Bits and Pieces

Arundinaria appalachiana

New Species of North American Bamboo Submitted by Robert Pate

A new species of North American bamboo was discovered in the hills of Appalachia. It is the third known native species of the hardy grass. The other two were discovered more than 200 years ago. Although the plant was known to the people in the area, its distinctiveness was not recognized. Hill cane differs from the other two native North American bamboo species — commonly known as switch cane and river cane — in an important way: It drops its leaves in the fall.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/isu-isu031207.php

2007 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government

Of 19 agencies and executive offices NRCS placed second among USDA agencies in the 2007 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government report. Out of all agencies, NRCS ranked 44.

The 2007 Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings include 283 federal organizations and are based on the responses of more than 221,000 employees. See http://bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings/index.php?t=scores_subcomponent&c=index for the complete report.

General NRCS information and demographics are at: http://bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings/agency.php?code=AG16&q=scores_subcomponent

DigiTop

DigiTop is a service from the National Agricultural Library for USDA employees worldwide. DigiTop brings you access to the full text of more than 4,000 scientific journals, nearly 1,500 news sources (including 600 U.S. newspapers and magazines), and 14 key databases.

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Building an alert is simple, but if you'd like a little guidance, check out our tutorial on "Building a Table of Contents Alert in Scopus" (<http://www.nal.usda.gov/digitop/training/ScopusTOC_viewlet_swf.html>). Or select from a range of additional tutorials on the Scopus site (<http://digitop.nal.usda.gov/scopustutor.htm>) and become an expert in no time.

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USDA Announces Colony Collapse Disorder Research Action Plan

Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics Gale Buchanan announced (July 13) that USDA researchers have finalized an action plan for dealing with colony collapse disorder (CCD) of honey bees. Buchanan said, "There were enough honey bees to provide pollination for U.S. agriculture this year, but beekeepers could face a serious problem next year and beyond. This action plan provides a coordinated framework to ensure that all of the research that needs to be done is covered in order to get to the bottom of the CCD problem." The plan is available at www.ars.usda.gov/is/br/ccd/ccd_actionplan.pdf

Contact: Jennifer Martin
(202) 720-8188.

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