Here is a sampling of links and notes about other Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
International Coverage
Fizzy drinks 'should carry cigarette-style health warnings', say experts as
study shows diabetes danger in just ONE sugary drink a day
The Daily Mail (United Kingdom)
Sugary soft drinks should carry cigarette-style health warnings on their packaging, according to experts. Scientists warned this week that drinking one can of soft drink a day can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes by a fifth. …Professor Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina told the Sunday Times: 'If there is any item in our food supply that acts like tobacco, it is sugared drinks.'
National Coverage
Should Gun Restrictions Be Placed on Veterans With PTSD? (Blog)
The New York Times
…“PTSD is different from one person to the next and involves many different types of symptoms,” said Dr. Elbogen, a professor of forensic psychiatry with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has been studying PTSD for 20 years. “In our research, we found that veterans with PTSD and high irritability were twice as likely to report getting arrested compared to other veterans, whereas veterans with PTSD and low irritability were not at increased odds of getting arrested. So, to generalize that all veterans with PTSD are prone to criminal acts or violence is inaccurate.”
Want a treadmill with your burger? (Blog)
The Washington Post
…A new study out of North Carolina, flagged by Aaron Carroll, suggests that the labels could be more effective if they included additional information—namely, the exercise required to work off the calories at hand. Researchers showed 804 employees of the University of North Carolina Medical Center one of the four menu formats, shown above. They were asked to “imagine you are at a fast food restaurant” ordering a meal. Then they selected all items they would purchase.
More States Blow the Whistle on High School Football Heat Illness
Scientific American
Spring football practice started this month for high schools across the country, and teams are drawing up game plans for the heat as well as this fall's opponents. Football players are 11 times more likely to suffer heat related illnesses than all other high school sports combined, according to a recent University of North Carolina study.
Is Michael Pollan a sexist pig?
Salon.com
…“The return to domesticity by young, intelligent, educated women like you see around here is a reaction against a broken food system in America,” says Marcie Cohen Ferris, a professor of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an expert on food culture. “We’ve lost our connection to traditional handmade cuisine, kids could have shorter life spans than their parents [because of obesity and poor diet], there’s global warming. This new food culture is a response to an industrial model that’s not working.”
Regional Coverage
Muslim Americans: Behind the Veil of a Religion Under Attack
The Long Island Press (New York)
…“Obviously 9/11 has made people hypersensitive to certain types of threats, and God-forbid that something should happen on a comparable scale from the white supremacists groups then I imagine our sensitivity to those kinds of threats would increase as well,” says its author Charles Kurzman, professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Texas blast highlights weak regulations
The San Francisco Chronicle (California)
Eighteen years after a domestic terrorist murdered 168 people in Oklahoma City with an ammonia nitrate bomb, the federal government and the chemical industry are still jockeying over how to regulate a volatile and plentiful fertilizer that contributed to the devastating plant explosion in West, Texas. …Neither Congress nor state legislatures are prepared to finance the number of federal and state inspectors that would be needed to replace the voluntary reporting system that lies at the heart of chemical-plant regulation, said Victor Flatt, a professor at University of North Carolina law school.
State and Local Coverage
9 area students awarded Morehead-Cain scholarships
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the oldest, most prestigious merit scholarship program in the United States, has named 48 new Class of 2017 Morehead-Cain Scholars – nine from the Triangle area – who will attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to covering all expenses for four years of undergraduate study at UNC, Morehead-Cain features a distinctive program of summer enrichment experiences.
Related Links:
http://www.news-record.com/home/1130972-63/story
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/04/26/4006011/8-from-region-named-morehead-cain.html
http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2013/04/26/1253183?sac=fo.local
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/6001/1/
Exploring Media's Impact In A Time Of Crisis
WUNC-FM (Chapel Hill)
As the media covered the tragic Boston Marathon bombing, they also made mistakes. News outlets, with reputations built on truth and accuracy, spent air-time speculating rather than reporting. Some of the early, incorrect reports posed threats to innocent people who were wrongly-implicated in the bombing. During this week's news roundtable, Host Frank Stasio will talk with Mark Binker, Omid Safi, and Jules Odendahl-James about media's role in a time of crisis. Mark Binker is a Multimedia Investigative Reporter for WRAL; Omid Safi is a professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Jules Odendahl-James is a Resident Dramaturg and Visiting Lecturer at Duke University.
Temp jobs increase in Triad
The News & Record (Greensboro)
…From high-level work to telemarketing jobs, more companies nationwide are jumping into the marketplace looking for certain kinds of workers to help cover gaps, expand production or fill hard-to-find jobs. …“A lot of part-time workers are doing this involuntarily,” said Arne Kalleberg, a Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill. “You can argue that any job is better than no job, but I wouldn’t take that too far.”
Study Shows How Trees Help CREATE Smog
WUNC-FM (Chapel Hill)
A new study from researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has revealed exactly how trees play a role in smog production. The question has been a source of scientific uncertainty for years, and the findings are a milestone in air pollution research, with potentially significant implications for public health. …“The work presents a dramatic new wrinkle in the arguments for reducing man-made pollutants worldwide,” Jason Surratt said in a statement released by UNC at Chapel Hill. Surratt is an assistant professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the Gillings School of Global Public Health and one of the paper’s 18 authors.
Related Link:
http://www.heraldsun.com/chherald/chloclal/x383676323/Researchers-
pinpoint-how-trees-play-role-in-smog-production
UNC Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5998/1/
Baseball players raise money for young cancer patients (Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Duke played UNC in baseball last weekend. Duke lost all three games and was outscored 21-3. After the final game late Sunday afternoon, as the shadows lengthened at Boshamer Stadium in Chapel Hill, the players shook hands. Then they sat down in chairs in front of the UNC dugout and had their heads shaved – every player and every coach from both teams. Even the Duke bus driver got clipped. They shaved their heads to raise money for local children’s hospitals and for cancer research. They also shaved their heads to show solidarity with young cancer patients who lose their hair during treatment.
Related Link:
http://www.heraldsun.com/chherald/chloclal/x383676183/Orange-
Cedgar-Ridge-basebald-game-raises-nearly-9-000
Auction set to benefit transplant hopefuls in N.C.
The Associated Press
The foundation named for the UNC-Chapel Hill student who performed as the school’s mascot is hosting a fundraiser to help people awaiting transplants. The Jason Ray Foundation is scheduled to host a brunch and auction today at The Carolina Club in Alumni Hall. The event is also designed to help people who have received an organ transplant at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill.
Related Link:
http://www.wnct.com/story/22101465/slain-unc-mascots-name-will-live-on
Why should boys get HPV vaccine? (Ask a Scientist)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Dr. Joan Cates is a lecturer at the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Chapel Hill and a researcher at the N.C. Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute. Here she explains why the human papillomavirus vaccine, often associated with reducing the risk of cervical cancer, is important for girls and boys alike.
MAHEC outreach should boost vital mission (Editorial)
The Citizen-Times (Asheville)
MAHEC may not be very well-known, but it is one of the most vital elements in Western North Carolina’s medical system. It has done a lot of good work, but a lot more is needed. That’s why it is reaching out to the community. …And that is only the beginning. MAHEC has fellowships in geriatrics and in hospice and palliative care. It runs the Asheville campus for third- and fourth-year medical students from UNC Chapel Hill.
Mediterranean diet is good for the heart, study finds
News 14 Carolina
…The Mediterranean diet favors fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, olive oil and nuts. The diet cuts back on processed baked goods and red meats. The study showed when compared with a low-fat diet, the Mediterranean diet reduced stroke by 30 percent. UNC Public Health Professor Alice Ammerman says people who eat a Mediterranean diet don’t avoid fat. “One of the big landmark things that this study points out is that we really are better off with a higher amount of fat, but good quality fat,” said Ammerman.
New documentary tells life story of author Elizabeth Spencer
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
…“I felt an injustice was everywhere around me,” says the 91-year-old Elizabeth Spencer in the new documentary, “Landscapes of the Heart: The Elizabeth Spencer Story.” The documentary screens May 5 at the Hanes Art Center Auditorium at UNC-Chapel Hill, where Spencer taught Morehead Scholars for several years in the late 1980s. On the same day, there’s also a fundraiser reception next door, at the Ackland Art Museum.
Why we build (Letter to the Editor)
The Chapel Hill News
This month, 75 students at UNC made a statement: Affordable housing remains an issue in Orange County. These student volunteers from all backgrounds recently committed to take part in the UNC Habitat for Humanity Spring Blitz Build, during which they contributed to the construction of a home being built in honor of Patti and Holden Thorp. Since before Holden became chancellor, the Thorps have been champions and proponents of Habitat for Humanity in Orange County. (Burgess Robinson, UNC)
Full of courage, smarts, yet facing empty future (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Each year, thousands of undocumented North Carolina immigrants are effectively excluded from our higher education system. In the process, they’re relegated to a regime of low-wage jobs and an expanding circle of poverty. As a result, colleges and universities abandon a central, empowering core of their missions. And the state forgoes much-needed potential economic contribution. (Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley distinguished professor at the UNC School of Law and director of the school’s Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity.)
ECHHS Earns High Honors In National UNC-Based Contest
WCHL-FM (Chapel Hill)
…This year marked the first-ever National High School Ethics Bowl, which was held in Chapel Hill April 19-20, and East Chapel Hill High School finished among the top four finalists. UNC Faculty Chair Jan Boxill says the event is, in some ways, similar to a debate—but in another sense, it’s very different. “It’s a competitive yet collaborative event where students analyze and discuss real-life, timely ethical issues,” she says.
Some UNC professors banning laptops from classrooms
News 14 Carolina
Some professors are banning laptops in class because they believe they’re a distraction. Meredith Murchison is an international studies major at UNC and brings her laptop to class everyday. …But Meredith and other students might not have the option to use laptops in some classes. Dr. Cathy Packer banned laptops in her classes for the first time this past fall.
Professor’s broad brush paints Orange County unfairly (Opinion-Editorial)
The Chapel Hill News
…Apparently Michael Jacobs, also affiliated with UNC, has chosen to use statistics to reinforce what he already thinks, too, in his case even if the facts don’t fit his assertions. (Barry Jacobs is the chairman of the Orange County Board of Commissioners.)
UNC Student Wins Big On "The Price Is Right"
WCHL-FM (Chapel Hill)
UNC student pharmacists Katie Traylor and three of her friends traveled to Los Angeles in March to compete on The Price is Right. The show aired on April 16. Traylor was selected from the audience to go on stage and she made the most of her opportunity, winning $10,000 and other smaller prizes.
Thorp: Big Time Sports Support Academic Mission
WCHL-FM (Chapel Hill)
UNC Chancellor Thorp, who was besieged by problems with the football program that was placed on NCAA probation, has become a defender of big time athletics in his final days here. “These excellent private research universities that are not in Big Time Sports have a hard time getting their alumni to come back to campus, creating loyalty that transcends the majors that the undergraduates have that renowns to the greater university, and getting the general public to know about where their university is,” Chancellor Thorp says.
Related Link:
http://chapelboro.com/Thorp-Firing-Butch-Davis-Today-Would-Not-Go-The-Sa/16170828
Student and athlete? ‘We’re just living a lie’
The News & Record (Greensboro)
Athletes face a steep increase in competition, both athletically and academically, once they make the jump from high schools to NCAA Division I colleges. Offseason workouts, film study, practices, meetings and more are required of athletes, particularly football and men’s basketball players, to be able to produce on the field and on the court. …“It’s a simple formula. It just doesn’t work at all.” said Mary Willingham, a former reading and learning specialist in UNC-Chapel Hill’s academic support program for athletes. “You’re just trying to cut corners all the time.”
Issues and Trends
New parking website to aid visitors
The Chapel Hill News
To the untrained eye, parking can be a challenge in the southern part of heaven.
But a new website, a joint effort among the town, the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau and the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership, intends to take the challenge out of parking downtown, even for a first-time visitor. …The new site, titled “Park on the Hill,” can be found at http://www.parkonthehill.com/. It includes a map detailing the locations of public and private parking throughout downtown Chapel Hill and on the UNC campus.
Local celebrities to dance for kids
The Chapel Hill News
…The 43-year-old mayor and seven other local “celebrities” will perform Saturday at Dancing with the Stars of Carolina to raise money for a new Boys & Girls Club opening this year in the Pine Knolls community. …UNC women’s basketball Coach Sylvia Hatchell and former UNC athletes Carla Overbeck and Charlotte Smith will judge the competition.
Re-sentencing for Eve Carson's killer delayed until June
WRAL-TV (CBS/Raleigh)
The re-sentencing for one of two men convicted in the death of former University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson has been delayed until June 3.