Tidbits & Calendar

Calendar of upcoming events Wednesday, February 2, 2011 East Bay Science Cafe at Cafe Valparaiso, La Pena Cultural Center, from 7–9 pm, 3105 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley — Advancing global health and sustainability: Green chemistry. For information, see the Science Cafe web page. Wednesday, March 2, 2011 East Bay Science Cafe (see above) — Kevin Padian will share research about growth in dinosaurs. Saturday, March 5, 2011 Annual UCMP short course — Returning to the sea: The evolution of marine mammals. Open to the public. Registration and program details available online. Sat, April 16, 2011 Cal Day — The annual UCMP and Berkeley campus open house. Sun, September 18, 2011 Insect-induced plant galls of California — A Jepson Herbarium workshop presented by DianeM. Erwin, Joyce Gross, and Kathy Schick and co-sponsored by the Essig Museum of Entomology and UCMP. Open to the public. More information can be found online.

To Bill Clemens who has been named a Fellow of The Paleontological Society. Fellows are members who have made significant contributions to paleontology through research, teaching, or service to the profession.

To Theresa Grieco, who received a Peabody Fellowship from UCMP for Spring 2011 to pursue her research into the development and evolution of the amphibian dentition.

To Judy Scotchmoor on her election to the American Institute of Biological Sciences Board of Directors.

UCMP at SICB
UCMP was well-represented at the Society of Integrative and Biology meeting January 3–7 in Salt Lake City. Oral presentations by graduate students included:

Molly Wright: Monogamy in the sea: Social monogamy in two mantis shrimp species inhabiting coral backreefs

Jennifer Hofmeister: Observations on mating behavior and development in the lesser Pacific striped octopus, Octopus chierchiae (Jatta, 1889), co-authored by Jean Alupay

Joey Pakes: Behavior of remipede crustaceans: In caves, in situ, and in fluorescence, co-authored by Dave Lindberg and Roy Caldwell

Katie Brakora: Phylogenetics, evolution, and development of ruminant cranial appendages: Insights into hypotheses of homology, co-authored by UCMP alums, Edward Davis and Drew Lee

Sarah Werning: Reconstructing growth of the basal archosauromorph Trilophosaurus, co-authored by UCMP alum, Randy Irmis

And posters by:

Mariska Batavia: Incisor dentin as a recording structure in the Turkish hamster (Mesocricetus brandti)

Jenna Judge: A phylogenetic perspective on the molluscan lineages in chemosynthetically-based ecosystems in the deep sea, co-authored by Dave Lindberg

Undergraduates Caty Baxter and Tali Hammond: Chemosensory recognition in Pullosquilla litoralis, co-authored by Molly Wright and Roy Caldwell

Undergraduate Dawn Glenn: Autofluorescence of remipede, shrimp, pericarid and ostracod crustaceans from anchialine cave systems: An innovative device for ecological study, co-authored by Joey Pakes and Roy Caldwell

News from our alums
Congratulations to Caroline Strömberg and Greg Wilson on the birth of their son, Fredrik Lars Edmundo Wilson — or Freddy for short — on Thursday, October 14, 2010.

Jenny McGuire's dissertation work that she presented at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology 2010 annual meeting was written up by Susan Milius for Science News in an article entitled "Climate changes, and there goes the neighborhood."

Special donation
In late 2010, we were delighted to receive from Maria (pronounced Mah-rye-a) Boone Cranor $10,000 to support graduate student research. Maria is a sixth-generation Cal alum, class of '67, and in her days at Berkeley she delighted in exploring the collections in anthropology. While she has only recently become aware of the excitement of paleontology, she has fast become a valued friend of UCMP. She is currently at the University of Utah, working on a Ph.D. in physics education and teaching classes on scientific writing and communication to the undergraduate physics majors. We are really grateful for this support and to have Maria become part of our UCMP community.