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NC State University News Clips for May 22-24, 2004

Compiled by North Carolina State University’s News Services, a part of the Public Affairs Office. Listed below are the current news clips. Click on the headline of interest to be taken to the full text. Click on “Return to Headline List” at the bottom of each clip or use the scrollbar to be taken back to this location.

IN-STATE CLIPS

Courting the muse in academe
Wordsmith wannabes hone their skills in popular creative writing programs

Mo. Plant Makes Oil From Turkey Offal
Someday, if the hopes and dreams of investors in a small plant in southwest Missouri come true, Americans may be using oil derived from what is left of a turkey after it has gone through a rendering plant.

Clayton takes local issues global
Eva Clayton's service in Congress showed concerns about the poor, hunger and nutrition, and agriculture.

NATIONAL & REGIONAL CLIPS

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Plane Makes Emergency Landing On NCSU Agricultural Field

May 22, 2004
WRAL-TV
By Mike Charbonneau
 © Copyright 2004

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A twin-engine Piper airplane being flown by a student pilot had to be landed by the instructor Saturday after experiencing a problem in flight.

The student, accompanied by his instructor, was flying the plane when an engine began to sputter. The instructor took the controls but could not get the plane to stay in the air. He decided to land on an agricultural field at North Carolina State University, just miles from a busy highway, a golf course, and a neighborhood.

Sally Brooks and her husband were driving by on Lake Wheeler Road and saw the plane flying low.

"We were afraid it was in trouble," Brooks said, "because we could tell that it was a small plane and knew that it didn't look like a crop duster."

Because the land was very soft, the instructor landed the plane with no landing gear in an effort to minimize damage to the plane. The plane landed on its belly and slid about 100 yards, bending a propellor.

Neither the student, Michael Brooks, Brent Royston, were hurt. Both walked away.

The landing was witnessed by people playing golf nearby.

The result could have been much worse. Several homes border the field where the plane went down. Bob Thomas had a clear view of it from his back yard.

Neighbors said they are concerned because small planes fly over all the time.

"You don't ever know about these planes around here, where they're going to land," Thomas said. "They're landing in ponds or whatever these days."

Said neighbor Alan Eaton: "If you can visually see a plane down near to where you live, that's too close."

The landing site also was just around the corner from busy Highway 401. Investigators said Royston was fortunate to be able to find an open area to land so close to downtown Raleigh.

"It's very skilled for the minimal amount of damage to the plane, the lack of injury," said Sgt. Jon Barnwell, of NCSU Public Safety. "The pilots did a wonderful job putting the bird on the ground."

Personnel from the National Transportation Safety Board, Raleigh-Durham International Airport and the Federal Aviation Administration all went to the scene to assess the situation.

The plane was registered to the ATP Flight School based at RDU.

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Mo. Plant Makes Oil From Turkey Offal

May 21, 2004
Associated Press; Wilmington Morning Star; Fort Worth Star Telegram; Kansas.com, KS; Kansas City Star, Mo.; Monterey County Herald, CA; San Luis Obispo Tribune, CA; Centre Daily Times, PA; Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, IN; Miami Herald, Fl; Fort Wayne News Sentinel, IN; Tallahassee.com, FL; Biloxi Sun Herald, MS; Bradenton Herald, FL; Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX; Seattle Post Intelligencer, WA; Grand Forks Herald, ND; SiliconValley.com, CA; Akron Beacon Journal, OH; phillyburbs.com, PA; Newsday, NY; Los Angeles Times; Worcester Telegram, MA; Lakeland Ledger, FL; Ocala Star-Banner, FL; Times Daily, AL; Yahoo News; Duluth News Tribune, MN; Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC; Philadelphia Inquirer, PA; Kentucky.com, KY; The State, SC
By MARGARET STAFFORD
 © Copyright 2004

Someday, if the hopes and dreams of investors in a small plant in southwest Missouri come true, Americans may be using oil derived from what is left of a turkey after it has gone through a rendering plant.

The blood, guts, skin, feathers and bones, called turkey offal, are being converted into oil at the plant in Carthage, about 50 miles west of Springfield. Owners of the plant announced this week that they have begun selling between 100 and 200 barrels of the oil per day.

The plant is operated by Renewable Environmental Solutions, based in Downer's Grove, Ill., which is a joint venture of ConAgra Foods Inc. and Changing World Technologies, Inc.

A method called Thermal Conversion Process converts the offal from turkeys at a nearby Butterball plant into oil, fatty acids, natural gas, minerals and carbon.

The process can convert any carbon-based form, essentially by speeding up the method the earth uses to break down dead plants and animals into petroleum hydrocarbons. Using specific heat, pressure and water, the feedstock's long molecular chains are broken into gas that is recycled to run the plant, water that is returned to municipal water streams and the other products that are sold.

The advantages of the process are significant, according to Brian Appel, chairman and chief executive officer of Changing World Technologies.

He said it uses far less energy than other waste-to-energy products, creates fewer toxic emissions and destroys most pathogens in the feedstocks, while creating environmentally friendly fuels and fertilizers.

If the process becomes widely accepted, it would reduce the mountains of animal waste accumulating in the world, help reduce global warming and prove that biomass is a viable alternative energy, Appel said.

"All this adds up to reducing our dependence on volatile parts of the world," Appel said.

Appel acknowledges that some critics say the process cannot work as well as supporters claim or won't become economically useful.

"What you have to do is build the first one, quiet the critics who are putting doubt into the market and then prove you can build these on a large scale," Appel said. "It will take time to develop. ... You have to start somewhere, and this is the start."

Leonard Bull, associate director of the Animal and Poultry Waste Center at North Carolina State University, has seen presentations on the Thermal Conversion Process and liked what he heard.

"I'm very supportive of it," said Bull, who is not connected with the project. "That technology offers a lot of possibilities."

Bull suggested the biggest hurdles facing Renewable Environmental Solution will be finding markets to make the plants profitable and eliminating political and market barriers that currently discourage alternative energy production.

The oil produced at the Carthage plant is being sold to oil blenders and local people for use as a heat source. A local utility also is testing the product. When the plant is fully operational this summer, it will produce about 500 barrels of oil, which will be sold at prices competitive with No. 2 diesel oil, Appel said.

The entire project, which included initial testing at Philadelphia's Naval Business Center, costs about $80 million, with the plant at Carthage costing about $25 million. Investors have paid about $25 million, while the federal government has added about $5 million in grants, Appel said.

RES is currently undergoing environmental assessments required to build plants in Colorado, Alabama and Nevada, he said.

Bull said other companies and investors interested in alternative energy programs will be watching the Carthage plant closely.

"If it's successful economically as well as technically, then it will make it easier for others who have similarly complex technology to get backers, investors and move forward," Bull said. "If it doesn't, it will have the opposite effect."

P.J. Samson, president of RES, is unfazed by the pressure.

"We get generally positive responses, a lot of people saying this should be done and it's great we're trying it," Samson said.

"Of course, some folks say it can't work. I just ask them, 'What do you want me to do with my oil?'"

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Clayton takes local issues global

May 22, 2004
Henderson Daily Dispatch
By CHARLIE RICHARDS
 © Copyright 2004

WARRENTON - Eva Clayton's service in Congress showed concerns about the poor, hunger and nutrition, and agriculture. Those concerns continue today at an international level as she works with the United Nations.

Visiting here the past week, partly to accept an honorary doctorate, Clayton took time to express her continuing interests in area affairs and people.

The former Warren County leader was presented an honorary doctorate in humanities by North Carolina State University for her public service.

"It is pleasing to know someone thinks you've done something worthy of honor," she said of the honorary degree.

But friends and family and supporters, developed by Clayton during 10 years as a county commissioner and 10 years as a member of Congress, may be just as pleased to know that she considers her work today a rewarding continuation of old interests.

She said Friday she considers it a good move from service in Congress to service with the United Nations.

Her job, based in Rome, where she is returning today, is assistant director of the Food and Agriculture Organization, representing 180 countries and mandated to help rural populations increase agricultural production, build the world economy and meet nutrition needs.

That mandate sounds a bit like her role as the representative of northeastern North Carolina in Congress. She served her entire tenure on the House Agriculture Committee, helping rewrite the food stamp and nutrition programs of the Department of Agriculture.

Her specific job today is to coordinate internal efforts in the FAO and to enlist partners in programs to attack world hunger. Nearly 880 million people are hungry, she said, and 5.6 million children a year die from hunger - more than from wars.

The FAO encourages the organization of national alliances to attack the problem, such as the National Alliance to End Hunger in the United States, which is supported by foundations and businesses.

The agency has staff in many countries, and Clayton said she does a good bit of traveling.

She said hunger is a breeding ground for violence and terrorism, which she described as "the most severe manifestation of desperation." She said people are more likely to turn to violence after suffering hunger caused by droughts, war and other disasters.

While involved on an international scale, Clayton said she remains concerned about her home area and people. "I want to see them do well and to understand the relationship of people in other parts of the world doing well."

Clayton has other local concerns as well.

One is Frank Ballance, her longtime friend and political associate, who succeeded her in Congress. Her heart goes out to him because of a recently discovered disease that contributed to his decision not to seek a second term in the House.

Clayton said she knows Ballance, who served many years in the state General Assembly, "wanted to have a longer public career."

The former county commissioner had two other local issues on her mind. The proposal to develop a youth leadership retreat at the county's Buck Spring Plantation park, which she pushed for several years, is still something she hopes for, she said.

And she was pleased to learn that work has been completed on the detoxification of the former PCB landfill in southwest Warren County. Clayton said she considers it amazing that the commitment to clean up the toxic waste site was met. She said the project should serve as a model for other such places.

And she hopes it works out that the landfill site will become a public facility serving the people of Warren County.

Such matters remain of interest to her even while she works among national leaders from around the world, Clayton said.

"Warren County and North Carolina are my home," she said, "and the United States is my country."

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Setting New Speed Limits? NCSU Researchers Develop New, Faster Net Control Protocol

May 24, 2004
LocalTechWire
By Worth Civils
 © Copyright 2004

RALEIGH – Researchers in N.C. State University’s Department of Computer Science say they have developed a new data transfer protocol for the Internet that make current broadband speeds pale in comparison.

The protocol is named BIC-TCP, which stands for Binary Increase Congestion Transmission Control Protocol, or just BIC for short. It was invented by researchers at N.C. State.

Injong Rhee, associate professor of computer science, said BIC can achieve speeds roughly 6,000 times that of DSL and 150,000 times that of current modems. Rhee and his colleagues recently presented a paper on their findings in Hong Kong at Infocom 2004, the 23rd meeting of the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Communications Society.

Typically, Rhee said, “Data are collected at a remote location and need to be shipped to labs where scientists can perform analyses and create high-performance visualizations of the data.” But he says the problem is the inherent limitations of regular TCP.

“TCP was originally designed in the 1980s when Internet speeds were much slower and bandwidths much smaller,” said Rhee. “Now we are trying to apply it to networks that have several orders of magnitude more available bandwidth.”

Rhee and his team have been working on developing BIC for the past year, although he has been researching network congestion solutions for at least a decade. The key to BIC’s speed, Rhee said, is that it uses a binary search approach that allows for rapid detection of maximum network capacities with minimal loss of information.

“What takes TCP two hours to determine, BIC can do in less than one second,” Rhee said. The greatest challenge for the new protocol, he added, was to fill the pipe fast without denying other protocols. “It’s a tough balance.”

With BIC, Rhee and other researchers at N.C. State say they can more readily visualize, monitor and control real-time simulations and experiments conducted at remote computing clusters. This could lead to improved applications from telemedicine and real-time environmental monitoring to business operations and multi-user gaming. They say BIC might even help avoid a national disaster, such as the recent blackout that affected large areas of the eastern U.S. and Canada.

Regardless, with network speeds doubling roughly annually, Rhee said the performances he and his team have demonstrated of the new BIC protocol could become commonly available in the next few years, setting a new standard for the Internet.

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Honorable Mentions

May 21, 2004
Publication
By Honorable Mentions
© Copyright 2004

William Prentice, a longtime athletics trainer at UNC, has been selected for induction into the National Athletic Trainers' Association Hall of Fame. Prentice has served as head athletic trainer for the university's women's soccer program since 1980. He is also a clinical professor in the Division of Physical Therapy.... Virginia Aldige of Chapel Hill received a 2004 Alumni Outstanding Research Award from N.C. State University. Aldige is a member of NCSU's department of sociology and anthropology.... Hadley Meares of Chapel Hill was named an honor student for the fall semester at Hollins University....UNC's Center for Banking and Finance recently honored three North Carolinians: Marion Cowell, Paul Polking and Jerome Herring, with the center's first Leadership Awards.

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A Hands-On Helper

May 24, 2004
Winston-Salem Journal
By Michael Hewlett
 © Copyright 2004

On a humid afternoon last week, Mark Tucker spent a few hours looking at strawberries with Zane Sells, a tobacco farmer. For the past year, Sells has tried to diversify, growing strawberries and other crops to supplement his income.

As Forsyth County's new director of cooperative-extension services, Tucker said he sees his job as helping such farmers as Sells find new ways to thrive in the agricultural business.

Many farmers are beginning to look beyond such traditional crops as tobacco to survive as more houses and shops are built in the county, said Tucker, who started April 14. He replaced Maurene Rickards, who recently retired after 13 years as director.

Tucker, 41, said he fell in love with farming as a child growing up on a small tobacco farm in Rockingham County. Farming taught him a strong work ethic and helped him avoid getting into too much trouble.

"If you grew up on a farm, you don't have to worry about what kids were doing after school," he said. "You don't generally have those idle hours to look for trouble."

He attended N.C. State University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in agronomy and a master's degree in crop science. The N.C. Cooperative Extension is based at N.C. State and N.C. A&T State University.

While at N.C. State, Tucker had internships with cooperative-extension services in Guilford and Rockingham counties.

In 1987, he joined the Forsyth County Cooperative Extension Service, working as an agricultural agent responsible for tobacco, field crops, pesticide education and forestry.

Tucker worked closely with Rickards, which helped prepare him for his new job, said Bob Edwards, the director for N.C. Cooperative Extension's Northwest District, which includes Forsyth County. "He is well thought of in the community as well as county government," he said. "I feel good about our choice."

Ron Graham, the deputy manager of Forsyth County, said that Tucker's familiarity with the county was a plus.

"He's steady, stable, level-headed and he's a perfect successor to Maurene," he said.

Tucker is busy these days. Two positions at the cooperative-extension service remain unfilled, including his former position. While he learns the administrative duties of his new job, he still goes out into the field as an agricultural agent. He says that it is a bit overwhelming.

But educating farmers and residents about agriculture through the various programs the cooperative extension operates is fulfilling, Tucker said. He also wants to assist his staff with their jobs.

More farmers are dealing with the pressures of increased development and need the resources available at the cooperative extension to help them diversify their crops, Tucker said.

He said he sees his job as a way of helping to keep farming alive.

"Having farms profitable is the best way to preserve green space in this county or any county," he said.

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Team provides tender loving care for injured turtles

May 23, 2004
The Durham Herald-Sun
By Joseph Montes, staff writer
 © Copyright 2004 The Durham Herald Company.

DURHAM -- After Daniel comes out of "rehab," Kim Willis has bright hopes for his future. Daniel is a charming eastern box turtle who won't have any problem finding mates to reproduce with, she said.

Along with being the chairman of the Durham County Animal Control Advisory Committee, Willis is also a "rehaber" for the N.C. State University Turtle Rescue Team. She's one of several people the College of Veterinary Medicine-based group calls on to look after turtles that have been saved from harrowing predicaments.

Over the years, Willis has cared for turtles that have had their shells crushed by cars, chewed upon by dogs and hit by lawn equipment. She and other volunteers look after, medicate and feed the turtles while they recover.

Willis said her attachment to turtles began when she was a young.

"When I was a little kid, my father took me fishing every weekend and I'd get bored and wander off into the woods," she said. "I just became enchanted by turtles and never lost my sense of wonder."

Once Daniel is over his upper-respiratory infection, he'll likely follow the course of most rehabilitated turtles and get checked over by the team and released back into the wild near where he was found.

The turtles come from all over the Triangle, mostly during the spring and summer months. The team treats any type of turtle, but commonly sees Eastern Box, Eastern Painted, Yellow Bellied Slider and Snapping turtles.

Katie Gibson, a team captain and third-year student, says turtles express themselves much like humans.

"When they come in looking like Humpty Dumpty, they are depressed," she says. "We fix them up and their attitudes improve. They perk up and they want to eat again."

As a captain, Gibson has helped performed many veterinarian-supervised shell surgeries. She said veterinary students benefited from the turtles by assisting and watching the surgeries.

Much like human bone, the broken pieces grow fibrous tissue when they are near each other. The surgery involves drilling holes in the shell to band the broken pieces together.

If a veterinarian will even perform the surgery, Gibson said it often costs several hundred dollars. The team can care for a turtle for about $25, which they draw from the donations of turtle lovers like Willis.

More than 270 turtles were treated last year, the majority of which had been hit by cars while crossing roads.

Students and faculty advisor Greg Lewbart started the team 10 years ago. The rescue team now has about 50 student volunteers who take turns watching over and caring for the turtles.

The team also treats other ailments such as lost limbs and eye inflammations.

"Anything you can do on a human, you can do on a turtle," Gibson said.

Jennifer Park, the team's rehab coordinator and a third-year student, says she feels a debt to turtles because humans are destroying their natural habitats.

"They come in with some awful injuries," she says. "Just seeing the turtles get better is the biggest thing."

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Engine trouble gives student pilot a lesson in landing

May 23, 2004
News 14 Carolina
By staff writer
© Copyright 2004

A student pilot got a scary, but important lesson Saturday; how to make an emergency landing.

The student and instructor noticed their plane was having engine trouble around 9:30 Saturday morning.

The instructor took the controls and safely landed in a field off Lake Wheeler Road.

N.C. State police officers were the first to arrive at the scene.

They say the pilots were fortunate.

“I think you can say they were very lucky to be able to be in this area where they had some open areas to be able to have a nice emergency landing; as opposed to if they were flying over downtown where it’s full of buildings and it would be a lot more difficult. And there was a lot more potential for someone to get hurt in that situation," said Sergeant Jon Barnwell.

No one was hurt and the hard landing caused only minor damage to the plane.

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Arts Calendar

May 23, 2004
Winston-Salem Journal
By staff writer
© Copyright 2004

5:30 p.m. Wednesday: "Global Climate Change and North Carolina: A Panel Discussion with Our State's Scientists," with Bill Schlesinger of Duke University, Sethu Raman of N.C. State University, Susan Lozier of Duke University, and Peter Robinson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Reservations required. Call Maria Sadowski at (919) 733-7450, ext. 305.

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Five run to be state school superintendent

May 22, 2004
Winston-Salem Journal
By David Ingram
 © Copyright 2004

Five candidates are trying to win the election to become the state's top school official - despite the efforts of some legislators who advocate letting the governor appoint the position.

Those advocates have pushed for years to make the superintendent of public instruction an appointed position. Now, as in years past, they say that they have little hope that the General Assembly will take action during its short session to put the question on this fall's ballot.

Among those advocates has been Mike Ward, the current superintendent who announced his retirement more than a year ago in part to give legislators time to act.

Ward said that it is probably too late for his successor to be appointed this year. But he said that taking the position off the ballot would improve accountability for an office - especially when many voters can't name its current occupant.

"When people pull the lever on education issues, voters are typically thinking of the views espoused by gubernatorial candidates," Ward said. "And if that's the case, the governor ought to have a chance to implement that platform."

The race to succeed Ward promises to be hard-fought. It includes a former adviser to Gov. Mike Easley, a former Reagan administration official, a longtime state official, a former professor and a member of the Wake County school board.

Even though the race has barely started, three Democrats and two Republicans have raised more than $200,000 collectively for their campaigns, according to papers filed with the state.

But the candidates unanimously say they are happy to campaign rather than submit a resume. They all say they would be open to making the superintendent an appointed position, but that for now they trust the voters to make the right decision.

"This is probably the most important time in education in the past 30 years, and you certainly want to have people who are held accountable," said J.B. Buxton of Charlotte, who stepped down as Easley's education adviser to run.

Jeanne Smoot, a former director of the Office of Academic Programs under President Reagan and a former English professor at N.C. State University, said she would use the superintendent's office more as a bully pulpit.

"The superintendent of public instruction can become the voice for the children and the voice for the services and can be an effective advocate for a school system," she said.

That extra voice has caused some problems in the past. Ward and the State Board of Education have a reputation for working well together, but that hasn't always been the case.

The General Assembly stripped most policy-making powers from the superintendent 10 years ago. Many of those decisions are now made by the State Board of Education, which the governor appoints.

David Griffith, a spokesman for the National Association of State Boards of Education, said that electing a superintendent while appointing a board is unusual, but that it has worked because of the personalities involved. He said that might not always be the case, though.

"Governance really does matter," Griffith said. "It sounds really arcane. It sounds really process-oriented. But it really has an impact on the agenda, on what debates occur and on how the debates happen - whether there's a lot of mudslinging or not."

One reason that the effort to make the superintendent appointed has stalled is that a major supporter - Sen. Wib Gulley, D-Durham - resigned in March to take a job with the Triangle Transit Authority.

Gulley was sponsoring a bill that would amend the state constitution and make the position an appointed one. The bill has passed the Senate in several sessions but has never come up for a vote in the House. "We have a golden opportunity for the voters of this state to weigh in on this issue," Gulley said. "It will be a long, long time before the people have a chance to vote without an incumbent (superintendent) running for office."

The bill is currently sitting in the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education. The committee's chairman, Rep. Doug Yongue, D-Scotland, said he doubts that it will come up this year.

Yongue said he is open to debating the bill, but he leans toward keeping the superintendent independent of the governor.

"I've always been in favor of as many elected positions as we can have," he said. "They can speak for themselves and not be obligated to someone up above."

Yongue said he is not overly concerned that voters tend to know little about the state's top school official.

"I have folks all the time wanting to know when I'm going back to Washington or when I'm going to do something about the war in Iraq," he said. "I regret that very much, but maybe that's an indication of how we're doing getting our names out there."

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People: NC State University

May 24, 2004
The News & Observer
By staff report
 © Copyright 2004 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

Maxine P. Atkinson, associate professor of sociology, recently was awarded the Southern Sociological Society's Distinguished Contributions to Teaching Award. The award recognizes contributions that go beyond outstanding classroom teaching.

Jason Haugh, assistant professor of chemical engineering, is the recipient of a 2002 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the National Science Foundation. The award is the highest given by the federal government to young scientist and engineers. He joined the faculty in May 2000.

Barbara J. Risman, N.C. State alumni distinguished research professor of sociology, recently received the Katherin Jocher Belle Boone Beard Award from the Southern Sociological Society, which honors her scholarly contributions to the understanding of gender and society.

Brandon C. Whitney of New Bern, a junior majoring in biological sciences and political science, has been named a Morris K. Udall scholar. The Udall Foundation awards undergraduate scholarships of up to $5,000 to juniors and seniors in fields related to the environment and to Native Americans and Alaska natives in fields related to health care or tribal policy.

James R. Wilson, professor and head of industrial engineering, has been appointed as the new editor-in-chief of the ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation by the Association for Computing Machinery. Wilson, who covers research on all aspects of systems modeling and computer simulation, joined the faculty in 1991.

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Small plane makes rough landing

May 23, 2004
The News & Observer
By staff report
 © Copyright 2004 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

RALEIGH -- A twin-engine propeller plane made an unexpected landing Saturday morning on N.C. State University property about five miles south of Raleigh, authorities reported.

The plane was experiencing "mechanical problems," a federal aviation official reported.

The two men aboard were not injured.

"It was a rough landing," said Kathleen Bergen, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman in Atlanta. "The plane's landing gear was not down when it landed."

Bergen said there was "some damage" to the plane but that investigators had not determined the extent.

The emergency landing occurred in an abandoned field on Lake Wheeler Road, south of Tryon Road, about 9:40 a.m., authorities said.

The plane bounced upon impact and slid about 100 yards, NCSU police reported.

Bergen said a student pilot had just left Raleigh-Durham International Airport on a training flight when the mechanical malfunction occurred. The flight instructor took over the craft and landed in the field.

The student and teacher were identified by NCSU police as Michael Brooks and Brent Royster. Along with withholding their ages and addresses, NCSU police did not disclose which man was piloting the plane when it landed.

The pilot told NCSU police that the plane's engine started malfunctioning, said NCSU police Lt. M.L. Moody.

The plane is owned by Airline Transport Professionals Corp. in Wilmington, Del., according to FAA records.

The landing site was previously used for the university's agricultural programs, said Raleigh police Lt. M.A. Reynolds.

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He saves land so people can enjoy it

May 23, 2004
The News & Observer
By Richard Stradling, staff writer
© Copyright 2004 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

Ten years ago, when Kevin Brice told his mother he was leaving a lucrative job as a futures trader to seek work protecting the environment, she asked only one question: Can you make any money at it?

kevin brice
BORN: Dec. 26, 1966, Chicago, Ill.

FAMILY: Wife, Mary. They're expecting their first child in August.

EDUCATION: Bachelor of arts in psychology, minor in economics, Yale University, 1989

CAREER: Futures trader, REFCO, 1989-94; various positions with Triangle Land Conservancy, 1997-2001; Southeast director for Land Trust Alliance, 2001-03; executive director of Triangle Land Conservancy since January.

CURRENT BEDTIME READING: "The Path to Power," Volume 1 of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson.

FAVORITE PLACE TO COMMUNE WITH NATURE: Triangle Land Conservancy's White Pines Nature Preserve, at the confluence of the Deep and Rocky rivers in Chatham County.

MOST YARDS GAINED IN A SINGLE GAME AS A YALE TAILBACK: 225, versus Dartmouth, 1986

Brice, who became executive director of the Triangle Land Conservancy in January, told his mother he could, though at the time he wasn't sure how. What he really wanted was a job that meant more than a paycheck.

"Protecting land is an absolute good. You can't go wrong with it," says Brice, 37. "In the long run, it will be a benefit for us all, both human and nonhuman alike."

Brice began as a volunteer with the land conservancy in 1996, writing letters and reading reports no one else wanted to read. He worked his way into a job in 1997, then left in 2001 to start the Southeast office of the Land Trust Alliance, a national organization that helps local preservation groups with information and training.

Now he has returned to lead an organization that has become a major player in preserving land in the Triangle. The Triangle Land Conservancy saved more than 2,000 acres from development last year, as much as it did in the first 18 years after its founding in 1983.

State and local governments with money to preserve forests and streams now rely on the organization's knowledge of property and landowners. Last fall, for example, the conservancy brokered a deal that allowed the state Division of Parks and Recreation to buy 1,022 acres from Duke University along the Haw River in Chatham County.

'It's true love'

Brice has an unlikely resume for a conservationist. He graduated from Yale University, where he studied psychology and economics and played tailback for four years on the football team. He spent the next five years trading currency futures for REFCO, a Chicago investment firm.

"Hearing that background, you're like, ' ... What is this guy doing?' " says Becky Bumgardner, who was the conservancy's development director when Brice showed up to volunteer and now serves on the board of directors. "With Kevin, it's true love. He found joy in volunteering for TLC, and that transitioned into the love of his work."

Land trusts such as the Triangle Land Conservancy are far from the radical wing of the environmental movement, Brice says. They believe the best way to control what happens to land is to own it or to own an easement that prevents it from being developed.

The conservancy sometimes competes with developers over land, but Brice tells real estate people they are ultimately on the same side. The conservancy creates places for people to go hiking, canoeing or walking with their kids, he says, and that can only make it easier to sell houses nearby.

Real estate agent Gwyn Maples invited Brice to share that message with a group of agents in Sanford a few years ago.

"Kevin had a beautiful way of informing without over-teaching," says Maples, a former member of the conservancy's board of directors. "He really struck a strong chord."

Brice is the son of a Chicago firefighter and a homemaker, both high school graduates who wanted their four children to do better. His parents pushed him to read. He chose stories about explorers and forests that seemed impossibly distant from the sprawling rail yards of his southside neighborhood.

Travel, reflection

REFCO, the investment firm, gave Brice the opportunity to visit distant places -- including Singapore; Sydney, Australia; and London, where he lived for a year and a half.

"I wouldn't call it glamorous," he says. "It's trading in the pits. And some days, it really was the pits."

After five years, Brice questioned what he was doing with his life. In their spare time, co-workers read financial news; he read National Geographic and the writings of naturalists Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold.

Brice decided to make a change after visiting Tanzania, where a friend was doing research with chimpanzees at the Jane Goodall Institute. He quit his job, followed a girlfriend to Raleigh and enrolled in science courses at N.C. State University to prepare for graduate school in wildlife biology.

Brice never went to graduate school. He had found his mission at the land conservancy and realized he didn't need to go to exotic places such as Tanzania to protect land.

And though he still doesn't make as much money as he did trading futures, he says it's enough to pay the mortgage and contribute to his child's college fund (he declined to provide his salary).

When Brice steps into the woods, he doesn't know the name of every tree or the call of every bird. But he is attuned to the signs of human history that are part of the Triangle landscape: ruins of chimneys, or daffodils that a farm family planted long ago.

Walking on a farm in southeastern Wake County, Brice notes an old oak with a broad canopy in the middle of a young forest, a tree that undoubtedly shaded a farmer when the land was still a field.

The conservancy will eventually buy conservation easements on 442 acres of the farm, even if the woods and rolling fields are indistinguishable from those around them. There are no endangered species, waterfalls or steep ravines.

But Brice compares the land to Central Park in Manhattan, a once unremarkable stretch of land that became special as the city grew up around it.

"If we don't set aside these seemingly common places at this stage," he says, "they won't become those jewels that places like Central Park have become."

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Materials Factory

April 17, 2004
Science News
By staff report
 © Copyright 2004 Science News.

Cells employ RNA to make proteins, but now materials scientists have figured out how to use these genetic molecules for making metallic nanoparticles.

cites Bruce Eaton and Dan Feldheim, chemistry

For a full-text version of this article, please contact News Services at 919/515-3470.

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Crowd at NCSU demands Iraq pullout, Rumsfeld's ouster

May 23, 2004
The News & Observer
By Matthew Eisley, staff writer
© Copyright 2004 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

More than 100 American Muslims and peace activists protested Saturday in Raleigh against U.S. military activity in Iraq. Holding signs criticizing U.S. policy and depicting the abuse of inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, the protesters at N.C. State University's bell tower called on President Bush to prosecute prisoner abusers, fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and pull out of Iraq.

"The war on terrorism is giving a green light to breaking the rules of humanity," said protest organizer Iyad Hindi, 44, president of the Raleigh-based Muslim-American Public Affairs Council. "It's not only seven soldiers who have done this -- it is a system. We need to raise our voices and say we don't allow torture."

Signs at the noon protest read: "Stop the coverup, who gave the order?" and "How many lives/gallon?" Other signs and protesters criticized Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Shadi Sadi, 21, a business management student at NCSU, said it seems to him that the U.S. troops and agents who abused Iraqi prisoners are drawing less punishment than someone would get in this country for hurting animals.

"Are the Iraqi people not better than dogs?" he asked. "There has to be someone to answer for it. I think Rumsfeld should resign."

A contingent of socialists and veteran war protesters drove to the rally from Greensboro.

"It's becoming quite clear that we're not liberating Iraq," said Wake Forest University student Nikki Marterre, 20, of Greensboro. "This occupation is hurting Iraq, and hurting people here. Look at the torture photos. Are we civilizing them?"

Ganesh Lal, 35, a Greensboro coordinator of the International Socialist Organization, said the U.S. government should leave Iraq and instead spend that money providing Americans with health insurance and better schools.

"There's a war abroad," he said. "There's a war at home as well against poor people and people of color."

The protesters also condemned Iraqi terrorists' recent beheading of American civilian Nick Berg.

"Islam does not advocate fighting injustice with injustice, and Muslims reject any attempt by Nick Berg's murderers to portray their heinous crime as Islamic revenge for the sadistic prisoner abuse," a statement from the group said.

Raleigh police officers kept an eye on the protest, which they said caused no trouble. Some drivers on Hillsborough Street honked their car horns as they passed by.

The rally featured the kind of open criticism of the government that was never permitted in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule.

"The Iraqis are better off," said Khalilah Sabra, 38, a part-time paralegal from Raleigh. "Americans helped them get rid of Saddam Hussein, who was a monster. But they're suffering now. We need to let them choose their own leaders, and go away."

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Courting the muse in academe

May 24, 2004
The News & Observer
By Joanna Kakissis, staff writer
© Copyright 2004 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

Therese Fowler dreams about becoming a great writer. The 37-year-old from Raleigh has penned one novel and is finishing another, but she doesn't want to rely on ambition and practice alone to make it in one of the world's toughest professions.

Instead, she applied this spring to one of the country's 300 graduate programs in creative writing.

"To make it as a writer -- and I mean a real professional writer -- you need to prepare yourself," says Fowler, who set her sights on one of 12 spots in this fall's inaugural class of the Master of Fine Arts program at N.C. State University in Raleigh. "You need a concentrated education in it."

People are signing up in record numbers to learn how to write creatively. Graduate programs in creative writing -- in which students study one another's work and established authors help them develop their ideas -- have doubled in the last 12 years. North Carolina has nine such programs.

The surge in writing education has rekindled an old debate: Are writers born or made? And if they are made, can a classroom turn any smart, hard-working grammarian into a wordsmithing storyteller?

"A lot of people today want to be writers, just like a lot want to be actors and musicians," says John Kessel, a science fiction writer who leads NCSU's new MFA program in creative writing. "I can't promise anyone stardom. If that doesn't happen, have they wasted their money and their time? Have you wasted your time if you learn how to play the piano but you don't perform at Carnegie Hall or the local lounge bar? I don't like to think so."

From academics to art

Harvard University offered the first creative writing classes in the 1880s. The classes diverged from the study of literature as linguistic science and focused on creativity, style and personal observation.

Students loved them. Scholars hated them.

How could you test students? academics asked. How could you objectively grade them? The classes were too intuitive, often disintegrating into self-indulgence, they said.

"Back then, if you wanted to write literature, you were pretty isolated," says David Fenza, executive director of Associated Writing Programs, a national organization at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. "Writers had to make a pilgrimage to Europe to read their work in the cafe life of Paris, to find a community of people who wanted to talk about writing."

In 1930, professor Norman Foerster left UNC-Chapel Hill to become the director of the School of Letters at the University of Iowa and helped transform it into the Iowa Writers Workshop. Established in 1942, the Iowa program is now the nation's most prestigious graduate program in creative writing.

Because of demand and the acceptance of writing in academia, more universities appointed writers as professors or instructors. Fenza says an informal mentoring began between established and emerging writers. William Blackburn taught William Styron, Fred Chappell and Reynolds Price at Duke University. E.L. Doctorow taught Richard Ford at the University of California at Irvine. John Gardner taught poet Raymond Carver at California State University at Chico.

In 1975, there were 15 MFA programs in creative writing in the United States. Today, the AWP lists at least 100. There are also 151 Master of Arts programs and 41 Ph.D. programs that concentrate on creative writing.

Like the MFA programs at UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Wilmington and Warren Wilson College near Asheville, the NCSU program will require students to complete intensive workshops and a full-length book of poetry or prose that is publishable.

The practice of writing

Philip Gerard, a novelist who heads the MFA program at UNC-W, says these programs serve an explosion of people -- many of them established in careers such as medicine and law -- who really want to write. The program at Wilmington gets as many as 200 applications a year for its 20 spots.

"The bar for writers has gotten really high," Gerard says. "Beginning writers are writing at such a level that is beyond what they might have been doing if they were starting out 50 years earlier. I think you always start with some kind of native talent in any field, whether you're a dancer, doctor or an engineer. After that, it's about a dogged work ethic. The ones that seem to go farthest seem to be the hungriest."

People who want to be writers today can choose from a variety of MFA programs. Big programs such as the Iowa Writers Workshop offer intensive, sometimes brutal, workshops with the country's finest writers. Smaller programs such as the ones at NCSU, UNC-G and UNC-W are intended to give more personal attention to each student. Low-residency programs such as the one at Warren Wilson allow students with full-time jobs to take 10-day intensive workshops every six months with visiting literary stars such as the short-story writers Andrea Barrett and Antonya Nelson.

Few graduates of these programs make it big. For every Jhumpa Lahiri and Alice Sebold, hundreds of writers work without fanfare in publishing, public relations and journalism. Even successful writers who publish the creative fruits of their graduate studies must teach -- or work some kind of "day job" -- to pay the bills.

Porter Shreve, who recently finished a teaching assignment in UNC-G's MFA program, wrote the 2000 novel "The Obituary Writer" while he was an MFA student in creative writing at the University of Michigan. The book sold well and got good reviews, but Shreve, 37, teaches to make a living. He begins as an associate professor of creative writing at Purdue University in Indiana this fall.

"[The degree] is not a guarantee that you will make it, but you will have options," says Shreve, whose mother, Susan Shreve, is a novelist who teaches in the MFA program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. "You can teach. You can go into editing. In the end, you will also have your talent and the skills you learned in the program."

Which came first: the story or the telling?

The value of advanced creative writing programs depends on whom you ask.

Boosters, especially in academia, say the intensive scrutiny on craft has equipped emerging talents to produce lucid art while also building a supportive community of writers. Some editors and writers are not convinced. They say intelligence, wit, imagination and an ear for language are human qualities that cannot be learned in a classroom.

Many of today's best-known young writers were already showing extraordinary talent when they signed up for graduate work. Lahiri, whose short-story collection "Interpreter of Maladies" won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, was writing polished prose long before she enrolled at Boston University's MFA program. Sebold had already sold a novel and won writing prizes when she began the MFA program at the University of California at Irvine, where she wrote "The Lovely Bones."

Chang-Rae Lee, the award-winning author of the novel "Native Speaker" and a graduate of the University of Oregon's program, says MFA studies are most effective when a student enrolls with a particular story to tell. Michigan music writer Bob Tarte wrote the hit book "Enslaved By Ducks" long after he got his master of arts in creative writing and literature from San Francisco State University. He says he learned more about discipline by writing a column for a music magazine than from his studies.

In his column, he debuted his story about living on a farm with his wife and an impossible army of animals: ducks, parrots, parakeets, geese, a homicidal turkey, a ring-necked dove and a rabbit named Binkey. An editor for Algonquin Books in Chapel Hill, Kathy Pories, spotted the column and signed him up for a book.

"I think the best writers have a story to tell, and that's something an MFA program cannot teach you," Pories says. "I think we can all learn to craft beautiful sentences. I don't think we can all imagine a great story."

But the academic programs have also discovered promising writers. Nathan Englander, whose short story collection "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges" won raves in 2001, honed his skills at the University of Iowa. In the United Kingdom, Panos Karnezis left a job as a mechanical engineer to become a full-time writer after teachers at the University of East Anglia discovered his considerable talent.

The Greek-born Karnezis was almost 30 when he started writing in English, his second language. Karnezis found an agent while he was still a graduate student at the University of East Anglia. Now 36, he has won critical praise and comparisons to Gabriel Marquez Garcia and Anton Chekhov for his short-story collection "Little Infamies," published in 2002 and a novel, "The Maze," which came out earlier this year.

"I don't think writers are born," says Karnezis, speaking from Italy, where he is on a writing fellowship. "We go through life and experience things, and this sort of molds our character. These programs don't give you the answers, just the chance to show your work and work hard at learning how to refine it. I had to learn writing like I had to learn every other thing, like being an engineer: I worked hard at it."

A writer at last

Therese Fowler says she also believes the directed study will make her a writer. Last month, she found out she got into the NCSU program.

Though NCSU is known for its applied sciences, it has a noted program in creative writing. Novelist Guy Owen, who wrote "The Ballad of the Flim-Flam Man" in 1965, started a creative writing track for NCSU students in the 1960s.

Owen died in 1981 but his efforts established a program that has attracted noted writers and poets such as Kessel, John Balaban, Tim McLaurin, Lee Smith and Gerald Barrax in the 1980s. Novelist Wilton Barnhardt ("Emma Who Saved My Life," "Gospel") joined the faculty two years ago. Barnhardt taught Alice Sebold at Irvine and brought her to NCSU for a weeklong visit in February.

Fowler wrote her first short story in December 2000 in an NCSU science fiction writing class with Kessel. Kessel encouraged her -- "She's got a real energy and feel for narrative," he says -- and so she decided to write a novel. About 14 months later, she finished the semi-autobiographical "True North," about a young mother in an unhappy marriage.

"I would have been OK if I had not gotten into the program because I would have written the same novel and had the same goals," she says. "But now I can ask someone all the questions I have about my book. What's the best choice for a narrative? Should it be third person omniscient?"

She has such questions every day as she finishes her second novel, "75 Days," which Kessel will supervise as her adviser at NCSU. It tells the story of Roxanne, a 38-year-old woman who dreams about a God-like figure, who says she will die in 75 days. A journalist looking for a big story pounces on Roxanne, and so does the leader of a religious group looking for a marketable martyr.

Is Roxanne's time really running out? Was it God who spoke to her or was it just a dream?

Fowler won't say. Not until she has learned how to write a perfect ending.

Staff writer Caitlin Cleary contributed to this story.

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Book urges us to discover the maps in our minds

May 23, 2004
The News & Observer
By J. Peder Zane, staff writer
© Copyright 2004 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

Our heroes search for needles in every haystack. They find the pearls cast among the swine; they don't care how long it takes for a diamond to emerge from the rough.

Yes, we readers are a patient lot -- and we're gamblers, too. We read for the great pleasures that even average works bring but also to increase our odds of encountering that rarest of books: the one that cracks our minds open wide with unexpected delights.

I came across one of these literary Holy Grails recently: "You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination," edited by Katharine Harmon (Princeton Architectural Press, $19.95, paper). To describe it as a book of maps would be like calling "Absalom, Absalom!" just a novel or the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, just a building: not wrong, but not at all right.

Just as William Faulkner's writing and Frank Gehry's architecture pushed the boundaries of form to create art both familiar and unexpected, Harmon showcases maps that guide us through terrains more in tune with Sigmund Freud than Rand-McNally. Her book inspires us to imagine the topography of our own worlds.

For example, what if I asked you to draw a map of the human heart?

Jo Lowrey executed that assignment for McCall's magazine in 1960. "Geographical Guide to a Man's Heart With Obstacles and Entrances Clearly Marked" starts with the traditional Valentine shape and then divides it into various domains including the "Territory of the Big Operator," "The Land of Living It Up" and the "Province of Preoccupation With a Pretty Face." "The River of Independence" seems to feed into "The River of True Love," which leads to "The River of the Family Man."

Would those areas appear on your map? What if I asked you to make it more personal -- to map your own heart? What provinces and rivers would it include? If you had mapped your heart 10 years ago, would it have looked the same?

Moving on, how would you map the space between heaven and hell? An 1895 map by an unknown artist included in "You Are Here" presents an Edenic lake region with "Heaven" perched above the summit of a shimmering mountain at the top of the page. Moving down, we encounter "Holiness Heights," the "Plains of Regeneration" and then the "Impenetrable Hedge of Sin." Below this is the "River of Death," which is fed by a series of ponds -- including "gluttony" "pride," "debt," "irreverence" and the "Sunday papers" -- and which leads to the "Falls of Eternal Despair," which empty straight into hell.

Is that your vision of sin and salvation?

Most of the maps in "You Are Here" are less metaphysical but equally intriguing. They include literary maps, such as a guide to Winnie-the-Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood, a map of the world delineating the voyages of Robinson Crusoe and a "Map of Yoknapatawpha County -- William Faulkner Sole Owner & Proprietor."

Paula Scher's 1992 work, "The Truth Behind the Overused Publicity Photo," writes private history on a celebrity's face. On her cheek we read, "1961-1964, Relatively Mild Acne"; her hair tells us, "1957 -- Pincurls, 1967-68 -- Summer Blonde, 1971 -- Reddish Blonde, 1982 -- No Blonde."

John Held Jr. described a different dream world in his Roaring '20s creation, "A Dog's Idea of the Ideal Country Estate." This little slice of heaven includes a self-service butcher shop, a flower bed (very good for digging), rat holes for watching and newspapers (delicious chewing).

Other maps describe familiar landscapes in unfamiliar ways. Raleigh resident Denis Wood, a former N.C. State University professor, offers two views of his community. To create "Boylan Heights Pumpkin Map" (1982), Wood took photographs of all the jack-o'-lanterns displayed in the neighborhood and overlaid them onto a street map of the area. His "Boylan Heights Newsletter Map" used different sized circles to represent how many times a specific home was mentioned in the community's newsletter.

In an accompanying essay, Wood said he found overlap in his two overlays: "People who get mentioned in the newsletter carve jack-o'-lanterns and put them on their porches on Halloween." These people, he notes, tended to own "the big houses at the top of the hill." Both maps, then, "are measures of class. They are also measures of a certain respect for tradition."

The scores of maps in "You Are Here" -- and the brief essays that accompany them -- do more than offer whimsical takes on the world. They tell us that our minds are full of maps of our own construction that we use to navigate our paths of love, and of salvation; the shoals of desire, the rivers of grace, and of regret.

"You Are Here" beckons us to crack our minds open wide, to unfurl those hidden charts, so that we might offer ourselves some guidance -- and delight -- on the road of life.

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From fluff, strength is spun

May 22, 2004
The News & Observer
By Marcy Smith Rice, staff writer
© Copyright 2004 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

"The invention of the spindle, which made possible the utilization of the softer textile fibers can undoubtedly be considered one of the greatest inventions in the history of the world. Its actual effect on human progress is beyond all calculation."
The Textile Arts by Verla Birrell (1959)

words to know
Staple: The length of the fiber

Draft: Loosening the fiber so that the fibers slip past one another easily

Twist: What holds the fiber together. Thin yarn needs a lot of twist; thick yarn needs less twist

Supply: Unspun fiber

Drafting triangle: the area of loose fiber between the twisted thread and the supply

Comb: a tool used to separate crimps and knots in fiber

Cards: A pair of brushes used to align the fibers before spinning

Rolag: A rolled-up bundle of carded wool

Drop spindle: A stick with a whorl used to spin yarn

resources
LEARN TO SPIN

'Spin It' by Lee Raven (Interweave, 2003) A complete guide to learning how to spin with a drop spindle. Includes five projects to make with handspun fiber. For directions on making a spindle out of CDs, see www.interweave.com/spin/ projects/cdspindles.pdf.

Joyofhandspinning.com. Includes online videos for all steps of fiber preparation and spinning.

Twisted Threads Fiber Arts Guild. For information on the guild, contact Nancy Shroyer at 387-8183 or knitter@mindspring.com.

SUPPLIES

Shuttles, Needles and Hooks, 214 E. Chatham Street, Cary, 469-9328. Supplies include raw fleece, washed wool, roving, camel, silk, mohair, merino, alpaca and other fiber blends, as well as drop spindles, spinning wheels and other spinning hardware.

yarns etc., 205 W. Main St. Carrboro, N.C. 27510, 928-8810, www.yarnsetc. com, Mary Ann Pagano runs a spinning section that includes spindles, spinning wheels and accessories, as well as fleece and roving. You can rent spinning wheels here, too. You can find Pagano and an assortment of fibers and fiber products at Carrboro's Farmers Market on Saturday morning. Look for spinning, dyeing, felting and weaving classes at www.three watersfarm.com

yarns etc. and Spinner's Ridge, 231 S. Elm St., Greensboro 27401. (336) 370-1233. All the necessary supplies and then some. You can rent wheels here, too. www.spinnersridge.com

The Woolery, 117 E. Main Street, Murfreesboro, (800) 441-9665. It's a drive to Murfreesboro in Hertford County, about 95 miles northeast of Raleigh, but by all accounts it's worth it. In addition to all the necessary spinning hardware, the store sells a variety of fibers, including wools from all manner of sheep; nonanimal fibers like silk, cotton, hemp and bamboo; and exotic animal fibers such as yak, camel and opossum (this is apparently a New Zealand possum, not to be confused with road-killus Americanus). If you can't make the drive, check them out on the Web at www.the woolery.com.

A wooden spindle spins from a strand of yarn as Mary Ann Pagano's hands dance along the fiber at the other end, turning a fluff of wool into a sturdy thread.

"It's just a ballet. Each hand has to know enough to continue to dance together," she explains to a group of eight women learning to spin with a drop spindle at Yarns etc. in Carrboro.

Describing the first time she saw a spinner stick a spindle into a fluff of wool and pull out a thread - "It doesn't have form, it doesn't have strength and then whoosh. There it is"-- Pagano's excitement is still evident. "It was magic. I thought, 'I want to learn to do that.' "

The spinners, all looking slightly cross-eyed as they focus on the fiber forming under their hands, are learning two moves: Drafting the fibers, then twisting them into yarn. The spindle helps them to anchor and store the yarn.

A spindle is made up of a stick and a disk, called a whorl. At the top of the stick is a hook to hold the fiber. The spinner twists the spindle, something like turning a top, to put twist into the fiber. The whorl adds weight, so that once the spinner twists it, the stick continues to spin, leaving the spinner's hands free to draft, or thin out, the fiber.

Between the twisted thread and the supply of unspun wool is a loosened area of wool, called a drafting triangle. The yarn is drafted and the twist is released into the drafted fibers, to create more yarn. When the spinner has made so much yarn that her arm cannot stretch any farther, she winds the yarn around the stick.

Drafting

"That thing you're doing with your right hand is called drafting."

-- Marilyn Mudge, spinner

Spinners are drafted into this ancient art for various reasons.

Pagano's own teacher, Elaine Ross, who operates Yarns etc. and Spinner's Ridge in Greensboro, became interested in the craft when she saw spinners at Old Salem. When she later acquired her husband's 92-year-old grandmother's wheel -- which had belonged to his grandmother's great-grandmother -- she learned to spin on it. That was almost 20 years ago. Ross, who is about to retire, is drawn to spinning's link to past generations, as well as its future possibilities.

"I spin every day," she says. "I enjoy it so much. There are so many beautiful fibers to spin."

Back in Carrboro, Francesca Filardo admits that she loves fabulous yarns. "Instead of getting into knitting, I got into yarn," she says. "So I decided to make yarn." Looking ruefully at her lightly packed spindle, she says, "It might actually be more work than I wanted to get into."

Prepared fibers cost money. Big money.

"When I spent $120 on yarn for a sweater, I knew I had to do something," confides Nancy Shroyer, president of the Twisted Threads Fiber Arts Guild. "So I learned how to spin."

Pagano notes that spinning "doesn't cost a lot of money ... You can just follow sheep around and pick up tufts of wool."

Twisting

"What you're doing is -- this is physics here -- you're putting energy into it ... When your spindle's spinning, then it's all sort of out of your control unless you have control. That's why you just want to keep working with your hands, twisting, twist, twist, twist, twist."

-- Mary Ann Pagano

If you don't twist enough -- thunk! The drop spindle hits the floor as the fiber separates.

"People say that's why they call them drop spindles," Pagano says, "but ... they call them drop spindles because as you spin the thread, the spindle drops."

Nina Aly Elshiekh, a self-taught spinner, won't be dropping her spindle, because after twisting the spindle, she anchors it between her knees, then drafts her fiber upward.

"I love to work with my hands," she says.

"The irony," she says, "is that my father was a professor in the textiles school at N.C. State." He was part of the Mars mission research team, "weaving carbon fibers and working on various things they could use on shuttle missions to Mars," she says.

And yet, she says, he showed his students the drop spindle and how to use it.

A spinning wheel is essentially an elaborate spindle, with a big wheel and treadle providing the twist, and a bobbin to automatically gather the spun fiber, so that the spinner does not have to stop to wind.

"It's a very relaxing, soothing sort of thing to do. It's a rhythmic motion, the constant sound of the wheel is pleasant," says Marilyn Mudge, whose interest in spinning developed from her love of knitting and interest in wool production. "And it's nice to feel like you're doing something that women have done through the ages."

Plying

Plying, or twisting, two or more singles together balances and strengthens the fiber.

Spinners can spin alone, but together, their energy creates strength.

While the wheels whir in one room at Avillion Farms, Elaina Kenyon's farm in Apex, other members of the Twisted Threads Fiber Arts Guild gather in a bedroom to crochet a blue edging onto a patchwork blanket.

"This one is from my Jacob ewe, Cinnamon -- she was one of my favorites and I lost her last year," says Joy Thomas of Sunrise Farms in Creedmoor, pointing to a square. "She was spotted. ... I took the light and the dark and spun them separately, then I plied them together. Then I put in some little bumps, so when it's knitted up, then it gives it a tweed appearance."

Each square has a story. And the squares have a common bond: The yarn was hand-spun, then handcrafted -- by knitting, crocheting or weaving.

The squares came together to comfort a spinner some of them barely knew. When Maury Mills, who had been a member of the guild for just a few months, found out in December that she had a brain tumor, Judy Tysmans cast out a thread: Let's make a lap blanket for Maury.

The virtual threads became actual threads. A spinner from Wilmington mailed a square. KimRae Mikkelsen taught herself how to weave on a hand loom to make her square. Jackie Ligtenberg, who drove in from Granville County, learned to crochet left-handed to help finish the border. During the course of two meetings, their 24 squares were joined. The lap blanket had grown to a queen-size comforter.

The hand-spun wools enveloped Maury Mills, leaving her unable to say much more than "Thank you. You all overwhelm me."

The single members were plied together even more firmly.

"That's the beauty of fiber," Pagano says. "It's the development of people into civilization. And that's fascinating. It's fabulous."

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State gets 20,700 new jobs

May 22, 2004
The News & Observer
By Amy Martinez, staff writer
© Copyright 2004 The News & Observer Publishing Company.

North Carolina employers added 20,700 jobs last month, continuing a pickup in hiring that began in March.

The state's business and professional services sector led the job growth, followed by health care, education and government, the N.C. Employment Security Commission said Friday.

But employers did not do enough hiring for all the workers who restarted their job searches. Unemployment rose slightly last month from 5.2 percent to 5.3 percent.

Economists were nevertheless encouraged by Friday's report.

"This is going to be the best job market in four years," said Michael L. Walden, an economist at N.C. State University. "I think by the end of the year, we'll see unemployment drop below 5 percent."

North Carolina has now gone two months with an unemployment rate lower than the national average of 5.6 percent. It's a sharp turnaround for a state that suffered four years from one of the nation's highest unemployment rates.

Only Florida added more jobs last month -- 29,000.

Overall, jobless rates rose in 14 states, fell in 29 and stayed the same in seven, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Economists said a slight increase in the seasonally adjusted rate is common early in a recovery as job seekers who previously gave up their searches re-enter the labor force. The unemployment rate is based on the number of people working and actively looking for work.

"We were at 6 percent not long ago. The fact that we went up a little bit in April should not be viewed negatively," said Harry M. Davis, an economist for the N.C. Bankers Association and a professor at Appalachian State University. "The unemployment rate right now is pretty good."

The state's business and professional services sector accounted for 9,400 new jobs in April, followed by educational and health services, up 3,800, and government, 2,600.

Manufacturers added jobs nationally last month but continued to shed jobs in North Carolina, though at a much slower pace. The state's manufacturing sector lost 100 jobs, compared with an average monthly drop of 3,150 in 2003.

Initial jobless claims for all sectors fell in April by 7,813 to 49,837. For the first four months of this year, initial claims are down 29 percent from the same period in 2003.

As the economy improves, more businesses are expanding and moving to North Carolina. The state's Commerce Department has announced 53 new projects for a total of 6,872 jobs this year. That's up from 34 projects and 2,298 jobs this time last year.

At Hudson Global Resources, hiring for permanent positions is up threefold since March, said regional vice president Shane Hill. The staffing firm is seeing strong demand for bookkeepers, controllers and accountants. The increase in hiring also has led to an increase in applications from people with jobs -- a first since the economic slowdown began, Hill said.

"People didn't want to be caught looking before, but now they're calling wanting more money," Hill said.

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Hamilton picks new UAF chancellor

May 23, 2004
Juneau Empire, AK
By staff report
 © Copyright 2004

FAIRBANKS - A North Carolina State University academic has been hired as the new chancellor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Stephen B. Jones, vice chancellor for extension and engagement at North Carolina State University, was selected by UA President Mark Hamilton to replace retiring Chancellor Marshall Lind. Jones will earn $245,000 annually.

Jones was one of three candidates recommended to Hamilton by a search committee.

Prior to entering academia, Jones spent 12 years with Union Camp Corp., a paper and allied products manufacturer.

He received a bachelor's degree in forestry and his Ph.D. in resources management from the State University of New York in Syracuse. He holds an associate degree in forestry from Maryland's Allegany Community College.

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Fertilizer used in bombs easily bought

May 23, 2004
Louisville Courier Journal, KY
By JAMES R. CARROLL
 © Copyright 2004

WASHINGTON — It turns Kentucky tobacco fields green and helps miners blast out coal, but it also can turn a building to rubble.

Ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer, was cited in a Department of Homeland Security bulletin last month as a possible ingredient in bombs that could be used by terrorists against buses and rail lines this summer.

The compound was used nine years ago in the truck bomb that targeted the Oklahoma City federal building; in multiple bombings in Turkey last year; and in bombs found under rail lines in France this year.

Yet ammonium nitrate remains readily available with essentially no restrictions on who can buy it.

"It's beyond comprehension that something hasn't been done about this yet," said Tim Brown, senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, an Alexandria, Va.-based think tank on national security and terrorism.

Other chemicals can be used to make explosives, but ammonium nitrate is unique in that it has many legitimate sources and is available across the nation.

Kentucky and Indiana officials have been working with fertilizer distributors and sellers to be sure they know who is buying it, said Joe Pearson, Indiana assistant commissioner of agriculture.

"We're still worried — do we have the safeguards in?" Pearson said. "It wouldn't be completely safe until you took it off the market, and you can't do that."

Some countries, including China, the Philippines and many members of the European Union, either have banned ammonium nitrate or placed restrictions on its sale and use.

In Kentucky, the compound is a popular fertilizer for growing tobacco, as well as corn, pasture grasses and sod. In a slightly different form, it is used extensively as an explosive in coal mining. Indiana uses ammonium nitrate, too, but far less than Kentucky, according to state officials.

Both states require registration of fertilizer dealers and distributors, but, like the rest of the country, there are no requirements to keep records on who buys ammonium nitrate.

A National Academy of Sciences panel in 1998 recommended that lax controls over the fertilizer be changed.

"I'm afraid almost nothing has," said Marye Anne Fox, one of the study's co-directors and chancellor of North Carolina State University.

No laws, much concern

In Congress, the government warning about ammonium nitrate bombs and recent terrorist attacks in Europe are drawing new attention to what controls might be needed over the fertilizer, said U.S. Rep. Ken Lucas, D-4th District, a member of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.

"There is discussion between my colleagues ... to further address the ease with which terrorists can obtain materials that have legitimate uses, and how best to keep those materials out of the wrong hands," Lucas said.

But so far, no new laws have been proposed.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives concedes there are few restrictions on a fertilizer known to be a component of choice in numerous terrorist attacks around the world, including by al-Qaida.

But the federal and state governments have worked with fertilizer manufacturers, shippers and sellers and farmers on a voluntary program aimed at detecting signs of potential terrorism.

"We are trying to take steps with industry to help safeguard the public," said Laura Volk, a special agent in the ATF's Louisville office.

The agency and the Fertilizer Institute, the Washington-based industry trade association, both have produced similar pamphlets outlining how those who handle fertilizer can be on guard against suspicious activity. The pamphlets advise businesses to have secure sites for storage and distribution of ammonium nitrate, to know how much they have and to keep track of it, to guard against theft and report it to authorities, to know the customers and ask questions if someone seems out of place.

The fertilizer industry also deals with security issues in regular meetings and training sessions. And when the recent bulletin was released about possible ammonium nitrate bombs, the Fertilizer Institute alerted its state affiliates by e-mail, to be forwarded to individual dealers, said spokeswoman Kathy Mathers.

"Security for this industry isn't static," she said.

Because of that government bulletin, the industry is looking at additional measures to further tighten security for the fertilizer, she said. She declined to discuss details.

Widely available

In Kentucky, 356 companies that store or sell fertilizer are registered with the state, said Ken Franks, agricultural branch manager in the Kentucky Department of Agriculture's Division of Environmental Services.

"I know our dealers are very well aware of their clientele," Franks said.

He and other state officials and agents regularly talk to dealers by phone and visit their facilities, where fertilizer security is regularly discussed, he said.

While neither Kentucky nor Indiana requires records on buyers of ammonium nitrate, Indiana asks fertilizer dealers to report on total sales of the material every six months.

Indiana's use of ammonium nitrate "is relatively minimal," primarily in southern counties where tobacco is grown, said Michael Hancock, the state's fertilizer administrator.

According to the Fertilizer Institute, some 3.4 million tons of ammonium nitrate was produced in the United States last year. An additional 1.3 million tons was imported. Roughly half of the supply went for agriculture, and the other half for industrial explosives.

Ammonium nitrate, Mathers said, is not necessary for lawns and gardens. "It should stay in the hands of professionals and in the hands of farmers," Mathers said.

At Rudy's Farm Center in Kevil, Ky., some is sold to homeowners, but most is used for crops.

"Some people use it on their yards to green the grass up," said owner Jack Rudy. "I think I know 100 percent of the customers that buy here."

While he does not record names and amounts bought, Rudy said, a strange face asking for ammonium nitrate would draw his attention.

"I might ask you what you were planning to do with it, that kind of thing," he said.

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Particles offer a window into building blocks of universe

May 24, 2004
Baltimore Sun; Houston Chronicle, TX
By DENNIS O'BRIEN
 © Copyright 2004

GAITHERSBURG, Md. -- NASA might have rockets and telescopes that serve as windows to the heavens, but some earthbound technology is probing the origins of the universe, too.

In a cavernous hall the size of a college gym, researchers with the National Institute of Standards and Technology are using the neutron to probe an array of scientific mysteries -- including the way that matter formed at the dawn of time.

In NIST's Neutron Research Center, scientists use a 20-megawatt nuclear reactor to create the atomic particles, fire them through glass and steel-reinforced pipes, then monitor their behavior with 29 spectrometers and other instruments.

The center looks a bit like an indoor power plant, with elevated observation decks, banks of computer monitors and an array of steel pipes that branch out from the reactor and run the length of a football field. Those leaving the facility must pass through a detector that monitors radiation exposure levels.

About 1,700 researchers from around the country use the center each year. Current projects include the search for a more durable highway cement and efforts to build a portable hydrogen fuel cell.

There are neutron research centers in New Mexico and Illinois, too, with a fourth under construction in Tennessee. But each has different capabilities, said John Rush, a longtime NIST administrator.

The nation's official arbiter of measurement and technology standards has been conducting neutron research since the 1960s. Rush estimated the lab and its equipment would cost $800 million if built today. "People come from all over the world to research here," he said.

Neutrons make excellent test subjects. They have neither a positive nor a negative charge, but when they break free from the nucleus of an atom, they behave in strange ways. They can make particles recoil on contact, set them into motion and act like microscopic magnets, and that can be measured.

Free-roaming neutrons also quickly decay and form protons and other types of matter. That makes them ideal for probing how the elements that make up the building blocks of the universe -- such as helium and hydrogen -- were created.

"You can look up at planets and see back in time, or you can look at the various elements of what the stars are made of," said Paul Huffman, a nuclear physicist at North Carolina State University working with NIST researchers.

Under what is known as the standard model theory, the universe was created with a huge explosion known as the "big bang." Within a minute or so after the big bang, neutrons and protons began to collide, and many neutrons quickly decayed into protons. In this scenario, the life span of the neutron is widely accepted to be about 887 seconds.

By measuring the rate of neutron decay, researchers hope to determine the accuracy of theories about the big bang, the events that followed it and why the universe holds together.

"We hope we can either prove or maybe even disprove theories about the formation of the universe," said Muhammed Arif, an NIST researcher.

Although scientists have been studying neutron decay since the 1950s, this work is the most precise ever using neutron beams. Results of experiments so far, published last fall in Physical Review of Letters, showed previous estimates were right about neutron life span.

More complete results are not expected for at least two years.

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Jones named UAF chancellor

May 22, 2004
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, AK
By TOM MORAN
 © Copyright 2004

The search for a new University of Alaska Fairbanks chancellor is over.

UAF officials announced that Stephen B. Jones, the vice chancellor for extension and engagement at North Carolina State University, had been selected by UA President Mark Hamilton to replace retiring Chancellor Marshall Lind. Jones was one of three candidates recommended to Hamilton by a search committee Tuesday.

"We are confident we have the right person for the job in Stephen Jones," Hamilton stated in a Friday press release. "He brings a terrific mix of academic strengths, strong community service and valuable experience in the business world. He'll keep UAF on the right track."

Neither Jones nor Hamilton, who was out of town, could be reached for comment on Friday. Lind said he was pleased with the choice.

"I think he brings a lot of skills to the position," Lind said. "I think he'll do a good job with it."

Jones has been a vice chancellor at North Carolina State since 2001, where he oversees all of the university's extension, outreach, and distance and continuing education efforts. Before that, he had served as director of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System at Auburn University, as an associate professor and assistant director of the School of Forest Resources at Pennsylvania State University, and as the director of the Northeast Petroleum-Forest Resources Cooperative and the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Prior to entering academia, Jones spent 12 years with the Union Camp Corporation, a paper and allied products manufacturer. He received a bachelor's degree in forestry and his Ph.D. in resources management from the State University of New York in Syracuse, and also holds an associate degree in forestry from Maryland's Allegany Community College.

The chancellor works as the CEO of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, reporting to the university president, and is responsible for all aspects of UAF administration. Jones will be paid $245,000 a year for the job, which, according to the university release is the national average for universities of the type and size o