MSU Research Roundup- Space cassettes -Wheat from on high-Dish review – Architecture on-line

Space cassettes

If everything goes as planned, Elinor Pulcini, two other MSU researchers and three or four
undergraduates will head for the Kennedy Space Center in July. They will load bacteria into
16 cassettes designed by the European Space Agency. Half the cassettes will then fly on the
STS-107, a mission of the space shuttle Columbia. The other eight cassettes will stay on the
ground so the scientists can compare the growth of the bacteria with or without gravity. The
researchers will analyze several things, but Pulcini’s job is to look at proteins the cells make.
The postdoctoral researcher wants to see if a common bacterium called pseudomonas makes
more toxins in microgravity than on the ground.

Wheat from on high

Farmers who want to know if their wheat is lacking nitrogen might walk through their fields and
mark areas that aren’t as green as others. They could also study aerial photographs, says Mal
Westcott, MSU professor of soils based at the Western Agricultural Research Center in Corvallis.
Scientists have found some correlation between greenness and nitrogen content. Westcott is
now part of a multistate project that might allow farmers to gather that kind of information from
satellite images. Funded by the USDA-CRSEES Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food
Systems, the project could give farmers an inexpensive tool to detect nitrogen deficiencies.
They could then apply fertilizer only where needed.

Dish review

At the St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen in Montpellier, France, people were treated to a large
meal — cheese, fruit, bread, salad, a main course and a dessert — for less than $1. If this was
standard fare, then why was the kitchen always running out of salad plates and not other dishes,
wondered MSU student Ann Ulvin. Ulvin was one of five MSU students to volunteer in
Montpellier last year as part of a study abroad experience. As an industrial engineering
student, Ulvin was almost pained by the kitchen staff’s inefficient use of tableware. But she kept
it to herself and learned, among other things during her stay, that sometimes chaos functions
best.

Architecture on-line

If you are remodeling an old house in Montana and want to find the original architectural
drawings, you might try an electronic catalog available through the MSU Renne Library. The
searchable database of 2,500 drawings from across the state just went online at
http://www.lib.montana.edu/epubs/architect/. Included are stores, churches, hospitals, parks, private
residences and public and fraternal buildings from the turn of the century until the mid-1970s.
Users can search the database using such fields as street location, town and project name. But
to actually see the drawings people must come to the Bozeman campus, said Special
Collections librarian Kim Allen Scott. Instructions for ordering photocopies can be found at
http://www.lib.montana.edu/collect/spcoll/copy.html.

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