he world's oceans were teeming with microorganisms at least 3.8 billion years ago. But when did life make land? According to organic matter recently discovered in ancient South African soil, it may have happened over a billion years earlier than previously thought. In a study reported in Nature, Hiroshi Ohmoto, professor of geochemistry and director of the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center, found organic carbon in a 55-foot-thick layer of fossil soil in eastern South Africa that dates to between 2.6 and 2.7 billion years ago. Tests suggest that the carbon is what remains of mats of microbes — possibly blue-green algae — that grew on damp, clay-rich soil. That these mats were able to make it on land, Ohmoto says, may indicate the early presence of a protective ozone shield, which would in turn add to evidence pointing toward an early rise in atmospheric oxygen.
—David Pacchioli
The Age of Lillies
hat is the oldest flower? Earlier studies had tagged Amborella, a woody shrub with tiny yellow-green flowers found wild only on the island of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific. But postdoctoral scholar Todd Barkman, biology professor Claude dePamphilis, and graduate students James Lyons-Weiler, Gordon Chenery, and Joel McNeal found that water lilies are just as old. The team estracted DNA from the cell nucleus, from plastids (which hold pigments), and from the mitochondria (the cell's energy powerhouse) of 150 species, then analyzed each DNA sample three ways. Oddly, Amborella's age depended on which type of analysis they used. The plant, Barkman found, has two copies of one mitochondrial gene. After using Relative Apparent Synapomorphy Analysis (or RASA, software created by Lyons-Weiler) to account for the duplicate, the analyses were in agreement for all three methods and all three types of DNA. Concludes dePamphilis, "There was a great deal of initial diversity among the earliest ancestors of today's flowering plants." While water lilies have one bisexual flower, Amborella has different male and female flowers. The first flower could have been like either: The genes leave the question open
—Nancy Marie Brown
Shopping for Value
he Internet is a haven for bargain shoppers. A wide range of sites, selling everything from airline tickets to videos, compete for customers with low low prices. But with all the options the Internet provides, price isn't all that important to shoppers. Web consumers are more "value sensitive" than "price sensitive," says Arvind Rangaswamy, professor of marketing. Although the Internet lets shoppers search easily for the lowest price, they're more concerned with the quality of the product or service than how much it costs. When shopping for a hotel room online, Rangaswamy found, they take the one with the gym, the one by the beach, not necessarily the one with the cheapest daily rate. Convenience factors into the value equation as well. Although the Internet offers thousands of sites to choose from, most online shoppers head for ones they've already bookmarked.
—Jason Weiss
Flying Ice
ce can be dangerous, especially when it forms on the propellers of a helicopter in flight. To keep the blades safely balanced, the ice must be removed in the air. Some methods to remove ice use up to 13,000 watts of power for every foot of propeller blade (light bulbs only use up to 180 watts). Srinivasan Ramanathan, a graduate student in engineering science and mechanics, and professor Vasundara Varadan have a way to remove ice using only 100 to 200 watts per foot. Their piezoelectric actuator sends shear horizontal waves — elastic waves moving in a horizontal zigzag — to where the ice and aluminum meet, creating a "rubbing motion," which weakens the ice bonds, according to Ramanathan. When the blades spin, centrifugal force flings the loosened ice off. Ramanathan presented his work at the 2000 Penn State Graduate Exhibition.
eality TV like "Survivor" and "Cops," newsmagazine shows like "Dateline," and websites like "Voyeur Dorm" are all examples of "mediated voyeurism," says Clay Calvert, an assistant professor of communications and law. His new book, Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture, focuses on "the consumption of revealing images and information about others' apparently real and unguarded lives, often — yet not always — for purposes of entertainment, but frequently at the expense of privacy and discourse, through the means of mass media and the Internet." The book, says Calvert, "explores the tension between mediated voyeurism and privacy." According to a review in Publisher's Weekly, "Calvert gives ample evidence that our diet of peeping has grown very unhealthy."
—Nancy Marie Brown
The Vision Thing
isions cannot be strictly realistic," says Peg Thoms, associate professor of management at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. "Otherwise, they do not impel people to move forward into the unknown. This explains the failure rate for strategic planning, which often begins with a list of limitations. For that vision to work, it has to be based on utopian expectations, not current limitations." Thoms and Dawn G. Blasko, associate professor of psychology at Penn State Erie, have developed a Visioning Ability Scale — 12 questions that determine if someone has this "capacity for visioning." They have administered the scale to five survey groups, from college student leaders to business managers, and tested its validity by comparing its scores with long-established measures that weigh personality traits linked to visioning ability. A Fortune 500 insurance company is now using the scale as a selection tool for future company leaders.
he world's oceans were teeming with microorganisms at least 3.8 billion years ago. But when did life make land? According to organic matter recently discovered in ancient South African soil, it may have happened over a billion years earlier than previously thought. In a study reported in Nature, Hiroshi Ohmoto, professor of geochemistry and director of the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center, found organic carbon in a 55-foot-thick layer of fossil soil in eastern South Africa that dates to between 2.6 and 2.7 billion years ago. Tests suggest that the carbon is what remains of mats of microbes — possibly blue-green algae — that grew on damp, clay-rich soil. That these mats were able to make it on land, Ohmoto says, may indicate the early presence of a protective ozone shield, which would in turn add to evidence pointing toward an early rise in atmospheric oxygen.
hat is the oldest flower? Earlier studies had tagged Amborella, a woody shrub with tiny yellow-green flowers found wild only on the island of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific. But postdoctoral scholar Todd Barkman, biology professor Claude dePamphilis, and graduate students James Lyons-Weiler, Gordon Chenery, and Joel McNeal found that water lilies are just as old. The team estracted DNA from the cell nucleus, from plastids (which hold pigments), and from the mitochondria (the cell's energy powerhouse) of 150 species, then analyzed each DNA sample three ways. Oddly, Amborella's age depended on which type of analysis they used. The plant, Barkman found, has two copies of one mitochondrial gene. After using Relative Apparent Synapomorphy Analysis (or RASA, software created by Lyons-Weiler) to account for the duplicate, the analyses were in agreement for all three methods and all three types of DNA. Concludes dePamphilis, "There was a great deal of initial diversity among the earliest ancestors of today's flowering plants." While water lilies have one bisexual flower, Amborella has different male and female flowers. The first flower could have been like either: The genes leave the question open
ce can be dangerous, especially when it forms on the propellers of a helicopter in flight. To keep the blades safely balanced, the ice must be removed in the air. Some methods to remove ice use up to 13,000 watts of power for every foot of propeller blade (light bulbs only use up to 180 watts). Srinivasan Ramanathan, a graduate student in engineering science and mechanics, and professor Vasundara Varadan have a way to remove ice using only 100 to 200 watts per foot. Their piezoelectric actuator sends shear horizontal waves — elastic waves moving in a horizontal zigzag — to where the ice and aluminum meet, creating a "rubbing motion," which weakens the ice bonds, according to Ramanathan. When the blades spin, centrifugal force flings the loosened ice off. Ramanathan presented his work at the 2000 Penn State Graduate Exhibition.
eality TV like "Survivor" and "Cops," newsmagazine shows like "Dateline," and websites like "Voyeur Dorm" are all examples of "mediated voyeurism," says Clay Calvert, an assistant professor of communications and law. His new book, Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture, focuses on "the consumption of revealing images and information about others' apparently real and unguarded lives, often — yet not always — for purposes of entertainment, but frequently at the expense of privacy and discourse, through the means of mass media and the Internet." The book, says Calvert, "explores the tension between mediated voyeurism and privacy." According to a review in Publisher's Weekly, "Calvert gives ample evidence that our diet of peeping has grown very unhealthy."
isions cannot be strictly realistic," says Peg Thoms, associate professor of management at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College. "Otherwise, they do not impel people to move forward into the unknown. This explains the failure rate for strategic planning, which often begins with a list of limitations. For that vision to work, it has to be based on utopian expectations, not current limitations." Thoms and Dawn G. Blasko, associate professor of psychology at Penn State Erie, have developed a Visioning Ability Scale — 12 questions that determine if someone has this "capacity for visioning." They have administered the scale to five survey groups, from college student leaders to business managers, and tested its validity by comparing its scores with long-established measures that weigh personality traits linked to visioning ability. A Fortune 500 insurance company is now using the scale as a selection tool for future company leaders.