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Spring 2024

Biological sciences

Selections from The Nature of Nebraska: Ecology and Biodiversity, by Paul A. Johnsgard '55

Text excerpted, by permission, from The Nature of Nebraska: Ecology and Biodiversity, by Paul A. Johnsgard ’55.

There is a Place…

If you plan for one year, plant rice. If you plan for 10 years, plant trees. If you plan for 100 years, educate mankind.  —Kuan-Tzu

There is a place in America where East and West merge together as smoothly as one river flows into another. That place is called the Great Plains. There is a river in America that gave sustenance to perhaps a hundred thousand migrants who trudged westward in the mid-nineteenth century along the Mormon and Oregon Trails. That river is called … » More …

Summer 2003

Minding her B’s & T’s

In the fast paced world of immunological research, it’s not your p’s and q’s you have to mind, but your b’s and t’s. That’s B cells and T cells, two of the main players in the complex orchestra that makes up your immune system. B. Paige Lawrence, assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy, keeps track of both in her research into how the environmental contaminant dioxin affects immune system function but spends most of her time with T cells.

Dioxins are the byproducts of many industrial processes, including the incineration of municipal and medical wastes and of plastics. While they are destroyed by heat, … » More …

Spring 2007

Bright plumage against green foliage: the grandeur and beauty of evolution

Art can be considered as a behavior . . . like play, like food sharing, like howling, that is, something humans do because it helps them to survive, and to survive better than they would without it.”

—from Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why,Ellen Dissanayake ’57

 

I open my hand and the little wren, momentarily startled by its newfound freedom, flutters quickly to the nearest bush. I stand in the hot tropical Australian sun and watch as the tiny bird flits from branch to branch, a black- and red-feathered jewel. I have just captured this little bird, collected a page … » More …