Could it be that current theories holding that human evolution began in Africa has a link beyond DNA evidence found in modern humans? Recent discoveries of what appear to be very old strains of bacteria, found in trapped pools of water deep inside South African gold mines, open the possibility.

Microbiologists at FSU, specialists in identifying, classifying and preserving living bacteria recovered from some of the deepest places on earth, are studying the evolutionary history of some very primitive types of bacteria found last year by U.S. researchers working in South African gold mines. David Balkwill, professor of biological science, heads the team.

Since 1989, Balkwill's lab has served as the central repositiory for the U.S. Department of Energy's rapidly growing collection of deep-earth microbes, officially known as the Subsurface Microbial Culture Collection. The project sprang into being after the surprising 1984 discovery—at Savannah River Nuclear Plant in South Carolina—of bacteria living at depths (up to 2,000 feet) that most biologists had thought incapable of supporting any life form.

Last summer, Balkwill's lab received samples of bacteria-laden water drawn from formations reached by drilling through the floors of deep (up to three miles) South African mines. The samples were collected as part of the National Science Foundation's Life in Extreme Environments Program. FSU is a subcontractor on the project working through Princeton University. Other collaborators include scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Envirogen, Inc., a U.S. firm that markets bacterial-based soil clean-up technologies.

So far, Balkwill's team has found a fairly diverse population of bacteria in the South African samples, some that appear to have genetic characteristics that suggest very old family trees.

“These specimens seem to have developed very early during the evolution of bacteria,” Balkwill said. “We don't know much more about them just now because we haven't yet managed to isolate and grow them in the lab.”

Most deep-earth bacteria Balkwill studies share a common characteristic—they survive by eating inorganic chemicals such as sulphur and hydrogen which they convert into energy without the aid of light. Many of the South African strains he's studied are of this type, and live in water as hot as 140 degrees F that percolates through a slightly radioactive environment, thanks to trace amounts of uranium mixed with the gold ore.

Last year, a group of Swedish scientists used DNA found in human mitochondria—tiny cellular organs that serve as the body's primary energy factories—to trace human migration patterns around the globe. The study provided the most compelling evidence yet that the root of human evolution lies in Africa. Most cellular biologists believe that human mitochondria evolved from independent, bacteria-like organisms that may once have served as the primary vehicles for transferring DNA in all biological reproduction. —F.S.

Florida's struggle with the problem of domestic violence is similar to that of any other state—about one in four women residents each year experience violence in a personal relationship.

What sets Florida apart, though, is the added challenge of serving high numbers of battered immigrant women, migrant workers and older women. Recently, the university's Institute for Family Violence Studies examined the system and made recommendations to Gov. Jeb Bush on ways to better help all those impacted by the cycle of violence.

Florida's Department of Children and Families (DCF) has a statutory requirement to update its domestic violence needs assessment every few years to improve response to victims. Sharon Maxwell, director of the institute and an associate professor in the School of Social Work, spearheaded work on a 1996 domestic violence study, as well as the most recent one released last fall.

For the study, Maxwell and her team surveyed the executive directors of Florida's 38 existing certified domestic violence centers, family safety professionals, justice system personnel, human service providers and school principals. The team also analyzed geographic and demographic data related to how often community domestic violence shelters are used. To get perspective from those most impacted by the system, the team conducted focus groups with battered women.

Researchers found that on average, north Florida had eight shelter beds per 1,000 domestic violence crime reports (filed with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement), while central Florida had 14 beds and south Florida had 11 beds.

Survey results from human service, justice and educational professionals who work with domestic violence victims reported that permanent housing was the number-one unmet need for battered women in Florida. Child care, transitional housing, mental health care, legal help, transportation and dental care followed close behind, as the top unmet needs. The survey also revealed that communities and the state seem to be doing a fair job at providing battered women with clothing, food, household goods, prenatal care and help obtaining injunctions.

Among the institute's recommendations was a suggestion to change how domestic violence services are funded. The institute recommended a revised allocation formula that, among other things, emphasizes the prevalence of domestic violence cases in each county.

“The most helpful part of the needs assessment from the Department of Children and Families' perspective is the funding formula recommendation,” said Trula Motta, DCF domestic violence chief. The department is undergoing regional reorganization and the current formula used to allocate funds to certified domestic violence centers would not be applicable once the process is complete, she said.

Get your popcorn, turn down the lights and enjoy some of the best Florida State University films with a simple click of your mouse.

Last fall, the university's School of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts unveiled a new Web site, www.fsufilms.com, to showcase some of the best student works produced at FSU. More than 60 films, ranging from short undergraduate documentaries to longer high production thesis films, are posted on the Web site. The films can be viewed by using either RealPlayer or QuickTime.

“I don't know of any other university film school that has anything like this,” said Raymond Fielding, the film school's dean. “This increases spectacularly our exposure. It makes our students' work available to a large audience, which enhances their reputation and helps us recruit the very best new students.”

The idea for the Web site became a reality when IBM donated $300,000 worth of equipment last year, including an IBM eServer system as a video server and an IBM workstation.

“FSU clearly understands how technology and artistry can go hand in hand,” said Chuck Bryan, director, eServer pSeries Marketing, IBM. “The performance and reliability of the IBM eServer will help FSU offer movie buffs an enjoyable viewing experience.”

One of the site's short films, “Escape Back to the Movies,” written, directed and edited by graduate student Jason Doty, was the recipient of the 2000 Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker Competition Grand Prize and was screened in 13,000 U.S. theaters for six weeks last summer.

“Lector,” a graduate thesis production that has won a bronze Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Student Academy Award, will be posted on the site after it makes its rounds at film festivals. The award was presented to Greg Marcks, who wrote and produced the film, at a Hollywood ceremony in June.

It is the second time in the past three years that the FSU film school has won a Student Academy Award, considered the most prestigious given to a student-made production exhibited in a film format. To date, the film has won nine first prizes at film festivals around the world and has qualified to be considered for an Oscar nomination in the short film category in the 2001 Academy Awards competition.

More than 200 complete sound films are made by students each year including 10 thesis films. In the past year, 35 FSU films were selected for screening at 90 festivals worldwide, where they won 34 first prizes and 17 second or third prizes, Fielding said.

Last June 6, exactly 57 years to the day after Allied Forces hit the beach in Normandy, France for the final assault on Hitler's Europe, the largest donation of wartime memories to date for the university's Institute on World War II and the Human Experience made its landing in Tallahassee.

The collection, courtesy of Tom Brokaw, NBC Nightly News anchor, totaled 55 boxes containing thousands of war-time letters, memoirs and other material, easily doubling what the institute had acquired since it began in 1997.

An estimated 7,000 people sent the material to Brokaw for use in his book, The Greatest Generation (Random House, 1998), a tribute to the people and events of WW II. Last spring, Brokaw decided to donate the items to FSU for safekeeping and research.

The WWII Institute's mission is to preserve the memories and artifacts of Americans who served in war both abroad and on the home front. The institute works to promote research, writing and teaching of the personal history of World War II, says William Oldson, FSU history professor and institute supervisor.

The institute collects letters, postcards, diaries, magazines, drawings, cartoons, manuscripts, menus, playbills, photographs, newspaper clippings, ration coupons, maps, books, service papers, trunks, etc. There's also an oral history component—the Reichelt Oral History Center—which conducts interviews using a phone recording system. These recordings are then transcribed for easy access.

Brokaw's bequest has brought welcomed—and timely—attention to the institute, says Oldson. With an estimated 1,500 WWII veterans dying each day now, rare resources are being lost at a record rate. As a consequence, many who lived through the war years have trinkets and memoirs tucked away that may be lost forever. The FSU institute encourages veterans and their families to consider donating war-time items rather than tossing them–such “trash” is often a priceless trove of social history from the most critical period of the 20th century.

Oldson said it will take the institute several years to properly catalog all the information from the more than 5,000 individuals who donated items to Brokaw. Such work includes contacting the families for permission to use the objects, entering information into a database and carefully preserving the records. Eventually—within two years, Oldson anticipates—the items will be made available to the public.

To donate letters and other artifacts to the institute, call 850-644-9033 or visit www.fsu.edu/~ww2/. —L.H.

The forecast has never been sunnier for FSU's meteorology department, as it teams up with the National Weather Service (NWS) in what is truly a joint venture in every sense of the term.

This February, doors opened on a new four-story wing of the Love Building, seat of FSU weather science training and research since 1961. The new addition will serve as the NWS's forecast office for the local region. The close quarters promises to be a windfall for faculty and students as it ushers in an era of new collaborative research efforts and specialized applied learning opportunities for meteorology students.

The culmination of years of planning and negotiation, the move transfers the weather service's base to campus from its former home at Tallahassee's airport. More than 30 NWS employees are slated to make the transition to campus.

Joint locations of university meteorology programs and NWS regional offices aren't rare—there are about 10 around the country, says Paul Ruscher, interim chair of FSU's meteorology department. But in most other locations, only a few faculty, staff and students are located physically within NWS space, whereas the new expanded Love Building will house almost the entire meteorology department, he said.

This partnership extends beyond shared workspace. Ruscher said there will be collaborative applied research projects related to operational meteorology and forecasting. NWS and FSU have already teamed on research in lightning climatology and sea breeze forecasting, and more research is anticipated as the scientists of both entities get to know more about the scholarly interests of each other.

The NWS already teaches a course for FSU once a year, in operational meteorology, and Ruscher hopes such instruction by NWS staff will expand. The collocation also will benefit the academic pursuits of NWS employees. They will find it much more convenient to take classes at the university and there will be more opportunity for conducting joint seminars.

As for graduate education, Ruscher says the collocation will be important because it is anticipated that a number of NWS employees will be doing their graduate-level meteorological research on campus. Also, the numerous applied research projects initiated by this new relationship will be fueled in part by the manpower and brainpower of graduate students and faculty at FSU.

The NWS will occupy the fourth floor and the basement of the new addition while meteorology will use the third floor. The departments of computer science and math will occupy the first and second floors.

The venture also will bring something new for those outside of the world of weather. Periodically, students, faculty members and employees on campus will see a new sight in the skies over FSU as weather balloons are cast aloft from the top of the new building twice a day by NWS personnel. —L.H.