Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
International Coverage
North Carolina Dorm ‘Biggest Loser’ in EPA Building Competition
Bloomberg News
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cut energy use at a residence hall by 36 percent, making it the winner of an Environmental Protection Agency contest inspired by the television show “The Biggest Loser.” Morrison Residence Hall, which saved more than $250,000 and cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 730 metric tons in one year, took first place in the first National Building Competition to reduce energy waste, the EPA said today in a statement. The 14 buildings in the competition together cut their energy bills by $950,000 from Sept. 1, 2009, to Aug. 31, the EPA said.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4030/75/
At-home infertility tests cause concerns
United Press International
At-home infertility tests for women are not foolproof because of the cutout levels of the hormone used, U.S. researchers say. Dr. Anne Z. Steiner of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine says these infertility tests may label many women as infertile who actually go on to have children naturally.
UNC Release:
http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2010/October/study-raises-concern-about-ability-of-tests-to-
predict-fertility?utm_source=release&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=steiner
National Coverage
UNC College Kids School Everybody on How to Save Energy (and Money)
Time
In a national competition organized by the Environmental Protection Agency, buildings around the country were challenged to decrease energy use over the course of a year. The winning building was a dorm at UNC-Chapel Hill, which reduced energy use by 35.7% and saved more than $250,000 on energy costs.
Related Links:
http://blogs.forbes.com/kerryadolan/2010/10/26/and-the-biggest-energy-loser-is/
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/10/epa-biggest-loser-unc/1
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/and-the-winner-is-a-very-frugal-dorm/?partner=rss&emc=rss
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4030/75/
Home fertility tests questioned
The Washington Post
There's some new research out that is raising questions about those home fertility tests that are being sold in drug stores. A new study found that the tests may incorrectly label women infertile even though they are still capable of having babies. …So Anne Steiner of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill and colleagues studied 100 women who were considered at risk for fertility problems because of their age.
UNC Release:
http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2010/October/study-raises-concern-about-ability-of-tests-to-
predict-fertility?utm_source=release&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=steiner
Health Care Vote Puts Democrats on Defensive
The New York Times
…The Democrats have been less enthusiastic about promoting the requirement, starting in 2014, that most Americans obtain insurance or the coming tax-financed expansion of subsidized insurance. “You can argue the Democrats should have done more with the popular parts of the bill,” said Jonathan B. Oberlander, who teaches health care politics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “and this speaks to the problem they have selling it, especially to insured Americans.”
The ‘Tipsy’ Gene (Blog)
The Wall Street Journal
Do you get really tipsy after one or two drinks? Researchers at the University of North Carolina say that up to twenty-percent of the population has a gene variant that makes it difficult for some people to drink very much, without feeling inebriated. Such an effect may actually be helpful in protecting people from developing a problem with alcohol. Professor Kirk Wilhelmsen, the lead researcher on the study, says this research tells us a lot about how the brain reacts to alcohol and may lead to better treatments for alcoholism.
UNC Release:
http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2010/October/scientists-find-gene-linked-to-alcoholism
A Word to the Awkward: Networking Takes Practice (Blog)
The Wall Street Journal
Last Friday was the 26th annual Undergraduate Business Symposium at UNC. The event brings about 60 executives together with 400 students for a day of case competitions, career panels and speakers. As a member of the 11-student committee that planned the entire event, I considered the day a little more special than the average attendee. (Emily Noonan, of Bloomingdale, Ill., is a senior at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business, pursuing a degree in business administration and a second major in Asian studies.)
State and Local Coverage
Morrison Hall, a winner, 'test bed for new ideas'
The Chapel Hill Herald
With a light mist falling outside of Morrison Residence Hall, officials with the Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that the Carolina Watt-Busters is the winner of the agency's first National Building Competition. The EPA held the year-long competition to see which of 14 competing teams could reduce energy consumption by the greatest percentage in a large commercial building.
Related Links:
http://www.wfae.org/wfae/1_87_316.cfm?action=display&id=6591
http://www.wral.com/news/education/story/8508350/
http://orange.mync.com/site/Orange/news/story/56505/unc-dorm-wins
-epa-energy-savings-contest/
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4030/75/
UNC's powerful example (Editorial)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Bragging rights are nice, but $250,000 is better. Morrison Residence Hall at UNC Chapel Hill ended up with both after it won the Environmental Protection Agency's first EnergyStar National Building Competition. The operators of 200 buildings across the country applied for the yearlong contest — which, by the way, didn't offer a prize. Morrison, a 45-year-old, 10-story brick monolith that houses about 860 students, was one of 14 competitors chosen by the EPA. The competition's "prize money" came from the dorm's savings on energy bills.
Professor to speak at commencement
The Chapel Hill Herald
Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Morehead Alumni Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, will speak at the December Commencement at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Chancellor Holden Thorp will preside at the Dec. 19 ceremony at 2 p.m. in the Dean E. Smith Center on Bowles Drive. Thorp chose Sayre-McCord in consultation with the university's Commencement Speaker Selection Committee, made up of an equal number of students and faculty.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4027/75/
Heart to HAART: The state of the HIV/AIDS movement
The Chapel Hill Herald
“Over 35,000 North Carolinians are living with HIV/AIDS,” says 24-year-old filmmaker Julian Wooten. “And ignoring it does not make it go away.” A graduate student in the the University of North Carolina’s Eshelman School of Pharmacy, Wooten is making the documentary “Heart to HAART: The State of the HIV/AIDS Movement.” HAART stands for Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy and is a drug combination treatment for the disease. …Peter Leone, medical director of the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, applauds Wooten for “directing the idea for the video, putting the concept together and looking for funding.”
UNC aims to reduce cancer disparities
The Triangle Business Journal
UNC-Chapel Hill researchers have received a $3.9 million grant to help reduce cancer health disparities in 13 North Carolina counties. Scientists at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Gillings School of Global Pubic Health will use the five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute to work to study cancer rates – and ways to reduce them – among different races in Alamance, Caswell, Chatham, Edgecombe, Guilford, Halifax, Montgomery, Nash, Northampton, Orange, Randolph, Rockingham and Wilson counties.
UNC Release:
http://cancer.unc.edu/news/2010/release1026/
Report: 20% have trouble with alcohol
The Triangle Business Journal
Think you can drink your friends under the table, then you may actually have a greater chance in being an alcoholic. A new research from UNC states almost 20 percent of the adult population have a gene variant that makes it real tough for them to drink alcohol in excess. he in fact feel inebriated after one drink.
UNC Release:
http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2010/October/scientists-
find-gene-linked-to-alcoholism
Aerospace is taking off (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
No one denies that these are tough economic times for North Carolinians. Our state's official unemployment rate has only recently dropped to 9.6 percent, the level in the U.S. as a whole. While 14.3 percent of the nation's population lives in poverty, 16.3 percent of North Carolinians do. (John D. Kasarda is director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and Kenan distinguished professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill. Peter A. Coclanis is Albert R. Newsome distinguished professor of history and director of the Global Research Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill.)
Books for a post-election bucket list (Column)
The Richmond County Daily Journal
…Here are book suggestions for the candidates and for you to consider: Minrose Gwin’s “The Queen Of Palmyra.” This new book by a UNC-Chapel Hill professor is set in a small Mississippi town in 1963. …(Gwin will be my guest on North Carolina Bookwatch on Friday, November 5, at 9:30 pm and Sunday, November 7, at 5 pm. Now you know my secret agenda.)
'Fences' a timeless drama for all
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Family dynamics and racial tensions of the 1950s will play out at the Paul Green Theatre at UNC-Chapel Hill this week when the university's professional theater group, PlayMaker's Repertory Company, produces "Fences," the Tony-award winning play by August Wilson. Centering on the battles of ex-Negro League baseball player Troy Maxson and his family, the drama explores the frustration and despair of being an African-American in midcentury America.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3946/66/
Panel to discuss civil rights advocate
The Chapel Hill Herald
A historian, attorney, poet, activist, teacher and Episcopal priest, the Rev. Pauli Murray (1910-1985) worked to address injustice and promote reconciliation among races and economic classes. As part of a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Murray's birth in Durham, a free public panel discussion about the black civil rights advocate will be at 6 p.m. Nov. 3 in the Wilson Special Collections Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A reception at the library at 5:15 p.m. will precede the program.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4029/73/
Film, discussion mark anniversary of 'Mockingbird'
The Chapel Hill News
A local celebration of the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee's classic novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" on Thursday will including a screening of the film adaptation, a discussion by a panel of writers, and a reception. UNC and the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau are sponsoring the festivities 50 years after publication of the book, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961.
Related Link:
http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/10044622/article-BRIEFS?instance=main_article
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4021/107/
Program to remember author
The Chapel Hill Herald
The late North Carolina author Tim McLaurin will be remembered with a panel discussion, film screening and music at 3 p.m. Nov. 7 in The Barn at Fearrington Village in Pittsboro. …The free public program will be co-sponsored by UNC's Friends of the Library, where McLaurin's papers are kept in the Southern Historical Collection of the Wilson Special Collections Library. Marvin Hunt, associate professor of English at North Carolina State University and a UNC alumnus, organized the event.
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4024/66/
You won't be able to say you didn't know (Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Should that chunk of cheddar come with a warning on the front label? In the future, it just might. It would join salty frozen lasagna, trans-fat-laden pie crusts and pastries and other foods rich in the big four – calories, saturated fat, trans fat and sodium – in a new labeling policy designed to take some of the confusion out of making food choices at the supermarket. Those nutritional factors are associated with some of our biggest health risks, including obesity, coronary artery disease and diabetes. (Suzanne Havala Hobbs is a registered dietitian and a clinical assistant professor in the department of health policy and administration in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill.)
UNC's Burney cleared to return
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
North Carolina senior Kendric Burney will make his season debut on Saturday after missing seven games and after the resolution of complicated academic issue. The NCAA suspended Burney, an All-ACC cornerback, for the first six games of the season for accepting improper agent-related benefits.