NC State In the News

Reminders of Age Undermine Memory

The New York Times

April 27 – Older people who believe that memory loss goes hand in hand with aging may be undermining their own performance, a new study says. Researchers found that when older volunteers took a series of cognitive tests after being given hints that their age might affect the results, they did less well. The study, which appears in Experimental Aging Research, was led by Thomas M. Hess of North Carolina State University. The researchers worked with about 100 adults in two age groups, 60 to 70 and 71 to 82. Participants were asked to do a series of tasks involving arithmetic and memorization....

New Human Movement Model Aids In Studying Epidemic Outbreaks

Terra Daily, NSF, First Science, Carolina Newswire, Congoo, Chattahbox.com

April 28 – Researchers have developed a new statistical model that simulates human mobility patterns, mimicking the way people move over the course of a day, a month or longer. The model, developed by scientists at North Carolina State University and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), is the first to represent the regular movement patterns of humans using statistical data....The researchers gave global positioning system (GPS) devices to approximately 100 volunteers at five locations in the U.S. and South Korea and tracked the participants' movements over time, according to study co-author Dr. Injong Rhee, a professor of computer science at NC State....

Inaugural eGames Showcases Innovation, Entrepreneurship of NC State Students

Sacramento dBusinessNews, Triangle dBusinessNews

April 22 – North Carolina State University's Entrepreneurship Initiative is holding the first annual eGames entrepreneurship Olympiad on Friday, April 24, from noon to 5:30 p.m. at the College of Textiles on NC State' s Centennial Campus. Media coverage of the event is invited. The College of Textiles is located at 2401 Research Drive. Parking is available in the Monteith Engineering Research Center (MRC) Parking Deck on Campus Shore Drive. Thirty-thousand dollars in prize money will be awarded across nine different competition categories, ranging from designs for a potential new product to innovative new uses for household objects. The awards ceremony, which begins at 4 p.m., will feature Marshall Brain, founder of How Stuff Works, as the keynote speaker. The daylong event "celebrates the spirit of student entrepreneurship across all colleges and disciplines at NC State," explains Dr. Tom Miller, executive director of the Entrepreneurship Initiative...

In Debate Over City Schools, Panel Is No Threat to Bloomberg's Grip

The New York Times

April 22 – In a nearly empty high school auditorium one evening last month, parents, teachers and cynics marched to the microphone, turned to the collection of volunteers derisively called the Panel for Educational Puppets, and began to scream....As the nation's cities increasingly turn to their mayors to run public schools - an approach the Obama administration strongly endorses - experts on school governance differ on the appropriate role for a school board....Thomas L. Alsbury, an associate professor at North Carolina State University, said boards controlled by mayors may improve efficiency, but can have "a chilling effect on the function of democracy and the control of our schools from the local citizenry."...

Green Revolution

Inside Higher ED

April 23  – Growth in sustainable agriculture education is akin to growth in the organic food market, says Damian Parr, a doctoral candidate in agricultural and environmental education at the University of California at Davis...."I think there are a couple of things happening very quickly," says Michelle Schroeder-Moreno, assistant professor and coordinator of North Carolina State University's agroecology program, offered as a minor since 2005. "One, quite frankly, is the decreasing numbers of students in traditional agronomy programs. Nationwide, this is a huge problem. These programs are being cut. These are land-grant institutions where agriculture has been our base." "Of any agricultural science, I think sustainable agriculture, agroecology are growing in ways that traditional programs haven't. We have for example, a lot more, I guess you could say, untraditional people coming back to agriculture via sustainable agriculture and agroecology. I have more women in our minor compared to our traditional agriculture courses...."

Pipettes at the ready

The Economist

April 23 – During a laboratory session at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, a dozen students gathered around a chromatography column. They were sending clarified lysate through an anion exchange, and some compared notes on the peculiar chemical smell of the classroom. "It's like bad chicken noodle soup," said one, wrinkling her nose....North Carolina State's Biomanufacturing Training and Education Centre, where the students were working with the chromatography column, is a more elaborate example of college-state-industry interaction. The gleaming building was paid for with $38m from the state's 1998 settlement with tobacco companies. Operating costs are covered by the state, to the tune of $7m a year. "We look at ourselves, and I think the state does too, as an economic-development tool," says Rick Lawless, the associate director of the centre. Biotech has its struggles at the moment; companies are worried about investment in the current climate. But North Carolina's love affair with its new industry will survive....

Fortune's tides turn for rare turtle

The News & Observer, Starnewsonline.com, WRAL.com

April 24 – So many indignities for one small turtle. First, it drifted too far north, until it was stunned by cold. Then, it floated along full of gas generated by a malfunctioning digestive system before washing ashore in England. Then it was snubbed, misidentified as a common loggerhead rather than a Kemp's ridley, the rarest of all sea turtles. In a final insult, it was dubbed Willy as rescuers nursed it back to health. Wilhelmina - she is a she, it turned out - has had a sea change in her luck in recent days, though....There are thought to be only a few thousand Kemp's ridleys, which is not only the rarest sea turtle species but also the smallest. It's not unheard of for them to wash up in Britain stunned by frigid waters, but it's unusual for one to survive, said Craig Harms, a veterinarian and sea life expert at N.C. State University's College of Veterinary Medicine....