! If you have seen it please call ext. 203.

A hard copy of this newsletter is given to department members in Building 970 only. All others can obtain an electronic subscription by joining the listserv

The next newsletter will be published Thursday, August 15. Deadline for contributions is Friday, July 9.

Editor: Enrique Perez

This version of the newsletter is published for the Web by Tim McCoy.

July 1996. Updated March 2003.