Kudos

NIU geologist Ross Powell is lead author of a five-page feature spread in the March issue of Geotimes, an international news magazine for the geosciences.

Titled “Drilling Back to the Future,” the feature story provides an overview of the ANDRILL (Antarctic Geological Drilling) program, a $30 million international effort to recover geologic records buried beneath the Antarctic sea. (Click here to read the story online.)

The rock cores ultimately will provide scientists with a history of ice sheet behavior over millions of years, helping them to better understand contemporary global warming trends.

Powell is co-leader and co-chief scientist for the U.S. contingent of ANDRILL, which is getting substantial funding from the National Science Foundation. In all, about 150 scientists worldwide are involved in the drilling effort, which will be carried out in the fall seasons of 2006 and 2007.

At least half a dozen NIU scientists and students are expected to participate in the project.

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NIU anthropologist Kendall Thu will travel to Rome later this month and to East Asia later this year as part of an effort to address global structural changes and emerging issues in livestock production. The United Nations and an international scientific community are leading the initiative.

Two conferences are aimed toward the publication of a scholarly book and policy recommendations that will focus on the consequences of the rapidly expanding livestock industry on health, economic, social and ecological systems. It is projected that by 2020, meat production will have to increase by 60 percent to meet population growth and a growing standard of living.

Thu, who for many years has been investigating the social implications of agricultural change, will be among 25 scholars leading the effort and contributing to the book volume.

3-6-06