Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
National Coverage
Map offers new clues to fate of Lost Colony
The Associated Press
A new look at a 425-year-old map has yielded a tantalizing clue about the fate of the Lost Colony, the settlers who disappeared from Roanoke Island in the late 16th century. Experts from the First Colony Foundation and the British Museum in London discussed their findings Thursday at a scholarly meeting at UNC Chapel Hill. Their focus: the "Virginea Pars" map of Virginia and North Carolina created by explorer John White in the 1580s and owned by the British Museum since 1866.
Map’s Hidden Marks Illuminate and Deepen Mystery of Lost Colony
The New York Times
…Even White’s map, which was included in a 2007 British Museum exhibition, appeared to hold no clues. But two small patches layered atop the map intrigued Brent Lane, a member of the board of the First Colony Foundation who was helping research the site of an American Indian village. Mapmakers in the era often used the patches, overlaying new paper atop old to correct mistakes and repair damage. Mr. Lane speculated that one of the patches could mask an Indian village.
Junior Seau’s Death Raises Familiar and Agonizing Questions
Time
…Neuroscientist Kevin Guskiewicz at the University of North Carolina, using accelerometers in players’ helmets, has found that college players sustain, on average, from 900 to 1,100 subconcussive blows — the kind that do damage but cause no meaningful symptoms — per season. Often it doesn’t even take a hit to the head to create a problem. The energy unleashed by a blow elsewhere on the body can be more than enough to cause the head and the brain to whip around violently.
Best deals on shopping
CNN.com
Know when to go generic. Drugs, batteries, canned food — the store brand is just as good. Pony up for a name brand only for a category of product where the technology gets better over time, such as disposable razors, says University of North Carolina marketing professor Jan-Benedict Steenkamp.
Government considers protection for dwarf seahorse
The Associated Press
…Marine scientist Joel Fodrie said he has not seen much difference in the seagrass meadows from Louisiana's Chandeleur Islands to St. Joseph Bay, Fla., marine nurseries which he has trawled for juvenile fish from mid-July to late October every year since 2006. Seagrass ecosystems are stressed by climate change, pollution that keeps light from reaching the grass and fragmentation, said Fodrie, an assistant professor in the University of North Carolina's Department of Marine Sciences.
End Racial Profiling Act: A Smarter Policy
The Huffington Post
Ironically, University of North Carolina Professor Charles Kuzman released a report on terrorism and homeland security in February 2011 using government data, which states that American Muslims cause "a minuscule threat to public safety." More ironic is that the more religious or prayerful American Muslims are, the more likely they are to be adverse to violent extremism.
Stem Cell Suicide Switch
The Scientist Magazine
…Four years ago, Mohanish Deshmukh and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that neurons—which, unlike stem cells, do not divide—restrict apoptosis, or cell death, allowing them to survive through periods of stress or cell damage that might otherwise stimulate apoptosis.
Related Link:
http://www.livescience.com/20070-injured-stem-cell-suicide.html
Regional Coverage
Impact of globalization
The Register & Bee (Danville, Va.)
James Peacock III, a professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, emphasized the necessity for caution in embracing new trends in globalization as he spoke to students, faculty and local residents April 26 at Rockingham Community College.
State and Local Coverage
North Carolina, British researchers find clue to location of Lost Colony
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have uncovered perhaps the strongest clue in more than 420 years to North Carolina’s biggest mystery. Researchers at the British Museum in London, prompted by questions from an amateur historian who teaches economic development at UNC-Chapel Hill, found a symbol hidden for centuries under a patch on an Elizabethan map that could show where the settlers of the Lost Colony went after they vanished in 1587.
Related Link:
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/pasttimes/lost-colony-mystery-continues#storylink=misearch
16th century map offers hidden clues about Lost Colony
WRAL-TV (CBS/Raleigh)
…Historians at the University of North Carolina participated in a webcast with scientists from the British Museum in London who detailed what they found on White's map of the North Carolina coast. "What is curious about this map is that, while it is highly accurate and very detailed, it contained two patches," said Brent Lane, director of the UNC Center for Competitive Economies.
UNC chancellor to speak at Wesleyan commencement
The Rocky Mount Telegram
N.C. Wesleyan College will hold its spring graduation ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Minges Auditorium at the Dunn Center for the Performing Arts. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp will deliver the commencement address to the Wesleyan College audience, which will include approximately 205 graduates along with their family members and college faculty and staff.
How to measure your social media prominence (Blog)
The Triangle Business Journal
Being a giant in the health care space, UNC Health Care has a lot of things to get social about; and one way the system is doing that is through Triangle Business Journal’s Social Madness Challenge. Tom Hughes, media relations and social media strategist at UNC Health Care, says the system “is very interested in growing its social media presence and we’re hoping that taking part in this process will help us do that.”
Crisis over, perhaps, but lawsuits go on
The Triangle Business Journal
…Plaintiffs can sue as long as three years after an alleged wrongdoing under North Carolina law, and as much as five years later under federal law. Limits also apply to the time that may pass between discovering the alleged wrongdoing and filing a lawsuit, says UNC-Chapel Hill law professor Thomas Lee Hazen.
Poorer counties now faring better in Golden Leaf cash
The Triangle Business Journal
“It’s better than what I would have thought,” Brent Lane, director of the UNC Center for Competitive Economies, or C3E in Chapel Hill, says of the amount of grants distributed in counties with higher needs. “A few years back they weren’t getting good (grant applications) from areas where the greatest needs were,” Lane says.
Town eyes new taxi rules
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
…A review of the town’s taxi regulations was prompted by a petition last October from UNC Student Body President Mary Cooper, who wrote that students are concerned about safety, accessibility and inconsistency in taxi service.
Voices to present ‘Vancouver Visions’
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Voices, a 130-member vocal group, will perform “Vancouver Visions: Music by Stephen Chatman” May 19 at 8 p.m. in Memorial Hall at UNC. This performance will be the U.S. premiere of “Magnificat” and “Earth Songs.” “Magnificat” features texts in Latin plus the six official languages of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. “Earth Songs” is a choral-orchestral work that challenges the singers to sing in eight different languages in a single movement.