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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 27, 1978)
App-roach (Continued from Page 1) I age, abandoned machines, test tubes, garbage and fallout shelter signs, they could live it up. Some claim the entire Univer sity cockroach population has its ethnic roots in the cockroach room. The high-bred cockraoches may have used the University tunnels linking with the basement to found their colony. Another theory holds the high bred science cockroaches merely settled into the existing cockroach community, providing cultural en richment. Some members of the science department recognize the cock roaches’ admirable qualities, and have grown to be good buddies with them. One old professor whiles away his spare time feed ing the cockroaches their dogfood. Two work-study caretakers keep the cockroaches in good health. Once a week they give the roaches a fresh supply of water and large helpings of Blue Moun tain dog food. Cockroach chow. "They like the dark,” says caretaker Lynn Grilley, analyzing the cockroach psyche. "But they aren’t shy." Brant Oswald fondles a large pet cockroach in his hand. “He’s kind of pretty,” he ob serves, dusting it off. Cockroaches have no preten tions, they have no principles, hold no ideals and crack no jokes. A cockroach could be crucified 16 times without a coffee break and come up crawling. Cockroaches have a certain mystique. Cock roach courage. The caretakers admit cock roaches have their faults. A stench pervades the room similar to that of mildewed grain. Cock Co-op holds raffle to gain suggestions Some lucky couple will spend two nights at the Inn at Spanish Head compliments of the Univer sity Bookstore. That’s the grand prize offered by a raffle that started today. Bookstore Manager Jim Williams says the raffle is designed to sol icit suggestions for the store from the campus community. "We want to be thinking of the future,” he explains. “We are try ing to improve this operation and be responsive to our member ship.” Williams hopes to get ideas for additional lines of merchandise and services the bookstore might branch into. He says the contest is limited to faculty, students and staff of the University because they comprise the cooperative's membership. Entry forms are available on the main floor of the bookstore. Wil liams says if a person does not include a written suggestion on the form, the entry will not be eligi ble for a prize. Besides the grand prize of the weekend at the coast, other prizes are one $25 gift certificate, two $10 certificates and three $5 cer tificates. The contest will end Friday at 4 p.m. Winners will be determined by a random drawing and their names will be posted at the book store. I roach body odor. That smell fol lows cockroach visitors around for hours after leaving the room. A roach by any other name still smells as sweet. Cockroaches also like going up pants legs and arms trying to hide out. Grilley has often left the room only to feel something beneath her clothes. “Cockroaches have feet that stick," she recalls. ‘They’re heavy. You know they are there.” Grilley and Oswald have boraxed most of the free roaches to death through little poisoned dishes of powdered milk. Only about a dozen roaches now run free. The population inside the cages, meanwhile, has been growing rapidly. The caretakers observe they eat more and more dog food each week. They teem in the muck, waiting to become an experiment. Cockroaches were once the life blood of the science department. At one time they were donating themselves in pieces to experi ments in radiology, neurology and behaviorism. They first came to the University in 1964 at the re quest of radiology researcher Grahm Hoyle. The original colony survived testing until 1972 when the cockroach reserve started to dwindle. A new colony had to be ordered. These new cockroaches took exception to being shipped by mail, and when their package was opened several hundred of them ran for cover up the pants legs of four attending scientists. The sci entists hopped around for some time trying to regain control over their experiment. But cockroach use has fallen during the last two years. Begin ning biology labs use about 50 roaches annually. Each spring for extra credit, lab students in Biol ogy 103 tweak the hair on a cockroach’s knee. Cockroaches selected for use are anesthetized by dry ice and ported up to the operating room to do their stuff. Before starting the experiment, Munz clips off the cockroach’s head, making it harder for the coc kroach to figure out what’s going on. Munz then cuts off a cock roach leg and hooks it up to an oscilloscope, which gives the equivalent of a lie detector test to the cockroach leg. When a hair on the leg is tweaked, the oscillos Photos by Grsg Gawlowski cope will register a spiked line, showing electrical nerve activity. Munz set about trying to tweak the cockroach’s knee hair. ‘‘These bifocals are useless,” he said, after making several errant tweaks. The rest of the cockroach, meanwhile, was busily crawling about looking for its head and leg. Nearby the head was earnestly trying to flag down the body with its feelers. Cockroaches have character. ‘ And it’s dead, right?” com ments Munz. “If we let it, the body would run away.” WE HAVE TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE LOCALLY WE HAVE TWO SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE for technical majors (computer science, math, physics, chemistry, and architecture). Recipients will be selected on a competitive basis by a board of officers here at the U of 0. Also over 4,000 scholarships are available on a competi tive basis nationwide. 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