Did a Cosmic Event Kill The Pleistocene Megafauna? F 10/18

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Barbara

Dr. Rex Hanger, UWW Dept. of Geography and Geology, will give a one-hour talk about ““Did a Cosmic Event Kill The Pleistocene Megafauna?”” on Fri., Oct. 18, at 8pm in Upham 140. It’s the third lecture in the 2013-2014 Whitewater Observatory Lecture Series. A public viewing session at Whitewater Observatory will follow the lecture at 9:15pm, weather permitting. All lectures are free, and everyone is invited to attend!

Andersen Library may be able to provide additional materials if you’d like to learn more. Search HALCat for books, government documents, and videos. Search article databases for articles in journals, magazines, or newspapers. Ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

Cover art of Fire on Earth bookExamples of items you could find are the book (I love this title!) Fire on Earth: Doomsday, dinosaurs, and humankind (3rd-floor Main Collection, QB377 .G83 1996). Try, for example, a keyword search for “collisions with earth.” Search article databases to find articles such as “The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: A requiem” (Earth-Science Reviews, 2011, vol.106:no.3/4, pp.247-264) and “An independent evaluation of the Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact hypothesis” (Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences Of The United States Of America, 2009, vol.106:no.43, pp.18155-18158).

LECTURE ABSTRACT:

Near the end of the Pleistocene Epoch (~12,900 years ago), the mammalian megafauna of North America suffered a mass extinction that altered terrestrial ecosystems ever after. Historical debate on the potential causes of the event center around an either/or scenario invoking rapid climate change or overkill by humans.

A new hypothesis of an asteroid impact forcing the biological catastrophe has recently been proposed. Evidence for this impact
includes the existence of a charred, carbon-rich soil layer (the “black mat”) at over 50 sites in North America at that age,
containing various high-temperature melt products. In addition, nanodiamonds produced by the impact are present at the horizon that corresponds with that date in ice cores from Greenland. Tonight’s lecture will reveal the current state of the argument, with a review of the megafauna that suffered extinction, a summary of the historical (climate or kill) debate, and the evidence for and against the asteroid impact hypothesis.

And plan ahead to attend other lectures in this series, which will address damage to or the destruction of the Earth!

  • Nov. 1: future blasting of Earth by a supernova explosion of a nearby star
  • Nov. 8: future loss of Earth’s magnetic field, and
  • Nov. 15: unpredicted meteor that exploded over Russia last February.
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New Stuff Tuesday – October 15, 2013

Posted on October 15, 2013 by Carol

Alexander Wilson: The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology

Alexander Wilson:
The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology
by Edwart H. Burtt, Jr. and William E. Davis, Jr.
QL31 .W7 B87 2013
New Arrivals, 2nd floor

Alexander Wilson first caught my attention when was when I was doing a literature review of the extinction of the passenger pigeon. In 1806 Wilson was in Kentucky when he witnessed a flock of passenger pigeons overhead that he calculated at more than 2 billion birds (pp. 325-326). This staggering figure was repeated continually in the literature.

But I didn’t realize it was Wilson, rather than the more famous John James Audubon, who founded the field of ornithology in the United States. And although Wilson was a journalist rather than a scientist, he is even credited with creating the scientific approach to the study of ornithology (p. 333) and with putting the United States on par with Europe in the study of natural history (p. 331).

This volume chronicles Wilson’s far too brief, but incredibly productive life as he travelled across the North American continent to study, draw, and document its birds.

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Journey (Rock Band)

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Barbara

Did you miss the performance by the Journey tribute group DSB last Saturday?

Cover of Escape CDWell, don’t fret! Andersen Library has the CDs Greatest Hits Journey and Escape! You can check for them (and other great rock recordings) from the 2nd floor Browsing CD collection (look under the genre ROC for Journey!).

Please ask a librarian if you’d appreciate assistance with finding materials.

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Global Café W 10/16: England, Northern Ireland

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Barbara

The Fall 2013 Global Café series continues on Wed., Oct. 16th, at 5:30pm with a focus on England and Northern Ireland (location: Andersen Library’s big-screen TV area, near the Food for Thought café). In this series, co-sponsored by the Center for Global Education and and International Student Association, international, study abroad, and travel study students talk about their home countries or international experiences.

graphic from Center for Global Education web page

Check it out! Andersen Library has resources on cross-cultural communication and travel.

In a Sunburned Country book coverSearch HALCat, the online catalog, for books or videos, such as A traveller’s history of England (3rd-floor Main Collection, DA30 .D34 2006), Londoners: The days and nights of London now — as told by those who love it, hate it, live it, left it, and long for it (3rd-floor Main Collection, DA688 .T39 2012), and Ireland: History, culture, people (3rd-floor Main OVERSIZE Collection, DA906 .I73 2001). Google Books says the Ireland book is “the next best thing to a trip to Ireland.” Hmmm. I’d say, take a trip if you can!

Or, check out the information on these and other countries in Library resources such as the Global Road Warrior! The Ultimate Guide to the World and Europa World Plus database. There also are authoritative free sources online, such as the State Dept.’s Country Background Notes or Fact Sheets and the CIA’s World Factbook.

Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

FDLP logo Andersen Library is a federal and Wisconsin depository library with many federal and state government documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in many formats, including online. Check out your government at Andersen Library!

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Library Research Fellowships for faculty/staff

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Barbara

UWW Faculty/Staff: Are you working on research, but need to use databases that Madison has, and Whitewater does not? Well, here’s help!

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, supports limited Library Research Fellows for Winter/Spring 2014. Through the program, faculty/staff will be granted access to UW-Madison Library licensed electronic library resources.

Guidelines and forms are online at http://uwworsp.org/LRF.

DEADLINE TO ORSP: November 11, 2013, for Winter/Spring 2014 Fellows

Questions about UW-Madison Library resources/collections should be directed to Barbara Bren, Head of Reference, Andersen Library, by phone (262-472-5521) or email (brenb@uww.edu).

Questions about the application and/or requests for additional information should be directed to Denise Ehlen, Director of Research and Sponsored Programs, by phone (262-472-5212) or email (ehlend@uww.edu).

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There is no wrong way to have a body

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Barbara

“There is no wrong way to have a body” is the talk that Hanne Blank will give at 11 a.m. on Tues., Oct. 15, in the UC Summers Auditorium.

Blank is the author of Big big love: A sourcebook on sex for people of size and those who love them (available to UWW students and staff from other UW libraries via the free Universal Borrowing service) and Straight: The surprisingly short history of heterosexuality (Andersen Library, 3rd-floor Main Collection, HQ23 .B56 2012).

Cover of Mirror Mirror bookAndersen Library has resources, if you’d like to read more. Search HALCat for books such as Mirror, mirror off the wall: How I learned to love my body by not looking at it for a year (2nd-floor Browsing Books, HQ1219 .G79 2013), Fat shame: Stigma and the fat body in American culture (3rd-floor Main Collection, BF697.5.B63 F37 2011), and Adiós, Barbie: Young women write about body image and identity (3rd-floor Main Collection, BF697.5.B63 A35 1998). Search databases to find articles such as “Fiction, fashion, and function: An introduction to the special issue on gendered body image, Part I” (Sex Roles, 2010, vol.63:no.1/2, pp.1-5) and the conference paper Fatness and social inequality: Perceptions, discrimination, and acceptance (2010 Conference Papers-American Sociological Association, no.983).

Please ask a librarian if you’d like assistance with finding materials.

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Recent Asteroid Discoveries & Possible Collisions with Earth

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Barbara

Dr. Paul Rybski, UWW Dept. of Physics, will give a one-hour talk about “Recent Asteroid Discoveries and Possible Collisions with Earth” on Fri., Oct. 11, at 8pm in Upham 140. It’s the second lecture in the 2013-2014 Whitewater Observatory Lecture Series. A public viewing session at Whitewater Observatory will follow the lecture at 9:15pm, weather permitting. All lectures are free, and everyone is invited to attend!

Andersen Library may be able to provide additional materials if you’d like to learn more. Search HALCat for books, government documents, and videos. Search article databases for articles in journals, magazines, or newspapers. Ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

Cover art of The Near-Earth Object bookExamples of items you could find are the book (I love this title!) Near-Earth objects: Finding them before they find us (3rd-floor Main Collection, QB651 .Y46 2013) and a NASA document Near-Earth object survey and deflection: Analysis of alternatives. Report to Congress (online–which you may be able access once the government shutdown ends). Try, for example, a keyword search for “collisions with earth.” Search databases to find Congressional materials like the hearing held on March 19, 2013 by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology called Threats from space: A review of U.S. Government efforts to track and mitigate asteroids and meteors (Part I & Part II). UWW students and staff may use this link to see the results of a search in EBSCOhost for “near earth” and SU collisions, and ScienceDirect and the Institute of Physics Electronic Journals would be very good databases to search for articles.

LECTURE ABSTRACT:

Asteroids — the remnants of the planetesimals that formed the Earth and other planets and that today number in the millions — are found principally between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. But well over 10,000 of these are known to cross Earth’s orbit around the Sun, and any one of these could cause significant damage to life on Earth if it hit us. Astronomers know such a collision will happen in the future because it has happened in the past. So we are observing these 10,000 Earth-crossing asteroids and determining their changing orbits so that space agencies can plan on altering the orbits of those asteroids that might hit us in the future.

Tonight’s lecture will briefly review the history of asteroid discovery, concentrating on discoveries since 1980 when the majority of the Earth-crossing asteroids were found. Impressive animations will be shown that display the orbits of 600,000 asteroids over hundreds of years and also show which of these have a chance of hitting Earth. I will also discuss briefly the history of speculation that a large, yet unknown asteroid or planet would have hit Earth last December 21st, fulfilling the false interpretation of the Mayan calendar predicting disaster on this date. You will leave this lecture knowing why modern astronomers assert there is no such asteroid or planet as well as knowing what on-line tools you can use to simulate the amount and kind of damage that would be done on Earth by a specific type and size of asteroid colliding at a specific angle and speed into either an ocean or a continent.

And plan ahead to attend other lectures in this series, which will address damage to or the destruction of the Earth!

  • Oct. 18: a possible comet collision during the Pleistocene era
  • Nov. 1: future blasting of Earth by a supernova explosion of a nearby star
  • Nov. 8: future loss of Earth’s magnetic field, and
  • Nov. 15: unpredicted meteor that exploded over Russia last February.

FDLP logo Andersen Library is a federal and Wisconsin depository library with federal and state government documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in various formats (print, DVD/CD-ROM, online). Check out your government at Andersen Library!

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Shutdown!

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Barbara

The federal government is in shutdown mode. Does it affect your research? Well, maybe.

Some federal agency web sites are down until funding is restored, while others are available but not being updated.

The Library of Congress, Census Bureau, National Park Service, and U.S. Dept. of Agriculture are among the federal agencies that have shut down their websites. That means, for example, that if you need to access online government information, e.g., audio files of natural sounds recorded at the Grand Canyon and provided by the National Park Service, or agricultural statistics such as dairy cattle and milk production from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, you’re out of luck for now.

If you want to access the FBI files on James Cagney, however, you still can. That FBI web site is available but not being updated during the shutdown. A number of other agencies are continuing some functions; see more information about what’s affected by a government shutdown at usa.gov.

What determines what an agency does during a shutdown? See the memorandum to heads of executive agencies and departments under “Information Technology” that provides guidance on “Planning for Agency Operations during a Potential Lapse in Appropriations.”

screen shot of USDA.gov web site on Oct. 1, 2013

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What American Dialect Do You Speak?

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Martha

Alas, since I began writing this post last week the abililty to take the Dialect Quiz has gone away, however, you can still look at the national results and compare them to your own dialect.

I am willing to swear I was born in Madison, WI and have lived there most of my life, but according to my results, I speak most similar to someone from Green Bay, and next like a person from Milwaukee. Madison was only third on the list. I also found out that my speech patterns are similar to those of many communities in the Midwest and plains states, but that I definitely don’t use the words of New Englanders. Even without taking the quiz you can see such similarities and differences for your speech.

The Interactive Dialect Maps by Joshua Katz of North Carolina State University visualize the aggregate results to questions such as “What is ‘The City’? and “What do you call the night before Halloween?” for the whole United States of America, but if you go directly to the Harvard Dialect Survey Dialect Survey Maps and Results you can also get the specific answer breakdowns for each question asked. Both are interesting to look at and very informative.

The nice thing about the available Interactive Dialect Maps is that all 122 questions from the full Harvard survey are represented, so for example, you can get a final answer to “Do you drink from a bubbler?” Alas, “Is it pop or soda?” isn’t covered here, but you can find that out elsewhere, such as Big Think which presents the findings of the Pop vs. Soda survey by Alan McConchie, and other sites like Edwin Cheng’s blog where he has his own Twitter survey results and highlights others as well.

I definitely recommend browsing through the website, comparing what you find to what you say, and contemplating it. It’s very intriguing, to say the least.

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Would you like to improve your typing (keyboarding)?

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Barbara

clip art of keyboarding on a laptopMany people are doing less traditional typing on their smart devices, because they’re very busy texting with just their thumbs or taking advantage of new technology that uses predictive vocabulary and touch swiping. So you may not have had much instruction or practice in the QWERTY keyboarding that harkens back to the typewriter (What’s that, anyway?!). But if you’re creating research papers for classes–and I know most of you are, right?–typing (aka keyboarding) is probably inescapable for now. If you’d like to train all of your fingers to find the keys, or if your typing errors are slowing you down, you may want to work on your proficiency.

There are free web sites that offer instruction and practice with typing skills, such as www.typingweb.com and www.goodtyping.com/ These are .com sites and pesky ads appear. For example, on Typingweb an ad displays while each lesson is loaded. To use either site you’ll need to create a free account, although you can try out Goodtyping as a guest.

Cover of touch typing ebookAndersen Library also has resources that may help. Search HALCat to find titles such as the ebook Touch typing in 10 hours: Spend a few hours now and gain a valuable skill for life and the print book Glencoe keyboarding with computer applications: Lessons 1-150 (2nd-floor Curriculum Collection Textbooks, Z49.G53 G5 2004–teacher’s edition of a textbook).

You also can find resources about efforts underway to improve typing or replace it with new technology. Search the Library databases to find articles such as “Typing in the age of tablets” (T H E Journal, 2012, vol.39:no.3, pp.22-24), “Typing isn’t all fingers, it’s thumbs” (World Today, 2013, vol.69:no.5, p.10), and “From QWERTY to quirky: New ways to type” (2013, Wall Street Journal).

Please ask a librarian if you’d appreciate assistance with finding materials.

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