Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
International Coverage
HIV therapy is named breakthrough of year
United Press International
The journal Science has named the finding that treatment with anti-retroviral drugs prevents the spread of the AIDS virus its Breakthrough of the Year. …The study was led by Dr. Myron S. Cohen of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but many universities participated in the research.
Related Links:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/2011s-eureka-moments-6280783.html
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/12/22/hiv-study-named-breakthrough-of-the-year
Mothers who breastfeed for 'at least six months have lower blood pressure'
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)
Researchers found women who gave their babies formula or breastfed for less than three months were almost a quarter more likely to develop blood pressure problems. …"Women who never breastfed were more likely to develop hypertension than women who exclusively breastfed their first child for six months or more," said Dr Alison Stuebe, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who led the study.
Welcome to the age of the aerotropolis
The Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg, South Africa)
…"Transportation infrastructure has historically shaped business location and urban development," says John Kasarda (66), a business professor at the University of North Carolina who has been contracted by Ekurhuleni to develop its aerotropolis strategy. Airports, explains Kasarda, represent the "fifth wave" of transit-oriented urban development. They follow on highways in the 20th century, railroads in the 19th, rivers and canals in the 18th, and ocean port cities before that.
National Coverage
Scientists Name Top Breakthrough of 2011
Fox News
A study that found treating HIV patients with antiretroviral drugs makes them remarkably less infectious was named Thursday the most important scientific breakthrough of 2011. …"People were interested in the idea of treatment as prevention, but it created a hurricane-force wind behind the strategy," said Myron Cohen, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who conducted the study with a team of international colleagues. "The result was so unambiguous."
Related Link:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/study-of-the-day-
antiretrovirals-radically-cut-risk-of-hiv-infection/250303/
Peace Game Puts 'Weight Of The World' On Students
"Weekend Edition" National Public Radio
John Hunter's fourth-graders are remarkably successful at resolving world crises peacefully. Hunter, 57, has been teaching for more than three decades. He wanted to get his students to think about major world issues, so he invented the World Peace Game. Students are divided into countries, and then given a series of global crises — natural disasters, political conflicts — that they have to solve. …Irene Newman played the Hunter's game 10 years ago. She's now studying peace, war and defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "[In] third grade I thought I was going to be president of the United States," she tells Hunter.
Tim Tebow and the Second Coming (Blog)
The Washington Post
…I consulted three leading Biblical scholars about the idea of a Second Coming. Bart Ehrman, author and professor at the University of North Carolina, says that Tebow is totally unlike Jesus. The prevailing academic view, Ehrman said, is that “Jesus was an unknown, humble Jewish preacher from the backwater with a small following who got in trouble with the law.”
Pilgrimage to Rumi: May It Be Love (Column)
The Huffington Post
A few days ago I stood with a few thousand people, huddled inside Rumi's shrine, celebrating the 738th anniversary of his passing on to the Beyond. Millions of people around the world have been touched and transformed by his teachings and sublime poetry, whether in the original Persian, Turkish translations through the centuries or now in English. (Omid Safi is a Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina.)
Despite immigration reforms, many young immigrants still in limbo
CNN.com
…(Monji) Dolon says he didn't realize the seriousness of the situation until he received a rejection letter after applying at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The letter said the university would be unable to admit him due to his immigration status. Determined to move forward, he met with university administrators, who finally agreed to admit him as an international student without any financial aid or scholarships.
Treasury to Name Housing Finance Adviser
The Wall Street Journal
Michael Stegman, a housing and domestic policy director at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, will join the Treasury Department in January as a counselor to Secretary Timothy Geithner for housing-finance policy, according to a senior Treasury official. …Since 2005, he has served as director of policy and housing for U.S. programs at the MacArthur Foundation, and prior to that he taught housing policy and community-development finance over 40 years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Commencement Speakers Announced: Duke, Loyola Maryland,
Northeastern, Rice, UNC Chapel Hill
Inside Higher Ed
The following colleges and universities have announced their commencement speakers for spring 2012: …University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
State and Local Coverage
AIDS work led by UNC scientist wins high praise
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
An HIV discovery from researchers led by a UNC-Chapel Hill scientist is the biggest scientific breakthrough of 2011, according to the prestigious journal Science. The study found that early treatment with anti-retroviral drugs sharply cut the risk that infected patients will transmit HIV, which is the virus that causes AIDS. That finding could help slow the spread of the disease, perhaps dramatically.
Related Links:
http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/16875387/article-UNC-HIV-
prevention-research-named-Scientific-Breakthrough-of-the-Year
http://www.wral.com/news/local/noteworthy/story/10528281/
On AIDS, this is big (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
In the world of science and medicine, the journal called Science is one of the most respected in the field. Thus, the excitement in Chapel Hill recently was entirely justified, when Science proclaimed that a project led by UNC-Chapel Hill researchers and headed by physician Dr. Myron S. Cohen amounted to the biggest research breakthrough in 2011.
UNC's DeSimone Named Innovation Award Winner
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
The scientific research society Sigma Xi has awarded UNC Chemist Joseph DeSimone with the 2012 Walston Chubb Award for Innovation. The award recognizes research into new areas of potential scientific importance. It also awards novel approaches to long-standing problems in science or engineering or research. DeSimone has made news in the past year for developing a nanoparticle vaccine for prostate cancer and for creating particles that mimic red blood cells. Those findings could help pave the way to the development of synthetic blood.
Related Link:
http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story/16834709/article-CAMPUS-BRIEFS?instance=search_results
UNC Researchers Receive Grant To Study Human Genome
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
UNC researchers recently received a generous grant to help apply DNA sequences to patient care. UNC Professor of Genetics and Medicine James Evans says the money came from the National Institute of Human Genome Research, and his team will use it to make new uses out of DNA analyzation technologies.
Booze and pills catch up to aging baby boomers
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The aging generations of baby boomers will raise the percentage of older people using both alcohol and drugs to a new level, even as this group grows to nearly 1 of 5 North Carolinians by 2030. …"I certainly think that it's going to be a rapidly growing problem, and we in health care need to be aware of it and aware of how to deal with these concerns," said Jena Burkhart, geriatric clinical pharmacist at UNC-Chapel Hill's Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
Why are some of us early birds or night owls?
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Dr. Aziz Sancar is a Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the UNC School of Medicine, as well as a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Turkish Academy of Sciences. Here, he gives insight into the circadian clock – the biological rhythms that could explain why some people last all New Year's Eve and others are asleep before midnight.
UNC procedure gives veteran hearing back
WRAL-TV (CBS/Raleigh)
…Thanks to ever-improving technology and the use of cochlear implants, devices surgically implanted into the inner ear, people once consigned to reading lips and learning sign language have been given a new lease on life. Sixty-one-year-old Archie Zanders, a Vietnam War and Desert Storm veteran, is one of them. Zanders lost his hearing because of the loud explosions of war. Now, thanks to doctors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Medical Center, he's getting it back.
UNC Recycles Methane from Landfill
WUNC-FM (Chapel Hill)
Orange County and UNC Chapel Hill are working together to make productive use of a landfill gas. Methane originates from the decomposition of organic materials such as food. The collaboration will collect methane from the county's landfill and use it to produce electricity using a generator at UNC. Ray DuBose is the director of UNC Energy Services. He says projects like these are not without precedent.
Fears about North Carolina's Racial Justice Act debated
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Of all the arguments against the Racial Justice Act, the most alarming one is the claim that dozens of death-row inmates could be paroled. …"The chances are zero," said Robert Mosteller, an associate dean at UNC-Chapel Hill, who litigated one of the precedent-setting cases cited by supporters of the act. "The argument is frivolous. It is completely political."
New bosses for health plan (Under the Dome)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
With the State Health Plan moving to State Treasurer Janet Cowell's office the first of the year, the treasurer has announced a 10-member board to oversee the plan. Cowell appointed Paul Cunningham, the dean and senior associate vice chancellor for medical affairs at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, and David Rubin, professor emeritus of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill.
UNC "Y" to House Social Innovation
WUNC-FM (Chapel Hill)
The historic YMCA building on the Carolina campus will also serve as the home of a new Social Entrepreneurs initiative for students. The Social Innovation Incubator officially opens in January and will provide space for three teams of students to nurture their projects. Richard Harrill is the director of the Campus "Y" at UNC. He says they are currently accepting applications from students who want to be the first residents to work out of the innovation incubator.
Group continues to question sheriff's ads
T
he Daily News (Jacksonville)
…The sheriff, even as an elected official, is afforded the same freedom of speech as everyone else, especially if he is paying for the ads in question out of his own pocket, said Frayda Bluestein, a professor of public law at the University of North Carolina’s School of Government in Chapel Hill. Since Brown pays for the ads with his own money, the only real issue is whether he should be using the official logo of his office in such ads. The use of titles and logos could confuse the origin of such ads, she said.
Howes receives honor
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Jonathan Howes, former special assistant to the chancellor for community affairs at UNC Chapel Hill, has received the 2011 George Graham Award for exceptional service to the National Academy of Public Administration.
Stamm gets honorary degree
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
UNC Chapel Hill professor John Stamm has been awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Dentistry from King’s College London. Stamm is professor of dental ecology in the UNC School of Dentistry and an adjunct professor of epidemiology in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.
UNC student wins award
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Morgan Abbott of Raleigh, a senior at UNC Chapel Hill, has won a John H. Barnhill Trailblazer Award from the North Carolina Campus Compact.
A Tar Heel voice of Dickens
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Long before the Theater in the Park version made its debut, North Carolina audiences enjoyed Charles Dickens' 1843 classic "A Christmas Carol" as read by Frederick H. Koch, founder and director of the Carolina Playmakers at UNC-Chapel Hill. In Raleigh, Koch brought the voices of "Old Scrooge, the meanest pinch-penny in England, and Tiny Tim, the sweetest invalid" to the Ambassador Theatre.
Fire at UNC family student housing complex leads to evacuation
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
A dryer fire forced the evacuation of part of UNC-Chapel Hill's family student housing complex on Christmas Eve, fire officials reported Sunday. There were no injuries.
Related Link:
http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/10534046/
Issues and Trends
Here’s a little perspective on UNC, NCSU tuition hikes
The Triangle Business Journal
Tuition increases at North Carolina’s public universities have been well documented this year, but students in the Tar Heel State still aren’t facing hikes as large as many others around the country. …At UNC-Chapel Hill, by comparison, tuition and fees increased by 5.1 percent and 7.5 percent respectively. Each now charge about $7,000 in total tuition and fees. That number is the total cost, and is not adjusted for grants or scholarships.
Related Link:
http://www.dailyadvance.com/news/despite-tuition-hike-ecsu-still-best-unc-bargain-809465
Carson murder has led to changes in probation, parole (Editorial)
The Gaston Gazette
The murder of University of North Carolina student body president Eve Carson was shocking by any standard and perhaps sparked more interest and outrage than any single violent event of recent vintage in this area of the state.
Related Link:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/12/25/1730564/peace-caring-in-holiday-focus.html