The 2007 Distinguished Alumnus for Biology is Dr. Ty Vaughn, a former PhD student of Mike Antolin's who is now a research leader at Monsanto in St. Louis, MO. Dr. Vaughn presented a seminar Monday Nov. 12th, "The Evolution of an Entomologist: Wasps, Mice and Biotechnology".

Mary Kay Watry successfully defended her M.S. thesis on "Genetic population structure, relatedness and incidence of chronic wasting disease in north-central Colorado mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus)". Congratulations to Ms. Watry and her advisor Bruce Wunder.

Jeremy Siemers successfully defended his M.S. thesis on "Nonshivering thermogenesis in a small fossorial rodent, the northern pocket gopher (Thomomys talpoides)". Congratulations to Mr. Siemers and his advisor Professor Bruce Wunder.

Ali Daw successfully defended her M.S. thesis on "PHYLOGENY OF THE CELASTREAE (CELASTRACEAE) INFERRED USING MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS AND NUCLEAR AND PLASTID GENES". Congratulations to Ms. Daw and her advisor Mark Simmons.

Assistant Professor Lorrie Anderson presented a seminar on October 24 to CSU's Department of BioAg. Science and Pest Management, entitled "Crossing the divide: Relating genetic linkage maps to meiotic chromosomes in maize and tomato."

Assistant Professor Debbie Garrity presented three seminars recently. The first two, presented to the National Institutes of Health and to Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Biology, were entitled "Calcium channel subunits in zebrafish development: synchronizing epiboly and shaping the heart". The third seminar was presented to the University of Denver Department of Biology and was entitled "Catch the beat: the onset of cardiac rhythm in embryonic zebrafish".

Assistant Professor Debbie Garrity was recently in Washington D.C. to serve on the Animal Developmental Systems review panel for the National Science Foundation.

Prof. Don Mykles participated in a colloquium at UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab in honor of former director Cadet Hand Nov. 2-4.

Prof. Don Mykles travelled to San Antonio Oct. 5-7 for a program officers meeting of the Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology.

Professor Greg Florant will be attending the American Physiological Society Education meeting in Washington, D.C. from Nov. 14th to 16th. Prof. Florant was elected to this committee by the APS council for a 3 year term.

Prof. Greg Florant will be attending the annual meeting of Scientists Center for Animal Welfare (SCAW) in San Antonio, TX, Dec. 1st to 4th.

Dr. Gregory L. Florant has been invited to participate in a scientific symposium entitled “From ecology to conservation: Merging basic and applied science”. This symposium marks the 30th anniversary of the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria, where Dr. Florant did a Fulbright Research Fellowship in 2002. Dr. Florant will be in Austria from Dec. 11th to the 16th.

Mike Antolin, Dhruba Naug, Dylan George, Liz Harp and Dan Tripp attended the annual Ecology of Infectious Diseases Principal Investigators meeting in Albuquerque, NM, Dec 3-5. This conference, supported by both the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, provides a forum for funded projects to report on their results: Drs. Antolin and Naug presented their work on diseases in prairie dogs (Antolin) and honey bees (Naug)

Lee, S.G., Kim, H.-W., and Mykles, D.L. (2007) Guanylyl cyclases in the tropical land crab, Gecarcinus lateralis: cloning of soluble (NO-sensitive and –insensitive) and membrane receptor forms. Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 2D, 332-344.

Assistant Professor Lisa Angeloni has a new paper published in the December issue of Journal of Theoretical Biology: "Mate choice and uncertainty in the decision process"

Naug D, Arathi HS. 2007. Receiver bias for exaggerated signals in honeybees and its implications for the evolution of floral displays. Biol. Lett. 3:635-637.