A Fall Welcome Luncheon and Meeting of Graduate Students will be held in 207A Lind, Wednesday, 8 October, from 11:15 AM to 1PM. This will be an opportunity to discuss plans for the year to include among others: our new initiative of faculty observation of graduate student teaching, the Department's new dossier account with Interfolio, fall fellowships, spring teaching assignments, May and summer teaching. Please RSVP to Karen by Friday 3 October, if you plan to attend the meeting and noon luncheon.
Archive for September, 2008
MATERIAL AND QUESTIONS FOR OCT 6, 2008
Questions for October 6 - Control of cell proliferation: aging, cancer and p53.
1. Dr. Hayflick's paper in Experimental Cell Research was rejected for publication many times before it was finally accepted for publication. Why was this?
2. Why did Seshadri and Campisi conclude in their 1990 paper that repression of c-fos transcription was the only good candidate in their experiments for being causative in irreversible growth arrest in human fibroblasts?
3. Why do eukaryotic chromosomes shorten each time a cell divides?
4. Why are senescent cells 'good citizens', but 'bad neighbors'?
5. p53 promotes apoptosis, but inhibits cell proliferation. How could you explain the observations that a particular p53 mutant mouse develops aging phenotypes prematurely, but is resistant to spontaneous tumor formation, considering that mutations in p53 are found in many human tumors, and that cancer is a very common cause of death in mice?
(Huber will update the syllabus for weeks 6 - 15 this coming weekend).
Here you may access material to be discussed on Oct 6, 2008
SAR Symposium, Fall 2008
Scientists in Aging Research Fall Symposium
Featured Talk
Does Aging Make Fat go MAD?
By
James Kirkland, MD, PhD, Mayo Clinic
Followed by:
POSTER SESSION and RECEPTION
September 25, 2008
Talk at 4:45 PM, Reception 5:45 – 7:00 PM
Nils Hasselmo Hall 2-101
Snacks and refreshments will be served
Submit a Poster: Please send your maximum 300 word abstract to Marilyn Eells eells001@umn.edu at the Center on Aging (612-624-1185) by:
Wednesday September 16th
Maximum poster dimensions are 5 x 6 feet (height x width).
Posters set up in the Atrium starting at 4:30 pm.
FAQs
1. Is Jim Kirkland going to be available to meet before or after the event?
Answer: He may be available before the event, depending on how early he arrives.
2. Can I use an old poster?
Answer: Yes, as long as it meets the required dimensions. We do not have larger boards.
3. Do I have to be a SAR member to present a poster?
Answer: The poster session is open to all researchers regardless of their affiliation with SAR
4. Are posters made with individual panels (sheets) allowed?
Answer: Yes.
The Mountain By Rollie [Blog Entry]
Here is a quote from a book called Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky.
The book itself has nothing to do with wrestling or even athletics, but
I found this passage particularly inspiring. He illustrates better
than I can the concept of Jumping Levels through his image of a mountain. In his flowrestling blog, Matt Valenti says he pictures The Comfort Zone as a box to be stretched; I picture it as a mountain, waiting to be climbed. Enjoy the hike.
“If we think of the struggle as a climb up a mountain, then we must visualize a mountain with no top. We see a top, but when we finally reach it, the overcast rises and we find ourselves merely on a bluff. The mountain continues on up. We now see the “real” top ahead of us, and strive for it, only to find we’ve reached another bluff, the top still above us. And so it goes on, interminably.
Knowing that the mountain has no top,
that it is a perpetual quest from plateau to plateau, the question
arises, “Why the struggle, the conflict, the heartbreak, the danger,
the sacrifice. Why the constant climb?” Our answer is the same as that which a real mountain climber gives when he is asked why he does what he does. “Because it’s there.” Because
life is there ahead of you and either one tests oneself in its
challenges or huddles in the valleys in a dreamless day-to-day
existence whose only purpose is the preservation of an illusory
security and safety. The latter is what the vast majority of people choose to do, fearing the adventure into the unknown. Paradoxically,
they give up the dream of what may lie ahead on the heights of tomorrow
for a perpetual nightmare—an endless succession of days fearing the
loss of a tenuous security.”
PS: Anyone who has ever climbed the Cog Trail in Colorado Springs, knows exactly the feeling of reaching the "fake" top.
Welcome to our two new Peer Advisors!
The Undergraduate Studies program would like to welcome our two new peer advisors: Steve Courchane and Larisa Garski.
Steve and Larisa are both Senior English Majors and are ready to help you solve any problems. They are a great addition to the office and we’d love for you to meet them! If you’d like to make an advising appointment please stop by Lind Hall 227 or call 612-625-4592 and schedule an appointment.
Welcome Steve and Larisa and we appreciate all of your work!
Robert Meeropol on the Rosenbergs
Robert Meeropol, younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, visits the Department of English amid new revelations and renewed commentary about his parents' participation in espionage in the early '50s and their execution. In his talk October 6, at 4:30 pm, Meeropol will address these developments in addition to speaking on literary representations of the Rosenbergs, such as E. L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel. Meeropol is the author of We Are Your Sons: The Legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (1975) with his brother Michael, and An Execution in the Family: One Son’s Journey (2003). There will be a reception for Meeropol at 3:30 pm before the talk. Lind Hall, 207 Church St. S.E., Minneapolis (lecture in room 150; reception in room 207A).
MATERIAL AND QUESTIONS FOR SEP 29, 2008
The questions for Week 4 (Sept 29, 2008) are:
1. The level of many hormones, including growth hormone, decrease with age. What do you think of the general strategy of doing growth hormone replacement in older humans to rejuvenate them?
2. Would you generally recommend growth hormone therapy for people born as dwarfs, midgets, etc?.
Here you may access literature to be discussed on Sep 29, 2008
Creature/ Landscape Collage
This creature I made from an image bank the class put together. Then I put together the images to make a creature.
The steps I took in creating the creature were quite simple. First I took the base of a giraffe and built up from that. I didn't want to use all animal parts so I used some of the mechanical pictures other students form the class took as the legs. After I got the basic animal done I put in a human eye and used the drawing tool to create some of my own lines. Lastly, to create some harmony, I changed the hue so it all had a blue color to use to help unify the piece.
New Media Art Book
Shredder 1.0
Mark Napier has created a website the deconstructs websites into art. He has created a way (through Perl script) to deconstruct a website and have the codes and visuals from the website combine to make abstract pieces. My favorite part of the shredder 1.0 I the fact that you the view picks the website for it to deconstruct. It’s a very interactive and held my attention for hours. I put in so many different website I was familiar with and watched them turn into abstract pieces. A point Napier is getting across is the back scenes of web pages, the things we don’t think of or see. Once through shredder codes, symbols, and text jumble over the screen that have to do with the website. As Napier says “By interacting with the work, the visitors shape the piece, causing it to change and evolve, often in unpredictable ways. The user is an integral part of the design.” I think this work Napier does can related to children because of the internet use that we use today. So many children and students are on the internet more thank once a day. I think with the art that Napier does it may make students think about web pages more and the work that gets put into them. It would be fun to have a class design a web page about Napier's Shredder 1.0 and then have them use it in the shredder to see what comes out of it.
At the website below you can try it out for yourself!
http://www.potatoland.org
Digital Collage Brainstorm
* Have the students take pictures of themselves and their clothes and try and create new fashions for the class. Then as a class put together a magazine including the new fashions.
* Create a dream house using different images from around the school and collage them together to make a mansion. Create a scenario of a family that may live inside the house.
* The latest trend in shoes. Students can put together their dream shoe by combining images of shoes, textures, and pictures to create a final image.
* Create a new student in the class by using body parts and images from existing students in the class.
* Make an imaginary creature and create a story that goes with the character that tells about how the animal lives and what it's habitat is like.