Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
International Coverage
Body & Soul
The Times-Colonist (Canada)
…There is no need for a colonoscopy sooner than five years after a negative colonoscopy, according to University of North Carolina study. A colonoscopy searches for and removes polyps, possibly precursors for colon cancer.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/unc-study-no-need-to-repeat
-colonoscopy-until-5-years-after-first-screening.html
National Coverage
Maybe Short-Selling Isn’t So Bad, After All
The New York Times
Federal regulators have banned short sales of more than 800 stocks, mostly of financial companies, in an effort to stabilize prices in a shaky market. …Adam Reed, a finance professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has extensively studied short-sellers’ behavior and its effects on the markets, said it was “hypothetically possible” that they were.
The Election and the Language of Race (Letter to the Editor)
The New York Times
Brent Staples was brave to bring to our attention the racism inherent in opponents’ attempts to characterize Barack Obama as elite and arrogant, and to lampoon his glamour and celebrity. (Richard H. Kohn, Chapel Hill, N.C. The writer is a professor of history and peace, war and defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)
Against Intuition
The Chronicle of Higher Education
…If philosophers want to demonstrate that their arguments comport with how the mind really works, say the proponents of experimental philosophy, they need to get off their duffs. …When several philosophers, including (Stephen) Stich and Joshua Knobe, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, along with a few psychologists, including the University of Virginia's Jonathan Haidt, proposed to Oxford University Press a new journal focusing on empirical studies of moral philosophy…
Regional Coverage
Time to make New York great at university level (Opinion-Editorial Column)
Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.)
New York State has, yet again, lost an opportunity to start building world-class public universities. …Look at what the Research Triangle in the midst of UNC Chapel Hill, Duke and North Carolina State has done for North Carolina, or what Silicon Valley, in proximity to Stanford and Berkeley, has accomplished in California.
Dramatic Rise In Childhood Diabetes Found
The Sun (New York City, N.Y.)
A dramatic rise in the number of North Dakota children with Type 2 diabetes — a form of diabetes normally seen in adults — provides more evidence of a link between the disease and childhood obesity, experts say. …A lead investigator of an ongoing national study on Type 2 diabetes in children, Elizabeth Mayer-Davis at the University of North Carolina, said the North Dakota data highlight the need to combat childhood obesity, which some are calling a modern-day epidemic.
Rivals' prescriptions for an ailing system
The Philadelphia Inquirer (Pa.)
Barack Obama and John McCain present voters with starkly different visions of how to change the nation's troubled health-care system. …"The individual market is in many ways the worst part of the American health-care system," said Jonathan Oberlander, a University of North Carolina political scientist and health-care expert who analyzed the two plans for the New England Journal of Medicine.
Stormy weather and blue skies
The Sun (San Bernardino, Calif.)
Business professionals, developers and urban researchers are increasingly dubbing Ontario, a 50-square-mile city of almost 200,000 residents, an "aerotropolis" – and with good reason. …"Those jobs are attracted as the network expands," said John Kasarda, professor of management and director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Reach 8 hearing resumes Monday
The Daily News (Palm Beach, Fla.)
After a three-week recess, the town faces off again this week with petitioners who seek to halt plans to reconstruct an eroded South End beach. …Experts for the petitioners have included Dr. Charles H. Peterson and Dr. Robert Young. Peterson, alumni distinguished professor at the Institute of Marine Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, testified that the gray offshore sand the town plans to dump on the beach will cause greater turbidity and sedimentation than would native beach sand.
State and Local Coverage
Thorp to start tour of state
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
New UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp will start traveling across North Carolina next week to visit with high school and university students, as well as UNC system chancellors and Tar Heel alumni. Thorp announced the tour Thursday. He will visit Asheville, Charlotte, Elizabeth City, Fayetteville, Greensboro, Morehead City and Wilmington.
Related Link:
http://dailytarheel.com/news/university/thorp_to_tour_n.c._high_schools_and_colleges
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/campus-and-community/chancellortour.html
Growth concerns warranted: Trustees should be wary of enrollment growth,
quality of education (Editorial)
The Daily Tar Heel
The Board of Trustees spoke for the students Thursday when several members raised concerns about how UNC-Chapel Hill could preserve academic quality in the face of significant enrollment growth. With the UNC-system’s 16 constituent universities projected to add 80,000 students in the next 10 years, growth seems inevitable. To serve the state, Chapel Hill ought to share the burden of that growth with the other schools.
New lab at School of Public Health
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
The UNC Chapel Hill School of Public Health has established a new Gillings Innovation Lab to track and map tropical infectious diseases such as malaria, using state-of-the-art molecular and demographic methods. Steven Meshnick, an epidemiology professor in the School of Public Health and an expert on molecular epidemiology and infectious diseases, will lead the new project, known as the laboratory for molecular surveillance of tropical diseases.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/new-unc-laboratory-to-help-
track-and-control-tropical-diseases.html
UNC biologist gets NIH award
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
Karin Pfennig, a biologist at UNC Chapel Hill, has received a $1.5 million New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health. Pfennig, an assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, will use the award to fund experimental research in understanding how individuals' health status and external environment influence their behavior.
UNC News Brief:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/unc-biologist-receives-
1.5-million-nih-innovator-award.html
NCHSAA board looking for answers
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The N.C. High School Athletic Association board of directors is expected to receive recommendations in December on how to make high school football safer. …Charlie Adams, the executive director of the NCHSAA, said he planned to invite the University of North Carolina's Kevin Guskiewicz, a national expert on brain injuries, to come speak to the board during its winter meetings. Adams said any recommendations Guskiewicz makes will be endorsed by the NCHSAA staff and will be presented to the board for action.
Fatal concussion spurs probe of teen players' care
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Jaquan Waller, a football player at J.H. Rose High School in Greenville, should not have been allowed to play in a game Sept. 19 that resulted in his death, a leading concussion researcher and several licensed athletic trainers say. …At all levels of football last year, there were four fatalities directly related to the game and nine indirect deaths involving such factors as heat stroke, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, based at the University of North Carolina.
Airport concern growing
The Chapel Hill News
Residents of the White Cross area plan to meet tonight to oppose a possible airport being sited there. But the UNC official in charge of the issue says it’s too soon to say where an airport might go. …Kevin FitzGerald, executive associate dean at the School of Medicine, said last week that the 2005 Talbert & Bright airport study is dated and White Cross residents’ petition drive is premature.
Related Link:
http://www.wchl1360.com/details.html?id=8131
For Carolina North, a new phase (Editorial)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Remember the Horace Williams Citizens Advisory Committee? How about the Leadership Advisory Committee? Surely you know the Joint Staff Working Group? They are, of course, among the multitude of different governmental groups that have, over the years, discussed the idea and some — but not very many — of the specifics of Carolina North.
Morehead Family Day opens minds to science
The Chapel Hill Herald
Indiana Jones and Lara Croft may raid the tombs of ancient civilizations for treasures. But scientists at UNC want to make sure kids know there's more to it than running off with treasure. …The Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, in conjunction with the Society of Anthropology and research labs of archeology, presented the quarterly event that offers kids and parents a chance to explore different aspects of the wide field of science.
'Asylum Denied' authors to speak
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
David Ngaruri Kenney and Philip G. Schrag, co-authors of "Asylum Denied: A Refugee's Struggle for Safety in America," will speak at UNC Chapel Hill on Tuesday at the FedEx Global Education Center and on Wednesday at the School of Law.
UNC News Brief:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/government-and-law/kenyan-protestor-david-ngaruri-kenney
-and-lawyer-to-speak-at-two-unc-events.html
1958: When modern art was in transition
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Kenneth Noland's concentric circles, 7 x 7 feet, painted in oil on canvas, and John Chamberlain's sheets of painted steel from automobiles, twisted into pedestal sculpture, mark the art of 1958, the year the Ackland Art Museum opened on UNC's Chapel Hill canvas. To celebrate its birthday, the Museum has mounted an exhibition of 62 works of art from 57 artists with objects that date from 1955 to 1963, pinpointing its opening plus or minus a year or two.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/arts/acklands-history-celebrated-in-50th-anniversary.html
The evidence adds up to 21 (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The recent decision of 129 college and university presidents to sign the Amethyst Initiative, which urges that the legal drinking age be lowered, is ill-considered and should be rescinded. The idea is entirely at odds with scientific conclusions and with recommendations from professionals who have devoted their careers to better understanding alcohol problems on college campuses. (Matthew Owen Howard is Frank A. Daniels Jr. distinguished professor of Human Services Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Social Work.)
Oil and offshore realities (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Drill, baby, drill – what? The idea that ending the moratorium against offshore drilling will reduce the price of gasoline and our dependence on imports of foreign oil is ridiculous. (Now retired, John J.W. Rogers was the William R. Kenan Jr. professor of geology at UNC-Chapel Hill.)
Shining new light on our unacceptable treatment of persons
with disabilities (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Leland Tribune
There’s a distressingly inconsistent attitude that modern Americans bear toward persons with disabilities. …Recently, researchers in the School of Social Work at UNC Chapel Hill reported that even middle class families with disabled children “are struggling to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads, and to pay for needed health and dental care.” According to the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Susan Parish, the study points out the need for a much more robust social safety net to support such families.
Buttons, badges and bumper stickers are OK (Letter to the Editor)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Responding to complaints about Hillary Clinton buttons, the Durham city manager recently reminded city workers that they cannot wear campaign buttons while at work. In a Sept. 21 editorial, The Herald-Sun agreed. I beg to differ. (Dan Pollitt, Chapel Hill. The writer is a UNC law professor emeritus.)
Losing Walt
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Walt Kline no longer remembers that he has Alzheimer's disease. …He had been fighting it for four years with every means he and wife Peggy could find. Those included cutting-edge treatments at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill, stimulating activities such as brain puzzles and volunteer work, and Peggy's quest for the latest on the disease.
Smithfield offering teen drivers safety class
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Smithfield town officials are scheduled to announce plans this morning for a drivers' safety program aimed at Johnston County teens. …Between 2005 and 2007, only Buncombe County had more teen vehicle fatalities than Johnston County in the state, according to the UNC Highway Safety Research Center.
ABC expansion opponents still seeing red
The Star-News (Wilmington)
Opponents of the New Hanover County ABC Board’s controversial expansion plans are still seeing red despite a pause in the action. …Such information is public, according to David Lawrence, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Government.
Iredell prepares for first 'Big Read'
The Record & Landmark (Statesville)
A diverse group of Iredell County citizens has been working together since December to plan Iredell County's first Big Read. …a presentation by UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law professor Joseph E. Kennedy about "Crime, Fear, and the Politics of Punishment;"…
Issues and Trends
Scaling back Halloween (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill News
Years ago, local residents and UNC students began to celebrate Halloween by dressing in crazy outfits and hitting the downtown bars and clubs, which would book special bands and hold costume contests. …Officials instead are looking at ways to scale the event back gradually and morph it into a more community-focused holiday.
How to handle a meltdown
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Just because your 401(k) plan is now a 301(k) plan, that doesn't mean that we are experiencing a real financial meltdown. …The reorganization also resulted in the consolidation of the UNC system, the creation of a central purchasing agency and the Local Government Commission to oversee local government borrowing. It also created a state personnel system and the State Banking Commission.
500 companies and counting
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
…North Carolina has nearly 500 companies related to efficiency, renewables and sustainability, according to the state Sustainable Energy Association. Here's a sampling of businesses, organizations and programs in the Triangle: …RESEARCH TRIANGLE ENERGY CONSORTIUM (Research Triangle Park): A collaboration between RTI International, Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University to use federal research grants and private venture capital for energy research and development.
Nearly 20% of convicts classified as absconders
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Almost 20 percent of the convicts Durham County's probation and parole office are supposed to monitor have proven so successful in eluding their probation officers that they've been formally classified as absconders. …The figure surfaced after Reckhow asked for statistics on the caseload of the Durham probation office, which landed in the spotlight in March after two men on probation, Laurence A. Lovette Jr. and Demario J. Atwater, were accused of murdering UNC Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson.