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NCSU beats goal with $201.5M in gifts, pledges
fund raisingNC State geneticist gets $1.35 million for study
Michael Purugganan, geneticsFaulty recall plagues us all
Chris Mayhorn, psychology
First
try at essay garners prize
Self Knowledge Symposium
Dogs
have their day to compete
Dog Olympics
Getting
Involved: Science Fair
Sally Ride Festival
Field
tripping
Sally Ride Festival
Roses & raspberries
tailgating
Point
of view: Calling on retirees to volunteer
Dave Bradley, engineering
Researchers
trying to take guesswork out of organic farming
Nancy Creamer, horticulture science
NCSU beats goal with $201.5M in gifts, pledges
Sept. 21, 2004
Triangle Business Journal
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
North Carolina State University received gifts and pledges worth a total of $201.5 million in fiscal year 2004, according to the university.
That exceeded NCSU's goal of $166 million.
Fiscal year 2004 gifts exceeded those in 2003 by almost $50 million. Next year's goal for gifts and pledges has been set at $158 million.
Sept. 22, 2004
Charlotte Observer
By SAM HODGES
© Copyright 2004
A Raleigh man with a background in business and spiritual seeking, but little writing experience, has won the $100,000 first prize in the "Power of Purpose" essay competition sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.
"This is really my first attempt at anything that you would call professional writing," August Turak said Tuesday. "Beginner's luck."
The competition honors essays encouraging people to think about the purpose of their lives.
Turak, 52, won for a piece called "Brother John," about how he was forced to re-evaluate his life after an encounter with a selfless monk at the Mepkin Abbey monastery near Charleston.
"It's really about the fact that we're afraid to become the human beings we potentially could become," Turak said. "We're afraid to venture out and make any kind of commitment. It's the security thing."
In the 1990s, Turak was a founding partner in two Raleigh-area businesses, Raleigh Group International and Elsinore Technologies. Earlier, he was a vice president of a software company, and worked in cable TV marketing.
He lists among his mentors Lou Mobley, retired IBM Executive School founder, and Richard Rose, an American Zen master, with whom he studied.
Turak himself founded Self Knowledge Symposium, a nonprofit organization that seeks to help students integrate spiritual values into daily life. He has taught classes at Duke University and N.C. State.
Turak plans to give away the $100,000 writing prize.
"I have a rule that I laid on myself many years ago that if I made any money from spiritual activities, that money would always go to charity," he said.
Turak, who is retired from business -- "I've done very well" -- plans to divide the money among Self Knowledge Symposium, Mepkin Abbey and a literacy program.
His essay can be read at www.selfknowledge.org.
Judges for the essay competition included Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book "The Purpose-Driven Life," and Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund.
More than 7,500 writers, from 97 countries, entered. A total of $500,000 in prizes was awarded to 19 writers.
The mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to pursue new insights at the boundary between theology and science.
Dogs have their day to compete
Sept. 22, 2004
Durham Herald-Sun
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH -- The N.C. State University College of Veterinary Medicine will hold its 13th annual Dog Olympics from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday at the college, located at the corner of Hillsborough Street and Blue Ridge Road.
Medal events include both athletic and non-athletic competition such as musical sit (similar to musical chairs), obstacle course, Frisbee toss, best beggar, doggie limbo, doggie high jump, a retrieving contest, a howling contest and a "speed demon" race.
Admission is $1 per human and $5 per dog; children 5 and younger are admitted free. The cost of admission covers an entry fee for one event, and each additional event is $1. Owners may choose to pay a flat $10 fee for unlimited event entry.
Sponsored by the Student Chapters of the American Animal Hospital Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association, the even supports student chapters, local animal shelters and humane organizations. Dog contestants must be at least 4 months old and current on vaccinations. All dogs must be on leashes.
NC State geneticist gets $1.35 million for study
Sept. 21, 2004
Triangle Tech Journal
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
How does a plant know when to bloom?
That is the heart of the question a geneticist at North Carolina State University and collaborators around the globe will study with a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Michael Purugganan, associate professor of genetics at NC State, will team with researchers from Brown University, Kansas State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Max Plank Institute for Developmental Biology to learn more about the forces that trigger flowering. They’ll focus on the model plant species Arabidopsis, or mustard weed.
“We want to find out how parts of the genome responsible for controlling flowering time are evolving in Arabidopsis,” Purugganan says. “We want a better understanding of how plants flower, and this may help us learn more about flowering in crops.”
Changes in day length, temperature and season may serve as harbingers of flowering time, for instance. But on the whole, Purugganan says little is currently understood about the ecology and evolution of the flowering process.
Further, the scientists hope to learn more about changes, if any, implicit in the gradual warming due to global climate change. Since winter chilling - cool temperatures necessary for a flower to grow and then reproduce successfully - is required for many plants, including a few species of Arabidopsis, how much does global warming impact flowering mechanisms in plants? And how do the plants adapt to warmer temperatures and the lack of winter chilling?
Purugganan’s lab at NC State will receive about $1.35 million to uncover differences in the genes that control flowering response in Arabidopsis plants from a wide range of European climates, from the Mediterranean to the subarctic. Although Arabidopsis can currently be found on most continents, Purugganan says that Arabidopsis originally comes from Europe, so testing the variations among the flowering genes of different European plants will provide good clues to how the plant has evolved.
Purugganan’s collaborators will also move plant samples from one European location to another - from Spain to Finland, for example - and examine any changes in the genetics of the plants after the switch. These studies could lead to important knowledge gains in how plants deal with climate change.
“In order to find out how plants are going to adapt in the future, we have to learn how plants adapt in the present and how they adapted in the past,” Purugganan says.
NC State’s portion of the grant is part of a $5 million grant funded by the National Science Foundation’s Frontiers for Integrated Biological Research program. The program was established to fund scientists asking important, key questions in biology.
Sept. 22, 2004
Chapel Hill News
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
Roses to the Village Project, sponsor of Car-Free Day, and all the folks who will abandon or limit use of their cars today as part of the celebration of walkable community.
As of Tuesday, more than 1,000 people had signed pledge forms to leave their cars at home or go “car-light” to reduce auto usage today. The Orange County-Durham County celebration is part of an international observance to demonstrate the virtues of traveling without personal internal-combustion engine power. Folks today will be using the bus, riding bikes, walking — or taking fewer car trips than usual. A celebration of our healthiness will be at Weaver Street Market from 6 to 8 p.m.
Roses to UNC football fans, who won praise for their graciousness in the face of humiliation during the 56-24 loss at Virginia two weeks ago.
The Sept. 11 game happened to be the debut of the new U.Va. Marching Band, which has been in hibernation for decades. A Cavaliers fan at the game was so impressed by the visiting Tar Heels’ treatment of the band that he wrote a letter to Chancellor James Moeser to express his admiration.
“When the marching band made their appearance, the entire stadium erupted in support of them to include the Carolina section, and especially the band members from UNC attending the game,” wrote Everette M. Seay III of Newport News, Va.
“It has been over fifty years since we’ve had a marching band at Virginia, and I would hope that this would be a band for all future games. I, too, would hope that as they progress that they would exhibit the same sportsmanship to others as the UNC students did for them on Saturday.”
A nice testimonial.
Roses also to the UNC football players, who picked themselves up after the Virginia game and played against Georgia Tech like the able team that Coach John Bunting says they are.
Many of Carolina’s fans had given up on the team — and Bunting — after the first two games of the season, a lackluster win over William and Mary and the blowout at Charlottesville. But the Tar Heels didn’t give up on themselves and proved Bunting’s assertion that they had the capability to play at a higher level, especially the young defense. The five turnovers forced by the defense were the most since 2002. They’re now a 2-1 team, a not bad start to the season. Good luck this weekend.
Raspberries to N.C. State fans who are grousing over a crackdown on excessive partying at football games.
After two people were killed in the State Fairgrounds parking lot two weeks ago, NCSU officials placed restrictions on who can park in the lot — ticket-holders only — and how long they can arrive before game time. Some State partiers had been arriving as early as the day before the game with no intention to attend the game.
The NCSU changes don’t even involve a ban on drinking, as exists at UNC. Interim State Chancellor Robert Barnhardt says that would be going too far. But Wolfpack fans at the Ohio State game last week said the restrictions took all the fun out of going to a football game.
We thought the fun of football games involved watching a spirited contest between two good teams — as happened last week at Carolina. Of course, it helps if you win.
Sept. 22, 2004
News & Observer
By VICKI CHENG
© Copyright 2004
If your vote for president is being swayed by Swift Boat Veterans commercials or old Air National Guard memos that probably aren't real, keep this in mind: Memories, especially those that are three decades old, are a lot more fragile than we think they are.
"It turns out to be very difficult for people to remember with perfect accuracy what happened 30 years ago," said Daniel L. Greenberg, a Duke University psychological and brain sciences graduate who's a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA. "It's possible that all these people who are telling these different stories believe it. That's how they remember it. It's just, over time, memory changes."
But Greenberg added: "This is politics. I can't swear that it's just people remembering differently."
Greenberg published a paper recently about George W. Bush's three differing accounts of how he learned of the Sept. 11 attacks. In two cases, with slight differences, Bush told reporters he saw a plane crash into the World Trade Center on TV. In a third case, Bush said that a senior adviser first brought him the news. Greenberg hypothesized that Bush reconstructed his memories, combining them with his recollections of TV footage after the crash.
In another Duke study, doctoral candidate Jennifer M. Talarico and psychological and brain sciences professor David C. Rubin asked Duke students to recall how they heard of the Sept. 11 attacks. They first quizzed them on Sept. 12, 2001, and then again, up to eight months later. While the students maintained that their memories were still vivid and accurate, the study showed that they had decayed over time.
"No matter how confident we are, and how vivid the memory may be, we can never be 100 percent sure that it's accurate," Talarico said.
Rewind more than three decades: In presidential candidate John Kerry's case, members of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say Kerry didn't deserve a Bronze Star for pulling a lieutenant from a river because Kerry's patrol craft was not under fire at the time. They question whether a firefight that earned Kerry a Purple Heart actually occurred, citing a medical officer who claimed Kerry had only a superficial wound.
Greenberg said that memories about whether enemy fire occurred on one day versus the day after or the day before is the kind of thing that can be easily confused. "Basically, people aren't bad at remembering what happened," he said. "They're not perfect, but they're not bad. Remembering when something happened proves to be more difficult."
Talarico added that memories tend to be more vivid if they're emotionally charged. "So many of these events brought up in the news and criticized are of minor things," she said. "In the one Swift Boat ad, the doctor said it was a superficial wound. If it were so superficial or minor, why would it have been so memorable?"
As for President Bush, critics have said he did not fulfill his military obligations when he served in the Air National Guard from 1968 to 1973. On a Sept. 8 segment of "60 Minutes," CBS anchorman Dan Rather cited a memo -- which the network now admits may not be authentic -- indicating that Bush's late squadron commander was pressured to "sugar coat" Bush's performance. The New York Times reported later that the commander's secretary, now in her 80s, believes the memo itself is fake, but that its content is accurate.
Chris Mayhorn, an assistant professor of psychology at N.C. State University, said one memo would be hard to distinguish from another if you write or read memos all day.
"Memory is fallible," Mayhorn said. "As human beings, we don't record carbon copies of what happened. We go for the gist, get the big picture instead of the detail. As we know, the devil is in the detail."
Point of view: Calling on retirees to volunteer
Sept. 22, 2004
News & Observer
By DAVE BRADLEY
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH -- When you come right down to it, I was in the right place at the right time. During my "first" career at IBM, I was fortunate to be among a team of a dozen engineers who, in 1981, developed the original personal computer.
In those first heady days of the technology revolution, regular "crashing" was a fact of life, and I was dispatched to find a way to easily reboot those sometimes truculent and always cumbersome white boxes. In a true "Forrest Gump" moment I invented "Ctrl+Alt+Delete in about 15 minutes of programming. The rest, as they say, is history. I became a "Final Jeopardy" question.
Like millions of Americans, retirement for me has led to a myriad of second careers. Since leaving IBM in January, I've become an adjunct faculty member at N.C. State University and an amateur Civil War history buff, and I still avidly follow developments in the I/T world.
The next generation of retirees is not only more willing to volunteer than any previous generation, statistically; we're the best educated, healthiest and most affluent in history. And more of us would volunteer, if only we were asked.
Survey results show that just 17 percent of adults age 55 and over who were not asked to volunteer did so on their own. Among those who were asked, however, 83 percent -- more than four times as many -- rolled up their sleeves and got involved.
• • •
That's writing on the wall for the hundreds of nonprofits in our area: Ask. Ask retirees you know if they will volunteer. Ask your group's volunteers if they retired from IBM. More than 5,500 IBM retirees (and 13,000 current employees) live in this area, and that's a gold mine for nonprofits. Each company retiree or employee who volunteers eight hours per month over the course of five consecutive months is worth a free computer (costing up to $3,500, or $1,000 in cash) to a 501(c)3 nonprofit.
Most schools would love to have help. And in just a few hours a month, we can help them in more ways than one. We can bring our expertise, talents and, yes, energy to classrooms, as well as some technology or cash. Nearly every place of worship in this area seems to have a preschool. They could use the help too. Ask your congregation who the IBMers are and if they'll volunteer at the school. You may find that many already do and just don't know how much more they could offer. You might want to ask where other volunteers work, too, because many companies have some sort of benefit program for the causes of their employees.
• • •
It doesn't stop at cash and computers.
IBM's On Demand Community, for example, is a new tool hosted on the company's Intranet that includes technology solutions and other resources designed specifically for volunteer work in schools and nonprofit organizations. IBM retirees who show up to volunteer can download a first-rate classroom presentation and nifty science experiments to dazzle their grandkids.
If you're a new to volunteering, don't worry -- there are step-by-step instructions on how to prepare, use your tools and follow up.
For those of us who would rather volunteer at community agencies, there are tools such as "Technology Planning for Non-Profits." There's even a technology solution for senior centers and disability agencies that help people better see and navigate the Internet.
For us Baby Boomers, a lifetime of accomplishment in technology and academics will not allow us to simply drift off into the sunset during retirement. We're catching the second wave through volunteerism and bringing home the lessons we've learned to the next generation.
(Dave Bradley is an adjunct professor of engineering at N.C. State University.)
Getting Involved: Science Fair
Sept. 22, 2004
News & Observer
By Joyce Sykes
© Copyright 2004
Sally Ride Science will present its 27th Science Festival at N.C. State University on Oct. 10 for girls in grades 5 through 8. Details: (800) 561-5161 or www.SallyRideFestivals.com.
Sept. 22, 2004
News & Observer
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
Fifth- through eighth-grade girls interested in science are invited to a festival at N.C. State University on Oct. 10. Astronaut Sally Ride will speak. There also will be workingshops, booths, exhibits, food and music. Find out more at www.SallyRideFestivals.com or by calling (800)561-5161.
Gene-modified insects get closer look
Sept. 22, 2004
ABC News; MSNBC; Reuters, US; Reuters, UK; Yahoo! India News
By Maggie Fox
© Copyright 2004
WASHINGTON - Coming soon to a jungle near you: mosquitoes genetically engineered so they cannot give people malaria. But this time scientists want to do it right.
Mindful of labels like “Frankenfoods” given to genetically modified crops, and of attacks against test patches of gene-engineered plants by environmental militants, they hope to reassure the public about their newly created insects.
“I think we have reached quite a critical point in the development and use of these organisms,” said Anthony James, a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of California at Irvine.
James, whose lab is working on mosquitoes that could not host the malaria parasite, said some strains are ready to be tested outside the lab.
“We need to identify the next level in this whole adventure,” he told reporters in a telephone briefing.
James and other experts in entomology, genetic engineering, disease and regulation were meeting on Tuesday to talk about what they need to watch out for as they develop and test biotech bugs.
Getting it wrong
Scientists have a history of getting it wrong, even as they try to save the
world from insect-borne scourges, said entomologist Fred Gould of
North Carolina State University.
“In the late 1940s, entomologists had no reason to doubt that DDT would cure the world’s pest problems,” he told a conference sponsored by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology.
DDT, it turned out, affected a range of animals and drove some bird species to near-extinction by weakening their eggshells.
“In the 1960s, advocates of biological control did not consider that imported predators of insect pest species might cause extinction of rare species,” Gould added.
Researchers need to look for unexpected side effects, said Dr. Ravi Durvasula, medical director of Yale University Health Services. “It’s not just (a question of) efficacy here. It’s an issue of perception, it is an issue of risks to the environment,” he said.
“Once it is out there ... the perception tends to get set in stone,” agreed Mark Mansour, a health care regulation expert at the law firm Morgan Lewis.
How to regulate?
As many of the genetically altered creatures are meant for release in the developing
world, it is important to set up global regulations in safety and licensing,
Mansour told the meeting, available as a webcast on the Internet.
And local input is key.
“What we need to do is develop a catalog of what the concerns are,” James said.
“Scientists are going to have different lists from people who do legal work, people who are ministers of health, people who are looking for votes.”
Then, before any creature is field-tested, those concerns must be addressed, James said.
Targeting bacteria
Durvasula’s team is working to develop a kissing bug that cannot carry Chagas
disease, which can lead to a range of problems from heart disease or digestive
tract malfunctions and which kills 50,000 people a year in Latin America.
Instead of affecting the bug itself, Durvasula’s approach is to alter a bacterium that allows the bug to carry the trypanosomiasis parasite.
But modifying bacteria is different from modifying an insect, given that bacteria can freely exchange genes with a range of other bacteria and even viruses, he said.
“This remains a very important hurdle,” he said.
Researchers trying to take guesswork out of organic farming
Sept. 22, 2004
Ohio News Network
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Organic farming sounds simple _ no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or genetically engineered plants. But succeeding at it can be complicated.
"There's so many things that interact naturally that you can't control that you could with chemicals. I think you could spend a whole lifetime learning how," said Dale Dyko, who raises corn, spelt _ a type of wheat _ and soybeans on about 30 acres in Xenia in western Ohio.
A recent wave of research at universities around the country seeks to take some of the guesswork and financial uncertainty out of the practice.
Organic food sales almost tripled from 1997 through 2003 to $10.4 billion, according to the Organic Trade Association. Organic fruits and vegetables account for most of the sales, while organic meats and snack foods _ such as corn chips and rice cakes _ are two of the fastest growing segments.
"Organic agriculture is just a growth culture within all agricultural industries," said Matt Kleinhenz, the lead researcher on a study at Ohio State University. "Scientifically and practically we don't know enough about it."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it has been increasing its financial support of organic farming research at universities and other organizations since 2000. Funding for one program has increased nearly fourfold to about $1.9 million from 2000, said Philip Schwab, a policy adviser with the agency.
However, organic farming makes up only a small part of U.S. agriculture. Certified organic crops were grown on 562,486 acres in 2002, a fraction of the 300 million acres on which all crops were harvested, according to the USDA's census.
Making money at farming has for generations meant using chemicals to kill weeds, fight off insects and disease and otherwise wrench predictable results from soil and plants. Going organic _ and thus abandoning use of nearly all chemicals _ unleashes a different set of variables.
"Conventional ag is a little bit more like a recipe. You know what to pour out of the bag," said Nancy Creamer, director of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems at North Carolina State University.
Farmers like Ed Snavely, who switched from traditional to organic methods in 1986, say they have relied on advice from other growers and trial and error to develop their techniques.
Snavely monitors temperature and soil moisture and scrapes his fingers through the dirt looking for young weeds just below the surface that look like tiny, white hairs to decide when to attach the tools to his tractor that will rip the weeds from the soil.
He'll typically do so three times before planting his crops, which include corn, buckwheat, soybeans and hay, and four times after planting. Waiting even a day too long can allow the weeds to grow too big to manage easily, he said.
Snavely used to kill weeds on his 100 acres in Knox County by spraying chemicals, which required only one trip through the fields.
"With most of your conventional farmers, it's plant, spray and forget. If you're going to go organic, you can't plant and forget. You've got to be out there walking your fields," he said.
Going organic can also be a financial risk. In subtracting nearly all chemicals, farmers say they also subtract from their profits in the first few years. It takes time to master a new way of farming.
Compounding the problem, a farmer who switches from conventional growing methods has to wait three years to obtain certification from the government, a label that helps ensure higher prices.
Snavely said he would have benefited if more scientific data had been available when he first made the switch.
"I took some big yield reductions because I didn't know what I was doing," he said.
Current studies aim to generate data that can be accessed through the Internet or obtained from university and government employees who consult with farmers.
Cathy Eastman, vegetable entomologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey, leads a study that uses three different crop strategies and three kinds of soil enrichment. Scientists from five different fields are studying plant and soil health and how to control weeds and insects.
Kleinhenz and other researchers at Ohio State are studying how farmers can survive a transition to organic farming from conventional farming. They are examining economics, horticulture, soil biology, plant diseases and other issues.
The researchers are looking at four different ways of switching to an organic method over three years: leaving the ground fallow, growing hay, growing a series of vegetables in open air and growing a series of vegetables under plastic tunnels.
Each method is tested with and without composted manure, giving researchers a total of eight plots to test.
Among their initial findings: manure has improved soil fertility faster than expected and weeds have produced fewer seeds in the fallow fields, indicating that the weed population would probably decline more quickly there.
North Carolina State's Creamer said the organic farming studies will also benefit conventional farmers. A study she's leading tests how crops grow after the removal of each of three chemicals _ a herbicide, pesticide and chemical fertilizer.
"A lot of conventional farmers have been waiting for the universities to confirm some of the existing anecdotal evidence," she said.