POWER RANGERS

0445 (4:45 A.M.) was the start time of the 2011 Ranger Challenge held at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. BYU’s Army ROTC team (seven men and two women) placed first out of 16.

83 PUSH-UPS was the average each BYU cadet cranked out in a two-minute test conducted outdoors in a blizzard. That’s about twice the number required in the Navy SEAL test.

45 POUNDS weighed down each cadet during the competition’s “ruck march,” where team members carried rucksacks, sandbags, and empty 55-gallon drums over obstacles and unfamiliar terrain.

20 MINUTES was BYU’s lead over the second-place team as they finished the ruck march. BYU has won 28 Ranger Challenges in the last 30 years.

SEEING GREEN

25 PERCENT more space is available for growing plants in the new Life Sciences greenhouses (located next to Kiwanis Park).

25 FEET of vertical space in the sunken-floor room will allow the greenhouses’ tallest tree, a non-fruit-producing fig from the Middle East, to stretch its limbs. At the old greenhouse, it was capped at 15 feet.

10 ROOMS in the new greenhouses are dedicated to researchers like assistant plant sciences professor Joshua A. Udall (BS ’95), who, with $600,000 in National Science Foundation grants, is working to improve cotton varieties’ fiber length and strength.