Dr. Lee Greer’s busy summer encompassed a variety of interesting projects ranging from DNA analysis of geckos from Southeast Asia to a National Institutes of Health grant proposal for studying the effects of radium contamination linked to Cold War uranium mining and milling in Tajikistan in the former USSR. He also furthered his work on ancient human DNA from bones found in Near Eastern archaeological excavations.

In the gecko project, Greer and his students acquired DNA of more than 1,500 base pairs on ~130 specimens from the genus Cnemaspis. Dr. Lee Grismer collected these on expeditions to the jungles of Southeast Asia. Dr. Greer and his students worked throughout the summer on DNA analysis of the geckos for the purpose of documenting new species that earlier, smaller data sets suggested were there.

Additionally, Dr. Greer and Dr. Ivan Rouse, chair of La Sierra’s physics department, joined Tufts University colleague Dr. Doug Brugge in a $300,000 grant application to the National Institutes of Health. The grant proposal falls under the auspices of Tufts University’s Institutional Review Board and outlines a project for studying levels of radium pollution in Tajikistan. The researchers plan to infer amounts of radium in food, blood and water samples, and in building materials based on radiation analysis. With Dr. Rouse, Dr. Greer wrote the section of the grant proposal pertaining to gamma ray spectroscopy.

Finally, Dr. Greer and students are preparing for publication the results of the ancient DNA (aDNA) research done on human bones of the late Bronze, early Iron Age I era excavated from Tal Al-Umayri in Jordan with colleagues in La Sierra’s archaeology program. Greer’s students presented this data in the spring at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Dr. Greer and his students are also preparing to analyze aDNA sequences acquired from Bronze Age human remains found at Khirbet Iskandar in Jordan by Dr. Suzanne Richards of Gannon University. Dr. Greer’s lab is having the 14C dating of the remains from both digs done by Dr. Erv Taylor, Keck Atomic Mass Spectrometry facility at the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Margaret Solomon, professor of Administration and Leadership, School of Education

Dr. Solomon returned the second week of September from India where she spent a month in a second information-gathering phase of her project aimed at finding best practices to provide educational justice for India’s slum children, the so-called “untouchables.” While in India, Dr. Solomon administered a survey to children in two slum schools aimed at determining the impact of their education on their worldview, their self-esteem and their ability to take charge of their lives. She collected about 300 surveys all together. She also visited two education foundations in Mumbai to view the work being done in schools through those organizations.

Dr. Lloyd Trueblood, assistant professor of Biology

Dr. Trueblood spent July and part of August at the Rosario Beach Marine Laboratory in Washington State. He collected sea cucumbers for a study examining the effects of oceanic acidification, or shifting pH levels, resulting from anthropogenic carbon dioxide. He compared the changes in routine metabolism of species that are accustomed to pH changes to those of species from deeper waters that do not experience the same shift in pH. This comparison allows Dr. Trueblood to determine if sea cucumbers are able to adapt to changing ocean pH.  Results from this work will allow further study into how organisms cope with environmental changes. Dr. Trueblood’s research, which he plans to publish, is the first comparative study of how a fluctuating pH balance resulting from atmospheric pollutants affects the metabolism of closely related organisms. His data will help scientists determine other animals that may be affected by changing pH levels in the ocean.

Dr. Lora Geriguis, assistant professor of English
Dr. Melissa Brotton, assistant English professor and Director of College Writing
In June, Dr. Geriguis delivered a paper at the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment held at the University of Indiana, Bloomington on the topic of “Animal Advocacy in Margaret Cavendish’s Poems and Fancies (1653).” At this same conference, Dr. Melissa Brotton, assistant English professor and Director of College Writing also read a paper on “Voices of Earth in the Ecopoetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” Here’s a link to the conference program: http://www.indiana.edu/~asle2011/FullProgram.pdf.

In July, Dr. Geriguis delivered another paper, this one at the Defoe Society conference held at the University of Worchester in England on the topic of “Animals as Metonymy and Metaphor in Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719).” Here’s a link to that conference program: http://www.defoesociety.org/Defoe%20conference%20-%20provisional%20programme.pdf.

In August a book chapter she wrote was accepted for publication in “New Approaches to Daniel Defoe” (AMS Press, forthcoming 2012) entitled, “A Vast Howling Wilderness: The Problem of Space and Placelessness in Defoe’s Captain Singleton.” The AMS Press website is at this address: http://www.amspressinc.com/index.html

Watch for more news about Dr. Geriguis’s sabbatical work this fall quarter and her October projects.

Dr. Gary Chartier, associate dean, associate professor of law and business ethics, School of Business
This summer Dr. Chartier finished work on a rough draft of his latest book, “Anarchy under Law: Legal Order and Political Action in a Stateless Society.” He is working on finding a publisher. Perhaps as early as next month, he hopes to see the first copies out of his book “Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty,” co-edited with Charles W. Johnson. Minor Impressions, an imprint of Autonomedia will publish the book.

Dr. Rob Thomas, chair, Health and Exercise Science Department
Dr. Thomas has been busy writing a book titled “History of SDA Physical Education in NAD Colleges & Universities.” Each college/university will have a section covering three elements--people, programs, and places (facilities).

He expects to complete the book by next summer with a substantial portion finished this December.

Sari Fordham, assistant professor of English
This summer, Professor Fordham has been busy with Saint John’s University’s renowned Collegeville Institute of Cultural and Ecumenical Research. The institute runs summer writing workshops for ministers from all denominations--they typically get 100 applicants for each week and accept only 12 pastors, Professor Fordham said. She was the writing coach for three of these workshops: “Writing Pastors, Working Pastors: A Week With Lillian Daniel and Martin Copenhaver,” “Apart and Yet A Part” and “Writing and the Pastoral Life: A Week With Richard Lischer.” Here’s a link to the Collegeville Institute website: http://collegevilleinstitute.org/swr.

Collegeville Institute has been running summer writing workshops for six years, and Professor Fordham has been a writing coach for five of those summers. “It’s exciting to meet ministers from a variety of denominations and to talk about writing. It’s also interesting to represent my denomination. I hope next year to encourage some SDA ministers to apply,” she says.

Dr. Lloyd Trueblood, assistant professor of Biology
Dr. Trueblood spent a month at the Rosario Beach Marine Laboratory in Washington.  He worked on a project that examines the effect of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on metabolic rates of several marine invertebrates.  …More interesting research news to come from Dr. Trueblood.

Dr. Lee Grismer, professor of Biology
Dr. Grismer is at it again, this time capturing a new species of a blind, legless lizard in the wilds of Cambodia last month under protection of armed forest rangers. Then it was off to Beijing at the beginning of September to represent Southeast Asia at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a roundtable of the world’s top scientists. They gathered to discuss the ongoing devastation of various snake populations. Next on the calendar, a herpetological expedition this month up one of the highest peaks in southern Malaysia with two La Sierra University students, one of who won a major grant for this research trip.

Dr. Grismer also wrote a milestone, 728-page book, “Lizards of Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore and their Adjacent Archipelagos.” Edition Chimaira in Frankfurt, Germany published the work in June. It is the first comprehensive collection of biological, historical and habitat data on lizards in the Malaysian peninsula. It incorporates 15 years of Dr. Grismer’s herpetology field notes and has more than 500 photographs mostly taken by Grismer. He attended book release events in June, in Frankfurt and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Dr. Margaret Solomon, professor of Administration and Leadership, School of Education
Dr. Solomon departed Aug. 10 for India to launch the second phase of her Fulbright Project researching best practices to provide educational justice for India’s “untouchables.” She returns this month and will undoubtedly have interesting news to pass along.

Dr. Doug Clark, associate dean, professor of biblical studies and archaeology, School of Religion
For the month of July, Dr. Clark and a group of 10 people from La Sierra and other schools excavated a portion of the Tall al-‘Umayri site in Jordan in an effort to help a University of Chicago doctoral student gather information for a dissertation. The group uncovered biblical-era ceramic vessels, a lamp, a broken chalice decorated with a face image, farm walls from 150 B.C. and other ancient elements. They also employed a plethora of technology—Apple iPad computers rather than field notebooks, an x-ray fluorescent spectrometer and a digital camera on an extendable, 40-foot boom. They can manipulate the camera images using a geographic information systems and three-dimensional software to reconstruct the site in three-dimensional graphics, complete with objects and walls in place. Watch for the upcoming story on the homepage!

Grismer and three researchers from the Science University of Malaysia and the National University of Malaysia arrived on the island on March 23. Over the next two days, the team collected about 30 specimens of lizard and snakes, some of which appear to be new species.

On another leg of their journey, the researchers headed for the top of a 6,000-foot mountain on the mainland. Initially with the aid of native villagers, they climbed straight up for three days. The villagers accompanied the group only until dark and then refused to go further, fearing an encounter with the Bunian fairy, a sort of ghost they believe will lead them to their deaths in the darkness. The group lost the trail a couple of times and Grismer hacked tick marks in trees with his machete so they could find their way back.

Once on top of the mountain peak, one of the highest in the Banjaran Titiwangsa mountain range, Grismer found crawling on the underside of a fallen, moss-covered tree, two geckos with broad black bands edged in brilliant yellow. He believes they are new to the modern world. He returned with the live creatures and will work on verifying their identification and publication as a new species.

Grismer also returned with plastic tubs of more than 100 specimens of snakes, frogs, geckos and lizards. They include a flying frog with bright orange front feet and bright yellow hind feet, and a flying gecko with side skin flaps that flair out when the creature jumps to help it glide through the air.

Additionally, during the first week of March, German publisher Edition Chimaira released Grismer’s book, “Field Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of the Seribuat Archipelago, Peninsular Malaysia.” The book, which took seven years to compile, includes many photos taken by Grismer and as well as student research by his La Sierra classes between 2001 and 2005. In June, Edition Chimaira is planning to release another book by Grismer, a milestone work 15 years in the making that includes 650 of his color photographs. The book is titled “Lizards of Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore and their Adjacent Archipelagos.”

Parsons is researching “religious tolerance and how these two institutions who had such differences learned to navigate” one another and the Reformation. She plans to fold her research into a dissertation for a doctoral degree she is pursuing at the University of California, Riverside. “It is a historical narrative within the context of the English Reformation,” Parsons said.

Last month Dr. Grismer completed DNA analysis of a cave gecko and confirmed its status as a new species. The gecko is small and brown with wide, dark stripes and big eyes. He captured the creature last summer in a mountain cave near the Malaysia-Thailand border, a new find that was included in a BBC documentary depicting the world’s top 10 species discoveries. The species discovery was particularly significant in that the cave gecko seemed to be transitioning from a forest life to a cave existence, a metamorphic process science usually does not have the opportunity to document. Its color and patters seemed to be muting compared to its tree-climbing, forest gecko cousin that lives outside the cave, and its body was thinner and had longer limbs for easier wall climbing.

Dr. Grismer and his Malaysian colleagues are writing an article about their findings to be submitted to the scientific journal Zootaxa. The article is expected to appear before the year’s end. Over the past months, Dr. Grismer’s species discoveries have been the topic of news stories on CNN, National Public Radio and BBC Radio.  

He takes off March 19 for another trip to Malaysia, ultimately aiming for an island in the Indian Ocean known as a hide out for modern-day pirates. The island is very likely the home of more amazing animals new to the world of science.

http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2011030509141749