Courtesy of Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech's dining services won a national award for its "Alice in Wonderland" themed event.

Courtesy of Virginia Tech Police Department

(Left to right) Tech police officer Jaret Reece and K-9 officer Boris; Mike Harness, vet school associate dean for finance and administration; Gerhardt Schurig, dean of the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine; VT police chief Wendell Flinchum and assistant chief Kevin Foust.

Virginia Tech Dining Services has received more national accolades, the university announced.

Tech received the Loyal E. Horton award and a gold medal in the residential dining special event category presented by the National Association of College and University Food Services for an Alice in Wonderland-themed dinner, according to a university news release.

Tech received an honorable mention for its Virginia Harvest Celebration dinner, inspired by Virginia Tech's 2011 Common Book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life," which used locally-sourced food and included an appearance by author Barbara Kingsolver.

Virginia Tech holds nearly 40 special dining events throughout the school year and has earned 38 Loyal E. Horton awards since 1992, the release stated.

DONATION

Vet school donates equipment for police K-9s

The Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine recently made a donation to the K-9 division of the Virginia Tech Police Department.

Last month vet school Dean Gerhardt Schuring presented a new protective training sleeve, also called a bite sleeve, to the department, a police news release stated.

The new sleeve will help protect the department's canine handlers during demonstrations and training.

VT police K-9 Boris, a narcotics and patrol dog handled by officer Jaret Reece, attended the donation ceremony. Boris was used as a model for the Virginia Law Enforcement K-9 Memorial at the vet school.

The sleeve will also be used with Boomer, the department's bomb-sniffing dog, the release stated.

AGRICULTURE

Pesticide approved to combat crop damage

A pesticide advocated by a Virginia Tech professor for use against the brown marmorated stink bug currently causing damage to Virginia's commercial fruit crop has been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the university announced.

In June, the EPA granted an emergency exemption to use the insecticide dinotefuran to control the stink bug on stone and pome fruits in Virginia and six other states based on an application prepared by Tech professor Chris Bergh, tree fruit and grape specialist for Virginia Cooperative Extension and an associate professor of entomology.

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services submitted the application to allow for unregistered use of the pesticide until Oct. 15, the end of harvest season, a university news release stated.

Research conducted at Tech has shown that the stink bug has been a major agricultural pest since last year, the release stated.

Estimates of crop damage from the bug were not immediately available.

RESEARCH

NSF grant to further study of how life arose on Earth

A Virginia Tech biochemist studying the chemical origins of life on Earth has won a $1 million National Science Foundation grant to continue his work, the university announced.

The grant will fund four years of research by Tech professor Bob White on this subject, including paying for postdoctoral students, research fellows, graduate and undergraduate students and upgraded equipment necessary for the project, a university news release stated.

White believes the study of protobiochemistry -- the various chemistries that occurred in the ocean after the early earth's surface cooled and formed hot liquid oceans about 4.4 billion years ago -- may provide clues to how life arose amidst the extreme conditions of the ancient planet, the release stated.

White is affiliated with the Fralin Life Science Institute at Tech.