ND makes silk worm discovery
A collaborative research effort successfully produced transgenic silkworms capable of spinning artificial spider silks — a breakthrough that will lead to medical and non-medical applications, the University announced at a press conference Wednesday morning. “The generation of silk fibers having the properties of spider silks has been one of the important goals in materials science,” Malcolm Fraser, professor of biological sciences, said. “It’s definitely a very exciting day at Notre Dame.” Notre Dame worked with the University of Wyoming and biotechnology company Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc. on the research. Spider silk is known for its strength, flexibility and toughness. It can be used for fine suture materials, improved wound healing bandages and natural scaffolds for tendon and ligament repair or replacement, Fraser said. “Silk fibers have a whole host of applications in the biomedical realm,” he said. Spider silk fibers can also have other, non-biomedical uses, and could possibly be used in bulletproof vests, strong and lightweight structural fabrics, improved automobile airbags and athletic clothing, a University press release said. “With this breakthrough, it is now possible to make spider silk in large quantities and make it commercially usable,” Fraser said. Fraser used the powerful genetic engineering tool, piggyBac, to incorporate the DNA of spiders into genetically engineered silkworms. “Several years ago, we discovered that the piggyBac transposon could be useful for genetic engineering of the silkworm,” he said. “The possibilities for using this commercial protein production platform began to become apparent.” The genetically engineered silk protein produced by the transgenic silkworms is comparable to the strength of natural spider silk, Fraser said. “We’ve also made strides in improving the process of genetic engineering of these animals so that the development of additional transgenics is facilitated,” he said. “This will allow us to more rapidly assess the effectiveness of our gene manipulations in continued development of specialized silk fibers.” Kraig Biocraft CEO Kim Thompson, also at the press conference, said his company was honored to be involved. “I believe this breakthrough establishes Notre Dame, Kraig Biocraft and University of Wyoming as world leaders,” Thompson said.
The Shirt Project, founded by alumnus Brennan Harvath in the spring of 1990, is celebrating its 25th year with a new design, unique festivities and a Notre Dame Marching Band tribute.The Shirt Project is a student-run organization that creates the t-shirt worn by the Notre Dame student section at home football games, as well as by a myriad of fans and alumni. President of The Shirt Project, senior John Wetzel, said almost every student wears The Shirt to all Notre Dame football games, uniting the entire student body in a single color. According to The Shirt’s webpage, “The Shirt can be seen as a common thread uniting not only the students, but all fans in one solid color. A sea of same-colored Shirts gives the opposing team a ‘twelfth man’ to fear.”Wei Lin | The Observer Wetzel said the project, which started as a way to raise money for Notre Dame’s annual spring festival, AnTostal, now funds the Student Union Endowment, the Rector Fund and The Shirt Charity Fund.Past Shirts have used different shades of green and blue a combined 23 times, while there have been only two gold shirts, Wetzel said.To commemorate the 25th anniversary, The Shirt committee made several changes to this year’s design. This year’s Shirt featuring a new blend of fabric, 60 percent cotton and 40 percent polyester, giving it a heathered look of a “blue-grey October Sky,” according to The Shirt’s webpage. A picture of the band also made its Shirt debut, replacing traditional Shirt images of Notre Dame football legends.For the last five years, over 150 thousand The Shirts have sold annually, including 156 thousand Shirts last year. The highest total came in 2011 when 165 thousand were sold. Since The Shirt’s debut in 1990, more than 2.1 million total have been sold. Wetzel said it is the largest single selling piece of collegiate apparel in the nation.This past year, The Shirt Project raised over $750,000 for its charities. Over the last 25 years, the shirt has raised $8.5 million for students at the University, Wetzel said.“Our sales are doing great this year, but we always need all the support we can get from the community,” Wetzel said.“The significance of the 25-year history of The Shirt is the story of a charity program that has grown and thrived because of the community here at the University of Notre Dame,” he said. “Other universities have tried to emulate our program, but none have had nearly close to the amount of success as we have had, and I believe it can be attributed to the community here at the University of Notre Dame. Over the past 25 years, many students and advisers have worked tirelessly to ensure that success and growth year after year.”Wetzel said the 25th-anniversary celebration will include several unique events this weekend, including a tribute from the Notre Dame band.“[The Shirt committee has] invited back all previous presidents and advisers of The Shirt [back to] campus for special reception,” he said. “We will also be speaking at the Football Friday luncheon, where we will debut our new history celebratory video, and we will be honored at the pep rally, where all attending previous presidents will be wearing The Shirt from their year on stage. In addition, all 32oz. cups in the stadium will feature the design of The Shirt, and the Notre Dame Marching Band will be doing a special tribute before going into its scheduled halftime show.”Beyond the success of The Shirt, Wetzel said working on the committee has been a highlight of his Notre Dame experience.“Serving as a member of The Shirt [planning] committee is an extreme privilege,” Wetzel said. “I’m lucky to be surrounded by great group of hard-working students who spend tons of time creating a product that will fund all the wonderful things the rest of the University’s students are able to do. It’s extremely gratifying not only to see the product of your work worn by students all over campus but to see what those students are able to achieve in their clubs and organizations with the money that product raised.”Tags: The Shirt Project
MICHAEL YU | The Observer The Notre Dame campus community gained two new homes this year, with the opening of Dunne and Flaherty Halls. As these are the first new residence halls built since Ryan Hall in 2009, “this is an exciting time for the University,” associate vice president for residential life Heather Rakoczy Russell said.“Our undergraduate residential system is such a treasured and distinctive component of a Notre Dame education — and here we are, adding two new halls to this unique tradition,” Rakoczy Russell said in an email. “These halls are set to impact generations of Notre Dame students, and this year will be very formative in the way in which these communities are launched.”Each dorm features a combination of singles, doubles and quads, while Dunne Hall, the new men’s hall, also contains six-person rooms, Rakoczy Russell said. “Half of each first floor will be devoted to community spaces, centered around a two-story floor lounge, reading room, study areas and the chapel,” she said. “Additional community spaces include pass-through floor lounges on second, third and fourth floors, designed and placed to encourage gathering in community spaces.”Flaherty Hall, the new women’s hall, features kitchens on every floor, Rakoczy Russell said, while Dunne houses one full kitchen and three kitchenettes adjoined to the floor lounges, plus food sales in the basement.Additionally, chapels in both halls are visible from the exterior of the building. “This signals that faith plays a key role in community building here at Notre Dame. Dunne’s chapel is named after Blessed Basil Moreau, C.S.C. and Flaherty’s chapel is named for Mary, Queen of Angels,” Rakoczy Russell said. As a result of a pilot program in Lyons Hall, Drs. John and Karen Deak will be joining the Dunne Hall community as the second lay faculty in residence, Rakoczy Russell said. “They will be residing in Dunne’s first-floor apartment and will continue to work to further refine this new role as it complements our hall staff and our many priests-in-residence,” she said. “We believe these generous faculty members will continue the tradition of ‘bachelor dons,’ [faculty members] who resided in halls at periods in the University’s history, and that the presence of faculty, both lay and ordained, will help our students thoughtfully integrate their academic lives with the formation that occurs in our residence halls.”According to Karen Kennedy, director of housing, both halls received typical proportions of new transfer students and first-year residents. “To fill Flaherty Hall, residents who were living in Pangborn, or who had lived in Pangborn before going abroad, were automatically eligible for room picks in Flaherty Hall, and other undergraduate women were able to apply to transfer to Flaherty through the interhall application process, which coincides with the typical housing renewal process in February and March,” Kennedy said. Undergraduate men were able to apply to transfer to Dunne through the interhall application process as well, Kennedy said. “It is our hope that these processes, which were designed to ensure diverse communities in the new halls across a variety of demographics and to assist with remedying overcrowding in other halls across campus, have Dunne and Flaherty well-poised for the task of building community and establishing identity and culture in their first year and beyond,” she said. Fr. Matthew Kuczora will assume the rector role in Dunne Hall. “I’m most excited about the chance to build a brand new community from the ground up,” Kuczora said. “One of the most distinct things about residential life at Notre Dame is our dorm system. The bonds formed there last a lifetime.”Kuczora previously served as rector of Carroll Hall and as a priest-in-residence of St. Edward’s Hall. “I’m really looking forward to creating our own traditions that will last for generations of students to come,” Kuczora said. “A major challenge we’ll face right away is that we’re really starting without much of a base. I don’t see that lasting long though.”Fifth year Tom Nye will serve as a resident assistant in Dunne Hall this coming year. “A new residence hall offers a huge opportunity to establish new traditions, plan unique events and shape a welcoming community,” Nye said. “I am most looking forward to turning this new building into a home. I have greatly enjoyed my time in ND residence halls and I am hoping to make sure Dunne Hall contributes to the great legacy of residence halls here on campus.”Nye said the Dunne Hall mascot, dorm colors and dorm government will be chosen sometime in the fall by a dorm-wide vote. “This year we will be forming a new dorm identity with contributions from the many upperclassmen joining from other residence halls, as well as a large group of first year and transfer students. Each resident will have to bring fresh ideas and the best of their respective former halls,” Nye said. Flaherty Hall chose their dorm colors last spring, but will chose their mascot sometime this fall, according to hall president Jessica Zlaket. “I’m looking forward to the huge sense of excitement I know all of the girls are going to have — that goes for returners, newbies and freshmen alike,” Zlaket said. “I know that the dorm is going to be buzzing with energy and that makes everything easier.”Zlaket said she hopes to create a community focused on spirit and sisterhood.“I know that sounds really cliche, but when it comes down to it, my main goal is that Flaherty Hall becomes a family within a family and a home within a home here on campus,” Zlaket said. Tags: dunne hall, flaherty hall, Freshman Orientation 2016, Office of Housing, residence halls, Residence Life
Sophomore Christina Murray of Welsh Family Hall was crowned Miss ND in O’Neill Hall’s signature event Thursday evening.The annual pageant supports South Bend’s Center for the Homeless. The organization, founded in 1988 by two Notre Dame faculty members, seeks to meet the immediate needs of the homeless while preparing them for future success.According to the pageant’s program, the Center assists “its 200 or more homeless men, women, mothers with children and military veterans [to] break the cycle of homelessness and poverty in which they find themselves.”“The shelter does not only shelter the homeless temporarily … they also set them up for success so that they’re no longer in that position,” junior Nick Martinez, the event’s organizer, said.Last year’s Miss ND pageant raised $1,400 for the shelter, and Martinez hoped that this year would raise even more for the shelter.The pageant itself was hosted by sophomores Brendan Kopf and Andrew Looney, both residents of O’Neill Hall, and included volunteer contestants from each female residence dorm. After being given the opportunity to show off their individual talents, they were then judged by a panel of four celebrity judges.This year’s panel included South Hall Dining monitor Pam Hardy Jobin, junior Jerry Tillery — an O’Neill Hall resident and Notre Dame football player — Miss South Bend 2016 Gina Klingel (’14) and sophomore Madelyn Steurer, who holds the title of Miss Great Lakes 2018.Some of the talents performed by this year’s contestants included the ability to post on Facebook, performed by junior Emily Aberle of Flaherty Hall, catching food in one’s mouth — a skill that became progressively more impressive as the food graduated to larger objects such as broccoli — by sophomore TC Burrows of Lewis Hall and a pair of stand-up comedy routines by sophomores Anne Jarrett of Howard Hall and Mary K Wentzel of McGlinn Hall.Martinez said the emphasis on the talent segment of the pageant is important to assuring that the pageant doesn’t suffer any of stigmatization common in pageants.“When you hear pageant, you think of big fancy dresses, heels, walking and strutting down the runway,” he said. “We don’t do anything of that sort. We encourage the girls to do whatever they’re comfortable with. We tell them all that it’s absolutely their choice whatever they want to come out wearing and do as their talent. That’s kind of how we shift away from [the stigma of pageants] and highlight some cool talents we have on campus.”Martinez said although not all the talents performed were traditional, they were all praiseworthy because of the confidence required to perform them on stage.“Coming out here alone is a talent enough,” he said. “Being able to give up some of your pride, maybe make a fool of yourself on that stage to try to help raise some money for some vulnerable people who live down the street from us, that’s really amazing.”Following the talent show portion of the event, the judges chose three contestants to move on to a question and answer portion. The first round of questions was directed towards Burrows.When asked how she embodies the spirit of Miss ND, Burrows said “I’m goofy, I’m positive — that’s Notre Dame.”Next for questioning was junior Gemma Stanton of Farley Hall. Stanton, who had played the fiddle as her talent, was asked, among other things, to identify on a diagram what the heart does in the body. Stanton responded that the heart oxygenates the blood, but her answer was incorrect, as the hosts announced that the correct answer was that the heart “loves.”The final questions were for Murray, who had performed a baton twirling routine. Murray said in response to a question that she hoped her legacy would be her baton twirling and then formed a kneeling pyramid with the event’s hosts.After discussion between the judges, Murray was crowned Miss ND 2018. Jobin said she was impressed by Murray’s performance and overall presentation, and looks forward to returning for next year’s pageant.“The way she dressed when she came out, how she was organized — she was really good,” she said. “This is my third year and I just love [the pageant], and I’ll threaten [O’Neill Hall] to do it again next year.”Murray said she was happy to receive the title of Miss ND and enjoyed being able to share her baton twirling with those in attendance.“It feels fantastic. I’m so glad that the judges chose me to get this title. It’s really an honor,” she said. “I love baton twirling and I’m so glad that I could give my talents to everyone and I’m glad that everyone like it. It was a great audience.”Tags: Miss ND, Miss ND Pageant, O’Neill Hall, South Bend Center for the Homeless, Washington Hall
Professor Douglas Tyler gave his “Introduction to Digital Photography” students a simple instruction: Construct a diary illustrating daily life through a camera lens. The result was “Digital Diaries,” an exhibit on display since mid-February in the Saint Mary’s Cushwa-Leighton Library that explores the mundanities of everyday life through a digital photography series. Tyler said his students are working with diaries in part because his course integrates women’s voices, and women have a strong voice in that area of literature. Ann Curtis | The Observer Student photography is displayed in the Cushwa-Leighton Library as part of the “Digital Diaries” series. The work of students taking Introduction to Digital Photography has been on display since mid–February.“The assignment also allows students to equate actions in the area of literature with actions in the arena of the visual arts — both seek to express themselves through images,” Tyler said in an email. “The final project for the students is presented on their personal website and is intended to broaden the students’ appreciation for the multiplicity of presentation modes available to contemporary photographers.” This exhibition allows digital photography students to share their thoughts and expressions with others, hopefully enriching the lives of viewers and exposing the fundamental truths that lie within the images, Tyler said. “Art is of little value in a closet,” Tyler said. “Putting one’s ideas … on public display involves risk. What will others say or think about my work? The mere act of exhibiting [the students’] work is intended to build confidence in the inherent significance of their images.”Fourteen students contributed to this series, submitting photography selected from their individual diary collections. Junior Haley Crnarich said she snapped a photo of a an icy branch that caught her eye while walking to Holy Cross Hall. She said her submission, “Icy,” encourages viewers to be more aware of their surroundings, as there is so much beauty to be seen and highlighted through art. “My photo captures the importance of taking time out of our busy days to simply focus on what is around us. Most of the time — even when walking to class — we are so occupied with what is on our phones that we miss the simple beauty that we pass up on our everyday routes,” Crnarich said in an email. “I invite us to live in the moment and celebrate the nature surrounding us.”Crnarich said she was especially proud of the fact that her photo was displayed because she loves showcasing her work on campus, allowing others to see the work and time invested in creating the exhibit.“It feels great to pass by my photo and think, ‘Hey, my hard work pays off.’” Crnarich said. Sophomore Megan Gallegos said her photo, “La Panaderia,” was taken while she shared her heritage with her roommate. This engaging moment between friends captures Gallegos’ overall theme of finding beauty in simplicity, she said. “The everyday adventures should be celebrated,” Gallegos said in an email. “You may not appreciate them now, but later on when you think of everything you have been able to see and do, those small things mean the world.”Gallegos said that putting her mixed background — something she normally considers private — on display was nerve–wracking, but she was excited to share part of herself with the Saint Mary’s community.“The worst critic you can ever have is yourself because you can spend two hours completely destroying something that others see as beautiful and wonderful. … To hear that positive feedback makes you feel like you can do anything,” Gallegos said.Tags: Cushwa-Leighton Library, Digital Diaries, Heritage, photography, saint mary’s
Italian studies students can be spotted across campus during Dante Now! at 2:30 p.m. Friday wearing maroon Dante hats and gold laurel crowns reciting passages of the “Divine Comedy” in Italian. The celebration of Dante’s literature begins with a lecture by professor Christian Moevs at 2 p.m.“It’s a brief talk, about 20 minutes, on how to read Dante,” he said. “So if you approach this text, how do you actually understand what it’s really doing and why it’s so transformative because you can read it on the surface, and it’s going to be a great text. But if you start asking the right questions, it explodes and becomes incredibly powerful and revalatory.”After the lecture and performances around campus, the students reconvene all together at the Grotto to recite the last passage of the “Divine Comedy,” a prayer to the Virgin Mary. For the first time this year, students studying abroad at the Rome Global Gateway (RGG) are participating in Dante Now! as well.They are video conferencing in for the lecture, as well as reciting the same passages around the Celio neighborhood and local basilicas. “Among the many Dantean initiatives at ND, Dante Now! has become a real tradition gathering students, faculty and visitors for a couple of hours of readings and lectures through campus,” Chiara Sbordoni, Italian language professor at the RGG, said in an email. “Thus, Rome has asked to join Dante Now! as part of the Notre Dame community temporarily abroad, with the hope to contribute from here to the spirit of the initiative, the celebration of Dante.”Dante Now! is a celebration for more than just Italian students. Professor Alessia Blad, coordinator for Italian language courses at Notre Dame, said the event’s goal is to encourage people to read “The Divine Comedy.”“Our goal is to have people outside of our Italian group to understand that [The Divine Comedy] is worth looking at and reading,” she said. “We do it over a home football weekend so we can reach out to visitors, tourists and a lot of people read with us.”Similarly, at the Rome Global Gateway, they are opening their doors to neighbors and elementary school students during their performance, Sbordoni said.“I met with students to practice the readings and involved a group of Italian elementary school children who will take part in the initiative approaching Dante’s ‘Commedia’ for the first time: colleagues at the RGG will help the kids create their own hats to participate in the readings,” she said. “The RGG also decided to open the gate of the Villa to our neighbors in the hope that the people who live at the Celio will join us for the readings.”The study of Dante and his works have been taught at Notre Dame almost since its inception, Moevs said. Around the year 1900, Fr. John Zahm started a Dante collection because he believed the study of Dante should be core to Notre Dame’s curriculum, Moevs said,“Dante brought together and presented the full vision of what Catholic understanding is in the most powerful and the most profound form possible,” he said.Dante Now! is about more than just a one hour parade across campus. The celebration is meant to raise awareness as to how Dante and his works still pertain to life today, 700 years after he wrote it, Blad said.“[Dante teaches] the importance of community and the importance of reflection, slowing down. Instead of being in this rat race and always thinking about the next thing, the next job, the next internship, Dante gives us a chance to reflect,” she said.Tags: Dante, Dante Now, Italian, Rome Global Gateway
Special Olympics Notre Dame is a club on campus that provides opportunities for people with special needs to gain not only athletic skills but also social skills.“A lot of what we try to do is getting students of Notre Dame engaged with the athletes in the surrounding community,” sophomore Kristina Kane, communication and outreach of Special Olympics, said. “It’s so much fun for both the students and the athletes to be able to build relationships with each other and have fun playing sports.”Special Olympics hosts practices twice a week. They practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays for soccer during the fall season and Sundays and Wednesdays for basketball during the winter season. “We always have soccer, basketball and football in addition to sometimes helping with swimming,” junior Ellie Olmanson, co-president of the Special Olympics Notre Dame, said. “And we look into events of different varsity sports teams or club teams such as frisbee, golf, track and field. We’re also looking into doing a Zumba event.”The founding of Special Olympics has to do with a United States national campaign called Spread the Word to End the Word. Founded in February 2009, the campaign encourages people to pledge to stop using the word retard. “The person who started that campaign went to Notre Dame,” Olmanson said. “The campaign is trying to advocate for kindness and equality for people with special needs and to not put them in a discriminatory place with using the word retarded to describe something as stupid.”Special Olympics club connects with organizations both on and off campus, like Best Buddies Notre Dame, Special Olympics Indiana and St. Joseph County Special Olympics, to provide the athletes with different opportunities. “We’re looking forward to a special needs panel, trying to get a conglomerate of all the special needs clubs here at Notre Dame, and the different opportunities in the community,” Olmanson said. The club traveled to the University of Michigan the weekend of Oct. 25 for a football game event. “This is actually our second time doing the event,” Olmanson said. “We did this last year at Notre Dame because when Notre Dame and Michigan played, it was here at home. So we tried to continue the tradition by doing it there.”The age of athletes participating in the Special Olympics ranges from kids in middle school to people in their 40s and beyond. “I really love watching the men’s soccer team interact with athletes because athletes are so starstruck to be playing with the Notre Dame men’s soccer team,” Kane said. Olmanson is impressed with how much the athletes were able to grow and mature through Special Olympics. She said she helped one girl gain confidence by encouragement. “During a basketball season, this girl came for the first time and she had a deformed arm,” Olmanson said. “And she was probably in middle school, elementary school age so she was a little nervous to be with everyone. Because of her arm, she was nervous to shoot, but I said, ‘The best shooters only shoot with one arm and you’re ahead of the game.’”Special Olympics Notre Dame creates a supportive and mutually rewarding environment, members of the club emphasized. Olmanson said they feel appreciative of the relationships the club has allowed them to form.“The relationships formed carry out beyond the daily interactions and could grow the confidence of one person which has the butterfly effect that can expand beyond comprehension,” Olmanson said. “I think that’s such a good way to break barriers and to advance everyone who’s a part of it.”Special Olympics Notre Dame looks forward to having new members join. Students can participate in weekly practices by emailing sond@nd.edu. “There’s no pressure to always come,” Olmanson said. ”We love seeing new faces every time. Our athletes love seeing new volunteers and making those relationships.”Tags: athletics department, Special Olympics
Share:Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) JAMESTOWN – Two people are facing charges in connection with a Tuesday evening burglary at Digitell in Downtown Jamestown.Jamestown Police say Bryan Novaro, 29, and Anthony Lackner, 24, allegedly stole more than $20,000 in computers and accessories.Police say the duo was captured on surveillance video entering then exiting the business with the electronics. Officers say Novaro was located walking with a stolen laptop on North Main Street.Lackner was arrested at an address on Franklin Street.Investigators believe there are still multiple laptop computers missing, with brand names of “System 76,” “MSI” and “Eurocom.”Anyone who may have come into possession of the laptops are asked to contact Jamestown Police to have it turned in without prosecution.Those later found in possession of the items will likely be charged in addition to Novaro and Lackner.Both are charged with third-degree burglary and grand larceny.
Share:Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) Image via the United Refining Company / KwikFill.com.FREWSBURG — The Frewsburg Kwik Fill will not be selling gasoline for the next several weeks because of construction at the business.According to a sign posted at the station, the location will be under construction as they upgrade the lot, pump islands, fuel dispensers and install a new canopy.As a result, parking will be limited, and the store will be unable to offer fuel.The Kwik Fill is directing customers to its Foote Avenue extension location for petrol. The store will remain open for all inside sales, but may be closed down for the first few days of construction.
Pexels Stock Image.BUFFALO (AP) — Some Erie County restaurants that had filed a lawsuit against New York state over a coronavirus restriction that bans indoor dining got a preliminary injunction on Wednesday against it being enforced.State Supreme Court Justice Henry Nowak ruled the restaurants could go back to the limited indoor dining rules that went into effect when Gov. Andrew Cuomo designated the county as a “yellow zone” in terms of virus spread, instead of the stricter “orange zone” rules that forbid indoor service.Nowak said he could not “find evidence that the state had a rational basis to designate portions of Erie County as an orange zone” and that the restaurants would suffer “irreparable harm” without the injunction.The governor’s office said the ruling was being reviewed. The parties will have to go back to court to determine if the injunction will become permanent. Share:Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)