By Sarah Geegan

Biology Professor Catherine Linnen recently helped paint a clearer picture of a big evolutionary question, using very small subjects.

Linnen was recently published in the prestigious journal Science for her work with deer mice. These critters provided key insight into understanding how underlying molecular and evolutionary mechanisms function as an organism adapts to new environments.

"In the more than 150 years since the publication of Charles Darwin’s 'Origin of Species,' in which the idea that small, incremental changes can over great distances of time evolve new forms, more modern thought and modern technologies have only reinforced and augmented  Darwin’s grand and dangerous idea,"

By Whitney Hale

With University of Kentucky Commencement just around the corner, tomorrow's #AskACat Twitter Chat will give graduating seniors at the University of Kentucky an opportunity to ask questions regarding Commencement ceremonies, membership in the UK Alumni Association, and tips on job searches.

This month's #AskACat experts are Kelly Allgeier, alumni career counselor at UK Alumni Association; Frieda Gebert, member of the UK Commencement Committee; and Leslie Hayes, membership specialist at UK Alumni Association. The trio will answer questions beginning at 2 p.m. Tuesday, March 19, via the university's official Twitter account, @universityofky. Those

Video by UK Public Relations and Marketing

Article by Kelley Bozeman, Jay Blanton, Amy Jones, Kody Kiser

The best learning — and the most profound educational experiences — often take place outside the traditional classroom.

For Charles Black, such experiences have guided him as he has taken his education at the University of Kentucky to frequent appearances on New York stages and TV shows.

As a student, Black said, he traveled with theatre department professors and fellow students to New York.

“It was my very first trip to New York, where I learned that I really wanted to move here," Black said. "It all came from being at the University of Kentucky."

During the trip, Black and his fellow students got a behind-the-scenes look at life in the theater on the biggest of

by Sarah Geegan

Students in the University of Kentucky Honors Program had the opportunity to demonstrate their dexterity last month at the bi-annual Kentucky Honors Roundtable (KHR), hosted at UK.

A conference held each spring, KHR rotates among public universities in the Commonwealth and allows undergraduate students to present their research projects, serve on academic panels and interact with academically excelling students from other Kentucky institutions. This year the conference hosted approximately 60 presentations, spanning over a range of diverse topics.

The conference will serve as wonderful practice for UK honors students as many of them prepare for more large-scale conferences, such as National

By Kathy Johnson

Mark Kornbluh, dean of the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences, was the guest on last night's "UK at the Half," which aired during the UK vs. Georgia game that was broadcast on radio.

"UK at the Half" airs during halftime of each UK football and basketball game broadcast on radio and is hosted by Carl Nathe of UK Public Relations and Marketing.

To hear the "UK at the Half" interview, click here. To view a transcript of the "UK at the Half" interview, click here.

By Kathy Johnson

Frank X Walker, associate professor of English at the University of Kentucky and recently announced Kentucky poet laureate, was the guest on the March 2 "UK at the Half," which aired during the UK vs. Arkansas game that was broadcast on radio.

"UK at the Half" airs during halftime of each UK football and basketball game broadcast on radio and is hosted by Carl Nathe of UK Public Relations and Marketing.

To hear the "UK at the Half" interview, click here. To view a transcript of the "UK at the Half" interview, click here.

By Sarah Geegan

The University of Kentucky's David P. Moecher and George L. Scott Jr. were honored as the recipients of the 19th annual Ken Freedman Outstanding Advisor Awards. The award recognizes outstanding service in the field of academic advising. Two awards are presented each year, one to a full-time professional adviser and another to a faculty adviser.

David Moecher, faculty adviser and chair of the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said that he was stunned, then humbled  to receive the award, knowing that there are so many dedicated professional and faculty advisers

By Sarah Geegan

UK history professor, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen recently received the Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize, an honor awarded annually by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. The prize recognizes the best book by a first-time author in the field of diplomatic history.

Nguyen's book, "Hanoi's War: An International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam," examines the international context in which North Vietnamese leaders pursued war and American intervention ended. Using never-before-seen Vietnamese documents, recently declassified U.S. materials and archival collections in Europe, Nguyen's narrative takes the reader from the marshy swamps of the Mekong Delta

By Whitney Hale

An undergraduate in the University of Kentucky's College of Communication and Information and a doctoral candidate in the College of Arts and Sciences have received Critical Language Scholarships to study languages abroad. Meredith King, a senior majoring in communication, will study Chinese in China, and Lydia Shanklin Roll, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, will study Turkish in Turkey.

The Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program, a program of the United States Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, will offer intensive summer language

By Katy Bennett

For the past few months, many UK students have been looking forward to a favorite college tradition — Spring Break. For some students this means hitting the gym, getting ready to hit the beach. For others, it’s calling their summer job in hopes of a week to work and make a little extra money. But for students participating in the Center for Community Outreach’s Alternative Service Breaks (ASB) program, it is a time to prepare for serving others and learning about the issues faced by people across the globe.

In 2008, UK’s ASB program was developed as a part of the national movement to involve college students in community-based service projects and to give students opportunities to learn about the complex issues faced by

By Breanna Shelton, Whitney Hale

In celebration of the University of Kentucky's upcoming sesquicentennial in 2015, the 46th of 150 weekly installments remembers the accomplishments of integration pioneer Doris Wilkinson.

As a freshman, Doris Wilkinson was one of the first African Americans to participate in the integration of UK after the Supreme Court declared public school segregation illegal. After receiving her bachelor's degree in 1958 from UK and her master's and doctoral degrees from Case Western Reserve University, the trailblazer became the first full-time female African-American faculty member at UK.

As a UK professor in the Department of Sociology, Wilkinson would also design the university's

By Kathy Johnson

George Crothers, anthropology, and Paolo Visona, art and visual studies, were the guests on Feb. 27's "UK at the Half," which aired during the UK vs. Mississippi State game that was broadcast on radio.  Among the topics discussed is the ancient city they found during an archeological dig in Northern Italy last summer.

"UK at the Half" airs during halftime of each UK football and basketball game broadcast on radio and is hosted by Carl Nathe of UK Public Relations and Marketing.

To hear the "UK at the Half" interview, click here. To view a transcript of the "UK at the Half" interview,

By Allison Perry

A groundbreaking new study led by the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center's Dr. Peter Zhou found that triple-negative breast cancer cells are missing a key enzyme that other cancer cells contain — providing insight into potential therapeutic targets to treat the aggressive cancer. Zhou's study is unique in that his lab is the only one in the country to specifically study the metabolic process of triple-negative breast cancer cells.

Normally, all cells — including cancerous cells — use glucose to initiate the process of making Adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP) for fuel to carry out essential functions. This process, called glycolysis, leads to other processes that use oxygen to make higher quantities of ATP — but solid tumor cells, which have little access to oxygen, are

By Gail Hairston

Internationally regarded sustainability scholar and activist Vandana Shiva returns to the University of Kentucky Thursday to share her expertise with the campus and community.

Her publications and work in sustainable agriculture, development, feminist theory, alternative globalization and bioengineering as well as her creation of Navdanya, a participatory research initiative to provide direction and support to environmental activism in India, have inspired colleagues to deem her one of the brightest minds working in the interdisciplinary field of sustainability today.

Shiva will present her lecture at 8 p.m. Feb. 28, in Memorial Hall. This event is

By Alicia Gregory

“From the standpoint of training the next generation of highly skilled professors, industrial scientists, people to work in government laboratories, people to advance our understanding of disease and advance the next generation of therapies, it will be profoundly devastating for this generation of students.”

That’s the message University of Kentucky physiologist Michael B. Reid conveys in a University of Kentucky video on the impact of sequestration — automatic cuts in research and other government spending — due to take effect March 1. Reid and UK colleagues Suzanne Weaver Smith in mechanical engineering and

By Whitney Hale, Mack McCormick

University Press of Kentucky (UPK) author bell hooks has been named the recipient of the 2013 Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s (BCALA) Best Poetry Award for her book "Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place."

The BCALA Literary Awards recognize excellence in adult fiction, nonfiction, poetry and publishing by African American authors published during the previous year, including an award for Best Poetry and a citation for Outstanding Contribution to Publishing. The award will be presented to hooks at the Annual Conference of the American Library Association

UK Biology professor Jeramiah Smith, collaborating with scientists from 35 other institutions worldwide, was recently published in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics for his work with genome sequence of the sea lamprey.

Lampreys are representatives of an ancient vertebrate lineage that diverged from our own, approximately 500 million years ago.  By virtue of this deeply shared ancestry, the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) genome is uniquely poised to provide insight into the ancestry of vertebrate genomes and fundamentals of vertebrate biology.

"The reason that lampreys are interesting is that they are vertebrates, but are more distantly

Video by UK Public Relations and Marketing

By Jenny Wells

Fifteen undergraduate researchers from the University of Kentucky have been selected to present at the 2013 Posters-at-the-Capitol event today at the state Capitol in Frankfort, Ky. This event will host more than 200 student representatives from across the state displaying the results of their research and scholarly or creative work.

"Posters-at-the-Capitol is a very competitive program," said Diane Snow, director of the UK Office of Undergraduate Research. "So we are very proud of our undergraduate student researchers! In addition to having the opportunity to present their work, these students also have an excellent opportunity to educate those who are making important decisions about expenditures in Kentucky and

By Sarah Geegan

Since 1948, the University of Kentucky has operated a geology field camp in the Rocky Mountains. The field camp presents students in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) with a unique opportunity to apply principles and ideas learned from the classroom in a real-world setting.

This summer EES will offer a similarly unique opportunity for its alumni: a reunion for past field camp participants taking place from July 4-6.

“This was a chance to get all of the UK geology field camp alumni who want to come back. Instructors and students can come back for our big bash out there,” EES professor David Moecher said.

As fellow EES

By Whitney Hale

The Kentucky Women Writers Conference will feature best-selling novelist and National Book Award finalist Bonnie Jo Campbell as its keynote speaker at the 2013 conference, scheduled for Sept. 20 and 21.

"Campbell is a fearless teacher and writer whose fiction is shaped by the exigencies of rural Michigan," said Julie Wrinn, director of the Kentucky Women Writers Conference "The vivid sense of place in her work should resonate with Kentuckians, and you might even say that her characters 'kick ass.'"

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of the best-selling novel "Once Upon a River" (Norton, 2011), a river odyssey through rural