MSU Extension is partnering with the Wayne County Airport Authority, or WCAA, to grow bioenergy crops to promote alternative fuels in aviation. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport and Willow Run Airport have begun growing, harvesting and processing biofuels to explore greener options for aviation fuel.
For Hunter Gartner and his teammates, creating Minute Escape, a pie à la mode dish, was not as easy as pie. Minute Escape is an all-in-one apple pie and custard ice cream dessert prepared in one minute by microwaving it. Gartner, a recent graduate, used patent-pending technology he designed to heat the pie up while keeping the ice cream portion of the product frozen. “It’s an interesting, intriguing concept to think that you can throw ice cream into the microwave and that it will be kept frozen,” alumna and team member Rebecca Watts said. The product was created to compete in the Institute of Food Technologists’, or IFT, National Product Development competition. IFT is a nonprofit scientific society whose members are professionals engaged in food science and technology. One of the main purposes of the competition is to afford food industry representatives the opportunity to spot talented students for potential employment, IFT’s director of media relations Mindy Weinstein said in an email. Minute Escape took first place out of six finalists in the competition, which took place in New Orleans June 11-14. “Finding out that we won, there was a huge sense of pride,” Watts said.
Students interested in learning more about the environment surrounding them have something to look forward to in coming weeks when a smartphone application that turns MSU into a virtual museum will be released. The application, titled msu.seum, was developed for both Android and iPhone operating systems and will allow users to explore the history and archeology of areas on campus.
Demolition of Cherry Lane Apartments and the Faculty Bricks complex will begin Tuesday as the university looks to replace the aging structures with green space.
The 15th Annual Muelder Summer Carillon Series began without a hitch Wednesday as more than 150 people spread blankets and lawn chairs under clear blue skies to listen to the tolling chimes of Beaumont Tower.
As a typical college eater, Peter Farragher, an accounting senior, said it is tough to maintain a healthy diet with a busy schedule, and convenience sometimes leads to eating the worst food. While he could be healthier, eating fruits and vegetables can be tough because they go bad before he finds time to eat them, and delivery services usually don’t offer them, he said.
Anthropology senior Matthew O’Hagan spent weeks meticulously shaving layers of dirt in the shadow of Beaumont Tower, hoping to find a telling remnant that would give insight into the early students of MSU.
MSU faculty member Gary Reid received the Michigan Association of Broadcasters’, or MAB’s, highest honor at the organization’s annual conference on Mackinac Island Monday night. Reid, who serves as a distinguished senior academic specialist in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media, received a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to the state’s broadcasting and radio industries. “I was actually stunned,” Reid said upon learning of the award.
Working on the farm is notoriously tough, with agriculture students generally working on crop farms from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the summer, but the overabundance of rain has graduate student Erin Taylor and others working until sundown — sometimes as late as 10 p.m. — to get crops planted.
Last week marked the start of the MSU Community Language School’s language summer camps for kids. The Community Language School was created in 2008 as a part of MSU’s Center for Language Teaching Advancement.
Thanks to a recent grant from the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship, MSU graduate student Vanessa Hull will be able to continue her research on endangered giant pandas.
The university and surrounding areas continue to prepare for the arrival of Irish rock band U2 on Sunday, university officials said today. The band will play at 7 p.m.
Student train travelers might have a harder time commuting to and from campus as speeds of a branch of track servicing East Lansing slowed last week, even though the train line that runs through East Lansing has seen record ridership this year. Maximum speeds on the section of the Blue Water line from Battle Creek, Mich., to Kalamazoo slowed to 25-60 mph, down from 79 mph previously, said Rudy Husband, a spokesman from Norfolk Southern Corp., the company who owns the section of track. The track includes several West Michigan stops and also is en route to stations in and near Chicago.
Researchers at MSU and the Michigan Biotechnology Institute, or MBI, say they plan to use a $4.3 million grant from the Department of Energy to further their examination of alternative fuel technology. Money from the grant will go primarily to researchers at MBI, a Lansing-based company owned by the university.
When interdisciplinary studies in social science senior Peter Croce first arrived at MSU, he was surprised by the limited number of students using skateboards to navigate campus.
Lisa Campion was once an 11-year-old girl attending her first session with 4-H Exploration Days at MSU. Through five or six years with the 4-H Exploration Days program and her continued participation with 4-H, Campion learned about her love for environmental sciences, something that helped her decide what she wanted to do with her life. Campion, now 24, graduated from MSU in 2007 with a degree in environmental science and management and a degree in fisheries and wildlife.
Last month, an injured bald eagle was rescued from the Saginaw River and was sent by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to MSU’s Veterinary Medical Center. Since then, the bird has been rehabilitating under the watchful eye of James Sikarskie, associate professor of small animal clinical sciences. Sikarskie was looking to send the bird to the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden when they were in need of another bald eagle. However, the bird wasn’t quite what they were seeking and still is in need of a home. “There are so many eagles that Cincinnati wants someone younger who’s easier to tame down,” he said.
MSU researchers have been awarded a $5 million grant from the Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Researchers in the MSU Department of Animal Science will use the grant to study genetics related to the efficient production of milk in cows, said Rob Tempelman, professor of animal science and member of the research initiative. “We have these genetic markers we can apply,” Tempelman said.
Nutritionists often refer to breakfast as “the most important meal of the day,” but the numbers show MSU students have been eating much less breakfast than they did four years ago. From July 2006 to June 2007, students in the MSU cafeterias ate 68 tons of cereal, and since then, the number has dropped dramatically.
The Spartans welcomed a lion on campus this past weekend, but you won’t catch him with a football. An African male lion was sent from John Ball Zoo, in Grand Rapids, to Potter Park Zoo, in Lansing, then to MSU’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital to undergo an MRI.