The Wake

A few years ago, actress Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter Apple. If only the naming of actual apples was so simple.“Naming an apple is worse than naming a kid,” Dr. James Luby says, professor of plant genetics and director of the fruit breeding program at the Horticultural Research Center, a division of the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. “It’s okay if there are two or three Emilys in the class, but no two apples in the world can have the same name.”Possibly because the University of Minnesota’s team of apple namers are creatively exhausted after coming up with names for their most recent apple releases, the SnowSweet™, Zestar!® and Honeycrisp™, the Arboretum has called on the public for the first time ever to name their most recent apple release, for now known as the MN …

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Getting dirty, planting seeds, and watching them mature. No, it’s not a description of your baby’s daddy; it’s what the Horticulture Club does year round.The Horticulture Club, which became an official club at the University of Minnesota in 1983, is for those who enjoy the wonderful world of plants. However it’s not just exclusive to horticulture majors. Any student who loves to get their hands a little dirty is welcomed to join.“I think we almost doubled membership this year,” Horticulture Club advisor Professor Neil Anderson says. “We’ve been attracting a lot of students outside of the department of horticulture that are interested in plants.”For the diehard plant lovers, the Horticulture Club participates in yearly competitions. The Mid-America Collegiate Horticulture Society Tournament is held every year in November. There, students …

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To the average person the topic of evolution is thought of as less a field of study than a hot-button issue, the source of commotion regarding its teaching in public schools. For scientists like Bell Museum director Scott Lanyon, evolution isn’t about legal and political squabbles but about the work of mapping the branches that trace evolution’s path and show connections between species. Lanyon is involved with a research project called “Assembling the Tree of Life.” “Science has shown that all organisms are descended from a common ancestor,” Lanyon explains. “The tree of life is a genealogy for how all the species on the planet are related to one another.” Lanyon’s research, done in collaboration with professors at three other universities, is one of four “tree-of-life” projects going on at the Bell Museum. His work …

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Dolphins will never be able to speak English, or any other human verbal language for that matter, but that doesn’t mean we won’t understand them anytime soon. Dolphins are incredibly intelligent animals that can communicate at least as well as any comatose college student early in the morning.Dolphins use two different acoustic forms of communication, echolocation and whistling. Dolphins use echolocation—very short bursts of low-frequency clicks—to figure out their surroundings. They blast these clicks in rapid speed through flapping folds of skin in their blowholes. The clicks bounce off their environments back to the dolphins, which receive the echoes through their lower jaw. This sound is sent via nerves in the jaw through the middle and inner ear to the dolphin’s brain, which processes and interprets the signals. In this way, dolphins can figure out …

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We all know robots are going to take over the world. It’s simply a fact - tried and true. Someday, someone is going to make a machine that is so advanced, it realizes it can enslave us all, and that will be that. The obvious scenario for a robot-dominated planet is a human race that is kept immersed in a virtual existence, blissfully unaware of its own bondage. With creations like the PS3 Home, we are one step closer to happily plugging ourselves in and ignoring the woes of reality. We won’t even put up a fight.Unfortunately, nobody can be told what the PS3 Home is; you have to read about it in The Wake. The soon-to-be-released PS3 Home is Sony’s answer to Xbox Live. It does more than just allow you to play …

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Mankind has achieved great things with the use of science. Ed Cussler, a professor in the Chemical Engineering department at the University of Minnesota, has achieved great things too. He’s written several books, published over 200 articles, and holds a number of patents in his chosen field. He’s also filled a swimming pool with thickener and tested how it affects swimmers’ speeds. It’s this particular experiment that Cussler will be discussing during the latest edition of Café Scientifique.Cussler will hold a lecture next Tuesday, October 16, at 7 p.m. at the Bryant Lake Bowl. The event, entitled Experiments in Fluid Mechanics, will focus on the quirky experiment made in August of 2003, when he and Brian Gettelfinger, a chemical engineering senior at the time, wondered how a pool filled with something besides water would affect …

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On Friday, September 28th, the new iPod Touch officially hit shelves. To give an accurate review, The Wake attempted to contact Apple’s PR department about testing the new iPod but they failed to respond to any emails or calls. So, like lowly reporter scum, I was forced to saunter into the Apple store at Rosedale and demo the iPod Touch guerilla style: popping in every few minutes to quickly test a feature, and then slinking out of the store unnoticed, avoiding any unnecessary forced conversation with the commission-fed sales associates.The Touch is an achievement in both its design and its technology. Like the iPhone, the Touch relies on what Apple calls “Multi-Touch” technology. The seemingly innocent 3.5 inch widescreen display is actually a stunning piece of engineering, harboring a host of hidden features. …

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Many people dismiss the concept of biofuel as the energy source of the future as a radical, impractical notion. If recent developments from the award-winning Regents Professor Lanny Schmidt don’t change their minds, then nothing will. As Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, Lanny Schmidt has made incredible progress in the journey towards the future of renewable energy. In 2004, professor Schmidt discovered a way to produce hydrogen from ethanol, a revolutionary feat at the time. In the past year, he and his team have developed a process that converts soybean oil and sugar water into hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The end result is syngas, which is an ingredient in synthetic diesel fuel. Once hydrogen is separated from biofuel, it is pushed through a fuel cell, which produces electricity. …

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It wasn’t even my idea to go to the Renaissance Festival this year. I’d been once before, about seven years ago, and although the turkey legs were good they didn’t seem to warrant an annual pilgrimage to Shakopee. Boyfriend felt differently, or at least said he did after he and my 16-year-old sister began plotting our journey to the western suburbs, complete with costumes. I knew that I would prefer to spend my one afternoon of the week with him doing something a little more relaxing, romantic, and non-medieval perhaps, but in the spirit of Queen Elizabeth I went along.Unfortunately, the night before the big excursion was a sleepless one for boyfriend, (see Episode 1 for the specific sleeping patterns of Chemical Engineers) who spent 14 hours writing the introduction of a …

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If you ever find yourself banging rocks together or drawing hieroglyphics on your apartment walls, then you may be perfect for the self-proclaimed, “loud, dysfunctional, and eccentric family” that is the Anthropology Club. The University of Minnesota has the oldest continuously running undergraduate anthropology club in the nation. Though the club is affiliated with the Anthropology Department, they are a close-knit group of about 40 members that like to have fun. “It’s a very welcoming group,” says co-president Sara Falteseck. “I was made to feel included on my second day here. I really found a home”Falteseck, with co-president Kate Gardener, plan the year’s events. Their biggest event, going on its 30th year, is the annual Undergraduate Anthropology Conference which will be held during April of 2008 in Chanhassen, Minnesota. …

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