Don't blame the cows

Methane gas is a prime reason for global warming, say scientists, and not all of it is coming from swamps and cows - two much-maligned sources.

The problem may be coming from the ocean itself. FSU oceanographer Dr. Lita Proctor has been studying marine zooplankton, and feels that they may be just as much to blame as the swamps and cows. These crustaceans, which make up the base of the sea's food chain, carry bacteria in their guts, which they use to break down food.

That breakdown results in the production of considerable by-products, including methane gas. Because methane gas traps heat, much the same as carbon dioxide does, it contributes to global warming.

The contribution is significant, Proctor says, because the oceans, which cover three quarters of the surface of the earth, are full of methane.

Proctor and her students are trying to determine which microbes in the zooplankton's gut produce the gas.

Hansen gets Fulbright

John H. Hansen, director of FSU's Center for the Study of Teaching and Learning, has received a J. William Fulbright fellowship to help restructure the K-12 educational system in Portugal in 1996-97. The award is given to increase understanding between the United States and foreign countries.

Here she is...

Illiteracy has a new enemy, and it comes in the shape of the new Miss America. Tara Dawn Holland, Miss America for 1997, is a magna cum laude graduate of FSU. She earned a bachelor of music degree in 1994. She has since moved to Kansas, where she won her title, to work on her master's degree.

She was number 723 of President Bush's 1,000 points of light and has vowed to fight illiteracy during her reign as Miss America.

Holland has been pursuing the title of Miss America for six years, since she placed first runner-up in the Miss Florida pageant at the age of 17.

Boost for young scientists

FSU's astronaut/professor, Norm Thagard, has arranged to bring space a little closer to the children of Tallahassee.

A Challenger Learning Center - named to honor those lost in the Challenger disaster in 1986 - is scheduled to open in 1999 at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. The purpose of the center is to educate young students interested in careers in mathematics, science and technology.

Tallahassee is the third site in Florida to receive a Challenger Learning Center. Two others, in Tampa and Jacksonville, are already operating.

There are 29 centers throughout North America.

On-line law

Access to law resources - agencies, journals and newsletters, private organizations and discussion lists - is now as easy as clicking your mouse button.

The Administrative Law Database, a project of the FSU College of Law, is on-line to supply information about legal matters. The site was set up to alleviate the problem of geographic dispersion, which makes the cost of sharing information too high.

With the new Internet site, people from all over the world can get information about law reforms, administrative and regulatory law.

"The project will ensure that the state of Florida will continue to be a laboratory of democracy for the rest of the United States and the world, as we move into the 21st century," said Jim Rossi, assistant professor at the College of Law and editor of the Administrative Law Database.

The address is http://law.fsu.edu/library/adminpro.html.

For more information on the project, e-mail Jim Rossi at the Florida State College of Law at jrossi@lawsun.law.fsu.edu.

Home costs to rise slightly

Housing costs in the state of Florida will continue to increase, but - in most of the state - not as fast as inflation, say two researchers, Dean H. Gatzlaff of FSU's Real Estate Research Center and David C. Ling of the University of Florida.

Gatzlaff and Ling have found that the cost of homes in south Florida and the large metropolitan areas will continue to keep up with inflation, but homes in the rest of the state will not keep up.

Housing prices for the state will rise at an annual rate of 2.69 percent, they said, but inflation is expected to be at 3 to 3.5 percent.

Though it sounds like bad news for homeowners, it's better than it has been. The annual rate from 1990 to 1994 averaged 1.85 percent.

Spectroscopy award

Alan G. Marshall, an FSU chemistry professor, has won an award for an invention with the potential to answer significant questions in the field of spectroscopy.

Marshall is co-inventor of the Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) mass spectrometry, which is used to investigate complex chemical mixtures and molecular structures, such as crude oil and proteins.

The honor comes from the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh and is sponsored by Fisons Instruments.

In addition to this achievement and teaching, Marshal directs the National FT-ICR Mass Spectrometry facility.

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