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Chemistry professor receives grant to study three-toed amphiumas
Chemistry professor John Pojman holds Chrissy, a three-toed amphiuma, on Tuesday in Choppin Hall.
BY JOSE ALEJANDRO BASTIDAS jbastidas@lsureveille.com
C
hemistry professor John Pojman dreamed as a young boy of one day owning a “conger eel.” Today, he not only has one named Chrissy, but he also leads the longest-running research study in the animal’s history. Pojman has studied three-toed amphiumas for the past six years with Southeastern Louisiana University biology professor Cliff Fontenot, and they recently secured a $12,445 grant from the Coypu Foundation to continue uncovering the mysteries of this common but rarely seen amphibian. Three-toed amphiumas belong in the aquatic salamander family. They live in water, but because they have lungs, they can survive in dry mud for months. The critters can be found in swamp areas and bodies of water along the Gulf states. “What’s fascinating to me is that [amphiumas are] so common, yet so little is known about them,” Pojman said. “This is an animal that lives right in the city, right on campus, but almost nothing is known about their lifestyle.” Since moving to Baton Rouge after Hurricane Katrina, Pojman set trap sites all over the city to catch amphiumas. He caught Chrissy five years ago in a ditch
Volume 119 · No. 132
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on Burbank Drive, and she now resides in an aquarium in his office. Pojman’s research started when he and his son, John Jr., were hunting for frogs in a pond near his house one night, he said. He noticed a snake-like animal, picked it up and recognized it as a three-toed amphiuma. C h r i s s y, along with alligator snappers and alligators, will be featured in the New Orleansinspired episode of “Nigel Marven’s Cruise Ship Adventure,” Pojman said. The show, set to premiere in early May in the U.K., highlights the flora and fauna of port cities across the world. Pojman said he became interested in herpetology — the study of reptiles
see AMPHIUMAS, page 16
BUSINESS
RESEARCH
Center preserves La. Student Incubator awards $24k to student entrepreneurs history with recordings BY CHLOE HUFF chuff@lsureveille.com
CHARLES CHAMPAGNE / The Daily Reveille
Management senior Todd Mashburn presents his MashBall campaign on Thursday during the Venture Challenge.
“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it” is an idea four University student entrepreneurs and one University graduate kept in mind at the Venture Challenge, where they had only 10 minutes to present their business plans to a panel of judges. The Student Incubator, a University program that offers to help students create their own businesses, hosted the final round of the Venture Challenge on Thursday at the Lod Cook
Alumni Center. Entrepreneurs, local business owners and University faculty made up the 17 judges who evaluated the first round of 17 business plan submissions. Four finalists were eligible to pitch their business plans in the live, final round. Each participant had 10 minutes to woo four judges with PowerPoints, followed by a 10-minute question-and-answer session with the panel. The judges determined how
see VENTURE CHALLENGE, page 16
BY ROSE VELAZQUEZ rvelazquez@lsureveille.com
Jennifer A. Cramer loves to tell stories. Her favorite is about a man named Joseph Dupont Jr., a World War II veteran she met in 2001. Though he has since passed away, the tales of his time as a prisoner of war in the Philippines live on through the preservable recordings Cramer made of her conversations with him. “He was providing a testimony for people who didn’t make it and couldn’t tell their story,” Cramer said. “That was a big part
for him to help memorialize the people who couldn’t make it, who died at the hands of their captors or through starvation or through other wartime events.” Cramer is the director of the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, a University research center on the second floor of Middleton Library. Established in 1991, the center documents Louisiana culture and history by recording and preserving firsthand narratives. She said she thinks of oral histories as “hidden gems” that al-
see ORAL HISTORY, page 15