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A bluebird perched on a side-view mirror was one of 78 species of bird counted in BioBlitz 2006. Photograph by Jennifer Menken, Bell Museum of Natural History

Hear the word biodiversity and you probably think of a rainforest or wilderness. Start thinking about your own backyard too. BioBlitz 2006, held this year in May and co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History, helped participants do just that.

Part contest, part festival, and part scientific experiment, BioBlitz 2006 brought together 40 researchers and 100 volunteers in a 24-hour pursuit to document as many species of plants and animals as possible on the St. Paul campus and adjacent areas. Eighty-two households in the area registered their yards as official BioBlitz sites, allowing researchers literally to discover what species could be found there, as well as in public sites.

Armed with sonar detectors, bug lights, live traps, and laptops, BioBlitzers identified more than 875 plant and animal species, including: 437 plant species, the majority of which were native plants; 232 species of insects; 78 species of birds, including 8 types of sparrow, along with Tennessee, Mourning, and Chestnut-sided warblers; 54 fungus species; two fish, two reptiles, and three amphibian species; 18 spider species; three mollusk species; and eight other invertebrates. Among the native plants, many were uncommon varieties that are part of homeowners’ efforts to restore the woodland diversity that has been devastated by deer and invasive earthworms.

Among the most notable finds were several plant species that historically have not been able to survive Minnesota winters, including a tulip tree and Ohio Buckeye seedlings. Researchers believe that the presence of these plants, which are not supposed to be hardy in Minnesota, is a harbinger of climate change.

Sick of bad health

Zha Blong Xiong, photograph by Bill Alkofer

reporting? The School of Journalism and Mass Communication has partnered with the Boston-based Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making to launch www.HealthNewsReview.org, the first online service in the United States designed to help journalists and consumers sift through health-care news articles that make claims about treatments and procedures. Articles are evaluated by professionals with expertise in journalism, medicine, public health, and health services research, and each article is graded on accuracy, balance, and completeness. News stories are taken from the top 50 circulation newspapers, major broadcast media, weekly news magazines, and wire services.

U sociology professor Zha Blong Xiong (M.A. ’97, Ph.D. ’00) has become the nation’s first Hmong professor to attain tenure at a research university. Xiong, age 39, teaches sociology in the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning (formerly General College). Xiong began teaching in General College in 2002 and specializes in parent/adolescent relationships in immigrant families, adolescent adjustment, and parent education. He earned his Ph.D. in family social science from the U just 18 years after his family fled Laos. Xiong’s research projects have included a study of why some siblings in a Hmong family become juvenile delinquents and others don’t. He also co-authored the curriculum “Helping Youth Succeed: Bicultural Parenting in Southeast Asian Families,” which has been translated into Hmong, Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian.

The state of Minnesota has a new state fruit, thanks to researchers at the University of Minnesota and the plucky persistence of a fifth-grade class.

Last year, students in Bayport,

Photograph Courtesy of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station

Minnesota, began lobbying their local legislators to introduce a bill designating the Honeycrisp apple the state fruit. The 2006 legislature passed the measure, and it was signed into law by Governor Tim Pawlenty (B.A. ’83, J.D. ’86) in May.

The Honeycrisp was developed by University Agricultural Experiment Station researchers Jim Luby and David Bedford, and was introduced to the public in 1991. It has become wildly popular with consumers for its sweet, tart crispness and with growers for its hardy constitution. In recent years, it replaced the Haralson as the state’s best-selling apple. This spring, the Association of University Technology Managers, a nonprofit group dedicated to advancing academic and nonprofit research, named the Honeycrisp one of 25 innovations that changed the world. The association praised the apple for helping small, family-run growers in the northern tier become competitive and profitable in the apple market.

In addition to Honeycrisp, the University has developed many other apple varieties, including Fireside, Regent, State Fair, Honeygold, Zestar!, and Snowsweet.

“My goal was to get my degree before I die. So I thought, OK, if I get across the stage and I keel over, that’s OK. But then I was thinking I’d like to wait till after dinner.”

—New University graduate Karlyce Pestello, age 63, who has been working toward her bachelor’s degree for three decades, in between raising three children and serving in the military.

“[The male] will most certainly attract another female. Hopefully, it will be one with a better attitude.”

—Patrick Redig, director of the University’s Raptor Center, on possibly removing a female peregrine falcon in Sartell, Minnesota, that is protecting her nest of three fledglings by attacking passersby.