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Monday, January 22,1990
®| For the birds
A&M professor produces
radio show of bird sounds
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By STACY E. ALLEN
Of The Battalion Staff
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A new radio show produced by a
Texas A&M professor is for the
birds — or about them, actually.
Dr. Robert Benson in the engi
neering technology department is
the creator of “Bird Note”, a five
minute segment that airs Wednes
day mornings at 7:30 on KAMU-FM
and provides bird sounds and facts
to listeners. The program debuted
Wednesday.
Benson said the program is of
fered free to public broadcast sta
tions across the country.
“We wanted to test out the water
here locally and work the bugs out so
it will be better suited for the na
tional distribution efforts in a few
weeks,” he said.
Benson has been a professor in
the electronics group of engineering
technology at A&M since 1985. He
directs the A&M Bioacoustics Labo
ratory, which studies many different
types of sounds.
“The purpose of offering this
program is to make the bioacoustics
lab at A&M known across the coun
try,” Benson said.
A 1980 survey by the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service found that 60
million people are casual bird watch
ers and 7 million people can identify
at least 40 species or more by sight.
Benson said this shows that bird
watching is one of the fastest grow
ing recreations in the country.
“I’m very optimistic that the show
will be successful,” said Benson.
“I
I’m very optimistic that
the show will be
successful. ‘Bird Note’ is
not technical, but is
designed for those who
have chosen bird watching
as a hobby.”
— Dr. Robert Benson,
A&M Professor
“There’s a large audience out there
for this type of program. ‘Bird Note’
is not technical, but is designed for
those who have chosen bird watch
ing as a hobby.”
Although Benson records most of
the bird sounds heard on the pro
gram himself, he has access to other
sources if he needs them. He trav
eled to Central Mexico over the
Christmas break to record bird
sounds, but he gets most of his ani
mal sounds from different places in
the United States. He said he carries
recording equipment everywhere he
goes.
His interest in birds and wildlife
goes back to his junior high years
when he saw a book on birds in the
school library.
“On the way home that afternoon,
I was able to identify some common
birds from pictures in the book,”
Benson said. “After that, it became a
game to see how many birds I could
find and identify.”
Although the bioacoustics lab at
A&M hopes to gain nationwide rec
ognition through bird sounds, birds
are not the only sounds the lab re
cords and studies.
An ongoing project that Benson is
working on is developing a new di
agnostic tool to discover coronary ar
tery disease in individuals without
actually going inside the body. The
diagnosis would be based on sounds
that are produced by blood flowing
through the obstructive arteries.
The lab also studies many differ
ent types of animals and is conduct
ing a study on highway traffic that
will enable highway departments to
build better highways.
Art for nature lovers
Exhibit features works with organic themes
By SELINA GONZALEZ
Of The Battalion Staff
The art exhibit “Organic Abs
tractions” offers students a study
distraction.
The art show, sponsored by the
Texas A&M Office of University
Art Collections and Exhibitions,
is on display in the Rudder Ex
hibit Hall until Feb. 17 from 8
a.m. to 11 p.m.
“Abstraction is a very well-
known style,” Catherine Hastedt,
registrar curator, said. “The cho
sen works are abstractions based
on organic themes.”
Examples of organic art are
works in human or floral form,
Hastedt said. The artists in this
exhibit used several mediums,
such as wood, granite, glass, steel
and oil.
“One main goal of the exhibi
tion is to stress the learning as
pect,” Hastedt said. “The more
you study it (the exhibition), the
more you get out of it.”
Some of the artists whose work
will be displayed are Texans Do
rothy Hood and James Surls as
well as Joan Miro and Dick Ray.
Hermona A. Dayag, former di
rector of the Office of University
Art Collections and Exhibitions,
Joan Miro. Untitled. 1948 lithograph on paper from the “Organic
Extractions” exhibit on display in Rudder Exhibit Hall.
developed the idea for “Organic
Abstractions.”
Creative volunteers who have
studied the show and the artists
offer tours for more than four
people of “Organic Abstractions.”
To make an appointment, call
845-8501.
The Office of University Art
Collections and Exhibitions has
scheduled the annual show enti
tled “Perceptions 90” for the
spring. The show is composed of
selections from A&M’s perma
nent collection, Hastedt said. Stu
dents from an advanced floral de
sign course will do floral
interpretations of the paintings.
Texas’ senators seek funds for state
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Congress re
convenes Tuesday for the year, Texas’ two U.S.
I senators will be pushing for more super collider
money, fighting for tax incentives for the oil and
gas industry and seeking to cushion the state’s
military establishment from a slowdown in de
fense spending.
Sens. Lloyd Bentsen and Phil Gramm also
want extra money to fight illegal drugs along the
Texas-Mexico border and to create more federal
judgeships in the region. They’ll be looking, too,
for ways to protect Texas hospitals from poten
tially devastating reductions in Medicare spend
ing and to curb illegal immigration along the bor-
j der. /,
Much of their job in the. year ahead will he pro
tecting the state’s sharejpf the federal spending
pie — including such high-dollar projects as Se-
matech, a Pentagon-industry semiconductor re
search consortium in Austin; the $5.9 billion su
per collider, which is to be built in Ellis County;
and the space station, which is being built in part
in Houston.
Both expect challenges to those projects, espe
cially if the super collider’s price tag rises to $7
billion, which is what scientists say it would now
take to build the particle accelerator as large and
as powerful as originally envisioned.
President Bush is expected to ask Congress
this week for about $395 million for the collider,
up from the $225 million appropriated last year
to begin construction at the Waxahachie site.
T he Energy Department abo will announce,
possibly this week, whether it agrees wi(h a panel
of leading physicists that the collider should be
built as planned, despite a cost increase.
The higher price tag, however, could give op
ponents the ammunition they’ve been looking
for to kill the project. Some say the collider will
rob worthy scientific projects of funding as more
money is spent each year to build the world’s big
gest scientific instrument.
“It’s going to be tough this year,” Bentsen, a
Democrat, said of the fight over collider spend
ing. “You can bet it’s going to be tough.” .
Bentsen also is wary of challenges from the ad
ministration and Congress to Sematech and the
space station, as well as a host of Pentagon pro
jects with important links to Texas — the V-22
Osprey aircraft, the B-2 stealth bomber and the
rail-based MX missile.
Professor emeritus dies
at age 95; funeral today
A Texas A&M professor emeritus
of soil and crop sciences died Friday
in a local hospital.
Dr. Luther Goodrich Jones, 95,
taught at A&M from 1926 to 1952.
Jones, who was born in Temple,
graduated from Princeton Univer
sity in 1917. He served in the U.S.
Army in Europe during World War
I. He came to A&M in 1920 and
earned his master’s degree here in
1921. Jones earned his doctorate
fronrCornell University.
Jones returned to College Station
in 1926 to teach agronomy at A&M.
He served on the first College Sta
tion City Council in 1937 and on the
board of trustees for the College Sta
tion school district. He helped form
the College Station State Bank, now
University National Bank, in 1946
and served as its first president.
Funeral services for Jones are
scheduled for 2 p.m. today at A&M
Presbyterian Church.
Memorials may be made to the
Brazos Valley Rehabilitation Center
in Bryan or the Luther Goodrich
Jones Agronomy Scholarship fund
at A&M.
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