From glow-in-the-dark bacteria to televised tours of a live cow’s stomach, hot-rod tractors to virtual forests, you’ll find a variety of scientific show-and-tells at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Open House, Saturday, August 19 beginning at 10 a.m.

Dennis J. Zeloski of Lake Mills, a leader of Wisconsin’s potato and vegetable industry for more than 30 years, will receive an Honorary Recognition Award from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Among the first to identify bacteria that break down nitroglycerin, the active component of dynamite, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers now have identified two enzymes that enable bacteria to degrade both nitroglycerin and TNT, another explosive. The scientists have sequenced the genes that code for the two enzymes.

Laura Croal, a 1995 graduate of Catholic Memorial High School in Waukesha, recently served on the Women in Science and Technology panel led by Vice President Al Gore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The panel was created to review the present state of women in the sciences, and to encourage more involvement and identify barriers to participation. The panel included students, faculty, University administrators, and U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin.

At the Gamma Sigma Delta banquet April 23, the following people received awards for excellence in teaching, research, advising and extension/outreach:

Kenneth Todar, a senior lecturer in the Department of Bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will receive the 1998 Carski Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award from the American Society for Microbiology on May 20 at the society’s annual meeting in Atlanta.

How could you improve on the immune system? It fights off bacteria and viruses that invade our bodies. How about a new type of vaccine – one that stops dangerous viruses from even entering the body?