Contrary to a widely held belief among environmental scientists and the public, green plants do not cleanse the environment of atmospheric pollutants as efficiently as has been assumed, according to new research published recently in Atmospheric Environment.

John R. Wright, M.D., chair of the Department of Pathology, has been appointed interim vice president for clinical affairs and dean of the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, effective Jan. 1.

Robert J. Wagner, senior vice president at the University at Buffalo, has been elected to a second consecutive one-year term as chair of the United Way of New York State.

David J. Triggle, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School and vice provost for graduate education at the University at Buffalo, has been appointed by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy to chair a new Commission on the Future of Graduate Education in the Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Representatives from municipalities throughout Western New York will gather on Wednesday, Dec. 18, at the University at Buffalo to learn more about acquiring funding for projects through the New York Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act that was approved by voters in November.

Four members of the University at Buffalo Department of Public Safety were among 29 new State University of New York safety officers who recently completed a special training program held at the New York State Police Academy in Albany.

The 197th anniversary of the birth of Millard Fillmore, the University at Buffalo's first chancellor and 13th president of the United States, will be observed in ceremonies to be held at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 7, in Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Maggie S. Wright, Ph.D., assistant dean for minority affairs in the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, has received the Outstanding Contribution to Medical Education Award for 1996 from the National Association of Minority Medical Educators, Inc.

The University at Buffalo has reopened its evening undergraduate program leading to a bachelor of professional studies degree (BPS) in architecture. The program is offered through Millard Fillmore College, UB's evening division.

The acquisition of a group of scholarly electronic resources in humanities for the University at Buffalo Lockwood Library to support new trends in database research has been made possible through a $50,000 gift from a 1936 alumnus of the university.

A gift from the Donald L. Davis Foundation of Amherst has created the Don Davis Auto World Fund for WBFO 88.7 FM, the National Public Radio affiliate operated by the University at Buffalo. The gift, the largest in the station's history, will allow the station to develop new programming and buy new equipment.

A scientific article co-authored by Sebastian G. Ciancio, D.D.S., professor and chair of the Department of Periodontology in the School of Dental Medicine, recently won the annual Clinical Research Award from Quintessence Publishing Co.

Germaine Buck, Ph.D., of Buffalo, associate professor of social and preventive medicine at the University at Buffalo, has been appointed to a three-year term on the board of the Institute of Medicine's Medical Follow-up Agency, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

A stroke research center unmatched in technology and sophistication is being established at the University at Buffalo with a $3.6 million gift of advanced image-guidance equipment from Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc.

For the first time, the official risk map for the Mexican volcano Popocatepetl, which has shown alarming activity during the past two years, has been designed with input from computer models, rather than based solely on fieldwork.