Hail to the Chief

Dedicated space for FSU research officially grew by nearly 40,000 square feet Dec. 6 with a ceremonial induction of Innovation Park's newest arrival, the Robert Merrill Johnson Building. Dignitaries from local, state and federal government joined dozens of campus officials and friends for the dedication of the building named in honor of Vice President for Research Dr. Robert M. Johnson, who in October announced his retirement, effective in June.

Johnson, Florida State's "research chief" since 1968, the year he arrived on campus from a post at the National Science Foundation, played a key role in guiding Florida State from the ranks of the nation's research also-rans to the uni-versity's current status as a Research I institution, a distinction which marks FSU as one of the nation's foremost academic centers for research.

The Johnson Building joins the Morgan and Sliger Buildings, forming the base of a now triangular Don Fuqua Research Complex located on Dirac Drive near the park's center. Former Florida congressman Fuqua himself, a long-time FSU supporter and friend and now head of a Washington, D.C.-based aerospace industry association, was on hand for the dedication ceremony. Officially dressing out to 39,337 square feet, the $3.8 million Johnson Building begins service as home to the FSU Research Foundation, the Center for Oceanographic and Atmospheric Prediction Studies and the Southeast Archaeological Center, attached to the U.S. National Park Service.

Most of the building's first floor-roughly 17,900 sq. ft.-will be devoted to the archaeological center, which will move from cramped headquarters in the basement of Montgomery Gym on central campus. The center is the curatorial home for more than three million cultural artifacts collected from federal park sites throughout the Southeastern U.S. The second floor will be devoted primarily to the COAPS unit directed by FSU meteorologist and oceanographer Dr. Jim O'Brien, as well as office and lab space for additional meteorological research led by O'Brien's campus colleague, Dr. T.N. Krishnamurti.

Owned by Innovation Park's founding organization, the Leon County Research and Development Authority, the Johnson Building is leased for FSU's use by the Research Foundation, which shares space on the first floor with the archaeological center.

"This is a fitting tribute to a truly remarkable career, one that has had a profound impact on this university and its future," said President Sandy D'Alemberte. "Bob Johnson's legacy as an outstanding administrator in research is second to none in Florida and is equalled by only a few in this country."

Soul of a New Machine

Accompanying the crisp change of seasons on campus this fall was a fundamental change in the way many scientists will be using high-performance computing at FSU to conduct their research from now on. In October, officials powered down the Cray Y-MP super-computer, on-line since April 1990. The Cray had carried the bulk of heavy computing needs of faculty within the university's Su-percomputer Computations Research Institute as well as SCRI-affiliated academic groups around the country. In the Cray's place at Innovation Park now stands a Power Challenge XL, a product of Silicon Graphics, Inc., based in Mountain View, California. The new machine incorporates eight central processing units (CPUs), plus a central memory bank roughly eight times larger than the Cray Y-MP. According to specs, the machine is capable of attaining more than twice the peak processing power of the machine it's replacing.

Dr. Dennis Duke, SCRI director, said acquisition of the SGI machine represents "a great advantage in cost/performance" and will be competitive with any supercomputer generally available to campus researchers. SCRI will continue relying also on its Connection Machine, a massively parallel computer based since 1990 in SCRI's on-campus headquarters, as well as large "clusters"-multiple CPUs wired together-manufactured by IBM and by Digital Equipment, Duke said.

Already putting the new machine through its trial paces is FSU's new Center for Oceanographic and Atmospheric Prediction Studies, headed by Dr. James O'Brien. The COAPS group, which specializes in predicting the behavior of El Ni–o, the natural, ocean-based phenomenon that periodically throws fits into weather patterns worldwide, expects to exploit the SGI's special capabilities in graphics generation to aid their research, O'Brien said. The machine's advanced graphics performance also may prove particularly attractive to other academic units as well. Dr. Ray Fielding, dean of FSU's School of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, says a new, state-of-the-art visual effects unit scheduled for development by the school will incorporate SGI technology and a link to the Power Challenge at Innovation Park.

The Cray machine succeeded the short-lived ETA10-G, the last supercomputer produced by the now-defunct ETA Systems, Inc., based in St. Paul, Minnesota. ETA was an offshoot company of Control Data Corporation, also of St. Paul, a venerable computer maker whose line of machines culminated in the Cyber 205, the supercomputer that FSU acquired in 1985, shortly after SCRI was launched by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The 205, decomissioned in 1986, was the first supercom-puter installed on a university campus in Florida.

Lobster Condos

It came from nowhere, spreading through the gin-clear heart of Florida Bay like milky grime, a silent tidal wave of death. Scientists who witnessed the sudden, gigantic bloom of toxic bluegreen algae in Florida's most productive lobster-raising waters in the fall of 1991 had never seen anything like it.

"Before it came, visibility throughout the area was typically 20 feet," said Dr. William Herrnkind, FSU biologist. "Afterward, you could stick your arm in and couldn't see your hand."

After smothering more than 100 square miles of the bay's fragile, south-central nursery grounds for five months, the bloom dissipated, only to return on an even larger scale in 1992. But after the first visit, the damage was done, said Herrnkind, who has been studying lobster ecology in Florida Bay since 1984.

In its wake, the algae's poison killed nearly every large sponge in the stricken area. Thick stands of extremely slow-growing vase and loggerhead sponges-juvenile lobsters' primary places to hide while maturing-were virtually wiped out, leaving the region's annual influx of youngsters as tasty targets for an ever-present horde of predators.

Had the blooms enveloped the entire 500-square-mile bay, the consequences for Florida's huge recreational and commercial lobster fishery would have been catastrophic, says Herrn-kind. With no place to hide, young lobsters by the millions would never have made it to adulthood.

With special assistance from Florida's Department of Environmental Protection, Herrnkind subsequently led a research effort that established just what impact the blooms had wreaked on the bay's annual overall legal-sized lobster production. He calculated the loss at 10 percent, a figure that represents an enormous, long-term loss to the fishery, since the devastated sponge crop is still at least a decade away from full recovery.

Perhaps it was time for mankind to lend the baby crawfish a helping hand. Encouraged by earlier experiments he'd conducted using artificial "sponges" -actually common construction blocks made from concrete-Herrnkind designed a research project to test the feasibility of supplanting the lost sponge habitat with strategically placed blocks. Funded by Florida's SeaGrant Program, last fall Herrnkind's team deployed a total of 720 units, made of two partition blocks each, across three one-hectare sections (about 2.5 acres each) of the blighted area. This summer, the first results stunned the biologist.

"One of our test sites had higher numbers of juveniles than any natural site we've ever found-a density probably three or four times the normal abundance level. The others had densities equal to or higher than most of the natural bottom that used to exist there. We're now trying to determine how many of these juveniles grew up on the sites and how many migrated in from the surrounding shelterless habitat."

Herrnkind remains hopeful that the test will eventually yield sufficient data that will determine the long-term usefulness of including such artificial reefs as an integral part of both state and federal lobster management plans. Although expensive-it would cost upwards of $6 million in concrete blocks alone just to counter the sponges already lost-such a one-time cost might well be justified to an industry that is worth at least $50 million annually to Florida's seafood industry alone and millions more to the state's sportfishing and tourism industries.

Wired on Research

Heads up, oh ye faithful followers of things on-line-Florida State soon will have what may be the coolest site for academic research info to be found anywhere on the net.

Scheduled to debut in January is the FSU Office of Research MainPage, a creation that unabashedly borrows from some of the best sites out there, yet retools their look and utility to provide a fresher, tastier product. The new page will be accessible directly from FSU's home page on the World Wide Web, at the address http://www.fsu.edu.

Aside from the standard offerings of background information and who's in charge of what, the page will support functions useful to both academic and lay audiences alike. For example, campus researchers will be able to download up-to-date status reports of their active grants and contracts, get fresh summaries of grants information, or download a number of requisite forms related to a variety of topics, from animal research to patenting and licensing.

Anyone with a link to the Internet will be able to peruse in some detail Florida State's chief attributes in research and scholarship, including a virtual walk-through of the university's finest research facilities. Also featured will be a searchable index (actually the most recent issue of FSU Research and Creative Activity) that will instantly fetch a listing of any keyword typed in by the user. Want to know who's doing health-related research? Enter the word "health" to find out.

Back issues of this magazine will be at-the-ready also, as well as those of FYI, the university's grants information newsletter, plus the most recent annual report of FSU research funding.

Of particular interest to the public may be an offering called "Ask a Prof," an FSU exclusive. If you were ever shy about raising your hand in class, here's a painless way to get learned answers to questions on anything under, or beyond, the sun. (This is the on-line version of the "Ask a Prof" column that debuted in the November issue of The FSU Times newsmagazine published by the FSU Office of Media Relations.)

A caveat: all features thus described may not be available by January. This work-in-progress comes to you from the artfully cyber-tuned minds of Robert Celander, art director for FSU Research in Review, and net impresario David Morris.

Cows of the Sea

Much has been made of flatulent cows and their apparent contribution to global warming, but there might not be enough fuss over the role of ocean animals and their contribution to the problem, says one FSU researcher. FSU oceanographer Dr. Lita Proctor studies the microbiology of marine zooplankton. These floating microscopic crustaceans, which make up the base of the sea's food chain, are host to a wide array of bacteria living in their guts. Like cows, who use bacteria to break down cellulose in grass, zooplankton appear to digest their food in much the same way, producing considerable amounts of byproducts-including methane-that get released into the water column. Methane, like carbon dioxide, is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas that hastens global warming. The oceans are full of it.

Since the oceans cover three-quarters of the earth, their methane production is worth watching, says Proctor. But the literature is strangely silent on zooplankton guts and their effects on underwater biological processes, not to mention the atmosphere, or life on dry land. "It's very important from a biological standpoint to find out what kinds of microbes are in these zooplankton," Proctor says. "Then, from an oceanographic standpoint, the question is how much and where methane is produced in the water column. Since a little bit of methane goes a long way, we need to know where it's being produced."

The first order of business will be for Proctor's students to categorize the myriad microbes present in the complex, nutrient-rich environment inside a zooplankton's gut tract, and assess the effect of their activities on methane production in the ocean. Recent research in Proctor's lab has found evidence of anaerobic photosynthetic bacteria inside zooplankton guts-they get all the light they need through the orga-nism's translucent body walls. Who knows, she asks, what else is going on in those guts? "Even though we know a lot about the microbial ecology of free-floating ocean bacteria, we know almost nothing about the microbes inside zooplankton," Proctor says. "They may be an important but overlooked aspect of the carbon and nitrogen cycling in the oceans."

The ABCs of Weather-Watching

It took the Weather Channel to bring big-time meteorological science home. Now a Florida State-based effort is taking it to the schools. The three-year-old Florida EXPLORES!-Exploring and Learning the Operations and Resources of Environmental Satellites-makes weather satellite information available to Florida's public schools, the better to get the state's K-12 kids interested and involved in earth and space science and research. FSU meteorologists Drs. Kevin Kloesel and Paul Ruscher are the masterminds of what figures to be the largest and most successful outreach program of its kind.

Florida EXPLORES! began when the FSU meteorology department established a demonstrational network of four direct-readout weather satellite ground stations in 1992, thanks to funding from the Florida Technological Research and Development Authority (TRDA) and the Florida Department of Education.

Today 124 ground stations at high schools, middle schools and elementary schools across the state are networked to receive weather satellite images and curriculum ideas via the Florida Information Resource Network (FIRN). The multidisciplinary project provides teachers with direct readout of satellite images, weather maps and access to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Climatic Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Select teachers have already participated in suborbital and orbital payload design for flight on suborbital rockets and the space shuttle.

By all accounts, Florida EXPLORES! works. Several of its graduates-trained and highly motivated high school students sufficiently fired up about science and well-versed in scientific method-now work for Florida EXPLORES!.

"Our success is contagious," Kloesel says. "For the second consecutive year EXPLORES! teachers have won high honors in local, regional, state and national forums for integrating technology into their classrooms."

The wea-ther project also boasts a stellar Internet presence. Though university-oriented World Wide Web pa-ges are pretty much par for the course these days, Florida EXPLORES! takes high WWW honors, with a ranking in the top five percent of all web sites by Point Surveys. The organization rates new WWW sites by whether the information presented is thorough, up to date, accurate, visually interesting, easy to use, fun and worth the time. The Florida EXPLORES! page is a wonderland of weather buttons, including an interactive Florida weather map, links to satellite and radar data, the Weather Channel and the National Weather Service.

For information on how your school can participate, call Kloesel at (904) 644-1268

Sick Lake Syndrome

During the past year, FSU geologist Dr. Joe Donoghue has been studying a disappearing lake. Or rather, a lake that used to disappear. The lake is Lake Miccosukee, in eastern Leon County. Left to itself, the lake would periodically dry up-it's a large lake (about 6,300 acres) but averages only about six feet deep-and then fill back up again. But its vanishing act every decade or so didn't suit either fishermen or boaters, so in 1954 lake managers figured out a way to keep the lake full of water year round. To plug it up, they built a dam at the lake's outlet on the southern end and a dike around a large sinkhole in the northern part. The sinkhole had been acting as a drain. Periodically, the area's hydrologic system would "pull the plug" on the lake, a common occurrence in many North Florida lakes.

Today, as a result of that 40-year-old engineering trick, the lake is plagued with aquatic plants. Plants so thick, Dono-ghue said, that boats can't tra-verse it without help from periodic, mechanical harvesting of the grass. When the lake naturally drained, the aquatic plants would die and decompose in air. But without that periodic draining, Donoghue said, dead plant matter accumulated on the lake's floor where decomposition depleted the water's oxygen and caused fish-kills.

Officials have been obliged to "draw down," or partially drain, the lake by opening the dam twice since the structures were built-once in 1977 and again in late 1988.

Then in 1993, the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission provided Donog-hue with a $28,000 grant to determine what effect the tampering with nature was having, if any, on the chemistry of the lake's sediment. Along with FSU geologist Dr. Paul Ragland and three graduate students, Donoghue spent a year analyzing many sets of sediment samples collected from the lake's bottom. The team checked for 30 different types of metals-including zinc, mercury, copper and lead-in 27 different sediment cores. They also measured sedimentation rates in all of the cores, which helped establish a 500-year sedimentary history of the lake.

"We could see how the different levels of contaminants had changed over the years," Donoghue said. "We could see the concentrations increase at the top of the cores and see that the past few decades was the time that most of these metals were introduced...most likely by people."

Ultimately, Donoghue said, the FSU study will be used to help the state decide how to manage the lake and perhaps others around the state in similar predicaments. At Lake Miccosukee, officials have several options, says Donoghue. "They can continue to partially drain the lake every decade or so, or they can remove the two structures and let the lake disappear periodically as it has throughout its history. Or they can use a herbicide periodically to kill the plants or slow their growth."

If the lake was given a vote in the decision, it would probably opt to rid itself of the two structures that restrict its natural proclivities, Donoghue allows. "The lake would be probably better off in a natural state without interference from manmade structures. Back in 1950, we didn't really contemplate the effect that such measures would have on the environment."