Spring Issue of Research Magazine Debuts on Web Site

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — What do landmines and breast cancer have in common? Why do male firefighters die at a younger age than the average man? What does mathematics have to do with crocheted vegetables? And why do feet stink?

The answers to these questions and others can be found in the Spring 2005 issue of University of Arkansas Research Frontiers, the university’s research magazine, which is now available on the Web at http://www.uark.edu/rd_vcad/urel/publications/research_frontiers/.

The spring issue contains four feature-length articles showcasing the research and creative activity of researchers on campus. The cover story describes the work of Magda El-Shenawee and Fred Barlow, associate professors of electrical engineering in the College of Engineering who have taken El-Shenawee’s previous research on landmine detection and are starting to apply it to breast cancer detection.

Health is also a concern for Barry Brown, University Professor of exercise science, and for Bud Thompson, battalion chief in the Fayetteville Fire Department, both featured in another story. Firefighters die on the average 10 years earlier than their average male counterparts -- and a leading cause of death is heart attacks. So Brown and his students have designed an exercise and stress-reduction program for the department and currently are examining its impact on the firefighters.

Determining that firefighters nationwide are at risk of premature death requires the use of mathematics, the subject of a third Research Frontiers story. Mathematics professor Chaim Goodman-Strauss believes that people use math in their everyday lives more often than they realize. Strauss uses math to describe patterns in nature, and has even gone so far as to use vegetables crocheted by his grandmother in a high-level mathematics lecture to explain how numbers help describe shapes.

Playfulness isn’t limited to numbers in the spring issue of Research Frontiers. Stephen J. Chism, reference librarian in Mullins Library prefers to play with words. He has penned a book on palindromes — words or phrases that read the same forwards or backwards, such as “Do geese see God?” or “Madam, I’m Adam.”

While Chism teases opposites out of words, a psychology graduate student, Bunmi Olatunji, teases out the role of disgust in phobias. He exposes people to images of gaping wounds and pictures of creepy crawly creatures to determine the components that constitute fear, which of those components elicit disgust and what role the disgust plays in phobias. Olatunji’s trips to the grocery store in the name of science often earn him stares, he reports.

Speaking of disgusting, one of the questions asked of University of Arkansas professors in a regular feature seems topical: Why do feet stink? Chemical engineering professor Ed Clausen will tell readers. And for people more interested in birds than in stinky feet, Douglas A. James, University Professor of biological sciences, explains why and how hummingbirds hover.

The magazine continues to explore soaring heights with an internationally renowned architect who is remembered on the arts and letters page. Fay Jones, who died in August of 2004, taught at the University of Arkansas for 35 years. Among his many accomplishments, Jones designed the Fulbright Peace Fountain that stands on the University of Arkansas campus. The arts and letters page features the words of Jones himself as he expressed his thoughts on his craft.

Finally, the magazine includes short pieces on big topics, including research on genocide in the Sudan by education professor Samuel Totten, research on student cheating by accounting professor Timothy West, new insights into Chaucer’s poetry by English professor William Quinn, and information about an insect invader from arthropod museum curator Jeff Barnes. Additional brief pieces feature the research of Roger Koeppe, University Professor of chemistry, whose work on determining a new way of looking at the “lock and key” model of drug-protein interactions appeared in the journal Nature, and the introduction of a powerful tool to campus that allows scientists to map and model buildings, fields and other mid-sized things using high-resolution technology. Finally, there is a brief discussion of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing conference, which took place on the University of Arkansas campus in the fall of 2004.

Finally, the magazine showcases a variety of books, including “The Origin of Chondrules and Chondrites,” by Derek Sears, the W. M. Keck Professor of Space and Planetary Sciences; “The Elements of Great Speechmaking: Adding Drama and Intrigue,” by Provost Bob Smith; “Fresh from the Past: Recipes and Revelations from Moll Flanders’ Kitchen,” by English professor Sandra Sherman; “The Amphibians and Reptiles of Arkansas,” by Stanley E. Trauth, Henry W. Robinson and Michael V. Plummer, published by the University of Arkansas Press; “Deciphering the City,” by sociology professor William Schwab; and “Teaching about Genocide: Issues, Approaches and Resources,” edited by education professor Samuel Totten.