Front row seats

A few past and present REU students -- Cassandra Rivas, Jess Valdez, and Stehanie Castellanos -- got to meet and greet Jeff Corwin before his presentation at UTPA last night. Just another little perk to the program!

World class

Our university president, Bambi Cardenas, wrote a memo today describing a dinner conversation she had with Dr. Arden Bement, the National Science Foundation director. He said about HESTEC:

Imagine, 50,000 people coming to celebrate science. Bambi, it’s the best in the nation, and by extension, the best in the world.

NSF director visits UTPA

Left to right: Amery Yang, Ashley Longoria, Ammie Ortiz, NSF director Dr. Arden Bement, Jr., Jess Valdez, Stephanie Jimenez.

Dr. Bement and several other NSF staffers visited UTPA today, and met with students in our REU program. Here mainly for HESTEC, they had a chance to view student research posters presented at the HESTEC science symposium, and chat with several students in some detail about their research.

HESTEC science symposium 2008

The HESTEC science symposium yesterday was held yesterday, and the REU program was proud to welcome visiting mentor Dr. François Therrien.

Despite being the first talk of the morning, Dr. Therrien addressed a large audience in the Engineering auditorium, and delighted listeners with a lively and engaging story about dinosaur diversity and climate change, and how lessons learned in paleontology can inform our understanding of the current climate change crisis.


On Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, Dr. Therrien, joined by fellow paleontologist Darla Zelenitski, visited the student posters and met with the REU students and their mentors individually. They also took a few minutes with REU students in the Sue exhibit to talk a little about the skeleton. As it happened, one part of the exhibit contained a panel proclaiming that T. rex was a "super sniffer," and that the part of the T. rex brain involved with smell was almost the same size as the rest of its brain. Drs. Therrien and Zelenitski had published a paper disputing that claim earlier this year. They argued that the olfactory part of the brain was not as large as had been thought (grapefruit size) -- although it was still large relative to other meat-eating dinosaurs (strawberry sized, maybe).

It's fun to have an expert on hand...


Front row: Amery Yang. Middle row (L to R): Jess Valdez, Stephanie Jimenez, Darla Zelenitski, François Therrien, Ashley Longoria, Ammie Ortiz, Stephanie Castellanos. Back row: Sue.

HESTEC poster winner

REU student Ashley Longoria (pictured at right) won the student poster competition for the Department of Biology for her work on how salinity stresses impact parasitic infections. Congratulations!

At left: Poster co-author Perla Aguirre. This work was supervised by REU mentor Brian Fredensborg.

Botanical 2008 Conference!

Hey everybody. Below are a few photos and words from my trip to the Botanical 2008 Conference in Vancouver Canada!!! I hope you enjoy, cheers.

So I began the trip pictures aboard the Dallas skytrain. With a 4 hour layover and a student budget I could not exactly stay at the airport lounge for more than an hour so I rode the various airport amusement rides. The moving sidewalk and 3 story eslcalators are great, but the train is definately my favorite. So out of sheer bordem I calculated a 20 minute roundtrip from Gate D and approximately 30 people boarded the skytrain in a single trip.

Bon Voyage Dallas. Canada here I come.

HESTEC 2008

The REU program will again be a major presence at HESTEC this year. Our REU students will have posters in the science symposium, and an REU visiting mentor will be a featured speaker at the science symposium.

I am excited to have Dr. Francois Therrien (pictured) as a guest to HESTEC and the REU program. Dr. Therrien is a dinosaur paleoecologist who works in the world-class Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta, Canada.

Dr. Therrien's visit coincides with the display of a cast of the T. rex skeleton, Sue. Dr. Therrien has actually studied and published work on T. rex -- check out the story, "T. rex - nothing to sniff at" on Quirks and Quarks (below). He's also done fascinating work on bite strength, described new fossil species, and more.

Dr. Therrien on the web

• Royal Tyrrell Museum staff page


• Interview on CBC radio's science show, Quirks and Quarks


• Representative publications
  
  
  
  • Ali F, Zelenitsky DK, Therrien F, Weishampel DB (2008) Homology of the "ethmoid complex" of tyrannosaurids and its implications for the reconstruction of the olfactory apparatus of non-avian theropods. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 28:123-133
    
    DOI 10.1671/0272-4634(2008)28[123:HOTECO]2.0.CO;2
  
  
  • Zelenitsky DK, Therrien F (2008) Phylogenetic analysis of reproductive traits of maniraptoran theropods and its implications for egg parataxonomy. Palaeontology 51:807-816 DOI 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00770.x
  
  
  • Therrien F, Henderson DM (2007) My theropod is bigger than yours… or not: Estimating body size from skull length in theropods. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 27:108-115
    
    DOI 10.1671/0272-4634(2007)27[108:MTIBTY]2.0.CO;2
  
  
  • Therrien F (2006) Depositional environments and fluvial system changes in the dinosaur-bearing Sânpetru Formation (Late Cretaceous, Romania): Post-orogenic sedimentation in an active extensional basin. Sedimentary Geology 192:183-205 DOI 10.1016/j.sedgeo.2006.04.002
  
  
  • Lipka TR, Therrien F, Weishampel DB, Jamniczky HA, Joyce WG, Colbert MW, Brinkman DB (2006) A new turtle from the Arundel clay facies (Potomac Formation, Early Cretaceous) of Maryland, U.S.A. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26:300-307
    
    DOI 10.1671/0272-4634(2006)26[300:ANTFTA]2.0.CO;2
  
  
  • Therrien F (2005) Feeding behaviour and bite force of sabretoothed predators. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 145:393-426
    
    DOI 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2005.00194.x
  
  
  • Therrien F (2005) Mandibular force profiles of extant carnivorans and implications for the feeding behaviour of extinct predators. Journal of Zoology 267:249-270
    
    DOI 10.1017/S0952836905007430
  
  
  • Therrien F (2005) Palaeoenvironments of the latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) dinosaurs of Romania: insights from fluvial deposits and paleosols of the Transylvanian and Hateg basins. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 218:15-56
    
    DOI 10.1016/j.palaeo.2004.12.005
  
  
  • Therrien F, Fastovsky DE (2000) Paleoenvironments of early theropods, Chinle formation (Late Triassic), Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona. Palaios 15:194-211
    
    DOI 10.1669/0883-1351(2000)015<0194:POETCF>2.0.CO;2
  
  

Dates to remember

• 8 September: Poster abstracts due


• 15 September: Posters due


• 22 September: Science symposium