Juneteenth Appreciation - Alan Seals

Dive into the fascinating world of weather forecasting with Alan Seals! Join us as he unravels the rich history of meteorology, highlighting the challenges and triumphs of Black pioneers in the field. Discover how they’ve reshaped our understanding of weather with their unique insights and methods—long before modern technology! Get ready for an immersive journey filled with fun facts and inspiring stories.https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/jaws-presentations_2024/1000/thumbnail.jp

Fostering Research Integrity Amidst Rapid Technological Changes: Implications for the Way Science is Supported, Practiced, Conducted and Communicated

Conference Session 2 keynote speaker presentation.https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/fric2024_presentations/1003/thumbnail.jp

Future of Research Integrity Conference Recording: Session Three

Video recording of the third session for the Future of Research Integrity Conference on May 21, 2024.https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/fric2024_session-videos/1002/thumbnail.jp

Responding to Requests for Information: Perspectives from the General Public\u27s Viewpoint

https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/fric2024_presentations/1007/thumbnail.jp

Phytoplankton Responses to Changing Irradiance and Carbon Fertilization

Phytoplankton play a crucial role in marine ecosystems due to their innate ability to fix carbon. As atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise from fossil fuel combustion, the resulting increase in dissolved CO2 and the concurrent decrease in ocean pH are likely to impact the phytoplankton community. The response of phytoplankton to elevated CO2 can vary significantly among species and environmental conditions (e.g. light, temperature, nutrient availability). To address these variations, an experiment was conducted using a controlled photobioreactor system, maintaining high and low light, constant temperature, nutrient levels, and two pCO2 concentrations. This study focused on two regionally relevant phytoplankton in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Skeletonema (a diatom) increased growth rates with the combination of high light and high carbon, but this was not accompanied by increases in particulate organic carbon and nitrogen (POC/N). In contrast, Micromonas commoda (a green alga) did not show changes in growth rate or POC/PON but allocated more energy towards photosynthesis. Additionally, Skeletonema displayed a decoupling between growth rate and silicification, leading to higher biogenic silica content per cell in elevated pCO2 environments. These results highlight the necessity for genera-specific and regionally focused research, as the physiological plasticity among phytoplankton can vary

INTO LIGHT: Using Original Art and Stories to Change the Conversation About Addiction

This immersive and interactive experience will draw from the INTO LIGHT “Drug Addiction: Real People, Real Stories” exhibit that is currently on display in the Student Center at the University of South Alabama. Participants will engage with powerful narratives and artistic expressions that bring the complex realities of drug addiction to life. Through a facilitated guide of the exhibit, which is made up of original graphite portraits and narratives of people from Alabama who have died from drug addiction, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the human experiences behind addiction, fostering empathy and awareness. By participating, attendees will walk away with: Enhanced perspectives on the multifaceted impacts of addiction Tools to engage in meaningful conversations about addiction and recovery Inspiration for incorporating storytelling and creativity into advocacy work Join us in breaking down barriers and sparking important dialogues through the transformative power of art and storytelling

Gertrude Stein: Autobiography and Play

By using Gertrude Stein’s two autobiographies, this thesis attempts to examine the use and evolution of play in writing. In The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, play stands within the language and games that Stein invites her readers to engage in. By using Roger Caillois’ characteristics of play, Stein’s writing can be seen as different from the high, serious modernism at the time with writers like William Faulkner and T.S. Eliot. After the publication of Toklas, Stein reverted into a crippling writer’s block because she could no longer find interest in the world to think and write about. However, after an experience with a dead Englishwoman, she was thrown back into a world of questions with no straightforward answer, which lead her to begin writing again. Everybody’s Autobiography is a meditation on these questions that haunted her at first but became a playful mystery to think about

Survey of the Boletes from Fish River Nature Preserve

Boletes are a special kind of mushroom inside of the Kingdom Fungi that are distinguished from other mushrooms by their uniquely pored hymenium, as opposed to gills. Many boletes are ectomycorrhizal, meaning they are mutualists with vascular plants, and thus beneficial to the overall health of the terrestrial ecosystem. Some are well-known for their edibility and are of economic importance. In the United States 59 genus-level clades comprising 290 operational taxonomic units have been reported. The southeastern US and Gulf Coast regions however are less researched and recorded for their mushroom ecology. In Alabama, only 56 bolete species have been reported so far. Specimens in this project were collected from Baldwin and Mobile Counties, AL, with the majority of specimens collected at The Fish River Nature Preserve. The Fish River Nature Preserve (FRNP) is located south of Fairhope in Baldwin County, and was recently purchased by the South Alabama Land Trust Conservation group. This property includes an upper level section with a tract dominated by oaks and another by pines, which is fire-controlled, and one near the river dominated by palmetto palms. Upon collection, all collected specimens were brought from the field to the South Alabama campus lab for technical descriptions, imaging, freezing of a small tissue sample, dehydration preservation of the fruiting body, and storage of the specimen. Microscopic work followed that and included the measurement of basidiospores. A primary list of the suspected species of each specimen was created based on morphological descriptions, and spore measurements. The frozen tissue sample then underwent DNA extraction via Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplification. Specimens that yielded DNA products were then uploaded into GenBan via Blasting to find matches of named sequences that are already in the GenBank database. A total of 26 specimens were collected at the FRNP and Mobile County. 19 of the 26 specimens\u27 identities were confirmed via DNA blasting from which 2 were confirmed to the genus level and the other 17 the the species level. Those remaining 7 that did not yield a DNA confirmed identity were identified morphologically. Together with morphological descriptions and DNA confirmation, a total of 17 species were identified, and they include: A. russellii (NTN-16); B. alutaceus (NTN-09); B. vermiculosoides (NTN-21); E. floridanus (NTN-14); G. castaneus (NTN-01; NTN-03, NTN-06, NTN-12, NTN-17, NTN-22); H. rubellus (NTN-10, NTN-13); L. albellum (NTN-04, NTN-18); P. bellus (NTN-02); P. rhodoxanthus (NTN-15); S. floccopus (NTN-05); S. decipiens (NTN-23); T. balloui (NTN-11); T. rhoadsiae (NTN-08); T. rubrobrunneus (NTN-20, NTN-26); X.affine (NTN-24, NTN-25); X. intermedius (NTN-07); X. subtomentosus (NTN-19). One species, B. alutaceus (NTN-09) commonly known as the “Leather Colored Bolete” is a species native to New England that was identified on the FRNP with no previously reported collections in Southern Alabama.https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/honors_college_posters/1022/thumbnail.jp

The Role of Inflammatory Cells in the Sex Dimorphism of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) is a disease associated with high blood pressure specifically in the lung circulation. Symptoms include dyspnea and cyanosis, and the mean survival post-diagnosis is 2.8 years without treatment. PAH can be characterized by accumulating vascular damage which results in lesion formation causing a decrease in the diameter of vessels, obstruction of flow, and ultimately increased pressure on the right heart leading to failure. These lesions define an arteriopathy that is a hallmark of PAH which is, in part, dependent on infiltration of inflammatory cells into the vascular wall. PAH presents uniquely in males and females with females being diagnosed more often than males, but with males having a much worse prognosis than females. We recently reported that in the SUGEN/Hypoxia model of PAH there is increased circulating MCP-1 and GM-CSF, indicative of macrophage-driven infiltration. Further we found that CXCL-10 was increased in females, indicative of T-cell infiltration. We hypothesized that males would exhibit macrophage expression in the vascular wall, whereas females would have T-cell infiltration. Following histological staining of both male and female samples our preliminary data suggests females exhibit more T cells and male exhibit more macrophages. This data suggests unique inflammatory cell phenotypes that correlate with sex in PH.https://jagworks.southalabama.edu/honors_college_posters/1015/thumbnail.jp