Eureka! means we want to tell you what we found
By Amy Zukeran
There's gold in research, and FSU officials want everyone to know it.
Like the Greek mathematician Archimedes, who shouted "Eureka!" when he discovered a way to determine the purity of gold, university researchers hope a radio and television show by that name will say as much to those who tune in.
"Our goal is to show the community the importance of university research and how it applies to their lives," says Barbara Ash, who researches and writes the scripts.
Subjects as different as Taxol, the cancer drug first synthesized at FSU, and the effects of down-sizing on older workers were recently featured on the radio show.
The two-minute weekly program - narrated by Susan Allen, Florida State's vice president for research - plays three times a day on Friday on WFSU-FM radio.
Eureka!, the quarterly television show, opened in early October on WFSU-TV with segments on the Magnet Lab and lobsters, among other topics.
Other state universities will also contribute segments. FSU's research partner, the University of Miami, contributed the first piece in the program.
The Magnet Lab (National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, in Tallahassee's Innovation Park, a partnership of Florida State, the University of Florida and Los Alamos National Laboratory) is also contributing to the program.
The Magnet Lab's ability to create a gravity-free space is visually engaging, but its value is more than novel. The weightless atmosphere created by the lab's huge magnets has plenty of medical and commercial possibilities.
"The Mag Lab can replicate experiences ... aboard the space shuttle," says Scott Atwell, who produces the show, "which means (the lab) can grow crystals and research other things normally done aboard the shuttle."
Another TV piece focused on lobsters in the Florida Keys. Biology professor Bill Herrnkind has been studying the spiny crustaceans for 12 years.
When an early '90s algal bloom in the Keys killed off acres of sheltering sponges, researchers found housing for the vulnerable juveniles in a common building material.
"We've got some great underwater footage of the lobster habitat," Herrnkind says. "We've essentially replaced the lost sponges with thin-walled concrete blocks with slots in them. The juvenile lobsters don't see slots; they see protective crevices, so it's been working very well."
The TV show is narrated by Allen and former astronaut Norm Thagard, an FSU alumnus who is now a professor in the college of engineering.
After the program's initial airing, the Sunshine Network will broadcast it across the state.
"I think people sometimes don't understand that research and teaching go hand in hand because students are getting the benefit of the latest research in the classroom," Atwell explains. "Research is teaching."