COMPRESSION / SEPTEMBER 1999

Helping public libraries

One of Florida State's computer science faculty researchers, Dean K. Jue, has won a national award for his research on technology in public libraries. The Frederick G. Kilgour Award, named for an automation pioneer, is given to a person doing "real world" research in the field of library and information technology that has had an impact on the way information is published, stored, retrieved, disseminated or managed. It consists of $2,000, an expenses-paid trip to the annual conference of the American Library Association and a citation of merit.

The farmers are innocent when
the desert spreads

For two decades, scientists have thought that farmers working the land and their grazing livestock were causing the Sahara Desert in northwest Africa to move south.

But now, researchers from Florida State University and NASA have found that farmers are not the cause of the desert's expansion. Sharon Nicholson, FSU professor of climatology, and Compton Tucker, a NASA scientist, found through looking at satellite observations of vegetation growing near the Sahara that, although the southern border of the desert ebbs and flows from year to year, there has been no overall growth in its size. "We're not saying that there is no land degradation," said Nicholson, who has studied the problem for more than 20 years. "But this paradigm about the marching sands and the vegetation going away is not happening."

Tucker and Nicholson studied how the climate was affecting the land. Previously, scientists had studied only human effects.
The amount of vegetation in the Sahara was found to correspond to rainfall, not farmers' behavior.

Older may be smarter

Advanced age often robs people of their memory, but it doesn't make them slow and stupid. In fact, in some ways, they grow smarter, according to FSU Psychology Professor Neil Charness, who has found that older people play chess as well as younger players - even when their memory is demonstrably worse. In fact, he says, older players choose the equally good chess moves more quickly.

''It turns out that experience is a very important determinant of performance,'' Charness says. ''The knowledge and experience that people have allows them to compensate for age-related memory deficits.''
''There is a strong relationship between age and memory,'' he says. ''But there's virtually zero correlation between someone's age and job performance.''

Research spending rises

Florida State had 14 percent more money for research - just over $100 million - in the fiscal year that just ended than in the year before, according to Ray Bye, interim vice president for research.

About three quarters of the total comes from federal grants, Bye said, even though federal spending is leveling out and in some areas dropping.
"What it shows is the faculty here are competing very successfully in a very tight funding market in Washington," Bye said.

The other sources of research money are contracts, state grants and private contributions.
FSU President Sandy D'Alemberte said the growth in research is "phenomenal."
"When I came here in 1994, external support for research programs was $65.6 million," he said. "To increase by 56 percent to $101 million in just five years is remarkable, and I believe an indication of even greater growth ahead, pushing FSU toward national research status."

Bye said FSU is 14th among public universities receiving support from the National Science Foundation, which makes up almost 40 percent of FSU's research grants. Another 10 percent comes from the National Institutes of Health.

Your nose knows sex

The nose is important in more ways than breathing or telling us what to stay away from. It may also tell us when to get ready for sex, and perhaps with whom.
FSU scientists say there's a nerve in the nose, nervus terminalis, which seems to be part of the reproductive system. It runs from the nose to the front of the brain.

Studying stingrays, Michael Meredith, FSU professor of biological science, working with other FSU scientists, found that stimulation of the nerve increases the volume of reproductive hormones in the brain.
And it's not just stingrays. All vertebrates have the nasal sex nerve.

An amazing sabbatical

Gil Lazier, the outgoing dean of FSU's School of Theatre, began his first sabbatical this summer, launching a series of adventures before he comes back as a professor in the year 2000.

He and his wife plan to spend two weeks in London, two weeks touring India and three months in study and meditation at an ashram, a spiritual community, near Bombay.

After his time at the ashram, Lazier will fly to Taipei to direct "Peter Pan" for Taiwan's National Theater. He said it'll be a good way to prepare for returning to teaching.
"The job I've had as dean has been an extraordinary opportunity for growth, just extraordinary," Lazier said. "So I have to be grateful for it, and I am. But now it's time to move on."

Lazier's successor as dean is Bruce Halverson, former head of the theater department at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.

Science and IMAX

Tallahassee city commissioners agreed in August to negotiate a contract with FSU, FAMU and the Board of Regents to build a combined Challenger Learning Center, planetarium and IMAX theater at Kleman Plaza.

The city will provide a site on Kleman Plaza, equipment, office space, architectural changes and first-year marketing and start-up costs.

Norm Thagard, former astronaut and now director of relations for the FAMU/FSU College of Engineering, said the universities will share the other expenses with the goal of bringing traffic through the Odyssey Science Center and Museum of Art/Tallahassee. The center will have a flight simulator, mission control center, simulated space shuttle, classrooms and exhibits to interest middle-schoolers in science and engineering.

And the planetarium is set to have equipment that will allow it to convert to a domed IMAX theater.
IMAX theaters are oversized - as high as 60 to 100 feet - and engineered for visual and sound sharpness.

Busy hurricane season

FSU meteorologists have predicted a "much more active season" of hurricanes this year in the Caribbean, Central America and the southern coasts of the United States.

Eric Willingford, research meteorologist at Florida State, said there are likely to be more storms (the average year has 10 named storms), and the later they come, the worse they are.
"More damaging storms are likely to occur later in the year," said Tiruvalam Krishnamurti, a Florida State expert in computer modeling of tropical storms.

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