DVD cover and Simmon

The video-and-text project Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938, curated by Professor Scott Simmon, received best DVD series and best DVD box set honors in the 2012 Il Cinema Ritrovato, a major venue for restored and rediscovered films.

Simmon, a film archivist, is chair of the Department of English. He curated the project for the National Film Preservation Foundation.

The awards announcement noted the project’s “exceptional creative scholarship in presenting and annotating many neglected films by or with Broncho Billy Anderson, Clara Bow, Victor Fleming, D.W. Griffith, Thomas Ince, Gregory La Cava, Tom Mix and Mack Sennett, among others.”

Il Cinema Ritrovato, founded in 1986, is organized by Cineteca di Bologna, Italy.

Treasures 5: The West earned the designation best classic western DVD in True West magazine's Best of the West 2012.

UC Davis NewsWatch video, with Simmon and clips from Treasures 5: The West.

Treasures 5: The West trailer.

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The American Psychological Association announced that Distinguished Professor Rand Conger will receive the association’s 2013 G. Stanley Hall Award for Distinguished Contribution to Developmental Psychology.

Conger is in the Department of Human and Community Development.

The award takes into account contributions in research, student training and other scholarly endeavors.

Nominees are evaluated on the basis of the scientific merit of their work, the importance of the work in opening up new empirical or theoretical areas of development psychology, and the importance of the work in linking developmental psychology with issues confronting the larger society or with other disciplines.

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James Seiber, a professor emeritus of environmental toxicology, has been selected to receive the Kenneth A. Spencer Award from the American Chemical Society in recognition of his outstanding achievements in agricultural chemistry.

Seiber has taught and conducted research in the areas of chemical contaminant analysis, transport and environmental fate, and has served since 1998 as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, a publication of the American Chemical Society.

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An international association recently honored Professor Emeritus Don Durzan of the Department of Plant Sciences for his work in the field of vegetative propagation of trees.

Durzan, whose contributions include his U.S. patent on simplified seed production, received the award from the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, Working Party 2.09.02, during its second international conference, held June 25-28 in Brno, Czech Republic.

Brno’s Mendel University also honored Durzan for his work, giving him a Gregor Mendel plaque.

In a lecture at the conference, Durzan addressed the use of magnetic antibodies for the recovery of the anti-cancer drug, paclitaxel (taxol), from egg cell suspension cultures of Taxus brevifolia. This research, derived from a NASA project on tissue engineering in simulated microgravity, yielded two U.S. patents.

More about Durzan’s work in woody species.

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The Council for Agricultural and Science Technology announced that its 2012 Borlaug communication award will go to UC Davis food safety expert Carl Winter, who not only has a way with words, but music, too.

Winter is a Cooperative Extension specialist, a food toxicologist and director of the FoodSafe Program in the Department of Food Science and Technology. He researches pesticide residues and naturally occurring toxins in foods, and assesses chemical and microbiological risks.

He is a popular speaker and singer — putting new lyrics to popular songs to turn them into food safety lessons on such topics as bacterial contamination, irradiation, pesticides and biotechnology. Some examples: “Stomachache Tonight,” “Keep It Cool,” “Stayin’ Alive,” “We Are the Microbes” “Beware la Vaca Loca,” “I Sprayed It On the Grapevine” and “Still Seems Like Food to Me.” Listen and watch.

The Borlaug CAST Communication Award recognizes excellence in communicating the importance of food and agricultural science to the public, policymakers and the news media.

The award presentation is scheduled for October, during the World Food Prize Symposium in Des Moines.

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Professor Emeritus Adel Kader, who is anything but retired, recently received the Excellent Contribution to Global Postharvest Horticulture Award, presented during the seventh International Postharvest Symposium.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, deputy prime minister of the symposium’s host country, Malaysia, made the presentation.

Kader is among the experts who are working to cut Malaysia’s postharvest losses (calculated at a rate of 30 percent to 40 percent), and thereby help the country meet its goal of boosting agricultural productivity 40 percent by 2020.

Kader, of the Department of Plant Sciences, has worked in Malaysia and beyond to improve postharvest handling practices.

“Something as simple as an umbrella or other shade structure above every harvest crate as it waits for the truck to come pick it up could reduce postharvest losses by 10 to 15 percent,” Kader said. “That single action could make a huge reduction in postharvest losses.”

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Dateline UC Davis welcomes news of faculty and staff awards, for publication in Laurels. Send information to dateline@ucdavis.edu.