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September 1, 2010 | Volume 206 | Number 8 | 40 cents | iowastatedaily.com | An independent newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890.
WEDNESDAY
Research
Professors receive grant to aid in Gulf oil cleanup By Matt.Wettengel iowastatedaily.com Two ISU professors received funding to begin research on greener methods of oil cleanup, specifically in the Gulf of Mexico, through the National Science Foundation’s rapid response grant. Buddhi Lamsal, assistant professor of food science and human nutrition, and Charles Glatz, professor of chemical and biological engineering,
will be collaborating with Modular Genetics Inc., Columbia University and Louisiana State University to produce bio-dispersants. These are natural-based products that break up oil, that may replace petrochemical dispersants, which are oil-based products that are currently used for oil spill management. “When you have oil-water mixtures, they don’t blend, so the oil globs up,” Glatz said. “The surfactant goes to the interface between the two, where they touch, and disperses the
oil globs as much smaller droplets that are more readily degraded.” The work that will be done at Iowa State will involve Lamsal’s work with genetically modified organisms, called Bacillus, provided by Modular Genetics. These organisms are engineered to produce a collection of surfactants, each with subtle differences. Lamsal will work with the organism to improve the quantity of surfactants produced through the process of fermentation. “We will receive one strain that
is genetically modified to produce one ‘green’ chemical, since it will be derived from a natural source, which will serve a petroleum substitute,” Lamsal said. “This chemical will be useful in breaking down oil in oil spills.” The second stage in the research entails the purification of the complex, impure mixture that results from fermentation. Glatz will head the purification efforts. Once testing from Iowa State is completed, the results will be sent to
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Columbia University and to LSU to test its effectiveness. Another focus of the experiment is making sure the product of the research works without harming sea life. The project will begin Wednesday and has a one year span. “[This research] is preparing for the future, but on the other hand some of the material in the gulf is in deposits that will be there for a long time if not treated, so in one year the results from this project could still be put to use,” Glatz said.
City Council
Flood program passed By Alexander.Hutchins iowastatedaily.com
Alan Schluetter, freshman in mechanical engineering, signs paperwork to pick up his books Aug. 19 in the Campanile Room. Photo: Ryan Damman/Iowa State Daily
Textbook rentals available UBS offered 140 titles for rent this semester By Chelsea.Davis iowastatedaily.com University Book Store has decided to follow suit after seeing a huge draw from buying and renting textbooks online. “Students started asking us if we rented textbooks, so we saw that the demand was there for it,” said Carl Arbuckle, textbook supervisor. UBS was 1 of 30 recipients of a $300,000
The Ames City Council unanimously passed the Iowans Helping Iowans flood recovery assistance program in its meeting Tuesday. The Iowans Helping Iowans program helps create loans to home and business owners to purchase new property or renovate property that has suffered damage in the recent flooding. Loans written under the program are available to residents registered under FEMA and will be written for a five-year time period with a 20 percent per year rate. The City Council unanimously passed five other items within two minutes. The meeting was convened to approve street and lot closings for the upcoming All-American Weekend event. The event featured barbecue and a car show, lasting from Friday to Saturday. The meeting also approved city involvement for the Iowans Helping Iowans flood recovery assistance program. ™
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grant from the U.S. Department of Education to start a rental program in October 2009 but was not able to start the program until this fall. “We had to wait for our computer system to be upgraded to handle the rental function,” Arbuckle said. Rental fees can vary from 20 percent to 50 percent of the new price. Arbuckle said quite a few titles ran out fairly early on. “We look at what our cost is to bring books in, whether they’re new or used and try to figure out how many semesters we’re able to rent the book for, and base our price on
that,” Arbuckle said. UBS offered 140 titles up for rent this semester. “We tend to focus on bigger courses or those that need more expensive books to save students the most money,” Arbuckle said. It’s advisable that professors commit to using the same textbook for at least four to six semesters for rental to be economically feasible for students, according to a news release. UBS advises students not to rent a textbook if it will be needed for more than one semester. Arbuckle said students could be better off purchasing the textbook at that point.
Textbooks that have tear-out pages or single-user access codes cannot be rented unless the code can be sold separately. UBS will be upgrading their software provider so they can hopefully rent more titles and have that ready in time for the spring semester. “Our used book ratio in the fall 2009 semester was at 41 percent,” said Rita Phillips, director of UBS, in a news release. This means 41 percent of textbook sales were used books, which cost students 25 percent less than buying new books, according to a news release.
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Flood Relief
Largest aid granted to Iowa victims By Paige.Godden iowastatedaily.com
Weather
is related to climate change,” Gallus said, “but you can say that climate change should bring heavier bursts of precipitation to this part of the country. So it is likely with climate change that there will
The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary awarded almost $312 million to 13 states affected by natural disasters in 2008. Iowa received the largest portion of money, $84.1 million. The HUD grant is supposed to be used toward developing forwardthinking land-use plans that reduce development in high-risk areas, buyout payments for homeowners living in high-risk areas, optional relocation payments to encourage residents to move to safer locations, home improvement grants to reduce damage risks and improving and enforcing building codes, according to the HUD website. “An independent study by the National Institute of Building Sciences, every dollar spent on disaster mitigation activities saves taxpayers $4 in future disaster recovery expenses,” according to the website. Throughout the past two years, HUD has allocated a little more than $5.6 billion in recovery funding through the Community Development Block Grant to the 13 states, according to the website. The Disaster Recovery Enhancement Fund was created to support long-
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Climate models show patterns Scenarios estimate more intense rainfall in Midwest By Taysha.Murtaugh iowastatedaily.com As the city of Ames works to prevent future floods like the one last month, Gene Takle, professor of agronomy and geological and atmospheric studies, said it is important to look at climate models for trends in weather patterns. “We have confidence that these models do represent events of past climate over the 20th century,” Takle said. “We then use these models to look into the climate in the 21st century; we don’t know a lot of things about the future, but we can make estimates.” These estimates involve projecting different scenarios. One scenario involves the population continuing to use energy and resources at the same rate. Another scenario measures a more energy-efficient population. “For all of these scenarios, one of the things that these models show is that there will be more intense rainfall events in central U.S.,” Takle said. These intense rainfall events are likely due to the climate being warmed, Takle said. “When the atmosphere heats up this way, it’s like putting more fuel in the fire,” Takle said. “It
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Cars sit in the floodwaters in the MWL parking lot during the August flood. Climate change scenarios predict more intense rainfall for the central U.S. in the future. Photo: Ryan Damman/Iowa State Daily
just speeds up everything and makes for more intense rainfall events.” William Gallus, professor in geological and atmospheric sciences, said global warming is a controversial issue. “You can never say that any one weather event