Winter Issue
December 2011
are approaching the end of 2011 and with that will come the New Year. The DSLS Director’s Office and staff wish all our employees and their families the very best for this holiday season and a prosperous and peaceful New Year. DSLS had numerous accomplishments this year. Accomplishments span publications in premier journals, numerous meeting presentations and educational outreach events, and outstanding support of the NASA JSC Human Research
Program. Our efforts yielded the award of a follow-on five year cooperative agreement with JSC Space Life
Sciences Directorate.
The New Year will bring challenges to all of us. Our strongest position amid the many potential changes is to consistently bring research and technology excellence to the Human Research Program. Our innovation and ability to adapt to changing environments reduces our risks in these difficult times.
On another subject, I want to tell you how pleased I am to be at USRA. It is a privilege to work with so many accomplished scientists exploring the exciting area of human research in microgravity and to be blessed with a dedicated staff that supports all of us. My journey to the space program began as a child from a family of Italian immigrants. We owned and ran a small Italian grocery/confectionary store and a coal hauling business in southwestern Pennsylvania. In our family, education was the top priority for all the children. Eventually I went to Washington and Jefferson College and then to
Miami University for graduate degrees. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, I joined the faculty at Northwestern University Medical School.
In 1977, I was recruited as an immunologist to the
University of Texas Medical School’s Division of
Immunology and Organ Transplantation in Houston.
In 1987, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center started a
Surgical Immunology Laboratory, and that became the
1 DSLS Winter 2011 Newsletter next adventure. While working there, we were using the
NASA bioreactor to grow human lymphocytes and discovered that although they grew, they were unable to locomote. It was this finding that brought me and my team to NASA. After retiring from NASA in 2010, I accepted my current position at USRA and intend to continue pursuit of the revelations from living systems as they adapt to microgravity.
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The truck in the background is my grandfather’s 1939
Ford dump truck. The printing on the side of the truck says “P. Colaiocco, Phone 1325J
Greensburg, Coal.” Spring 1947
(See Page 4 for an invite to our “Community Column”)

elementary schools aren’t like they were back when I was a kid. The buildings are newer and larger, with fresh paint, air conditioning, and super hightech classrooms. Gone is the traditional gymnasium with hardwood floors and basketball hoops hanging from the ceiling. It’s been replaced by a multipurpose room that still has those familiar hoops, but the floors and walls are carpeted and there’s a stage on one end for performing arts. The gym-coach, who doubled as a history teacher, has been replaced by two or more fulltime Physical Education specialists. Instead of a pull-up bar bolted to the wall and a knotted climbing rope hanging from the ceiling waiting to be used for the dreaded bi-annual national fitness test, there are signs encouraging kids to replace the phrase “I can’t do it” with “I can’t do it…yet!” sections and a “smart board” that teacher and student interact with via an electronic “marker.” Kind of a cross between a computer mouse, a laser pointer, and a touchpad controller. It’s cool… very cool… but today’s kids aren’t overly impressed because they haven’t known it any other way.
Rob and daughter Allison
A lot has changed since we were kids. The classroom environment is a mix of old and new. Those cute animal posters still adorn the walls helping kids make the right behavioral choices, but the script-written alphabet that used to hang above the chalk board has been replaced by a block-letter one. Indeed, hand writing is barely taught at all because today’s teachers know that kids will compose their most advanced writing on a PC or MAC.
And chalk boards? They don’t exist anymore either.
They’ve been replaced by a combination of white board
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Some things haven’t changed much though—the library is still filled with books. Laughter and tears are still a part of everyday, and lunch and recess are the favorite times of the day. Elementary school teachers still seem to really love their classroom of kids, and the feeling from the kids is mutual. Most teachers are still female, and that contributes to another reality that hasn’t changed much; there are still a lot of kids in school today who don’t have enough positive male role models in their lives.
This has not gone unnoticed among educators and citizens nationally, or locally, and one local elementary school has adopted a national program to help. The
Sandra Mossman Elementary School in League City, TX opened its doors in 2009 as part of the first Education
Village in the state of Texas. In their opening year, they started up a local chapter of the National Watch
D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students) program with the support of several interested dads and the Parent Teacher
Association. I was one of those “founding fathers,” so to speak, who has been actively engaged in this awesome outreach opportunity from the very beginning.
The Watch D.O.G.S. program is an initiative of the
National Center for Fathering ( www.fathers.com
) that
“ organizes fathers and father figures in order to provide positive male role models for the students .” There are over 2000 active Watch D.O.G.S. programs in 40 states and New Zealand, and I am proud to be involved in one of them locally. The program works at Mossman solely through volunteer dads, like me. Sure, we buy the shirts

and baseball caps, and yes, we make donations to help fund the program but mostly we donate ourselves. This program is designed to have a dad (or sometimes two) walking the halls of the schools for as many days of the school year as possible. I donate a couple of days per year (usually close to our kids’ birthdays) and they are fantastic days.
Watch D.O.G.S. have a busy schedule. We show up in the early morning and help with the car drop off lines.
Next we work the “tardy slip” desk and provide a friendly greeting to the kids who straggle in a little late, assuring them that their day will be just fine. Then the bell rings and our scheduled school day begins. We visit at least one class room in every grade, spending about
15-20 minutes per class. The kids love it when we show.
The teachers have planned a fun activity for those students that need a little special attention or encouragement in various subjects. The activities vary, and it’s always interesting to see how the classroom moves through the day. And it’s always gratifying to see how some kids gravitate and even cling to the Watch
D.O.G.S.
Volunteer dads usually have a little extra time in the
Physical Education room because, well, we’re guys, and
I guess the scheduler knows that we like that kind of stuff! And we spend a lot of time in the cafeteria opening up milk containers, yogurt tubes, chip bags, whatever. It becomes obvious quickly that some kids raise their hand for assistance mainly because they want to give a high-five and tell you something interesting about their day. Maybe they have a funny joke to tell, or perhaps they want to hear the one that we were just telling the kid at the next table.
And that’s the real reason we go. We are there to have fun with and encourage the kids. We are there to smile, to give high-fives, and to tie a lot of shoes. We tell some really corny jokes to kids who need to hear one. We may read a story or give a math tip. We are even asked to serve as restroom monitors just to make sure things are ok in there. But mainly, we are there to supply a positive experience, albeit brief, with a Dad who loves kids. I know the kids enjoy their time with me, but I wonder if they know what a positive impact this opportunity has had on me.
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If you are interested in learning more about this program, possibly to start one at a school near you, go to www.fathers.com
and click on the link for Watch
D.O.G.S. Who knows, maybe you’ll be walking the hallways in an elementary school near you soon? If you do, call me up. I know some really corny jokes you can use…
Originality - Meetings and
Publications Group
Katy Buckaloo
Renee Dotson
Ingrid Dudley
Kira Honnoll
Kecia Mallette
Gail Pacetti
Linda Tanner
Most Gruesome - LPI
Postdoctoral Fellows
Georgiana Kramer
Oliver White
Halloween Spirit - Human
Resources
Sherri Burrow
Jeanette Gardner
Individual Achievement for
Creative Costume
Takafumi Niihara
Laurie Sandel

DLSL Community Column
In the snapshot taken of Dr. Pellis as a young boy in the spring of 1947, he is playing on a unique seesaw that not only went up and down, but swiveled. His family’s 1939 coal hauling Ford truck is in the background. Rob Ploutz-Snyder is active in a unique community outreach and shared that experience with us in the Watch D.O.G. story he wrote. We all have interesting and one-of-a-kind stories to tell and photos to share. Add to our new DSLS Community Column by sending in a story and/or a photo, or just tell us briefly about an interest or a long time tradition. Email stories and photos with a brief description to Carmella at mongiardo@dsls.usra.edu.
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Volunteers for writing and editing the DSLS Newsletter are welcome!
Please contact Carmella at Mongiardo@dsls.usra.edu
to participate.
We would also like to have your suggestions for newsworthy subjects for future issues.
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Visitors view Ronita Cromwell’s Flight Analogs Project, a previous USRA DSLS Quarterly Display.
Projects led by scientists from the Lunar and Planetary
Institute and the Division of Space Life Sciences are showcased in the Quarterly Display
.
In August, Ronita
Cromwell’s Flight Analogs Project was featured. The
Analog display has since been moved to the second floor where it can be viewed until February.
The Quarterly Display is intended to be educational for the general public (as shown above). If you would like to submit a project to be considered for the next DSLS display, please send materials to Dr. Pellis no later than
January 3, 2012. Mary Ann Hager in the USRA Library will work with us to have photos mounted. She will need 5 digital images 24”x36” (4 horizontal – 1 vertical), a digital image of the featured scientist, and captions suitable for the educated public. We must submit materials to Mary Ann by January 13.
February 14-16, 2012 – Westin Galleria Houston.
Since its inception in August of this year, the DSLS
Scientist of the Month display has been a resounding success. We have featured posters by Ajit Mulavara,
Artem Ponomarev, Sara Zwart and Johnny Conkin. Our featured Scientist for the month of December is
Shaowen Hu. The Scientist of the Month for January
2012 will be announced on December 15th. If you have a poster you would like submit for February, please send it to Dr. Pellis with a copy to Mongiardo@dsls.usra.edu
by January 9th.
The new DSLS website is up and running. Please let us know of any publications, educational outreach, or media events so that we can post a story or a link. A special thanks to Ronna Hurd and the IT staff for designing, editing, and maintaining our site!
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DSLS Scientist Sara Zwart educates attendees about her role as a Nutritional Biochemist at NASA.
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Sara and her family, husband Daniel, daughter Emily and son Jonathan enjoy Family Space Day.

USRA-Houston will be participating again this year with the Marine Toys for
Tots Foundation in donating toys to needy children within our community.
If you would like to donate a new unwrapped toy for a young girl or boy, please bring it in by December 15 th and place it in the designated Toys for Tots boxes located throughout the building.
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Toys for Tots began in 1947 when Major
Bill Hendricks, USCR and a group of
Marine Reservists in Los Angeles collected and distributed 5,000 toys to needy children. The idea came from Bill’s wife, Diane. In the fall of 1947, Diane crafted a homemade doll and asked Bill to deliver the doll to an organization which would give it to a needy child at
Christmas.
When Bill determined that no agency existed, Diane told Bill that he should start one. He did. The 1947 pilot project was so successful that the Marine Corps adopted Toys for Tots in 1948 and expanded it into a nationwide campaign.
That year, Marine Corps Reserve units across the nation conducted Toys for Tots campaigns in each community in which a
Marine Reserve Center was located.
Marines have conducted successful nationwide campaigns at Christmas each year since 1948.
Over the 62 years of the U. S. Marine
Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program,
Marines have distributed more than 400 million toys to more than 188 million needy children. This charitable endeavor has made the U. S. Marines the unchallenged leaders in giving gifts to less fortunate children at Christmas time.
In 1991, the Secretary of Defense authorized the affiliation with the nonprofit charity foundation then named the
Toys for Tots Foundation. In 1995, the
Secretary approved Toys for Tots as an official mission of the Marine Corps
Reserve.