$5.5 million awarded to identify important crop and weed genes
An estimated $5.5 million, three-year grant was awarded to IU biologist Loren Rieseburg and five colleagues yesterday to be used for the identification of key genes causing lettuce, sunflower, thistle, knapweed and several other crops and weeds in the sunflower family to differ from their wild ancestors. Information gained from this project will be useful to plant breeders, weed fighters and anthropologists interested in the domestication of crops.\nRieseberg, a distinguished professor of biology, is leading the project. His collaborators include Steve Knapp, of the University of Georgia, Rick Kesseli, of the University of Massachusetts Boston, David Still, of California State Polytechnic University Pomona, and Richard Michelmore and Kent Bradford, of the University of California Davis.
Shipwreck relics to come to IU lab
Charles Beeker's basement lab is already full of 19th-century shipwreck finds -- and it's about to gain one more. On Sept. 26 visitors can watch Beeker and his students lower a corroded cannon from the Frolic, a Baltimore clipper that sank off the coast of California in 1850, into a huge tub of water. Once in the tub, low-voltage electric currents will remove chlorides from the cannon in order to preserve it.\nThe lab will be open to visitors from 1 to 4 p.m. while the cannon is being lowered, and visitors can also learn about conservation techniques and the creation of underwater parks during this time. On Sept. 27, the public is again invited to hear free lectures from three maritime archeologists, who will speak from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Mathers Museum. \nFor more information, contact Charles Beeker at 855-5748 or cbeeker@indiana.edu.
Study encourages parents to talk to children about death
Should parents talk to their dying children about death? A Swedish study found that parents whose children died of cancer had no regrets about talking to them about death, while some who didn't do so were sorry later.\nMany doctors and medical organizations encourage parents to discuss death with terminally ill children because they believe it helps the child. But little research has been done on such a difficult subject. The Swedish researchers said they met resistance while seeking approval for their study from colleagues who feared they would reopen painful memories for parents. Most of the parents contacted agreed to take part.\n"The most important message is that no parent regretted having talked about death with their child," said Ulrika Kreicbergs, the study's lead researcher and a nurse at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.\nDr. Lawrence Wolfe, a child cancer specialist in Boston, said the study will help physicians guide parents who are unsure about broaching the subject with their children. He said parents naturally want to shield their children or have a hard time themselves accepting that their child will die. But he said such discussions ease children's fears and let them prepare for death in their own way.\nThe study was published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
