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NCSU given 2 oceanfront lots
Their sale, estimated to bring $4 million, will fund scholarships and environmental studyDeveloper gives N.C. State two oceanfront lots
sale of land to fund scholarships and environmental studyState Budget Woes Could Return If Taxes Expire And Spending Remains
Michael Walden, agricultural and resource economicsN.C. Turkey Growers Give Thanks
Jesse Grimes, poultry scienceThree Wayne residents honored at farm-city event
Johnny Wynne, College of Agriculture and Life SciencesFoard Jazz Band plays at conference
John Entzi, concert bands and jazz ensemblesFestival Park project receives accolades
horticulture scienceVandalism rouses anarchist spirit
GOP office attack has repercussions
Editorial:Trying to squelch
sports violence
Lee Fowler, athletics
Letter
to the editor: Misplaced faith
The N&O's Nov. 19 Life, etc. section featured a photograph of N.C. State
University football cheerleading squad members standing a semi-circle, hands
joined, heads bowed in prayer.
Watermen
nurture baby crabs
blue crab research
Editorial:Trying to squelch sports violence
Nov. 24, 2004
Wilmington Morning Star
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
In the past few days, American sports has seen a shocking outbreak of integrity.
Clemson and South Carolina announced they would reject bowl-game invitations – and the big money they would bring – because their football players got into a fight on the field.
The universities wasted no time doing the right thing. The fight was Saturday. The announcement was Monday.
N.C. State's athletic director said, "I'm sure it was not an easy decision." In reality, it should have been easy, though not pleasant.
Assault is a crime. Committing that crime in front of tens of thousands of people sets an example. Punishing it in front of everybody is the only appropriate response.
The universities might not have been so quick to do the right thing if a similar brawl hadn't just broken out at a professional basketball game, and if the commissioner of the National Basketball Association hadn't come down hard on the participants.
Predictably, the players' union says it will appeal. It will try to make the case that it's not so bad for its coddled super-rich kids to fight among themselves on the floor and then charge into the stands to slug fans who've themselves engaged in ugly behavior.
It's anybody's guess whether the swift and appropriate action by the NBA and the universities will jolt American athletes into acting like civilized people. But it was time somebody got serious about trying.
Nov. 24, 2004
News & Observer
By JOSH SHAFFER
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH -- A coastal developer has donated two oceanfront lots worth an estimated $4 million to N.C. State University, one of the largest gifts to the college in the last five years.
Edward Gore Sr., who sits on the City Council of Sunset Beach and founded the Ocean Ridge Plantation golf community there, has already turned over the deeds for the university to sell.
Once the land is sold, the money will go toward scholarship programs for students in Brunswick County and nationwide, and for environmental research on the coast.
"It's an unusually generous gift," said David Anderson, associate vice chancellor for university development. "We don't get them very often.''
Gore, 72, said he was motivated by retired Army Gen. Hugh Shelton's leadership initiative at NCSU, which seeks to instruct students in "values-based leadership." He hopes the money will help restore the idea that school is an extension of church and family, and also keep environmental regulations from hamstringing development.
"Our country was founded on the core values," he said. "We've seen a drifting away from that. It's been misinterpreted by the courts. The Ten Commandments tell it all."
David Hays, director of NCSU's Landscapes of Opportunities Foundation, said, "I call them 'Gore values.' The way [the Gore family] has done planned communities is just textbook. He was so careful with the land."
Gore's father bought the land for Sunset Beach, which sits on a barrier island just north of Myrtle Beach, in the 1950s.
Gore got his business degree from East Carolina University and founded Ocean Ridge Plantation in 1989. It covers more than 2,000 acres and is getting its fourth golf course.
Hays said the two Sunset Beach lots are "ocean-to-sound" and will easily sell for $3.5 million, though $4 million is the goal. Offers on the property should start coming in the next 15 to 30 days.
"It's just beautiful," Hays said. "He could have easily built an ocean club down there."
Part of the money, $500,000, will provide scholarships to Brunswick County students who show special interest in leadership and community service.
Another $500,000 will be invested in the Gen. Hugh Shelton National Leadership Scholarship Endowment, giving $10,000 a year to a student with the same traits, chosen nationally.
Other $5,000 scholarships will be offered to sophomores and upperclassmen, along with stipends for enrichment programs and study abroad, said Mike Davis, director of the Shelton initiative.
Anderson said NCSU has received only a few donations higher than $1 million in the past four or five years. He listed a pair of $5 million donations for athletic facilities: the Wendell H. Murphy Football Center and C. Richard Vaughn Towers, which is the addition to NCSU's Carter-Finley Stadium.
Plans for the rest of the money are not final.
But much of it will go toward environmental education, Hays said. NCSU already owns land on the Intracoastal Waterway, and this will help fund research and programs there.
Gore's goal is to merge economics into environmental education, a factor he thinks is absent in today's rules.
He said that the state's rules on fisheries are pushing business into South Carolina and that state officials frequently tell him that dollars and cents play no part in regulations.
"I love the environment as much as anybody," Gore said. "But I'm not an isolationist."
Vandalism rouses anarchist spirit
Nov. 24, 2004
News & Observer
By ANNE SAKER
© Copyright 2004
North Carolina has never been known as a hotbed of radical thought. So the events of Nov. 5 came as a surprise: black-clad protesters breaking windows, burning an effigy and spray-painting a circle around the letter A at the state Republican Party headquarters on Raleigh's Hillsborough Street.
Some people would label the demonstration anarchy, which the dictionary defines as disorder and violence. But others call it an expression of anarchism, the philosophy that all forms of government interfere unjustly with individual liberty.
In the first category is Bill Peaslee, the state Republican Party's chief of staff: "Somebody has fed these young people full of a bunch of crap, frankly, about how to express yourselves and how to be involved in a democracy."
Yet anarchist Steve Roberts, 22, of Winston-Salem, who says he did not take part in the protest, says the destruction of property pales next to the destruction of the human spirit by the political structure.
"The system is incredibly flawed, and has been historically," Roberts said. "It is not a product of George W. Bush. It's not a product of the GOP. It's a product of economic interest over human rights interests, of capitalist interests over human interests. You can't change the system from within, because the problem is systemic."
The vandalism occurred after about 200 protesters marched down Hillsborough Street just before midnight. Police arrived to find about 20 people in black clothes attacking the GOP building.
A man who lives on Forest Street, next to the headquarters, discovered two women near his garage shedding black clothes. He prevented them from leaving until police arrived. A young man also was arrested, and all were charged with the felony of causing malicious damage to property by use of an incendiary device.
Vanessa Zuloaga, 24, Melissa Brown, 18, and David Hensley, 20, all of Columbia, S.C., were jailed on $50,000 bail each. Supporters across the country contributed more than $15,000 over the Internet to bail out "the Raleigh 3," and they have been released. They are scheduled for a court hearing Monday.
Raleigh lawyer Brad Bannon said his client, Hensley, had returned home. The whereabouts of Zuloaga and Brown could not be ascertained this week.
Gaining momentum
Raleigh Police Chief Jane Perlov briefed Mayor Charles Meeker on the incident, and Meeker said he was asked not to release information. Assistant District Attorney Tom Ford, who will prosecute, also declined to discuss the case.
The incident energized activists. Last week, anarchists scheduled a panel discussion for Tuesday in the Hanes Art Center Auditorium at UNC-Chapel Hill.
On Friday evening at N.C. State University's Bell Tower, the Student Peace Action Network held its weekly "Honk for Peace" demonstration. A usually small band that has kept the vigil for two years swelled to about 60 people.
Elena Everett, a spokeswoman for the group, said the demonstration Friday also protested the FBI sending its agents on the Joint Terrorism Task Force to knock on doors around campus asking questions about the vandalism incident.
Michael Saylor, the supervisory special agent in the FBI's Raleigh office, said task force agents did fan out to question people about the Nov. 5 incident, which came a day after a similar protest left damage at the Republican Party headquarters in Buffalo, N.Y.
"We were looking to try and identify, just as the Raleigh police were, just who was responsible for the destruction," Saylor said. "It's just like any other crime or any other type of investigation: You have to interview people who were at the scene. That's simply what the interviews were about."
The GOP's Peaslee said fixing the damage cost more than $5,000. He said windows were broken and slogans spray-painted on the building, including the circle A symbol of anarchism. Someone also tried to set something afire in the building. Outside, an effigy with the heads of President Bush and U.S. Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, was lit but did not burn completely.
Roberts and another anarchist, David Phillips of Charlotte, said the damage was a statement of their beliefs, especially after the Nov. 2 election.
"I don't have a moral or ethical problem with breaking windows when entire buildings are being blown up in Fallujah," Roberts said.
Roberts, said he who hopes to teach history in high school, and Phillips, 23, who is studying to become a neuromuscular therapist, said anarchists in North Carolina usually work in quiet ways. They said they feed the hungry through the nationwide Food Not Bombs campaign and organize against timber interests in Asheville.
There is no way to determine how many people in North Carolina consider themselves anarchists. But many communicate with one another through a Web site, N.C. Independent Media (www.chapelhill.indymedia.org).
Phillips, who also said he was not in Raleigh for the Nov. 5 demonstration, said he has found it difficult to go public with his political views because the media oversimplify anarchism by equating it solely with violence.
"This is a very complex movement," he said. "There are anarchists who are totally pacifist. There are those who won't engage in violent arguments, much less violence. ... I believe that if our movement cannot remain nonviolent, we'll never be effective."
An old tradition
As a system of thought, anarchism has roots in ancient China. Anarchism, a Greek word meaning "no government," is the belief that human social groups evolve from hierarchies, maintained by the force of arms, to flatter, smaller organizations.
In the United States, anarchism has often been associated with the labor movement. North Carolina somehow avoided much anarchism; neither the state library nor the library at UNC-CH lists any reference works about anarchism in North Carolina.
But Tar Heel anarchists have had their moments. In the 1970s, a group of them in their mid-20s took the name the Red Hornet Mayday Tribe.
In 1971, the Red Hornets tried to get into the old Charlotte Coliseum for a birthday party for the Rev. Billy Graham that drew as a guest President Nixon. They were turned away, so they sued the White House.
During the trial, Red Hornet Marvin Sparrow said the group wanted to "smash the state and have fun." The lawsuit was thrown out, but Sparrow said the group was launched on a yearslong spree of tweaking the establishment.
"It was a wonderful time," said Sparrow, now a general practice lawyer in Forest City.
He said young people who discover anarchism often are little aware that they are part of an old tradition.
"It's not up to any one person or group to decide history. History is going to decide itself," he said. "You just sort of have to express yourself. And do what you can do."
The Red Hornets, he said, best expressed themselves with pranks. Sparrow once ran along Fayetteville Street Mall holding a cassette tape loudly announcing he had found the missing 18 1/2-minute gap from Nixon's Watergate tapes.
"Humor was a really important way of reaching people," he said. "If you just start screaming and yelling at people, they'll tune you out. We found that humor could work in our favor."
But smashing the state proved to be more difficult than the Red Hornets had reckoned. As the decades have passed, Sparrow, 58, has developed perspective.
"It's hard to square [belief in anarchism] with the way I live my life," he said. "People would laugh at me and say, 'C'mon now.' But I like the idea that anarchism is the way I interpret it, which is ultimate democracy. There's no artificial system of who's ruling who, but you make decisions about that, and everyone has a right to participate in it. In that way, yes, I still define myself as an anarchist."
Foard Jazz Band plays at conference
Nov. 24, 2004
Charlotte Observer
By LEIGH PRESSLEY
© Copyright 2004
The Fred T. Foard High School Jazz Band was selected to perform at the N.C. Music Educators Association Conference Nov. 15 in Winston-Salem.The Foard Jazz Band was the only high school or middle school jazz band chosen and was the first high school band from Catawba County Schools to be invited to perform.
The performance featured two guest soloists: John Entzi, a native of Drexel and the director of concert bands and jazz ensembles at N.C. State University, and John Alexander, a musician from Gastonia who specializes in saxophone.
The Foard Jazz Band played "Granada Smoothie," The Sesame Street Theme," "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?," "Manteca," "I Remember Clifford," "Watermelon Man" and "Four Brothers."
Ted Neely has been band director at Foard High since 1986.
Three Wayne residents honored at farm-city event
Nov. 23, 2004
Goldsboro News Argus
By Sam Atkins
© Copyright 2004
Three people were honored Monday during the annual Farm-City Banquet.
Inductees into the Agriculture Hall of Fame were the late Michael E. Regans and David John Overman.
And, Deborah M. Ballance was named Outstanding Woman in Agriculture.
Inductees into the Hall of Fame, whose pictures will be hung on the walls at the Wayne Center, are selected because of outstanding work and contributions relating to agriculture, said Bob Pleasants, Wayne County extension agent.
Dr. Johnny Wynne, interim dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, addressed the crowd of around 250 at the Wayne Center in Goldsboro about the diversity of agriculture in the state and about value-added products.
Michael Regans
Regans was involved in agriculture and agribusiness in eastern North Carolina for 28 years, most notably as an outstanding extension agent, said Pleasants.
He worked many years with the Junior Livestock Show and Sale in Wayne County, received the Outstanding Service Award from the Wayne County Livestock Development Association in 1996 and the Distinguished Service Award from the N.C. Poultry Federation in 1998. He was on the board of directors of the Wayne County Livestock Development Association and the N.C. Dairy Herd Improvement Association.
He won numerous awards for his educational program in support of the livestock and poultry industries, including the Search for Excellence Award in 1994 and 1998. His 1994 entry won nationally.
He developed the Greenhorn Cattle Management School locally as the cattle industry grew in the early 1990s and helped garner grants for research on swine waste management.
"Mike was always looking for a way to advance agriculture research and then take this knowledge and help the farmer implement it," wrote Todd and Deborah Ballance, who nominated Regans on behalf of the Wayne County Farm Bureau. "He was always there to answer any need in the farming community he loved and was a part of."
Regans wife, Anne, accepted the award on his behalf.
"I wish he could be here tonight to accept this honor, I know he would be very proud," she said.
David John Overman
Overman has been engaged in agriculture for 51 years and operates a farm along with his son, Harrell, and wife, Minnie, that totals over 3,400 acres and 7,000 head of hogs, said Pleasants. Their operation in the Grantham area includes 105 acres of tobacco and is one of only a handful of independent swine production farms.
He served on the Wayne County Planning Board for 12 years, was active in the Thoroughfare Fire Department for 20 years and has served the Wayne County Livestock Development Association as a Swine Committee member. He served as president on the Wayne County Farm Bureau board of directors from 1963 to 1967.
His farm operation has won numerous production awards over the years, placing first in the county wheat or corn yield contests at least four times. The operation received recognition as Outstanding Wayne County Pork Producer in 1987, Wayne County Farm Family of the Year and Outstanding Pork Producer in N.C. in 1994.
"David John has focused on improving his farm operation, supporting Wayne County agriculture and encouraging young people to learn about and appreciate agriculture," said Pleasants.
"We've enjoyed it," said Overman.
Deborah Ballance
Mrs. Ballance received the N.C. Pork All-American Award in 1998. She works with her husband, Todd, and in-laws managing 4,500 sows and 25 head of cattle. She also works with the Farm Bureau Women's Committee, distributing agricultural information and serving refreshments. She volunteers by hosting farm tours, explaining their sow production in regards to their compost barn and treatment plant.
"She's one of those perfect farm wives who is willing to do her share and more," said Anne Smith, chairman of the Outstanding Women in Agriculture.
She teaches Sunday school, takes part in fund-raisers, is a member of the advisory council at Norwayne Middle School and is active in the Girl Scouts as a troop leader.
"I am truly honored tonight," said Mrs. Ballance.
Farm value
Dr. Johnny Wynne, interim dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, said the number of farms is decreasing.
But he also says there are opportunities for farmers if there is good marketing.
Some examples of product opportunities are catfish, wine, honey spreads, sprite melons, yellow and red seedless watermelons, non-timber forest products, goat meat, soy biodiesel, aquaculture, cooking oil and organic crops and edible and cut flowers.
There is also bioprocess engineering where commodities are broken down into other useful sources. For example, sweet potatoes can be used to make dyes and high-fructose syrup.
"We feel like there are opportunities, we want to continue to have a prosperous rural North Carolina," he said.
Lee Smith, county manager, said there are $300 million in farm sales per year in Wayne County and 22 percent of the income in the county comes from farming. He and other officials from Wayne and Greene counties met earlier in the day at Lane Tree Golf Club in Goldsboro.
Festival Park project receives accolades
Nov. 23, 2004
Outer Banks Sentinel
By Julia Ledoux
© Copyright 2004
The Roanoke Island Festival Park Aquatic Habitat Restoration and Protection Team was awarded the 2004 Partnership Award by Coastal America Monday in a ceremony that brought environmental leaders from all over the state to Manteo.
Manteo Mayor John Wilson said that several years ago the town began noticing that approximately 1,500 feet of coastal marsh and maritime forest was eroding along Festival Park's shoreline. A partnership that brought together the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Roanoke Island Festival Park, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, N.C. State University Department of Horticulture Science, The N.C. Coastal Federation, The Nature Conservancy and Carteret Community College worked together to restore about five acres of maritime forest, marsh, submerged aquatic vegetation and oyster habitat in a project that used rock sill to increase the biodiversity of the impacted portion of the sound.
Family members of Roanoke Island Festival Park staffers and others volunteered their time to prepare the site and plant marsh grasses, according to N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Bill Ross, who was on hand for the event.
Doug Lamont, deputy assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, presented the awards to the various groups.
State Budget Woes Could Return If Taxes Expire And Spending Remains
Nov. 23, 2004
WRAL
By Cullen Browder
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina's economy continues to show signs of recovery, but the state budget is not improving right along with it.
Ongoing spending obligations and taxes set to expire are clouding the state's fiscal future.
When lawmakers finalized the current state budget, they welcomed a nearly $200 million tax surplus.
Less than six months later, a legislative research report now projects more than a billion dollar deficit for next fiscal year.
"There's election times of the year and there's governing times of the year," said Rob Schofield, North Carolina Justice Center Policy Director. "So, it's not surprising that we're now starting to hear about budget deficits."
Schofield said the explosion of new students entering public schools combined with rising Medicaid costs keep driving up budget demands and the need for tax reform.
"We've got a 20th Century tax code hoping for a 21st Century economy," Schofield said.
"It's kind of like a household ran short of funds and they borrowed from Cousin Harry and took the kids out of school so they wouldn't have these expenditures. Maybe worked 60 hours a week rather than 40," said Mike Walden, an NCSU economist. "You can't do that forever."
Walden says Gov. Mike Easley and legislators used up nearly every one-time money maneuver to cover spending.
"And now the chickens have come home to roost," Walden said.
One dilemma is the temporary sales tax hike and income tax increase for the wealthy are both set to expire June 30.
Unless lawmakers keep them alive, the state misses out on more than $500 million in revenue.
"The point is, of course, we have to deal with the pain," Walden said.
State budget analysts point out their projections could go up or down depending on tax collections in the coming months.
Easley and his staff had no comment Tuesday on the budget deficit predictions.
N.C. Turkey Growers Give Thanks
Nov. 24, 2004
Associated Press; Charlotte Observer; Winston-Salem Journal; WSOCtv.com; Akron Beacon Journal, OH; Biloxi Sun Herald, MS; Bradenton Herald, FL; Centre Daily Times, PA; Duluth News Tribune, MN; Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, IN; Fort Wayne News Sentinel, IN; Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX; Grand Forks Herald, ND; Kansas.com, KS; Kansas City Star, MO; Kentucky.com, KY; Miami Herald, FL; Monterey County Herald, CA; Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC; Philadelphia Inquirer, PA; San Luis Obispo Tribune, CA; The State, SC; Tallahassee.com, FL; WVEC, VA
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- When North Carolina turkey farmers sit down to carve their own bird with their families this holiday, many will give thanks for still being in business despite massive changes in the marketplace over the last decade.
Over the last 10 years, mysterious diseases have devastated flocks and waning consumer demand has deflated prices to a point where many growers have been forced out.
Others have quit raising turkeys and switched to chickens because of higher demand.
Despite the challenges, North Carolina has kept its status as the nation's top turkey-producing state, a title the Tar Heel state has held since 1981.
The ranking is important to everyone connected with turkeys in the state.
"A substantial amount of pride is involved," said Ed Kacsuta, chief financial officer for Carolina Turkey, a major processor based in Mount Olive.
Carolina Turkey, one of the world's largest processing plants, produces some 550 million pounds of turkey meat each year.
By comparison, Jennie-O Turkey Store in Minnesota processes 1.2 billion pounds a year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"Everything is going fairly well after several mediocre years," said Kacsuta. "Demand was down and there were a lot of excess birds on the market."
Until recently, Union County touted itself as the No. 1 turkey-producing county in the United States.
But a one-two punch of disease and changes by a leading turkey processor forced many farmers to either switch to broilers or get out of turkey farming completely.
"We went from producing 13 million turkeys per year in 1983 to less than 2 million this year," said Jerry Simpson, cooperative extension director in Union County, which is about 30 miles east of Charlotte. "But a million turkeys is still a lot of turkeys."
In the mid-1990s, Union County farmers were hit by a mysterious disease that baffled experts for years.
The disease, called spiking mortality, is now under control after ravaging many flocks.
But in the meantime, major turkey producer WLR Foods Inc. decided not to restock 50 Union County farms where spiking mortality was a big problem.
And the company, based in Broadway, Va., sold its Monroe turkey plant to another company that converted it to processing broiler chickens.
WLR also switched to chickens at a turkey processing plant in Marshville, where it employs 900 workers.
Most of North Carolina's turkey production is now based in the eastern part of the state, where Sampson and Duplin counties battle it out every year for the top spot.
James Parsons is the cooperative extension service's poultry agent for those counties along with Wayne County and Onslow County -- two other big turkey-producing counties.
"We have good growers and we have the railroad to bring in feed and the interstates and shipyards for shipping," he said. "Perhaps the biggest thing is that our climate is typically good."
Those counties also have major processing plants close by to handle all the birds, he said. And nearly all the growers are under contract with the companies.
"Raising turkeys under contract means the grower has almost a guaranteed income," Parsons said. "There's a constant flow of money and it helps keeps the family farm going."
He estimated that there are more than 500 growers in Sampson and Duplin counties.
While turkeys remain among North Carolina's top farm commodities, overall production has declined in recent years. Meanwhile, Minnesota producers have increased their production to make a run for the No. 1 spot.
Jesse Grimes, turkey specialist for the poultry science department at North Carolina State University, said North Carolina remains the leader in total pounds while Minnesota produces more birds.
"It been a good season so far. The prices have been respectable and overall the national numbers are down," he said. "We have no big health issues and it was not too hot last summer."
So why is North Carolina such a big turkey-producing state?
"We have good labor supply and an ideal growing season," Grimes said. "And a lot of people have invested in animal feed. Contract production grows out of that."
North Carolina currently produces about 7 billion pounds of turkey valued at $3 billion.
The state produces about 15 percent of all the turkeys consumed, according to the N.C. Poultry Federation.
Grimes said a lot of family farmers want to get into turkeys.
"They like their independence and this is a true partnership, with some give and take," he said. "It must be good for them because most of the companies have a waiting list of farmers who want to do it."
Letter to the editor: Misplaced faith
Nov. 24, 2004
News & Observer
© Copyright 2004
Your Nov. 19 Life, etc. section featured a photograph of N.C. State University football cheerleading squad members standing a semi-circle, hands joined, heads bowed in prayer.
I had to look twice at the photograph to confirm that the cheerleaders' uniforms said "Pack" and not "Bob Jones University," and that it was a recent photograph, not one taken in the 1950s.
What's wrong with the picture? The same thing that would be wrong if it were of a professor leading students in prayer before class. Public schools, as is well established by the laws of our land, are not to promote religion, in the classroom or anywhere else.
Cheerleaders are of course free to pray any time they wish. But as the caption indicated, the group prayer is a regular part of the squad's pregame routine, and is enthusiastically endorsed by the coach, Harold Trammel.
The photograph and caption thus send the message that if you want to be a cheerleader at N.C. State you had better be religious, because if you aren't, you will be unwelcome, or at least uncomfortable. No unit of a supposedly inclusive public university should ever send such a message.
Trammel needs reminding about the principle of separation of church and state. If he can't abide by this principle, he should be encouraged to find a job in a suitable religious institution.
Michael Schwalbe
Chapel Hill
Developer gives N.C. State two oceanfront lots
Nov. 24, 2004
Associated Press; Charlotte Observer; Wilmington Morning Star
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH, N.C. - Scholarship money for future N.C. State students will be funded in part by the sale of two oceanfront lots at Sunset Beach worth an estimated $4 million.
Brunswick County developer Edward Gore Sr., founder of the Ocean Ridge Plantation golf community, has turned property deeds over to the university. When the land is sold, the money will go toward scholarship programs and for environmental research on the coast.
Officials said it was one of the largest gifts to N.C. State in the last five years.
"It's an unusually generous gift," said David Anderson, associate vice chancellor for university development. "We don't get them very often."
Gore, 72, said he was motivated by retired Army Gen. Hugh Shelton's leadership initiative at N.C. State, which seeks to instruct students in values-based leadership. Gore said he hopes the money will help restore the idea that school is an extension of church and family and keep environmental regulations from hamstringing development.
Gore's father bought the land for Sunset Beach, which sits on a barrier island just north of Myrtle Beach, in the 1950s. In 1989, Gore founded Ocean Ridge Plantation that covers more than 2,000 acres and is getting its fourth golf course.
Some $500,000 of the proceeds will provide scholarships to Brunswick County students who show interest in leadership and community service. Another $500,000 will be invested in the Gen. Hugh Shelton National Leadership Scholarship Endowment, giving $10,000 a year to a student.
Other $5,000 scholarships will be offered to sophomores and upperclassmen, along with stipends for enrichment programs and study abroad, said Mike Davis, director of the Shelton initiative.
Computer Simulation Shows How Fibrils " Proteins That Cluster in Diseases " Form
Nov. 24, 2004
Onlypunjab.com, India; ScienceBlog.com; The Lincoln Tribune
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
To get a better look at how proteins gather into clusters called amyloid fibrils – which are associated with important human diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and the so-called prion diseases like Mad Cow – researchers at North Carolina State University decided to make movies.
Dr. Carol Hall, Alcoa Professor of chemical engineering at NC State and Hung D. Nguyen, a graduate student in Hall’s lab, used a computer simulation technique, discontinuous molecular dynamics, to visualize the meanderings of small proteins called peptides. Movies of the simulation show that 96 randomly placed peptides spontaneously aggregate into what Hall calls a “sandwich” of layered protein sheets, similar to the amyloid fibrils discovered in diseased people and animals. Hall says that understanding how fibrils form in human or animal organs may lead to discoveries of how to slow or halt fibril formation.
The research was published in the Nov. 16 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It is not known whether fibrils cause Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and the other so-called amyloid diseases, or whether they are just associated symptoms. In any event, the fibrils form plaques in human and animal organs, often the brain. Although it’s not clear if these plaques cause memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients, for instance, scientists are interested in finding out the mechanisms behind the formation of fibrils.
“All of these diseases – Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, Huntington’s – have the same unusual phenomena. Proteins – completely different proteins in each disease – assemble into ordered aggregates, amyloid fibrils, so that a vital organ, usually the brain, is crisscrossed by these structures,” Hall said. “This tells us that the problem has something to do with the general nature of proteins rather than with the specifics of the particular disease-associated proteins.”
Besides studying fibrils in the test tube, researchers would like to make computer models to view fibril formation. This is not possible using the traditional atomic-level protein folding simulation techniques – which follow the motions of every atom on every protein – because fibril formation takes a long time.
So Hall and Nguyen developed a less-detailed model of protein geometry and energetics and applied it to a relatively simple protein, polyalanine, which had been found to form fibrils in test tubes. With this approach, the NC State researchers were able to watch spontaneous fibril formation in about 60 hours on a fast computer. That’s much quicker than atomic-level simulations.
In the simulation movie, 12 to 96 peptides were initially scattered randomly across the computer screen. When set into motion, the researchers first saw groups of two to five proteins coming together and falling apart and eventually forming amorphous clumps that twist around each other, like a rope. These twisted structures began coming together, like the ingredients in a sandwich, layered above and below each other. In the end, the simulation showed a fibril-like structure with only a few outlying peptides refusing to aggregate.
Hall says her method of reducing the level of detail in her protein model just to the point where the key features that drive fibril formation remain and other features are neglected allows her to get a broad molecular-level picture of the fibril formation process.
Hall’s work is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. She has recently been funded to attempt computer simulations of fibril formation by beta amyloids, the peptides that aggregate in Alzheimer’s disease.
Nov. 24, 2004
The News Journal, DE
By GRETCHEN PARKER
© Copyright 2004
PINEY POINT, Md. -- More than 1,600 baby blue crabs, just weeks old and still wearing slick, see-through skins, are quickly dropped one at a time into coolers filled with mesh nets.
Minutes later, they are packed into trucks and are on the way to be released into two breeding nooks in Chesapeake Bay tributaries. A new brood already is growing in this makeshift crab nursery in southern Maryland.
The bustling bunker on St. George Creek, an expansion of a marine lab run by the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in Baltimore, is the start of what crabbers and researchers hope will be the future of the bay: a network of watermen-worked crab nurseries that can operate with little staff and a minimum of funds.
They envision a loose circle of nurseries, filled with little more than gurgling tanks, that would pump "teenage" crabs into selected tributaries around the bay. The crabs would then, as they migrate, merge with indigenous crabs in a deep channel that runs the length of the bay.
Three months later, those that survive would be sexually mature and ready to breed. If it works, it could help stall - or halt - the collapse of the Chesapeake Bay's blue crab population. The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, a partner in the hatchery consortium, has found that spawning-age populations of bay crabs fell 80 percent over the 1990s. Harvests, though stabilized, are well below modern averages.
But the partnership, which includes the institute's Center of Marine Biotechnology, isn't there yet. First, it needs solid answers about how well its lab-hatched crabs are surviving and reproducing in the wild, said Yonathan Zohar, director of the center.
Over the last three years, the center has hatched and tagged 100,000 crabs - several generations worth - in a lab on the north side of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The project is a wild success, breeding the finicky crabs year-round and guiding them through eight stages of larval development before they are big enough for release.
Its project is an unprecedented "tagged release" of crabs, leaders said. Japan hatches thousands of crabs every year but doesn't tag or recapture them for research, Zohar said.
Ecologists at the Smithsonian center and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, a consortium partner, do the work of releasing and studying the crabs in the western shore's Rhode River and in the York River of Virginia.
Researchers are finding out that so far, the lab crustaceans are growing to be healthy adults, with a survival rate of 20 percent to 30 percent after they're pitched into the Chesapeake Bay. Their wild peers survive at a rate of just 0.301 percent.
The federal government is expressing confidence in the project. The consortium, which also includes North Carolina State University and the University of Southern Mississippi, gets $2 million a year from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But to get answers that could predict how feasible a network of nurseries would be, they need more crabs, Zohar said.
"Our ecologists are telling us, 'Guys, we need more crabs. We need 200,000 a year,' " Zohar said. That's partly because only a fraction of those released are able to be recaptured for study.
To make room for more newborn crabs, the toddlers needed to move to their own nursery.
COMB found this place. It's an abandoned oyster hatchery owned by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. What scientists discovered, once they filled the building with tanks and started pumping in St. George Creek water, was a surprise.
The young crabs love the creek water. They have been coddled since birth in sterile lab tanks and an artificial sea-like cocktail, but they are thriving in water pumped in from the creek.
With few controls on the water, the nursery is cheaper than the center's lab to run. Less staff is needed, because the crabs are beyond the vulnerable larval stages.
Zohar doesn't yet know exactly how much a network of nurseries would cost to run. The budget of each would largely depend on its size.
This makeshift nursery, hidden in the woods of Piney Point, is working even better than planned, said Zohar and other researchers in the partnership. It runs with just a few staffers, but 9,000 crabs already have grown and graduated from here since summer.
Last year, the hatchery program released 60,000 crabs. Next year, with the help of Piney Point, it will double that, said crab nutritionist Odi Zmora.
Watermen also are investing. Mick Blackistone, a crabber from Anne Arundel County, works with a nonprofit created by the Maryland Watermen's Association that raises $225,000 a year for the project. He envisions nurseries in Oxford, at the former Horsehead Wildlife Sanctuary in Queen Anne's County and in Solomons on the Patuxent River.
He encourages fellow watermen to buy into the project, while at the same time explaining that distributing lab crabs in the bay is not going to ruin their livelihood.
"One thing they're very positive about is the scientific research and knowledge we've gained," Blackistone said. "But if they think bushels of crabs are going to go from $100 to $40, that's not good. We have to explain that's not what we're talking about."
On the other hand, he also has the job of explaining to watermen that the marine biotechnology center is not starting a put-and-take hatchery.
The crabs are meant to breed after they're delivered to the bay. Release spots are picked carefully, so the crabs don't have to compete with too many other crabs or run the risk of getting snatched up by watermen, said Romuals Lipcius, a Virginia marine institute ecologist.
Researchers have made the project a success so far, but watermen must buy into it for the vision of a nursery network to be realized, Zohar said.
"The eventual goal is to transfer this whole thing to watermen," he said. "If it works, we want them to do it."