Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all of you, from the editors and publishers of TWIB! Just for your information, the recent snows contained 3 inches of moisture, a record for the month of December in Fort Collins (usually about 0.5 inches).

Assistant Professor Shane Kanatous and research associate Linnea Pearson are thrilled to announce that for the second year in a row, the Polar Science website (http://extremephysiology.biology.colostate.edu) has received an International Edublog Award! This year's award is for "Best Group Blog". (Last year we won the award for "Best example/ case study of use of weblogs within teaching and learning".)

Tony Swemmer successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation entitled: “When does the grass grow? The effects of intra-seasonal variation in precipitation, species composition and grazing on the productivity of grasses and grasslands." Congratualtions to Dr. Swemmer and his advisor, Professor Alan Knapp.

Jennifer Lowell successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Determination of Yersinia pestis Population Structure as a Model for Low Prevlanence/Epizootic Disease Dynamics". Congratualtions to Dr. Lowell and to her advisors Professor Mike Antolin and Dr. Ken Gage of the Centers for Disease Control here in Fort Collins.

Priscilla Baker successfully defended her M.S. "Ecosystem consequences of invasive exotic species in grasslands." Congratulations to Priscilla and to her advisor Professor Alan Knapp!

Dr. Yu-shan Wang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences is spending a year as a Visiting Scientist with the lab group of Professor Mike Antolin

Professor Greg Florant will be traveling to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador,from December 30th to January 20th to study the lipid metabolism and natural history of the Marine Iguana. He was invited by Drs. Michael Romero (Tufts University) and Martin Wikelski (Princeton University)who have funding from the National Science Foundation.

Professor Mike Antolin attended the "Evolutionary Change and Salmon Symposium and Workshop" in Seattle, where he participated in a study group on the effects of infectious diseases on salmon fisheries in the Pacific northwest.

Prof. Don Mykles, postdoc Joe Covi, graduate students Erica Chao and Tyler Zarubin, and undergraduates Andrea Gomez, Kristin Van Ort, and Brandon Bader presented papers and undergraduate Casey Ehlinger attended the Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology meeting in Phoenix Jan. 3-7. Andrea Gomez is now in the Ph.D. program at NYU Medical School.

Assistant Professor Shane Kanatous and Research Associate Linnea Pearson have returned from a very successful 2 months of field research in Antarctica on the physiology of Weddell seals. For more details please check out the website http://extremephysiology.biology.colostate.edu.

Assistant Professor Colleen Webb and graduate student Greg Ames traveled to the Santa Fe Institute Jan. 9-13 for a PI meeting on her NSF funded project using trait based models to predict ecosystem response to environmental change.

Gaut, B.S., S.I. Wright, C. Rizzon, J. Dvorak, and L.K. Anderson. 2007. Recombination: An underappreciated factor in the evolution of plant genomes. Nat. Rev. Genet. 8:77-84. doi:10.1038/nrg1970.

Professor Jim Detling was interviewed for a program on Colorado Public Radio, broadcast on December 11. You can listen by going to cpr.org - click on "Colorado Matters" in the box titled "Today on KCFR", then go to Monday, Dec. 11 and click on "CSU Professor studies impact of prairie dogs."