Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
National Coverage
Researchers Propose New Theory of Long-Distance Animal Navigation
Voice of America
Some members of the animal kingdom never venture far from home. Others, however, may migrate tens of thousands of kilometers, flying or swimming to distant destinations, and some of them – almost magically – return to the place of their birth, where they reproduce. …Certain animals manage to find their way without benefit of map, compass or GPS. University of North Carolina professor Ken Lohmann says it fills him with "a sense of wonder."
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/science-and-technology/no-place-like-home-
new-theory-for-how-salmon-sea-turtles-find-their-birthplace.html
New Products Bring Side Effect: Nanophobia
The New York Times
…Toiletry companies formulate new cutting-edge creams and lotions that contain tiny components designed to work more effectively. But those minuscule building blocks have an unexpected drawback: the ability to penetrate the skin, swarm through the body and overwhelm organs like the liver. …“The smaller a particle, the further it can travel through tissue, along airways or in blood vessels,” said Dr. Adnan Nasir, a clinical assistant professor of dermatology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Cleveland Clinic to Reveal Docs' Financial Ties
ABC News.com
Hospitals around the country are pushing for full disclosure of their doctors' financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry to help patients determine whether their doctors are making money from drug and device companies. …"I actually think that the push to disclose is rather a reproach to the ethical compass of my profession," said Dr. Nortin Hadler, a professor of medicine and microbiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The fact that we think that disclosing somehow means that there is no further conflict of interest seems a rather flimsy argument."
The Next Global Meltdown? (Blog)
The Daily Beast
The Bangkok airport siege is over, but it has ground Thailand's recovery to a halt and still threatens world markets. While the world’s attention was fixed on the terror in Mumbai, a potentially much graver threat to global prosperity was unfolding in Thailand, where the nation’s lengthy constitutional crisis reached its endgame. (John D. Kasarda is director of The Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina, and a founding trustee of the Kenan Institute Asia in Bangkok.)
Regional Coverage
Bright Futures: College costs zoom
The Times-Union (Jacksonville, Fla.)
State budget woes could mean some cloudy skies ahead for the state's popular Bright Futures Scholarship Program. …No. 1 is the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, which offers the "Carolina Covenant," a program that enables eligible students from historically low-income families to attend the university debt free. Students accepting the covenant are required to participate in work study on campus, as well as a mixture of other grants and loans.
State and Local Coverage
N.C. 1 of 49 states rated F on college affordability
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
An independent report on U.S. higher education that flunked North Carolina and 48 other states on affordability has some university officials here scratching their heads. …At UNC-Chapel Hill, officials are bothered by the report because it bases its grades, including the "F" for affordability, on data from both public and private institutions. Shirley Ort, UNC-CH's director of scholarships and student aid, questions the report's methodology and points out that although tuition and fees have increased at her institution over the last several years, so too has aid — perhaps most notably with the creation in 2004 of the Carolina Covenant program for low-income students.
Related Links:
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/campusnotes/higher-education-report-vague
http://www.goblueridge.net/index.php?option=com_content&
task=view&id=5178&Itemid=1
Carolina North talk proves balancing act
The Chapel Hill Herald
Representatives from UNC Chapel Hill and members of the Town Council grappled for a balance between specifics and generalities during a Carolina North planning session Wednesday. David Owens, the UNC School of Government professor consulting with trustees and council members during the months-long journey toward a development agreement for Carolina North, submitted a vision of the campus favored by staff members from both institutions that would separate building into four stages and varying scales of development.
Contemporary Iran in Context
"The State of Things" WUNC-FM (Chapel Hill)
It’s part of what the Bush administration terms the “Axis of Evil” and its President is prone to anti-Semitic rantings. But beyond the headlines, most Americans don’t know much about contemporary Iran. A seminar at UNC-Chapel Hill aims to put the Islamic Republic in context by discussing not just contemporary politics, but also literature, film and reform. Omid Safi, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, and Charles Kurzman, Professor of Sociology, join host Frank Stasio to broaden the scope of the conversation about Iran beyond nuclear weapons and “Death to Israel.”
Note: "The State of Things" is the statewide public affairs program airing live at noon weekdays and rebroadcast at 9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays.
Migration pattern demystified
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
How marine animals find their way back to their birthplaces to reproduce after migrating across thousands of miles of open ocean has mystified scientists for more than a century. But marine biologists at UNC Chapel Hill think they might have unraveled the secret.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/science-and-technology/no-place-like-home-new-
theory-for-how-salmon-sea-turtles-find-their-birthplace.html
Regional planning urged for hub impact
The News & Record (Greensboro)
The massive FedEx air hub scheduled to open next summer will employ hundreds of workers and also be a big draw for other companies that want to be close to the overnight shipper. …Drawing governments together to agree on seamless zoning and planning – Greensboro and Guilford County or High Point and Guilford County, for example – is a difficult task in every country at every airport, according to the report, written by John Kasarda and Stephen Appold, of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Medication can help sickle cell patients
WRAL.com
About 1,000 babies are born each year with sickle cell disease, according to routine blood tests performed on newborns in every state. …“It causes the red blood cells to take abnormal shapes and to flow poorly through the blood vessel,” UNC pediatrician Dr. Rupa Redding-Lallinger, co-director of UNC's sickle cell program, said.
Center cites staff members
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
The UNC Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center has honored five staff members with excellence awards. …The Oncology Nursing Excellence Award, in its seventh year, is presented in memory of Charmayne Gray, an oncology nurse practitioner who died in an auto accident in 2002. The Clinical Services Excellence Awards have been awarded for the past five years.
UNC News Brief:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/unc-lineberger-recognizes
-individuals-with-excellence-awards.html
Program targets obesity
The Chapel Hill Herald
Nine communities across the United States have been awarded up to $400,000 each by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to lead an ambitious effort to reverse the nation's childhood obesity epidemic. The program, part of a $44 million initiative, is managed by UNC's Active Living By Design program. The program was established in 2001 and is part of the North Carolina Institute for Public Health at UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/grants-awarded-in-unc
-managed-anti-obesity-program.html
Economy, health focus of forum
The Chapel Hill Herald
A panel of experts will tackle the topic of how to stave off the impact of the economic crisis on public health programs in an online broadcast this month. The Dec. 15 Webcast, "Public Health Survival: Leadership in a Falling Market," is hosted by UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/public-health-survival
-subject-of-web-broadcast.html
An absolute: Doctors don't kill (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Since 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized executions after a five-year pause, more than a thousand people have been killed. The messiness of hanging, firing squads, electrocution and gas has limited the use of those methods, leaving lethal injection as the only acceptable option. (Charles van der Horst is a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)
UNC senior is honored
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
The North Carolina Campus Compact has awarded UNC Chapel Hill senior Charlie McGeehan of UNC Chapel Hill its third annual Community Impact Student Award for making significant and innovating contributions to campus efforts addressing local community needs.
UNC News Brief:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/campus-and-community/unc-student-wins
-award-for-community-outreach-achievements.html
Berlin airlift seminar set
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Sixty years ago, the U.S. and Britain began supplying Berlin with food and other necessities from the air after the Soviet Union blockaded the city. UNC Chapel Hill professor of history emeritus Gerhard Weinberg will teach a seminar on this period in history Dec. 13.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/campus-and-community/berlin-airlift-to
-be-seminar-topic.html
Bald Head Isle exhibit set
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Photos of Bald Head Island by the late Charles Dennis of Hillsborough are on display Thursdays through Jan. 29 at the Center for the Study of the American South at UNC Chapel Hill.
UNC News Brief:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/campus-and-community/bald-head-island
-photos-on-display.html
Issues and Trends
49 States Flunk College Affordability Test
U.S. News & World Report
A new ranking of college affordability gives 49 of the 50 states F's. But while there's no doubt that college has gotten painfully expensive, a closer look at the data behind the numbers shows there are still some educational bargains out there.
Related Links:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=6385265&page=1
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/12/03/College_costs_in_US_hitting
_a_high_note/UPI-82981228317777/
(Not Really) Measuring Up
Inside Higher Ed
There are bright spots in Measuring Up 2008, the biennial “report card” on higher education that the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education is releasing today. The proportion of students graduating from high school prepared to do college-level work is on the rise, for instance, and the percentage of high school freshmen who go on to enroll in college is also climbing.
Harvard endowment loses $8bn in four months
Financial Times (United Kingdom)
Harvard, the world's wealthiest university, said that its endowment lost 22 per cent, or $8bn, in the first four months of the fiscal year, underscoring how higher education has been hard hit by the global financial crisis.
Related Link:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/12/04
/the_toll_on_harvard_81b/
UNC Students Remember Mumbai Victims
WNCN-TV (NBC/Raleigh)
More than 100 students at UNC held a candlelight vigil Wednesday night to remember those who died in the Mumbai attacks last week. The students said it's important for people all over the world, not just in India, to stand together to show terrorists they will not win. "Pray for the victims and spread our message so we can get together at this time of crisis and fight for peace," said Mohoha Sarkar, a UNC student.
Column: "I don't need the government to protect my feelings.
Neither do you." (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Times-News (Burlington)
How valued are the freedoms of speech and expression? It depends whether you're at a state university. …In 2004, a UNC Chapel Hill student was chastised by a professor for sharing that homosexuality is against his Christian religious beliefs during discussion in his Literature and Cultural Diversity class.