Monday, November 30, 1998
Community Briefs
Science foundation announces fellows
The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Lucent
Technologies Foundation have named 11 researchers, including UC
Berkeley mechanical engineering professor Paul Sheng, as 1998
winners of Industrial Ecology Research Fellowships.
The fellowships, totaling $1.1 million in all, award up to
$50,000 per year for two years to support researchers who are
focusing on research or teaching to help industry design processes
that prevent pollution and create environmentally friendly
products. The awards were announced Nov. 19.
Industrial ecology incorporates both competitive and
environmental concerns into industrial process and product design.
Like a biological system, it rejects the concept of waste, and
seeks ways to efficiently reuse all materials.
"As ‘industrial ecology’ becomes a familiar term, researchers
from many disciplines will collaborate on solutions to common
environmental problems," said Janie Fouke, director of NSF’s
division of Bioengineering and Environmental Systems.
"It is incumbent on the NSF to encourage basic research that may
help and encourage businesses to integrate conservation and
pollution prevention practices into their strategies and their
day-to-day operations," Fouke added. "Our intent with the
Industrial Ecology Research Fellowships is to spur innovations that
provide industry with both human and financial incentives to adopt
more ecologically sound business approaches."
"The field of industrial ecology is central to achieving an
environmentally sustainable economy," said Deborah Stahl, executive
director of the Lucent Technologies Foundation.
"Since 1993, these fellowships have stimulated a wide variety of
research projects that address the problems of pollution reduction
and elimination in a highly industrialized society. In addition,
they have helped to foster an academic community focused on
industrial ecology that has developed curricula at institutions
around the country and enabled industry interactions with
university faculty."
Disease threatens California’s grapes
A new form of phylloxera – related to the subterranean insect
that cost California’s premium wine grape industry more than $1
billion in replanting costs during the last decade – has appeared
in three grape nurseries over the last two years. One of the
University of California’s experts on the pest says the new type of
phylloxera does not pose a major threat to growers who have
switched to resistant rootstock.
"Our friend phylloxera is back," Andrew Walker, a UC Davis
viticulture and enology professor, told a large crowd of perhaps
500 concerned growers during the recent Napa Valley Viticultural
Fair. "I hope we can calm some of the hysteria
Walker explained in some detail during his presentation at the
fair and in a follow-up interview what scientists know about the
pest. The new form of phylloxera is a foliar or leaf-feeding pest.
Telltale galls form on the underside of fresh grape leaves in
addition to attacking roots like the typical California strains of
the pest. The finds thus far have all been on the leaves of
rootstock varieties. To the relief of the grape growing community,
however, the pest does not appear to have an affinity for vinifera
varieties such as merlot, chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon.
Although cases of the foliar phylloxera have been noted on wild
grape plants in Southern California and elsewhere in the Southwest,
the foliar form of this pest has only very rarely appeared in
California’s wine country before and never stayed more than a
portion of a season.
Compiled from Daily Bruin staff reports.
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