Front Page News at Indiana University

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Elinor Ostrom presented with Nobel Prize in Economics
Eli Lilly and Company Foundation gives $1 million to establish a school of public health at IUPUI
IU Bloomington to celebrate winter commencement
Introns: A mystery renewed
Notes on complexity, communication and trust: IU's Ostrom delivers Nobel lecture to worldwide audience
IU's Kelley School sponsors international workshop focused on interdisciplinary frontiers in IT
IU Student Sustainability Council seeks support for Green Initiative Fund
IU Bloomington Scoreboard

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Elinor Ostrom presented with Nobel Prize in Economics -- Elinor Ostrom Dec. 10 was presented the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. She is one of only 64 people and the first woman to receive the award, also called the Nobel Prize in Economics, since it was created in 1968. Ostrom, who shares the prize with Oliver Williamson, is the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science at Indiana University and the co-founder and senior research director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. She also is founding director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity at Arizona State University. Read the complete story.

Eli Lilly and Company Foundation gives $1 million to establish a school of public health at IUPUI -- Indiana University Dec. 10 announced that it has received a $1 million gift from the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation to support efforts to plan and begin to establish an accredited school of public health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). In response to the public health needs in Indiana, IUPUI is building a new school of public health by bringing together faculty from the School of Medicine, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and other schools. One of the IUPUI's goals in developing a school of public health is to support other health programs at IUPUI -- particularly supporting the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center in achieving its goal of being a comprehensive cancer center -- as well as the Clinical Translational Sciences Institute, the M.D./M.P.H. combined degree program and programs that support IUPUI's growing expertise in diabetes prevention and control. Read the complete story.

IU Bloomington to celebrate winter commencement -- Indiana University Bloomington will celebrate its 180th Commencement on Dec. 19 (Saturday) in a 10 a.m. ceremony in Assembly Hall. The procession of students will begin at 9:15 a.m. The Honorable Robert M. Gates, U.S. Secretary of Defense, will deliver the commencement address. Secretary of Defense Gates was sworn in to his position in 2006 by President George W. Bush and is the only defense secretary in U.S. history to be asked to remain in that office by a newly elected president (President Barack Obama). His preparation for public service included graduate study at Indiana University, where he earned a master's degree in history in 1966. Read the complete story.

Introns: A mystery renewed -- The sequences of nonsense DNA that interrupt genes could be far more important to the evolution of genomes than previously thought, according to a recent Science report by Indiana University Bloomington and University of New Hampshire biologists. Their study of the model organism Daphnia pulex (water flea) is the first to demonstrate the colonization of a single lineage by "introns," as the interrupting sequences are known. The scientists say introns are inserted into the genome far more frequently than current models predict. The scientists also found what appear to be "hot spots" for intron insertion -- areas of the genome where repeated insertions are more likely to occur. And surprisingly, the vast majority of intron DNA sequences the scientists examined were of unknown origin. Read the complete story.

Notes on complexity, communication and trust: IU's Ostrom delivers Nobel lecture to worldwide audience -- The complexity of human social and economic behavior is something to be analyzed, understood and appreciated, not feared or denied, Indiana University Professor Elinor Ostrom told a worldwide audience Dec. 8 in her Nobel Prize Lecture. In a lecture titled "Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems," Ostrom recounted how, through painstaking research, she and her colleagues have demonstrated that there are effective ways to study complexity. "Complexity is not the same as chaos," she said. Read the complete story.

IU's Kelley School sponsors international workshop focused on interdisciplinary frontiers in IT -- Information technology researchers and practitioners will travel to Phoenix next week (Dec. 14-15) for the 19th annual Workshop on Information Technologies and Systems (WITS). The workshop, co-organized by a Kelley School of Business professor, will be held before the annual International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), which is currently in its 30th year. This year's WITS is organized by Kelley School of Business Information Systems Professor Vijay Khatri and his colleague at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Huimin Zhao. Read the complete story.

IU Student Sustainability Council seeks support for Green Initiative Fund -- Indiana University Bloomington student groups are coming together to enhance sustainability efforts on campus. To promote communication and collaboration among organizations interested in advancing environmentalism on campus, 14 student organizations have formed a new group, the Student Sustainability Council (SSC). The SSC is composed of representatives from both undergraduate and graduate student organizations as well as student government bodies. Read the complete story.

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Indiana University Bloomington Scoreboard

Results from Tuesday, Dec. 8:
Men's Basketball: With solid defense and a commitment to scoring inside, the Indiana University men's basketball team secured a 74-64 win Tuesday night over Pittsburgh (7-2 ) at the Jimmy V Classic in Madison Square Garden. With the win, Hoosier Coach Tom Crean recorded his 200th career triumph as a head coach. Read the game notes.

Results from Wednesday, Dec. 9:
Women's Basketball: Four Hoosiers scored in double-digits as the Indiana women's basketball team dominated UT Martin, 80-46, in Assembly Hall. Read the game notes.

Schedule for Saturday, Dec. 12:
Wrestling: Eastern Michigan, 11 a.m., SIU-Edwardsville, 3 p.m., Oak Lawn, Ill.
Men's Basketball: Kentucky, 12 p.m., Bloomington, Ind.

Schedule for Sunday, Dec. 13:
Women's Basketball: St. Louis, 3 p.m., St. Louis, Mo.

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IU in the news

Osteoporosis drugs offer promise in breast cancer prevention
San Antonio Express-News, Dec. 10 -- Several promising studies have researchers excited about the possibility that some osteoporosis drugs could play a role in reducing breast cancer. In one large study discussed at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium on Thursday, women who were taking bisphosphonates were one-third less likely to develop invasive breast cancer than women who did not take them. While more controlled, randomized trials need to be done, said Dr. Therese Guise, an oncology professor at Indiana University School of Medicine, osteoporosis and breast cancer affect millions of women, and it is very encouraging that "a simple oral drug may be effective to prevent both of these diseases." Full story.

Researcher aims to make cancer easy to find
Indianapolis Star, Dec. 10 -- Linda Malkas, the Vera Bradley Chair for Oncology at the Indiana University Simon Cancer Center, hopes to use her research into proteins to find a way to better identify and kill cancer. The Ph.D. researcher stopped by the Biz Buzz studio Wednesday to talk with host Daniel Lee about her work on breast cancer as well as CS-Keys, the Indianapolis biotech startup she co-founded. Full story.

Stability balls get a workout subbing as office desk chairs
Courier-Journal, Dec. 10 -- Being a desk jockey might seem like light duty, but it can be rough on the body. One way some people are trying to combat that is by using stability balls as office chairs, although the jury is still out on this offbeat change. Sitting in an office chair, locked in the same position for most of the day, is considered a risk factor for musculoskeletal problems, such as back pain. But a stability ball might help by allowing the body to move more freely and providing an opportunity to strengthen the postural muscles, said Kelly Jo Baute, a kinesiology lecturer at Indiana University's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. It's going to "get you out of some of these confined postures, allow you to rotate a little bit more," Baute said. Full story.

Bar Fly? Fruit Flies Can Be Alcoholics Too
Science News, Dec. 10 -- Guard the bourbon fruitcake: Fruit flies like a little booze in their food. And once they get a nip, they're hooked, say scientists studying Drosophila melanogaster, the darling of genetic scientists around the world. The flies show evidence of alcohol addiction, including drinking despite dangerous consequences, a study appearing online December 10 in Current Biology reports. Studying a model of alcoholism in a simple organism like the fruit fly may lead to a better understanding of the disease in humans. The new research is "a big step forward," says Zachary Rodd, a behavioral pharmacologist who studies rodent models of alcoholism at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. "It's always good to have many models. Each model has its benefits and its limitations. Drosophila has a lot of positives behind it." Full story.

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