March 2001: Pam Rogers, Editor
Shake, Rattle, and Let's Go!
Wednesday, February 28, at 10:59 a.m. things started to move here at the HMSC. Many felt the earth rolling.
Although the earthquake did not cause any damage at the HMSC, it did serve to bring to our attention that we did not get a high score for following our disaster plan. According to the plan we are to head immediately to the high ground at the south end of the Yaquina Bay bridge after an earthquake.
We can consider ourselves very lucky that the quake was land-based and did not generate a tsunami. This has given the Safety Committee an opportunity to look at ways we might do things better in an emergency that requires evacuation. The Committee will be looking at this very carefully in the next week or two. We were already looking at how all the different agencies and groups at the Center should work together in a disaster and this gives us a chance to understand just what we are up against.
Out of all this, it is our hope that we will find a better way to pass information to the people who work here so that we can get to safety as soon as possible after a disaster.
HMSC Blood Drive March 15, 10-4
Blood donations tend to decline as weather and road conditions worsen. Cold temperatures do not diminish the need for blood, however. The American Red Cross is calling on eligible donors to continue to donate blood this winter. Pacific NW Regional Blood Services must collect 1,000 pints of blood each day to meet the needs of patients in more than 80 hospitals throughout Oregon, Washington and Alaska. Regional cancer and leukemia patients, premature babies, hemophiliacs and accident victims rely on Red Cross donors to make sure that blood is available when it is needed.
To sign up for a time on Thursday, March 15, call your building recruiter or Pam Rogers at 7-0212. Slots are available every 15 minutes on a first-come, first-served basis. If you are unable to give blood, we need registration and canteen help, and donations of cookies, crackers and juice. Giving blood costs you nothing but a little time and can save up to four people for each pint collected. Feel good about yourself--Give!
Soup Kitchen Too Good to Stop
The response to our annual February Soup Kitchen as a fundraiser for the Lincoln County Food Share has been so positive that we will be continuing it through the month of March. We have turned in $400 to Food Share for this month and valued at 6 pounds of food purchased for each dollar, that comes to 2400 pounds of food.
Special thanks go to our donating chefs and bakers: Jessica Waddell, Leah Feinberg, Veryl Barry, Dave Sampson, Steve Kupillas, Dann Cutter, Marion Mann and Pat Lewis. The biggest problem is not having a big enough soup pot to meet the demand, but this will be remedied in time for the March kitchens. We could also use more goodies to serve, so if you have a favorite recipe, bring in a loaf, or a plate or a pile on a Tuesday and feel how good it is to know you are helping others while you feed the HMSC hungry as well!
Remember that we'll be serving more soup (so you don't have to get in line by 12:15 or miss out). To sign up to bring a goodie, come to the HMSC Director's office or send Pam an email at pam.rogers@hmsc.orst.edu.
Director Nancy Smith of Food Share really counts on us and appreciates our faithful giving.
New COMES Researchers Add International Flair
The Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station has recently brought on board two new researchers from different corners of the globe. Ian Fleming is the new Marine Fisheries Ecologist and, although a native Canadian, comes to Newport from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research in Trondheim, Norway. Ian originally went overseas for a post-doc and ended up spending eight years there working on salmon in fresh and seawater. His general responsibilities at COMES are establishing a nationally recognized program in marine fisheries ecology for economically important West Coast species with a significant focus on salmon, and contributing to developing ecosystem and multi-species-based fisheries management.
Ian earned his B.S. at Queens University in Toronto, his M.S. at Simon Frazier University in Vancouver, and then finished up his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Toronto. After working for a private research institute, Ian was ready to move to a university setting and felt that COMES was an up-and-coming group with a great future. While in Norway, he and his family (Lori, his wife, Noah, his nine-year-old, and Holly, his five-year-old) all learned Norwegian--the kids much faster and better than the adults, of course. He loved all the outdoor activities in Norway, which has a very strong family orientation. Now in Oregon they all look forward to continuing their interest in cross-country and downhill skiing, ice skating/hockey, canoeing, camping and hiking.
Marine Population Geneticist Michael Banks joins us from South Africa, via a number of years in the U.S., coming most recently from Bodega Bay Marine Lab in California. Born in Zimbabwe, Michael always loved exploring the tide pools when his family vacationed at the shore. He started out as a high school science teacher, including two years in a township high school with no electricity. At that point in his career he felt he wanted more education in aquaculture to help feed his country. In 1987 he came to the States and earned his M.S. at University of Texas at Austin, and his Ph.D. in Population Genetics at University of California, Davis. When asked about the differences between South Africa and the States, Michael mentioned how incredibly safe he feels here from theft and crime, although he misses the incredible cultural diversity in South Africa. He speaks English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa (a tribal language characterized by clicks).
Michael and his wife Sana (they met in Texas) have two children, a ten-year-old daughter Willow and a three-year-old son Elah. He enjoys playing the piano, hiking, kayaking, fishing, running and ceramics. He looks forward to offering a new course in coastal population genetics and exploring all the fascinating fisheries questions here.
Seafood Lab News
Dr. Myeong-Rak Choi, Associate Professor from Yosu National University, Department of Biotechnology, is a visiting Professor at the OSU Seafood Lab working with Professor Jae Park. Dr. Choi's wife, Kyung-Hye and daughter, Eun-Young and son Eun-Soo are in Astoria with him. Dr. Choi's technical experience includes SDS polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis; isolation and purification of proteins; animal cell culture and isolation and purification of enzymes; immobilization of cells and enzymes; and cytotoxic effect on human cancer cell lines. Dr. Choi has been a researcher at Tohoku University in Japan from 1990-1992.
Jae Park completed the second OSU Surimi School along with his European collaborators (ENSIA and ACTIV) in Paris on February 7-8. More than 60 people attended from various countries in Europe and former Soviet Union.
Dr. Michael Morrissey's M.S. student, Hakan Calik presented a research paper at the National Fisheries Institute Conference in Orlando, Florida on Feb 11-14, 2001. His paper was High pressure processing of oysters and salmon to reduce microbial pathogens by Hakan Calik, M. Morrissey, H. An and P. Reno.
Dr. Jae Park's Ph.D. student, Jacek Jaczynski received a student award at the Pacific Fisheries Technologists Meeting in LaPaz, Mexico (Feb 25-Feb 28, 2001) for his research presentation entitled E-Beam as a novel technology for surimi seafood pasteurization by J. Jaczynski, J.W. Park, and C. Zinn.
The first Sea Grant Oregon-sponsored Surimi Industry Forum will be held April 9, 2001 preceding the 9th OSU Surimi Technology School April 10-12, 2001 at the OSU Seafood Lab, Astoria, OR. Dr. Park has organized this industry forum to include lectures on resource supply and demand, surimi test methods, minimum surimi for quality of surimi seafood, perception and image and new product development. The forum will include a panel discussion regarding problems and issues covering the Surimi and Surimi Seafood industry. Additional information is available on our website http://www.orst.edu/dept/seafood/surimi.htm.
Dr. Jae Park's research assistant, Angee Hunt had a baby boy, March 3,
2001. He weighed 9 lb 5 oz and is named Ian. Congratulations to Angee and Chris!
HMSC Visitor Center
Saturday, March 17 1:30 p.m. Hennings Auditorium Coastal Landslides and Bluff Erosion Dr. George Priest Dept of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) € Check out hazard maps of central Lincoln County € See if your property is in a potentially hazardous area € View slides of landslide areas on the north central coast € Learn what you can do to slow down the erosion process
Read Any Good Books Lately, Just for Fun?
Library staff thought it might be fun to share with the rest of the Center what we are reading now. We'd like to do this from time to time.
Janet is reading: Bloody Waters: A Lupe Solano Mystery Carolina Garcia Aguilera 1996 Lupe Solano is a hot, rich Cuban-American private investigator working on an illegal adoption case. The environment is a long way from the Oregon coast in winter and definitely enhances the story. You can just feel those Miami mosquitoes biting. The characters are engaging and the story just quirky enough to keep you guessing. A good read.
Susan is reading: Green Mars. Kim Stanley Robinson 1994 Genre: science fiction. The second book in the highly praised "Red Mars" trilogy is set in the mid-22nd century. Martian colonists struggle over terraforming their planet and achieving independence from the transnational corportations running Earth. Longevity treatments and a melting Antarctic icecap increase the pressure on Earth and the Martian colonists. This book is chock-full of social and scientific ideas and wonderful characters. I think most SF trilogies are rip-offs: the Red Mars series is an outstanding exception.
Judy is reading: The Shipping News E. Annie Proulx 1993 The Shipping News by Annie Proulx won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994, and it's easy to see why. She heaps up language on top of language until it's so rich and dense you feel you're breathing the same air as the characters. She begins with a stumble-bum of a main character, thirty-six- year-old Quoyle (mealy and spineless) who can't do anything right. He blunders into the wrong marriage, the wrong job; he has no friends, no self-esteem. His quirky Aunt, wildly driven to return to Newfoundland (their ancestral home), drags Quoyle and his two young daughters along to begin a new life. In the unrelenting cold and fog of Newfoundland, Quoyle actually becomes less mealy and is forced to develop something of a spine. In fact, the wild and gigantic landscape (fabulously described) along with the folks in the small, weird community (they are eccentric, entertaining, humorous) provide opportunities and challenges through which Quoyle is able to transform himself into a fairly likeable guy who can finally stand to live in his own skin. Annie Proulx throws in a murder, a love story, a bunch of fishermen, a mystery, and a depiction of the Newfoundland landscape that is utterly breathtaking. I give this one a "Two-Thumbs Up."
Personnel Notes
Sam Karben will be working on a month-long internship with Tim Miller-Morgan on clinical aquatic medicine. Sam is a Vet Med student at Washington State University and is interested in combining both research and public aquarium work. He is also working part-time at the Oregon Coast Aquarium and with Dr. Stephen Brown, the local veterinarian who worked with Keiko. As part of his internship, he will be working on a case write-up and an additional presentation on another topic. He has chosen this particular internship because he wanted to do hands-on work, not just follow someone on their rounds. Welcome, Sam, and we hope you have a good experience at the HMSC.