In North America, terrestrial records of biodiversity and climate change that span Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 are rare. Where found, they provide insight into how the coupling of the ocean–atmosphere system is manifested in biotic and environmental records and how the biosphere responds to climate change. In 2010–2011, construction at Ziegler Reservoir near Snowmass Village, Colorado (USA) revealed a nearly continuous, lacustrine/wetland sedimentary sequence that preserved evidence of past plant communities between ~140 and 55 ka, including all of MIS 5. At an elevation of 2705 m, the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site also contained thousands of well-preserved bones of late Pleistocene megafauna, including mastodons, mammoths, ground sloths, horses, camels, deer, bison, black bear, coyotes, and bighorn sheep. In addition, the site contained more than 26,000 bones from at least 30 species of small animals including salamanders, otters, muskrats, minks, rabbits, beavers, frogs, lizards, snakes, fish, and birds. The combination of macro- and micro-vertebrates, invertebrates, terrestrial and aquatic plant macrofossils, a detailed pollen record, and a robust, directly dated stratigraphic framework shows that high-elevation ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado are climatically sensitive and varied dramatically throughout MIS 5.

The Women in Materials (WIM) program is an on-going collaboration between Simmons College and the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR). Beginning in 2001, during the initial four years of the project, materials-related curricula were developed, a new joint research project was begun, and nearly 1/2 of Simmons College science majors participated in materials-related research during their first two years as undergraduates. We have previously reported the student outcomes as a result of this initial stage of the project, demonstrating a successful partnership between a primarily undergraduate women's college and a federally funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. Here, we report the evolution and impact of this project over the last three years, subsequent to the initial seed funding from the National Science Foundation. The Women in Materials project is now a key feature of the undergraduate science program at Simmons College and has developed into an organizing structure for materials-related research at the College. Initially, three faculty members were involved and now eight faculty members from all three laboratory science departments participate (biology, chemistry, and physics). The program now involves research related to optoelectronics, polymer synthesis, biomaterials, and green chemistry, and each semester about 80% of the students who participate in these projects are 1st and 2nd year science majors. This structure has led to enhanced funding within the sciences, shared instrumentation facilities, a new minor in materials science, and a spirit of collaboration among science faculty and departments. It has also spawned a new, innovative curricular initiative, the Undergraduate Laboratory Renaissance, now in its second year of implementation, involving all three laboratory science departments in incorporating actual, on-going research projects into introductory and intermediate science laboratories. Most importantly, the Women in Materials program has embedded materials-related research into our science curriculum and has deepened and broadened the educational experience for our students; the student outcomes speak to the program's success. Approximately 70% of our science majors go on to graduate school within two years of completing their undergraduate degree. Our students also have a high acceptance rate at highly competitive summer research programs, such as Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs funded by the National Science Foundation.

We have fabricated ordered arrays of gold nanocrystals on FIB-processed silicon substrates using electroless deposition. We have also fabricated ordered arrays of silver nanocrystals on silicon with diameters 40–60 nm separated by 180 nm center-to-center, using pulsed-laser deposition (PLD) to deposit silver on the substrate. The metal nanocrystal arrays are characterized using SEM as well as AFM and energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) analysis. AFM confirms particle sizes measured in SEM, and EDX analysis demonstrates that Ag preferentially clusters at sites that have been damaged by the ion beam. These results suggest that the FIB-PLD combination can be used to create ordered arrays of Ag nanocrystals with diameters of 10 nm or less.

We describe recent experiments in which we attempted the initial steps for fabricating twodimensional arrays of metal nanocrystals. We use a commercial pulsed-laser deposition system in concert with a focused ion beam to attempt control over both lateral and vertical dimensions at the nanometer length scale. In our experiments, regular arrays of holes typically 80 nm in diameter were drilled in Si substrates using the focused ion beam. Silver atoms were then deposited onto these substrates by pulsed laser evaporation from a metallic target in high vacuum. Under certain conditions of substrate temperature, laser pulse repetition rate, and fluence, small silver nanoclusters form preferentially around the structures previously etched in the silicon surfaces by the focused ion beam.

The Plan of Union adopted in 1801 by the General Association of Connecticut and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was a memorable expression of the spirit of Christian unity in the face of a great missionary task. But its particular provisions for the working together of the Congregational and Presbyterian polities were little utilized. The “Accommodation Plan” adopted in 1808 was the main instrument of organization in the spirit of the Plan of Union. According to this a Congregational church, remaining such internally, might join a presbytery and be represented in the presbytery by its minister and a lay delegate. Such churches received the nickname “Presbygational”, or were called “Plan of Union churches.”