Building a Better Birdhouse

What did you do on your winter break? Dr. Lauri Green, Graduate student Victoria Roper , and undergraduates Brooke Ritter and Ashley Bent have been busy building bird houses. The bird houses will be used in Victoria's master's thesis research on the effects of acid mine drainage on insect-eating birds in Pennsylvania streams. Check out the photos below for bird house building in action!
~ from http://bloomsburgbiosynthesis.blogspot.com/

Check out the front page of Jan 29, 2019 issue of the Press Enterprise for an article on this project!

Victoria and Dr. Green with the finished product

Brooke Ritter installing a birdhouse

Dr. Green, "master sander"

Brooke and Ashley at work!

A LOT of birdhouses

Victoria Roper in the field.

Dr. Green and the finished product.

EGGS Professor Featured in Environmental Catastrophes Video

Dr. Cindy Venn, professor of EGGS, was recently featured on a program titled, "Massive Engineering Mistakes" that aired on the Discovery Channel.  The episode includes the Chicago Flood, Pennsylvania Coal Fire (Centralia), Hemsby, England coastal region and Canfranc railway in Spain.

 Dr. Venn can be seen starting at the 27:30 time mark speaking about the Centralia coal fire.  She journeys into the Ashland Pioneer Tunnel to talk about the densely packed seams of coal and explain how the fire can spread sequentially through the veins of coal.  Dr. Venn then talks about the vent pipes, installed around 1981 that were used to take noxious gases away from the town of Centralia.  She then explains how attempts to install non-combustible barriers to keep the fire from spreading were unsuccessful. 

Students Awarded Research Grants

Andrew Cross and Kyle Flannery

Undergraduate Andrew Cross and graduate student Kyle Flannery were awarded research grants from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Biologists (CPUB) for the 2018-2019 academic year. CPUB is an organization composed of faculty in the fourteen institutions of the PA State System of Higher Education that fosters excellence in biology education and research.

Andrew's research project assesses the effects of sublethal doses of neonicotinoid pesticides on the levels of the oxidative enzyme glutathjione-S-transferase in honey bee brains. Oxidative enzymes are essential in reducing oxidative stress in honey bees, a factor that may contribute to their global declines. Andrew is a senior biology, pre-medical sciences major from Benton, PA. He is the Tri-Beta Biology Honor Society historian, and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society and the Pre-medical Sciences Club. He plans to attend medical school. Drs. Surmacz and Hranitz are his research mentors.

Kyle's research proposal was entitled "Characterizing Developmental Patterns of Language in Autism Spectrum Disorder." Kyle is from Blandon, PA and graduated from Bloomsburg University in 2018 with a BS in Biology, Medical Genomics and Counseling. He is a member of Tri-Beta Honor society. Kyle is currently a BAHS graduate assistant and is conducting research in the laboratory of Dr. Abby Hare-Harris.

~from http://bloomsburgbiosynthesis.blogspot.com/