Front Page News at Indiana University

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$60 million grant from Lilly Endowment boosts physician research at Indiana University
Biologist's cell cycle research gets $1.39 million in NIH support
Ostrom for forest advocates: Sounding good is not enough
IU study: Half of urban teen girls acquire STIs within 2 years of first sexual activity
IU graduate students receive Boren Fellowships for international study and research
IUPUI, Sun Yat-sen University sign memorandum of strategic alliance
IUSB Raclin dean to direct South Bend Symphonic Choir at the White House
IUPUI researchers tackle protein mechanisms behind limb regeneration
IU Bloomington Scoreboard

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$60 million grant from Lilly Endowment boosts physician research at Indiana University -- When a patient has a disease that can't be treated effectively, the physician can see clearly where research is needed. When a laboratory experiment goes well, a scientist can envision an effective new treatment. When the physician and the scientist are the same person, the combination can be a powerful source of discoveries for science, patient care and economic growth. To help the Indiana University School of Medicine tap that powerful combination of science and medicine Lilly Endowment Inc. has given the school $60 million, university and Endowment officials announced Tuesday (Dec. 15). Read the complete story.

Biologist's cell cycle research gets $1.39 million in NIH support -- The National Institute of General Medical Sciences has awarded Indiana University Bloomington biologist Joe Pomerening $1.39 million over five years to study the biochemical controls of cell division, otherwise known as mitosis. The NIGMS is a division of the National Institutes of Health. Pomerening is an expert on the regulation of the cell cycle, a complex network of genetic and biochemical interactions that directs cells to grow in size and divide -- or not, in the case of cells instructed to stop dividing. When something goes wrong with the cell cycle, the result can be cancerous, uncontrolled growth. Read the complete story.

Ostrom for forest advocates: Sounding good is not enough -- Elinor Ostrom sounded a note of caution Sunday (Dec. 13) at World Forest Day 3, a gathering of nongovernment organizations and environmental advocates working to keep forest protection at the forefront of the agenda for the United Nations climate change talks taking place in Copenhagen. "Beware of simple formulas," she told an audience of 500-plus in the opening plenary session of the conference at Copenhagen's Radisson Blu Falconer Hotel. "Sounding good is not enough." Ostrom, the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science at Indiana University and the co-recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, shared the plenary stage with another Nobel Laureate: Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Read the complete story.

IU study: Half of urban teen girls acquire STIs within 2 years of first sexual activity -- Half of urban teenage girls may acquire at least one of three common sexually transmitted infections (STI) within two years of becoming sexually active, according to an Indiana University School of Medicine and Regenstrief Institute study. The study appears in the December 2009 issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The researchers followed 381 girls enrolled at ages 14 to 17 years and found that repeated infection with the organisms that cause chlamydia, gonorrhea and trichomoniasis also was very common. Read the complete story.

IU graduate students receive Boren Fellowships for international study and research -- Five Indiana University graduate students have been awarded Boren Fellowships for the 2009-2010 academic year. The fellowships will provide financial support over two years to study or conduct research in Kyrgyzstan, China, Tunisia and Russia. Named for David L. Boren, Oklahoma senator from 1979-1994, Boren awards are sponsored by the National Security Education Program (NSEP) and support U.S. students who want to study world regions and languages deemed critical to U.S. interests in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America and the Middle East. The maximum level of support for a Boren Fellowship award is $30,000 over 24 months. Read the complete story.

IUPUI, Sun Yat-sen University sign memorandum of strategic alliance -- IUPUI Chancellor Charles R. Bantz and Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) President Daren Huang signed a Memorandum of Strategic Alliance, the second such agreement for IUPUI. Expanding the already substantial collaboration between IUPUI and SYSU -- one of the most prestigious universities in China -- to the level of a strategic alliance provides opportunities for meaningful engagement in a host of new arenas, Bantz said. The memorandum was signed December 9. Read the complete story.

IUSB Raclin dean to direct South Bend Symphonic Choir at the White House -- Marvin Curtis, dean of the Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts at Indiana University South Bend, had a vision of directing a holiday performance of the South Bend Symphonic Choir at the White House. With faith, persistence and help from the office of Senator Evan Bayh, his vision has become a reality. Curtis will direct the choir in a 90 minute concert on the State Floor of the White House on Dec. 21 (Monday). The performance is part of a wide range of Christmas festivities that take place at the White House each year. Read the complete story.

IUPUI researchers tackle protein mechanisms behind limb regeneration -- The most comprehensive study to date of the proteins in a species of salamander that can regrow appendages may provide important clues to how similar regeneration could be induced in humans. Researchers at the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and colleagues investigated over three hundred proteins in the amputated limbs of axolotls, a type of salamander that has the unique, natural ability to regenerate appendages from any level of amputation, with the hope that this knowledge will contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms that allow limbs to regenerate. Read the complete story.

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Indiana University Bloomington Scoreboard

Results from Saturday, Dec. 12:
Wrestling: The No. 13 Indiana University wrestling team improved to 8-0 on the year after sweeping the F.I.T.E. Duals by a combined score of 80-6. The Hoosiers topped Eastern Michigan (2-3-1), 30-6, while blanking the Cougars of SIU-Edwardsville (0-5) by a 50-0 tally. Read the tournament notes.
Men's Basketball: Fourth-ranked Kentucky (10-0) used an 18-0 run in the second half to break open a close game as they defeated Indiana, 90-73, in front of a sold out Assembly Hall crowd of 17,316. Read the game notes.

Results from Sunday, Dec. 13:
Women's Basketball: Senior Jamie Braun led all players with 23 points as the Indiana women's basketball team picked up a 74-61 win at Saint Louis. Read the game notes.

Schedule for Tuesday-Friday, Dec. 15-18: No varsity teams in action.

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IU in the news

Scientists: Diseases spread more by car than plane
USA Today, Dec. 15 -- Movies about deadly disease outbreaks always show travelers hopping on international flights and sending tendrils of illness across the globe within a day, but researchers at the School of Informatics at Indiana University in Bloomington found that hopping in your car to drive to work may be even more important. Their work shows that the local commuting flow of individuals are, on average, one order of magnitude larger than airlines flows when it comes to spreading disease. The researchers at the university's Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research gathered local commuting data on 29 countries for their paper, "Multiscale mobility networks and the spatial spreading of infectious diseases" published in this week's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This allowed them to build computer models that "fill in the dots" about where people go and how disease follows them, says physicist and informatics professor Alessandro Vespignani, who led the research. Full story.

Tenure-o-meter
Inside Higher Ed, Dec. 15 -- For some young professors, any evaluative tool called the "Tenurometer" (i.e. tenure-o-meter) is sure to turn some heads. Which is the point, says Filippo Menczer, associate professor of computer of informatics and computer science at Indiana University and co-creator of the Tenurometer, a cheekily named tool (still in beta phase) designed to measure scholars' impact on their fields by counting how much they have contributed to the literature and how frequently those articles have been cited. The use of citation-based "impact" metrics to help departments assess their professors' publishing performance is nothing new. Across higher education, there has been a push to increase accountability by analyzing the oceans of metadata that come from storing information on computer servers, where it can be sorted like never before. And as Google Scholar and others have emerged to put huge, searchable repositories as anyone's fingertips, programs such as Publish or Perish -- Tenurometer's closest ancestor -- have been close behind, giving professors and their bosses ways to quantify who is more prolific than whom. Full story.

Slang Links Warriors to Home, Front Lines
Fox News, Dec. 14 -- Like their fellow soldiers in Germany, Vietnam or Korea, those deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq have created a language all their own, filled with black humor, cultural references and even the occasional crudity. Most of us have heard of RADAR -- originally a military acronym standing in for the cumbersome term "Radio Detection and Ranging." We may even have encountered, or experienced, the occasional SNAFU, for "Situation Normal: All (Fouled) Up." But what on Earth is a "death blossom?" Or a "fobbit," for that matter? The Department of Veterans Affairs has published a list detailing the vocabulary of Operation Iraqi Freedom -- a list that contains such entries as "death blossom," a term originating in the 1984 science-fiction film "The Last Starfighter." It is used by servicemen to describe fire sprayed indiscriminately in all directions. The list also includes the terms "Mortaritaville" and "Bombaconda," both referring to LSA Anaconda, a base near Balad, Iraq, that is frequently the target of mortar attacks. "Soldiers use these terms because they try to make the best they can of their situation and give things kind of a humorous angle," said Lt. Col. Charles Kohler of the Maryland National Guard. The term "Mortaritaville," a reference to the Jimmy Buffett song "Margaritaville," is only one of many terms soldiers use to take the edge off an environment that is potentially frightening and often beyond their control, said Indiana University linguist Michael Adams. "It's making a really terrifying experience manageable by attempting to make it familiar," Adams said. Full story.

Mrs. Miss Ms. ? For many women, title about convenience and the changing times
Journal-Gazette, Dec. 15 -- I'm married. Does that make me a Mrs.? Hold on. I never changed my last name. Can I go by Mrs. Downs? That doesn't sound right. So, I must be a "Ms." But if that's true, should I correct children when they call me Miss Emma? (It's Ms. Emma, you rugrat!") Sounds a little harsh. Whichever you choose -- Mrs. Ms. or Miss (or all of them) -- deciding is up to the individual, says Joan Uebelhoer, who taught Women's Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne for more than 30 years. "They're all acceptable terms now," she says. "During the 1970s, if a woman used 'Ms.' it was a sign she was one of those radicals, you know. One of those feminist babes. But it's commonplace now." Full story.

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