BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) - For decades it was joked about as Moo U.

Lately it's adopted a more-hip nickname, Trout U.

And now, Montana State University is calling itself by a cool new name, the University of the Yellowstone. MSU is so intent on getting exclusive use of that moniker, it has applied to the federal government for a trademark.

What's in a name? It could be merely marketing, a way to put MSU on the map and attract out-of-state undergraduates who may not be exactly sure where Montana is. But it could be much more, enhancing fundraising, attracting top-notch scientists, boosting MSU's reputation in the world of science, or possibly opening new opportunities for the university.

"It's a very powerful designation," MSU President Geoff Gamble said recently. "It's not just a new slogan. We are the largest researchers in the Yellowstone ecosystem in grants, publications and presentations at scientific conferences. So using the phrase is simply recognition of all the work we're doing."

Another reason for adopting the name, Gamble said, is "to capture our vision of what the Big Sky Institute will become."

MSU is trying to raise millions of dollars to begin building a science and teaching center at Big Sky focused on researching and teaching about the greater Yellowstone National Park ecosystem and the Rocky Mountain environment.

"It sounds like a great idea," said John Varley, the man in charge of figuring out just what the University of the Yellowstone might be.

Varley worked in the park for 33 years as a fisheries biologist, research chief and founding director of the Yellowstone Center for Resources. MSU Provost Dave Dooley coaxed him out of retirement to lead MSU's Big Sky Institute.

When he was last working in the park, about 130 national and international universities doing were doing research there, Varley said, "and MSU is the biggest player - the most researchers, the most money spent."

Sitting in his new Big Sky Institute office on the Bozeman campus, Varley, 65, said there's already a big basket of ideas of what the University of the Yellowstone could be, ranging from just adopting the moniker to creating a new college. In between are creating new centers or institutes, or having all MSU freshmen take classes on or in Yellowstone.

"Can it be a great recruiting tool? Well, sure," Varley said. "Yellowstone has worldwide name recognition. One-third of all Americans have been there."

And Yellowstone has an emotional pull. He's constantly surprised by the people who say Yellowstone has been significant in their lives - as a fabulous childhood memory, or a honeymoon destination.

Over the next 10 months, Varley and a small committee plan to invite MSU faculty and others to fill up the basket with even more ideas, for winnowing to "what the University of the Yellowstone could or should be," he said.

For many decades, Varley said, MSU ignored Yellowstone, just a 90-minute drive from the Bozeman campus.

Founded as a land-grant college, MSU's original mission was to help Montana's farmers and instruct mechanics, and later to educate engineers, nurses and teachers.

It wasn't until Bill Tietz's tenure as MSU president, from 1977 to 1990, that the Bozeman campus began paying attention to Yellowstone's scientific potential, Varley said.

Ignoring Yellowstone was "a terrible mistake," said Gary Strobel, 68, professor emeritus of plant science. When he was a young scientist at MSU the 1960s, Strobel said, a professor across the hall, Ken Temple, was doing basic taxonomy, naming and classifying organisms that lived in Yellowstone's thermal pots.

"I thought it was boring," Strobel said. "I remained aloof."

Temple gave a scientific journal a paper about organisms that grow in super-hot water. The paper was declined.

Later an Indiana scientist used Temple's discovery and information to do further research and write a paper on the organisms, which was published.

"I got him started," said Temple, now 89.

In 1985, California scientist Kary Mullis used an enzyme from that discovery in Yellowstone to invent a breakthrough technique for making millions of copies from a small DNA sample. His invention, the polymerase chain reaction technique, later sold for $300 million and in 1993 won Mullis the Nobel Prize for science.

Strobel said the enzyme was originally in the lab of Temple, who never received the recognition or scientific support he deserved.

"This had absolutely off-the-scale, worldwide, world-shaking implications. That could have been a Montana discovery," Strobel said.

MSU can't be accused of ignoring Yellowstone today.

It's one of four universities in the nation, including MIT and Caltech, sharing a $6 million grant from NASA to study the origins of life on Earth and the possibility of life on other planets. Part of the money will go to MSU's Thermal Biology Institute, which focuses on the strange organisms in Yellowstone's hot pots that can thrive in the equivalent of boiling battery acid.

MSU ecologists are also investigating Yellowstone wolves' impact on wildlife, the threats to cutthroat trout and the risks posed by New Zealand mud snails and whirling disease, said Dave Roberts, ecology department head.

From the history department to filmmaking, MSU professors and students are doing work in and around Yellowstone, said MSU spokeswoman Cathy Conover.

Last year Roberts analyzed scientific research on Yellowstone and found that in recent years MSU received five times more National Science Foundation grants to study Yellowstone than its closest competitors, Stanford and UCLA.

"It turned out to be remarkable," Roberts said. NSF grants are "extremely competitive" and "absolutely the high-water mark in science."

He also checked the 500 most recent scientific papers on Yellowstone in the Institute for Scientific Information's Web of Science database. MSU had 44 papers published on Yellowstone, nearly three times as many as its nearest competitor, the University of Wisconsin, twice as many as the entire University of California system, and more than Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Brown, Duke, and Stanford combined.

Yellowstone is "the highest quality natural laboratory" and "the largest intact natural ecosystem in the lower 48," Roberts said. "It's brought really top-notch faculty to this university."

Some people may find it curious that MSU plans to build its new, Yellowstone-focused research and teaching center not in West Yellowstone or Gardiner, but at Big Sky, a ski and summer resort that's attracted thousands of wealthy second-home owners.

Gamble is quick to say that MSU's University of the Yellowstone idea refers to the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, not just the national park. Furthermore, some generous donors gave MSU land for the new institute - 3.5 acres, along U.S. 191 at Big Sky - "and many local folks are willing to put up money to fund it."

So far, $750,000 has been raised or pledged toward construction of the institute's $4 million first phase, Varley said. MSU hopes to raise the rest in the next 12 months or so.

Asked if the institute had been located at Big Sky to establish an MSU beachhead in Montana's wealthiest community and make friends with people who may be inspired to donate to the university, Varley said: "What's wrong with that?"