Just in case you haven't noticed, Thursday has turned into "University" day here at CornNation and will remain that way hopefully for the rest the off-season. What that means is I hope to point out the most interesting news releases coming out of the University of Nebraska Lincoln on a weekly basis and share them with you.
Unfortunately, this is a little more difficult than I expected. It was easy to talk about Willa Cather because she's a writer and I'm a hack writer so wasn't too much of a stretch for me to understand her or what she was doing. It was also way easy for me to talk about beer and the Hops Project, but this week things are a little bit beyond my scope.
It's starts out fairly easy... going to the planetarium:
Mueller Planetarium to host Fulldome Festival May 28 | UNL Today | University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Mueller Planetarium at Morrill Hall will host a special day of five different fulldome shows May 28.
Regular planetarium prices are $4 per show for an adult and $3 per show for a child, plus museum admission. Museum members pay $2.50 per show for an adult and $2 per show for a child, with ID card. Tickets will be sold at the front desk the day of the festival. Children ages 3 and under are not permitted in the planetarium.
This seems really cheap and if I had a child to take to a show like this I would do it, because I haven't been to a planetarium for a long time.
Then We Jump Right Into Science
With support from a National Science Foundation grant, UNL researchers are developing a new tool that will help them better identify plant characteristics that are critical to improving crop performance.
I read this a couple of times, I have concluded that what these guys are working on is basically a plant tricorder. You know, the tricorder from Star Trek (if you really don't know what that is, I don't know if we can be friends anymore.)
These are the science guys working on this project.
Here's what the bit next to the scientists involved has to say:
Hongfeng Yu (from left), Yufeng Ge and Harkamal Walia have received a National Science Foundation grant to develop a multi-wavelength LASER ranging and imaging instrument for phenotyping plant shoots at the whole-plant level.
Oh, like, whatevers. IT'S A PLANT TRICORDER ISN'T IT?
I suppose that saying "multi-wavelength LASER ranging and imaging instrument" might get them more chicks, but "PLANT TRICORDER" would make it more understandable to a wider group of people. Maybe that's not impressive enough, and you need to pump it up a bit to get grants from the NSF.
Evolving the largest eyes among arachnids may have helped the net-casting spider add walking prey to its airborne menu of midnight snacks, new UNL research says.
Then there was this one. Basically, some young guy went to Florida, lived in tent, and captured spiders with great big eye balls. He then put dental silicone on them to impair their vision and studied their ability to catch prey without the use of their great big eyeballs.
I have no idea what the real world implications are here, but if that guy doesn't have dreams about giant spiders with great big eye balls catching him and doing horrible things to him, we're gonna have to take the "Steel Balls" moniker away from Shawn Eichorst and give it to him.
NEWS
Drunkest city in US? It's Appleton, report says
Wisconsin took the top four places, while Ames was #8, Lincoln #18, and Iowa City #19.
It's time for Baylor to come square. Say what you know, what you think, what you're going to do, and be judged for it.
My take - Baylor will do whatever PR they can to smear this over and Art Briles will survive it. Everyone will bitch and complain, which they should, but in the end, nothing will happen because whatever the hell ever happens that's good in Waco?
No, the NCAA isn't likely to do anything here. It's not really a NCAA issue as much as criminal/civil issues. You would think that Baylor will get pounded with Title IX lawsuits.
We'll wait and see what happens.
Still, if you had a daughter, would you want them to attend Baylor?