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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Deficits in impulse control and decision-making have been implicated in the development and maintenance of alcohol use disorders (AUDs). Individuals with AUD often make disadvantageous choices under conditions of probabilistic risk. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is often used to measure risky decision-making, in which impaired individuals tend to favor large, infrequent rewards even when punished for these choices, rather than smaller, safer, and more advantageous rewards. It remains poorly understood if these deficits are behaviors under genetic control and if ethanol intoxication may alter decision-making. High and Low Alcohol Preferring (HAP3 and LAP3, respectively) mice were trained on a novel gambling task to investigate these possible influences. In Experiment 1, HAP3s and LAP3s responded for a 0.1% saccharin solution, choosing between a risky and a safe option. Importantly, choosing the risky option was meant to be ultimately disadvantageous. In Experiment 2, these same HAP3 mice responded for saccharin or saccharin plus 10% ethanol. Contrary to hypothesis, LAP3s preferred the risky option more than HAP3s. Alcohol increased preference for the risky lever, but only in male mice. HAP3 preference for the safe lever may be explained by higher motivation to obtain sweet rewards, or higher overall avidity for responding. Ethanol-induced changes in male risk behavior may be explained by higher androgen levels, but further investigation is required. Similarly, continued research is necessary to optimize a risky decision-making task for both lines, and thus investigate possible genetic differences in risk acceptance that correlate with differences in alcohol intake.

IN BETWEEN DAYS is a novel about a young queer shapeshifter coming of age in the 1990s.

The Turin Pit locality (Monona county, Iowa) has been known to paleontologists since 1908, yet the age of the fauna has been unclear. Early paleontologists considered Turin Pit to date to a pre-Illinoian interglacial (the “Aftonian).” Subsequent researchers suggested it dated to the last glaciation. This study provides a partial list of mammals in the Turin Pit fauna, and together with stratigraphic information, uses the known age ranges of taxa to estimate an age for the assemblage. The presence of Mammuthus, Aenocyon, and Castoroides combined with a magnetically-reversed till located stratigraphically above fossil-bearing deposits, suggest the Turin Pit assemblage dates between ~1.3 and 0.773 Ma. The fauna can be assigned to the Irvingtonian North American Land Mammal Age based on Mammuthus, Aenocyon, Castoroides, and Ondatra zibethicus annectens. This fossil assemblage provides a rare window into the Quaternary paleontology of Iowa that pre-dates the Illinoian glaciation.

For years the writer has been very interested in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His work as a teacher, employed by the LDS department of education, has been with the youth of the church. His teaching experience has taken him through a chronological consideration or sequence of events of the church from its origin down to the present. However, the absence of historical data during the period of 1846-1852 grew into a problem in the writer's mind. After reading in the histories of the church a brief paragraph about Garden Grove and Mount Pisgah, two temporary stopping places of the saints, and a little more about Kanesville, Iowa, the writer began to wonder why so little attention had been paid to each of these settlements. If two thirds of the exiled saints remained at these three way stations for six years from 1846 to 1852, what did they do there? What was their contribution to mormon emigration during these six years? It appeared to the writer that historians had either bypassed, or covered important details and events too briefly. The illustrious and striking history of Nauvoo, Illinois, by way of comparison lasted only six years. Suffering and hardships at Winter Quarters had likewise been given full credence by historians. The attention of readers had then been shifted to the new Mecca, Salt Lake Valley, because leadership of the church had been established there after 1847. Why should the period of church history 1846-1852 be so full and eventful yet the Iowa sojourn, lasting the same number of years, be devoid of accomplishment and color? How could Orson Hyde, with his counselors George A. Smith and Ezra T. Benson, preside over 10,000 members of the total church population at these scattered settlements during this period without these years likewise being eventful and rich in achievement? Life and many contributions of these Iowa settlements, Garden Grove, Mount Pisgah, and Kanesville, though temporary in nature, had been overlooked. Despite underestimating these way-stations in Iowa, they, and especially Kanesville, located on the Missouri River became, the funnel through which that vast stream of Mormon emigration was routed to Salt Lake Valley. The things which transpired in Iowa have not been fully told and, in the opinion of the writer, justify a more thorough study.

The Round Barn is a novel in two parts that tells the story of two Iowa farm families during the period 1915 to 1929, a volatile time in the history of the American farm. The first part of the novel tells the story of Joe Marshall, a young man in conflict with his hard-working farmer father. At sixteen-years-old, Joe must choose whether to leave the farm to pursue his own desires or to stay where he is needed to help keep his financially strapped family afloat. Part two of the novel focuses on Mae Allinson, a woman in her early twenties, who has willingly accepted the responsibility of raising her sister's child after her sister dies in childbirth. By doing so, Mae forsakes the man she was to marry, the man who would take her to Chicago and away from farm life. The round barn, built by Joe Marshall's father in the opening chapter of the novel, serves as a through line linking all the chapters and connecting characters to a specific place. The round barn, in addition to being a stage setting for the action of the novel, has its own story arc, rising out of the Iowa soil in the first chapter, functioning as a working barn through the central part of the novel, then finally falling into disrepair by the end. In the novel, Joe and Mae each seek their own identities within their families, identities that put them in conflict with a family dynamic that is focused on the survival and prosperity of the family as a whole. This conflict forces each character to define for themselves what love, power, freedom, and obligation mean and how far they are willing to go inpursuit of these things. In addition to functioning within their own families, the main characters must also contend with the larger issues that put pressure on the American farm of the time (economics, war, social change, and migration to the urban areas), factors that push and pull the characters in different directions. By telling the story from the positions of two different characters and by spanning the number of years that it does, the novel seeks to show how events and the passage of time transform the individual characters, their families, and the American farm.

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