USU's Science Unwrapped 'Goes to Extremes' Friday, April 17
Microbiologist Bonnie Baxter is featured Science Unwrapped speaker Friday, April 17, at 7 p.m. in USU's Eccles Science Learning Center Auditorium. Admission is free and all ages are welcome.
Utah’s Great Salt Lake is dropping toward a historic low, resulting in ever-higher salinity levels. Gunnison Bay, part of the lake’s north arm, is especially salty – some 10 times saltier than the ocean.
With an environment so extremely salty, nothing should be able to live there, right? Yet, extraordinary microbial communities actually thrive in “America’s Dead Sea.”
Friday, April 17, Utah State University welcomes Westminster College microbiologist Bonnie Baxter, who has long studied these ultra-hearty organisms. She presents “Going to Extremes: Exploring Extremophiles of the Great Salt Lake” at 7 p.m. in the Eccles Science Learning Center Emert Auditorium, Room 130, on campus.
Baxter is a professor in Westminster’s Department of Biology and director of the Great Salt Lake Institute. Her talk, free and open to all ages, is followed by hands-on learning activities, exhibits and refreshments.
Hosted by USU’s College of Science, Baxter’s presentation is the final of four presentations in Science Unwrapped’s spring 2015 “Great Salt Lake Today” series during the university’s “Year of Water.” In fall 2015, Science Unwrapped offers events Sept. 11, Oct. 9, and Nov. 6, during its upcoming “Bridging Troubled Waters” series.
“We welcome our community to experience these fascinating water series,” says Nancy Huntly, Science Unwrapped chair, director of USU’s Ecology Center, professor in the Department of Biology and co-director of ARTsySTEM. “Our presentations offer something for everyone.”
At this month’s event, children in grades K-5 are invited to take part in the “Science Unwrapped Challenge.” Attendees will receive instructions for solving a “brain teaser,” which includes the opportunity to win prizes.
For more information, call 435-797-3517, visit the Science Unwrapped website or view the ‘Science Unwrapped at USU’ Facebook page.
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Contact: Nancy Huntly, 435-797-2555, nancy.huntly@usu.edu
Writer: Mary-Ann Muffoletto, 435-797-3517, maryann.muffoletto@usu.edu
A gull rests on Gunnison Island in the hypersaline north arm of the Great Salt Lake. Biologist Bonnie Baxter will discuss 'extremophiles,' organisms that live in this super-salty environment April 17 at Science Unwrapped. Photo by Wayne Wurtsbaugh.
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