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NC State University News Clips for December 11, 2003

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.

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2003 Women Extraordinaire: Marye Anne Fox, North Carolina State University
Chancellor Fox has a lot on her mind lately. She's concerned about how N.C. State is shaping the future and knows that students must be able to compete in life.

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2003 Women Extraordinaire: Marye Anne Fox, North Carolina State University

December 2003
Business Leader
By Cindy Stranad, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Business Leader.

Chancellor Fox has a lot on her mind lately. She's concerned about how N.C. State is shaping the future and knows that students must be able to compete in life. Leading one of America's premier research institutions, she's passionate about the fact that N.C. State is actively developing solutions to problems facing not only North Carolina, but also the nations of the world.

As chancellor, she draws her motivation from educating students and encouraging innovative research. Today, a relatively short time after joining the university, she's more committed and focused than ever before. She wants students to learn how to translate ideas into personal success.

"This means learning to work in teams, communicating orally as well as in writing and understanding the great traditions that characterize an educated person," says Fox. "It also means learning a new technology."

Students must have a base from which to draw inspiration. In her own life, she explains, "I don't know that I was inspired by one person, but I had a good, well-rounded education. One where I developed, what I felt, was enough self-confidence that I could challenge what was a very highly male-dominated field."

"When I was growing up, if you were intelligent at all, you thought about science. Not everyone chose to go into science, but you thought about it. I fell in love with chemistry;' she adds.

She believes that each student is different and each student relationship is different with each teacher. "But, I think some characteristics are common in all successful people-- you have to believe in yourself and your work. Hanging on my wall is an exercise I did when I was learning to write the letter 'w' It says, 'Wish and Work.' I think that sort of captures it. 'Wish and Work!'

A native of Canton, Ohio, Fox obtained her Ph.D. from Dartmouth College. She has been honored with numerous awards. Though, she recognizes, one of her proudest moments throughout her career was the election to the National Academy of Sciences as well as winning the Monie Ferst Award for the nation's best mentoring.

Positioned for the future, Fox has a powerful combination of optimism and hard-earned wisdom.

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Poplar trees hold hope for hog-waste cleanup

Dec. 11, 2003
Associated Press; Winston-Salem (NC) Journal; WRAL-TV
By AP staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Associated Press

After years of struggling with the dirty disposal problem of sludge from hog-waste lagoons, researchers have come up with a possible green solution - poplar trees that suck up the waste like soda straws.

If the procedure works well enough to be approved by state water-quality officials, it could cut in half the cost of closing a waste lagoon, currently done by bulldozers and dump trucks.

"It is a simple method," said Frank Humenik, the coordinator of the animal waste-management program at N.C. State University.

Humenik has been working with Oregon researchers who have been experimenting the past few years with technology that relies on groves of fast-growing hybrid poplars to suck up waste.

Studies have found that the trees can absorb nearly 3,000 gallons of effluent per acre each day, ridding the ground of ammonia and nitrogen by safely metabolizing the compounds in their woody tissue.

Ron Minor, an water-quality researcher at Oregon State University, said that it could take 10 years before the trees clean the land well enough that it can be reused.

"Over time, the trees take up the nutrients, and it is natural purification," Humenik said. "With the trees, you have a harvestable product."

The current state-approved method for cleaning up hog lagoons is complex. First, the liquid is drained from the top of the lagoon onto existing spray fields of grass at the farm. Then the farmer pays to have the sludge scooped out and trucked away to be spread thinly on acres of fields.

Humenik said that the cost and politics of cleanup may be the reason that only 20 lagoons were closed in the state last year.

There are 1,700 inactive lagoons in North Carolina awaiting cleanup and 4,500 more lagoons in use. North Carolina ranks second in hog production at 9.6 million animals, behind Iowa at 15 million head.

Figures from the National Pork Board show that one animal produces 8,000 to 64,000 pounds of waste a year, depending on its development.

Cleaning out a typical lagoon could cost as much as $40,000 an acre, not counting the cost of land on which to spread the sludge. The sludge can't be used to fertilize crops for human consumption.

Humenik said that the typical lagoon cleanup using the poplars would cost $15,000 to $20,000 for a lagoon that is 2 to 3acres.

He said that the process has yet to be approved by state regulators, but they are closely watching the experiment.

Trees used in the experiment were developed by Ecolotree of Iowa City, Iowa, but state foresters are being asked to develop a hybrid as well.

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Tall Christmas Trees Fall Short This Year

Dec. 9, 2003
WRAL-TV
By Laurie Clowers
 © Copyright 2003

Looking for a tall Christmas tree for your two-story foyer? Better shop around.

When Rich Glaeser went looking for a Christmas tree, he noticed something different.

"This is one of the smallest groups I've seen. Most of the time they're really big," he said.

Tall trees are hard to find this year for two reasons.

Dennis Hazel, of the North Carolina State University Forestry Department, blames this year's shorter trees on high demand two years ago that prompted growers to cut more trees than usual.

"[The] year before last they overcut some of the intermediate-size trees that would have been carried longer and would have been this year's larger trees," he said.

The second reason is last spring's late frost that damaged many trees.

The result is fewer tall Christmas trees when demand for them is growing.

"That's what tends to go. People with 20-foot ceilings want a 9- to 10-foot tree. So that's what we've been selling out of," retailer Tammy Ellington said.

Six-foot trees are what shoppers will find on most lots this season.

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Vets to have new option for care

Dec. 11, 2003
Associated Press; News & Observer; Durham Herald-Sun; Wilmington Daily Star; Winston-Salem Journal; Sarasota (FL) Herald Tribune; WRAL-TV; WCNC; WVEC.com, VA
By reporter name, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Associated Press

North Carolina State University expects to open a diagnostic center for pets that it says will be the first of its kind in this region.

N.C. State's College of Veterinary Medicine and pet food manufacturer Iams Co. plan to open the magnetic resonance imaging center by June 2004.

The $2 million, 3,348-square-foot Iams Pet Imaging Center will be located in the N.C. State Centennial Biomedical Campus, school officials said.

The center will provide veterinarians with a high-quality and useful diagnostic tool in animal health care, said Oscar Fletcher, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine.

The MRI, used for years with humans, is a device that takes high-resolution images of the body. Unlike a common X-ray, an MRI produces precise images of soft tissue. It can help diagnose cancer, spinal cord ailments and brain injuries such as strokes.

The MRI could be used to diagnose a dog's stomach cancer, a cat's seizures or a horse's lame leg, Fletcher said.

The center will take referrals from patients either within N.C. State's vet school, or veterinarian referrals.

But, with the inconvenience of the procedure and at a cost upward of $1,200, the MRI might not be for every dog and cat.

Unlike humans, animals might not be willing to lay still for the MRI scan, so they'll have to be anesthetized.

Information from: High Point Enterprise

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Rural areas questioning incentives

Dec. 11, 2003
News & Observer
By AMY GARDNER AND CHRIS SERRES
 © Copyright 2003 News & Observer

Robert Neal, a laid-off textile worker from Cabarrus County, traveled to Raleigh this week looking for good news for his community and others that have lost thousands of manufacturing jobs.

He came away disappointed.

In a special session called by Gov. Mike Easley, lawmakers passed a $240 million package that provides tax breaks for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., other cigarette makers and pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co.

Most of the immediate benefits will go to companies doing business in two of the state's largest cities: Winston-Salem and Durham. Legislators did little to directly benefit the rural swaths that have been hit hardest by the economic slump -- a slump that has cost at least 148,000 manufacturing jobs in three years.

"Where are the jobs for us?" asked Neal, 50, as he and other former Pillowtex workers watched the House Finance Committee debate Easley's proposal. "Where's the promise?"

Easley's incentives package passed overwhelmingly in both legislative chambers early Wednesday. Supporters said the measure will bring high-paying jobs to a state that badly needs them -- and will stimulate the entire state's economy.

"There is no bad news here," said Easley budget adviser Dan Gerlach. "It is good news that companies are creating jobs that will pay over $55,000 a year in our state. And we've sent a signal that we're going to do more."

Merck, which could build a vaccine-making plant in northern Durham by 2008, said the jobs -- up to 200 -- would pay between $55,000 and $60,000 a year. The drug company expects to begin construction on the project early next year. A final decision by Merck's board of directors is expected within weeks, company spokesman Patrick Witmer said.

The state will give Merck $24 million for site acquisition and improvements, plus other incentives worth nearly $13 million. But Commerce Department officials estimate the Merck plant will increase the state domestic product by $66 million a year, bringing the state a net benefit in taxes of $20.6 million over 20 years.

Still, the need for jobs in rural North Carolina was a persistent theme through the grueling special session, which didn't end until well after midnight. Durham has an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent. The rate in Forsyth, where RJR plans to add 800 to 1,000 jobs at its Winston-Salem headquarters, is 4.8 percent.

Cabarrus and Catawba, two counties with major manufacturing losses this decade, logged October unemployment rates of 9.6 and 7.9 percent, respectively.

"I think what you hear from rural leaders is a concern over the primary jobs going away in our manufacturing industry," said Billy Ray Hall, president of the Rural Center, a private nonprofit that uses state and private money to promote economic development in rural North Carolina. "And they will not come back."

Hall said that in addition to going after the big fish, economic development leaders must retain existing jobs and attract new ones through small businesses that are more likely to pick rural locations.

But incentives supporters say economic development projects such as the Merck deal often yield far more jobs than projected.

In 1998, the state granted $161 million in tax breaks to Nucor Corp., which promised to invest $300 million in a 300-job steel mill in Hertford County. Since then, the Charlotte-based company has invested $500 million and hired 400 people. Twenty-three other companies, which primarily supply materials to Nucor, have opened in the county, creating an additional 200 jobs.

"If you bring in a big manufacturing company, you create a whole chain reaction of new businesses and new jobs," said Rick Watson, president of North Carolina's Northeast Partnership Inc., a nonprofit corporation that promotes the area.

The Commerce Department hopes for a similar ripple effect with Merck. Using an economic model developed by N.C. State University economist Michael L. Walden, the department estimates that businesses that sell products to Merck and its employees will hire at least 373 people, nearly twice as many jobs as the project itself.

That, in turn, will create a long-term boon to the state treasury, because these businesses and individuals will pay state income and sales taxes.

"This project more than pays for itself," said Edward Feser, the department's executive director of policy, research and strategic planning.

To some, the tax breaks for tobacco companies are more troubling. Reynolds will get $126 million in tax savings over 13 years through an extension and expansion of the cigarette export tax credit. Part of that benefit, $48 million, is tied to RJR's promise to add jobs after finishing its merger with Brown & Williamson Tobacco.

But the rest of the benefit comes with no promise of jobs or investment -- not from Reynolds, or from Philip Morris USA, which will also be eligible for $78 million in savings, or from Lorillard Tobacco Co. of Greensboro, which would save up to $2.6 million.

Richmond-based Philip Morris has no plans to expand in North Carolina. The tax credits "should help us sustain what we already have," said spokeswoman Jamie Drogin. The company employs 2,900 people in the state and buys more leaf from the state's farmers than any other company, she said.

That's not enough for some.

"There should have been performance measures," said Rep. Paul Luebke of Durham, who supports the Merck deal and voted for an early version of the package but changed his vote when the Lorillard provision appeared.

Luebke said the broad support for the incentives -- they passed 76-18 in the House and 32-4 in the Senate -- hides a growing aversion to granting incentives to wealthy corporations.

Luebke said he and others would much rather see a focus on small-business development, and on spending on day care, job training and other programs that help the jobless or working poor.

There may yet be hope for such alternatives to economic development. Some rural groups said being left out this week might give them added leverage in the spring, when the General Assembly is expected to consider a further expansion of the state's economic incentives.

"It's going to be tougher to ignore us," said Bruce Clarke, president of Capital Associated Industries in Raleigh, which represents about 900 Eastern North Carolina employers. "In the future, it's going to be easy to point back to this and say, 'Look, you gave all this money to urban areas, what about us?' "

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Rep. Taylor plans annual dinner

Dec. 8, 2003
Asheville Citizen-Times
By Kerra Bolton Fisher
 © Copyright 2003

ASHEVILLE - For Emma-Lee Searcy, U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor's annual holiday party is an enchanted evening.

"It's the climax of the year," said Searcy, 83, of Black Mountain. "It's so beautiful out there. You see so many friends that you haven't seen in a long time, and there's always a very interesting speaker."

This year's speaker will be U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay.

Taylor began holding the fund-raising dinner after his election in 1992, calling the event a "Victory Dinner." The event has grown and draws more than 1,000 people each year. Past speakers include former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Vice President Dick Cheney, a former defense secretary at the time of his visit to Asheville, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Taylor will host the dinner, now in its 12th year, on Saturday.

"It is the largest sit-down political dinner in the state," said Trish Smothers, Taylor's campaign fund-raiser and event coordinator. "As the people of Western North Carolina continue to see the great things he's (Taylor) been able to do for the district, the number of people attending the dinner grows."

People keep coming to Taylor's annual dinner, in part, because of the big-name speakers the Brevard Republican is able to attract. Taylor's other previous guest speakers include former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and former Reps. Dick Armey of Texas and Robert Livingston of Louisiana.

"Having speakers of this caliber certainly shows that you're tuned in to the leadership," said Andrew Taylor, a political science professor at N.C. State University.

"This person comes in and heaps praise on you, tells constituents what a wonderful job you're doing in Washington and how you're looking after the interests of the people in Western North Carolina."

Taylor's reputation in Washington is as a hard worker who really understands the needs of his district, said Livingston, who before leaving office in 1999 was in line to become U.S. House Speaker after Gingrich.

Taylor's "a very bright fellow and accomplished in financial matters, which is something I wasn't," Livingston said. "He worked his way up on the Appropriations Committee and was very dedicated to the task at hand."

Attending these events, holiday or otherwise, is beneficial for congressional leaders, Armey said. Armey served in Congress from 1984 to 2002.

"It was part of my job as majority leader to help people accomplish their personal and political goals," Armey said.

"Going to districts, meeting their neighbors and understanding what their issues were made me more capable of working with the members."

Not everyone, though, is a big fan of Taylor or the speakers he brings to town. John Dockendorf, a Henderson County businessman, said he's opposed DeLay's partisanship and Taylor's environmental stances.

"Instead of discourse and coming up with what is best for citizens, he (DeLay) seems to be ramming through partisan legislation that benefits special interests at the expense of the people," Dockendorf said.

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Getting Out

Dec. 11, 2003
News & Observer
By Joyce Sykes, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 News & Observer

Traveling Exhibit: "The Pulitzer Prize Photographs: Capture the Moment," a traveling exhibit hosted by N.C. State University Libraries at the D.H. Hill Library, has extended its run through Dec. 28. The exhibit features more than 120 prize-winning images from 1942 through 2003. It's free and open to the public. Information: 515-7188.

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Former N.C. State Provost Takes New Job At Ohio State

Dec. 10, 2003
Associated Press; WRAL-TV; WTVD-11; WVEC.com, VA; WCNC, NC; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, FL; Wilmington Morning Star
By AP writer
 © Copyright 2003 Associated Press

The former N.C. State University provost who returned to teaching after the chancellor fired two of his top assistants has quit his faculty job.

Stuart Cooper, 62, will start a job with the chemical engineering department of Ohio State University on Jan. 1. He is an expert in polymer science and biomaterials.

NCSU Chancellor Marye Anne Fox ordered Cooper in January to fire two vice provosts, saying they were not doing enough to move the university forward. Fox fired them herself when Cooper refused.

Cooper resigned in protest the next day, falling back to a tenured position in NCSU's department of chemical engineering.

The faculty senate later voted to censure Fox and passed a formal resolution commending Cooper for his actions.

Cooper said that he would rather forget about the conflict and focus on his next job.

"I don't feel any great regrets," he said. "I would have liked to accomplish more here, ... but that was not to be. Now I'm moving on."

Cooper did not teach at NCSU this semester, but he had planned to teach a course on polymers in the spring. He will leave behind a postdoctoral student and a lab.

Fox hired Cooper in summer 2001 from the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he was vice president and chief academic officer. He served 17 months as NCSU's chief academic officer.

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Appalachian State board OKs $300 tuition increase

Dec. 11, 2003
Winston-Salem (NC) Journal
By Monte Mitchell, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 Winston-Salem (NC) Journal

BOONE

Ellen Gwin was ringing up a sale at the Mast General Store yesterday when she heard that trustees had voted to raise tuition $300 a year for the next two years at Appalachian State University.

Gwin didn't need the cash register to add up just how long she would have to work at her part-time job to absorb the increase.

"For me, it would take more than a month, maybe two or three months," she said.

Gwin, a junior photography major from Winston-Salem, gets scholarship help, but says that a $300 bite hurts.

"It's just a lot," she said. "I have to pay rent and eat."

Her friend and co-worker, Andy Rieck, faces the same increase but has a much-larger total bill as an out-of-state student.

"I'm actually not in classes right now, because I have to work to make money," said Rieck, a senior political-science and criminal-justice double major from Augusta, Ga.

Students from North Carolina who live on campus would pay $7,837 a year in 2004-05. Out-of-state students would pay $17,204. The amount includes tuition, fees, room, board and books.

Thousands of students and parents across North Carolina are facing the same tuition increases at other schools in the University of North Carolina system as trustees cope with reduced state financing.

The board of trustees at UNC Charlotte voted Friday to raise tuition $300 a year for the next three years. ASU's trustees reserved the right to ask for a $300 increase for a third year.

UNC Chapel Hill, N. C. State University, UNC Greensboro and others are considering similar tuition increases, which must be approved by the UNC board of governors. The board is expected to consider them when it meets early next year.

ASU Chancellor Harvey Durham said that three years of cuts in the university's state appropriation are forcing the tuition increases. He said that ASU must raise tuition if the school expects to provide all qualified students continued access to a quality education.

Those state cuts total more than $8 million.

It is estimated that the tuition increase will raise $3.75 million in 2004-05. Of that, 35 percent will go to faculty salaries and benefits; 24 percent for student financial aid; 21 percent for academic and student support; and 20 percent for staff salaries and benefits.

Campus-based tuition increases have been allowed since 2000, and this is the largest such increase at ASU. Trustees raised tuition by $150 for 2001-02 and by $250 for 2002-03.

ASU's trustees also voted Tuesday for general fee increases of $44 and a $173 increase for room and board.

Durham said that ASU remains a good value.

"Even after these tuition increases are implemented, the cost to attend Appalachian will average substantially less than the cost to attend many other universities," he said, in a statement.

ASU's student enrollment is about 14,300.

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Oregon researchers developing new uses for poplar trees

Dec. 10, 2003
The Oregonian (Portland, OR); OregonLive.com; Myrtle Beach Sun News
By ESTES THOMPSON
© Copyright 2003 Associated Press

WHITAKERS, N.C. (AP) -- After years of struggling with the dirty disposal problem of sludge from hog waste lagoons, researchers have come up with a possible green solution -- poplar trees that suck up the waste like soda straws.

If the procedure works well enough to be approved by state water quality officials, it could more than cut in half the cost of closing a waste lagoon, currently done with bulldozers and dump trunks.

"It is a simple method," said Frank Humenik, coordinator of the animal waste management program at N.C. State University.

Humenik has been working with Oregon researchers who have been experimenting the past few years with technology that relies on groves of fast-growing hybrid poplars to suck up waste.

Studies have found the trees can absorb nearly 3,000 gallons of effluent per acre per day, ridding the ground ammonia and nitrogen by safely metabolizing the compounds in their woody tissue.

Oregon State University water quality researcher Ron Minor said it could take 10 years before the trees clean the land well enough that it can be used again.

"Over time, the trees take up the nutrients and it is natural purification," Humenik said. "With the trees, you have a harvestable product."

The current method approved by the state of North Carolina to clean up hog lagoons is complex. First, the liquid is drained from the top of the lagoon onto existing sprayfields of grass at the farm. Then the farmer pays to have the sludge scooped out and trucked away to be spread thinly on acres of fields.

"We don't like to haul that stuff around," Humenik said.

Humenik said the sludge usually isn't welcomed by neighbors of the fields. The cost and politics of cleanup may be the reason only 20 lagoons were closed last year in the state, he said.

There are 1,700 inactive lagoons in North Carolina waiting cleanup and 4,500 more lagoons in use. North Carolina ranks second in hog production at 9.6 million animals, behind Iowa at 15 million head.

National Pork Board figures show one animal produces between 8,000 pounds and 64,000 pounds of waste a year, depending on its development.

Cleaning out a typical lagoon could cost as much as $40,000 an acre, not counting the cost of land on which to spread the sludge. The sludge can't fertilize crops for human consumption. Humenik said the typical lagoon cleanup using the poplars would cost between $15,000 and $20,000 for a lagoon that is two to three acres.

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North Carolina still trying to attract Boeing

Dec. 9, 2003
KING-TV Channel 3 (Seattle,WA)
By GLENN FARLEY
© Copyright 2003

SEATTLE - There is less than a week left before Boeing reveals the site of its 7E7 assembly plant and even though it looks like Everett will be chosen, North Carolina lawmakers have not given up the fight. They want the plant built in Kinston, North Carolina.

But whatever incentive North Carolina lawmakers come up with, it's not expected to match the $3 billion carrot offered by Washington state if Boeing builds the 7E7 here.

Unless the Board of Directors throws Boeing executives a curveball on Monday, Everett appears the winner in the bidding for the 7E7.

Boeing 7E7

But Everett's competition isn't giving up.

It's called the Global Trans Park - a long runway in Kinston, North Carolina, surrounded by acres of "potential."

Some say Trans Park has not lived up to its potential in bringing in big business to the state.

Kinston is in eastern North Carolina - about an hour's drive from Boeing's desired deep-water port in Morehead City.

The Boeing 7E7 represents a chance for North Carolina to land a big Marquis company on all that available land next to the runway - land that could be leased or sold to Boeing for as little as a dollar.

"This is going to go into the hundreds of millions of dollars in terms of an incentive package when you include all of the components of that package," said Mike Walden, economist at North Carolina State University. "Value of the land, value of the runway, setting up a training program, perhaps some help on property taxes."

Mike Walden is considered an expert on how Southern states have competed for and won bids for big factories.

But ever since North Carolina got word from The Seattle Times Web site last Friday that Everett was the favorite choice and not Kinston, the pressure is on to do something.

Monday, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley told legislators in a letter that "the clock is ticking on several high-impact economic development projects" and that "immediate action is needed on specific issues. Delay, at this point, could risk jobs for our state."

"It may turn out that Boeing wanted to stay in Washington all along and they simply used North Carolina and some other potential locations around the country to sweeten the ante in the state of Washington," said Walden.

In terms of an incentive, North Carolina's package is not expected to touch the $3 billion-plus deal that the State of Washington is offering Boeing only if it gets the 7E7.

Tuesday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Talmadge took a swing at that package for a company that is planning to build many of the 7E7s big parts overseas.

"I'm just concerned about the scope of the breaks that have been given: $3 billion at least over 20 years. And now we're in a position where we're gong to be hurting in 2005 and 2007," he said.

Governor Locke Tuesday dismissed the remarks as a publicity grab saying that the deal is for the entire industry, not just for Boeing.

The governor is not running for re-election.

Resource Links

Candidate for Governor takes aim at Boeing tax breaks

A spokesman for Democratic candidate Christine Gregoire said the statement was more about politics than policy.

As for North Carolina, there is no word yet on whether the legislature has sharply increased what it's offering.

Professor Walden, who is based in North Carolina, says that his state has the lowest level of union membership in the country.

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Book accuses social studies group of ignoring racism

Dec. 3, 2003
Education Week
By Manzo, Kathleen Kennedy
© Copyright 2003 ProQuest Information and Learning Company

The National Council for the Social Studies, an organization that has been slammed by conservative groups in recent years for promoting multiculturalism and a more diverse and critical view of American history, is being accused in a new book of failing to address issues of race and racism.

The book, Critical Race Theory Perspectives on the Social Studies: The Profession, Policies, and Curriculum, was published last month by Information Age Publishing Inc., of Greenwich, Conn. It features 13 chapters by scholars of racial issues who charge that the NCSS has ignored such sensitive topics in its standards, position statements, and publications.

"The association is going to advertise itself as a champion of these issues," said Gloria Ladson-Billings, a professor of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the book's editor. "Sure, they have position statements, but you have to fight so hard to get them to take action on anything."

One of the authors, Patricia Marshall, a professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, describes NCSS policies over the past two decades as "the persistent deracialization of democratic citizenship education."

Critical race theory was developed in the 1980s by scholars disillusioned by the lack of progress in the civil rights movement who began taking a more critical and interdisciplinary look at race and the persistence of racism.

Contradictory Critiques Officials of the 25,000-member NCSS, which represents teachers, curriculum specialists, and researchers, said they were confused by the new assessment. The book diverges from past criticism.

"I'm perplexed because (a few) months ago, conservative groups said we are teaching too much about race," said NCSS President- elect Jesus Garcia. "Now, this group comes out and says we're not teaching anything at all (about race). I wonder if we're talking about the same organization."

In August, the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation released a collection of essays that, among other faultfinding, accused the Silver Spring, Md.-based NCSS of promoting multiculturalism and "political correctness" over historical accuracy. (See Education Week, Sept. 3, 2003.)

But the authors of the latest critique say that the NCSS merely pays lip service to those issues. While the group has a long- standing position statement on multicultural education, the scholars say, it has been ineffective in changing curriculum and instruction.

Ms. Ladson-Billings also points to what she describes as a failure on the group's part to take a stand against the 1994 passage of the California measure that sought to deny public services, including education, to undocumented immigrants. At that time, the NCSS refused to move its annual meeting out of California. Copyright Editorial Projects in Education, Inc. Dec 3, 2003

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War coverage that angered everyone

Nov. 1, 2003
World & I
By Emil, Reid
© Copyright 2003 ProQuest Information and Learning Company

MEDIA IN REVIEW In the execution of every war, there is always some of the brilliant, some of the stupid, and even some of the crass. And the media's coverage of war is no different.

The U.S. news reporting on the Iraq war of March-May 2003 was true to past form. Many media organizations turned in performances that time and again were biased, erroneous, pompous, or shallow. In fact, American news organizations could satisfy virtually no one in the usual pantheon of media critics. There was withering criticism of the press from both the Left and the Right-for different reasons, of course. In general, the Left, together with journalists from many other countries, found the U.S. media maddeningly patriotic and unwilling to question the basic premises of the war, while the Right discerned among American reporters and editors a groundswell of cynicism and suspicion toward the government that skewed their war coverage.

This type of criticism begs the question, What is the media's true role in society during time of war? Must they be a wholly objective mirror, reflecting to news consumers exactly equal portions of pro- and antiwar sentiment? Should their function be to act primarily as gadflies and critics of their home government? Or, since the media are one institution among the many that construct a democratic society, do they have a duty to lean in the direction of supporting the nation's war effort, at the same time keeping a healthy skepticism alive and presenting all possible facts so people may arrive at their own conclusions?

The 'embedding' triumph Both liberal and conservative commentators agreed that the Pentagon pulled off a communications coup through "embedding" about 600 reporters-80 percent of them American or British-in front-line military units. Liberals and many observers from Europe and the Mideast, however, shuddered at the embedded journalists' electronic and printed reports due to what they perceived to be the reporters' identification with the servicemen, which purportedly caused them to badly slant their coverage. Critics cited instances in which reporters referred to the troops in their unit using the pronoun we instead of they. These observers frequently commented that the reporters were not so much embedded with their units as "in bed" with the U.S. military.

Robert Entman, a longtime critic of the major media and professor of communication at North Carolina State University, charges that U.S. journalists, rooted as they are in American culture, are unwittingly biased in favor of their own country's military. Moreover, he says, journalists have an inexorable tendency to curry favor with the government that provides them much of their information and to please the people (who were in this case overwhelmingly prowar) who purchase their news products.

Conservatives, on the other hand, saw embedding in a different light. The policy, they said, gave journalists the unprecedented opportunity to view the war unfolding at their fingertips and to see the American fighters, the materiel they used, and the opposition they faced unfiltered by military spokesmen. This allowed them, therefore, to report far more graphically and intelligently to the American people than they otherwise would have been able to do.

Critics from the Right and Left also agreed with each other that the U.S. news media, especially television outlets, leaned heavily for their sources on retired military officers. This practice did not even raise an eyebrow among conservatives, who thought it obvious that the best sources for comment on a war would be those trained to fight one. But liberals recoiled at the media's sourcing method. Entman, for example, notes that the retired generals could not be strictly considered independent experts because they were still on the government payroll through their military pensions.

Media watchdogs on the Right cringed most at the reporting provided by ABC News and were happiest with that of Fox News Channel. The conservative Media Research Center found "too little skepticism of enemy propaganda, too much mindless negativism about America's military prospects, and a reluctance on the part of most networks to challenge the premises of the antiwar movement or expose its radical agenda." MRC analysts scrutinized the war coverage put out by the "Big Three" broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and the leading cable news stations (MSNBC, CNN, and Pox News Channel). The conservative organization congratulated Fox News Channel and CBS for not shrinking from portraying the U.S. war effort as a success. Fox in particular, the MRC says, seemed to overtly reject the notion that the media's role must include being indifferent over whether America wins or loses a war.

Litany of abuses The MRC's Brent Baker and Rich Noyes cite a litany of bigmedia abuses in their war coverage, including:

* Lesley Stahl and other reporters at CBS showed a tendency for "unwarranted secondguessing."

* Fox's Geraldo Rivera revealed the location and mission of the 101st Airborne Division, with which he had been embedded.

* ABC News as a whole indulged in "knee-jerk negativism that played up Iraqi claims of civilian suffering, hyped American military difficulties, and indulged antiwar protesters with free air time."

* ABC's Chris Cuomo overblew antiwar activists as "prescient indicators of the national mood," at a time when polls showed most Americans to be backers of the Iraq action.

* NBC and MSNBC heavily used Peter Arnett as a Baghdad reporter; Arnett took a "servile approach" to the Iraqis before he was fired for telling state-run Iraq TV that the U.S. war effort had foundered due to the regime's resistance. National Geographic Explorer's Arnett was "the most outrageously biased Baghdad reporter." On March 26, NEC's Today show twice broadcast Arnett telling of Iraqi claims that U.S. "cluster bombs" had killed dozens of citizens at a Baghdad marketplace, a contention later denied by NBC Pentagon reporter Jim Miklaszewski.

* CNN's coverage was characterized by gratuitous negativity and too much antiwar footage, although the cable network was redeemed by good embedded reporters.

* ABC anchorman Peter Jennings was sharply biased and defeatist. For example, five days before the fall of Baghdad, Pentagon reporter John McWethy intoned, "This could be, Peter, a long war," and Jennings replied knowingly, "As many people had anticipated."

* ABC gave extensive air time to freelancer Richard Engel's uncorroborated stories of Iraqi civilian deaths. The April 2 World News Tonight spotlighted Engel repeating the Iraqi regime's claim that U.S. bombs had obliterated a "maternity hospital."

Fox Managing Editor Brit Hume weighed in on the war-coverage debate in a speech he gave at Michigan's Hillsdale College in which he provided some media criticism of his own. Speaking toward the close of April, he said he saw over the preceding month a virtual flood of news reports and commentaries in the American media that were completely wrong on the progress and outcome of the war. In addressing the cause of this phenomenon, he said, "When it comes to the exercise of American power in the world, particularly military power," he said, "there seems to be a suspicion among those in the mediaindeed, a suspicion bordering on a presumption-of illegitimacy, incompetence, and ineffectiveness."

Sounding quite in step with the MRC, he cited a handful of instances, among which were the following:

* Before the war started, NEC's Chris Matthews warned that the incursion into Iraq "will join the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Desert One, Beirut, and Somalia in the history of military catastrophe."

* NBC analyst and retired general Barry McCaffrey prognosticated that a battle for Baghdad would produce "a couple to three thousand (U.S.) casualties." In reality, however, from March 19, when the war started, to May 1, when President Bush declared victory, there were 112 U.S. combat deaths.

* R.W. "Johnny" Apple, the longtime New York Times war correspondent, political analyst, and food and wine writer, wrote on March 29, "With every passing day, it is more evident that the allies made two gross military misjudgments in concluding that coalition forces could safely bypass Basra and Nasiriya and that Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq would rise up against Saddam Hussein." He thought that the temporary slowdown American forces were experiencing at the time signaled that the Iraqi military had fought the U.S. Army to a standstill and that the terrain ahead showed only "quagmire" for the United States.

* The legendary Seymour Hersh, who broke the My Lai massacre story during the Vietnam War, made a blunder similar to Apple's. Writing in the New Yorker, published on March 31, he said, "According to a dozen or so military men I spoke to, (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld simply failed to anticipate the consequences of protracted warfare. He put Army and Marine units in the field with few reserves and an insufficient number of tanks and other armored vehicles.. . . 'It's a stalemate now,' the former intelligence official told me."

Finding a prowar tilt Liberal media watchdogs dismiss these points and cite others that suggest a prowar bias in the American media. Toronto Star commentator Antonia Zerbisias calls CNN "the Pentagon's bitch" and then lumps in ABC's World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, NEC's Nightly News, Fox's Special Report With Brit Hume, and PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. She uses the "unladylike" phrase, she says, because the networks largely parroted the Defense Department line during the war, providing viewers with an "endless military parade of gung-ho retired generals" and hawkish talking heads.

The liberal media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) got down to some of the hard numbers of the media's coverage. In a study performed in the first three weeks of the war (March 20 to April 9), FAIR researchers Steve Rendell and Tara Broughel reported that "official voices"-past and present leaders in the administration and military-dominated the TV news, having the effect of "squelching dissent" and squeezing out other views, including perspectives from abroad. U.S. TV watchers, the study says, "were more than six times as likely to see a prowar source as one who was antiwar; with U.S. guests alone, the ratio increases to 25 to 1." The report appraised 1,617 on-camera analysts and sources.

The researchers show that military commentators received twice as much attention as civilians did. Overall, they say, only 3 percent of U.S. sources "represented or expressed opposition to the war."

"With more than 1 in 4 U.S. citizens opposing the war," the report says, "and much higher rates of opposition in most countries where opinion was polled, none of the networks offered anything resembling proportionate coverage of antiwar voices. The antiwar percentages ranged from 4 percent at NBC, 3 percent at CNN, ABC, PBS, and Fox, and less than 1 percent -1 out of 205 U.S. sources-at CBS." Moreover, opinions against the war were almost always expressed in onesentence sound bites, very often from someone simply labeled "protester" or "antiwar activist."

How about the overseas reaction to American media coverage? Many foreign observers were furious over the apparent "patriotism" and "cheerleading" in U.S. news reports that supposedly slanted the coverage, yielding a self-suppression of critical questioning of the administration. BBC Director-General Greg Dyke, for example, says many U.S. television networks abandoned neutrality during the war- one even calling U.S. soldiers "heroes" and "liberators" -and thus risked losing all credibility.

"Personally," he says, "I was shocked while in the United States by how unquestioning the broadcast news media were during this war. If Iraq proved anything, it was that the BBC cannot afford to mix patriotism and journalism. This is happening in the United States and, if it continues, will undermine the credibility of the U.S. electronic news media. For the health of our democracy, it's vital we don't follow the path of many American networks."

What should the news media do? Rami Khouri, a political scientist and executive editor of the Daily Star in Beirut, Lebanon, charges that the U.S. war coverage (and the Arab war coverage, too) was characterized by "a mishmash of emotional cheerleading, expressions of primordial tribal and national identities, overt ideological manipulation by governments, and crass commercial pandering to the masses in pursuit of audience share and advertising dollars."

He especially takes issue with the network practice of using animated American flags rippling as on-screen logos or backdrops, also noting that the networks often used emotional collages of war photos to separate news shows and commercials. And he discerns a prowar tilt evidenced by TVs fascination with U.S. weapons technology, prolific use of ex-generals as sources, reluctance to show Iraqi civilian casualties, eagerness to highlight U.S. troops' humanitarian assistance to Iraqis, use of biased terms like "the good guys" to refer to U.S. troops, and apparent naive assumptions that Iraqis would put up no resistance and would embrace the "invading" army.

Clearly, then, the Right and the Left are as different as black and white in their views on coverage of the Iraq war. So who is "right"? And, by extension, what is the proper role of the news media in a democratic society? The answer may very well lie outside the "box" in which each side insists that the media must hew to its own partisan expectations. After all, to thus remake the media according to a single set standard, dictated by either the Right or the Left, would be the height of arrogance and authoritarianism.

Outside the "box" is an increasingly plugged-in world tied together by satellite TV and the Internet, churning with media multiplicity. Press outlets are springing up everywhere, each with its own viewpoint, unique expert sources, and investigative talent. It's a global media democracy. All a news consumer need do is a little surfing on the Web or with the remote, and news and views far different from those to which he's accustomed arrive at his fingertips. Khouri, for example, says he browses through 20 or so Arab and American TV stations a day.

In this new world, therefore, the "proper" role of each media organization is only to be as journalistically excellent and as much itself as it possibly can bewhether that means being liberal or conservative, patriotic or antigovernment, pro-Arab or proU.S. In this new world, the news consumer decides what is the truth by extracting nuggets of it from the various media resources available to him. To do this, of course, he must be educated, savvy, and wired- that is, plugged in to the global media network. In this new world, then, the government's task becomes not to regulate the media but to ensure that everyone is well educated (including in other languages to be able to understand non-native media), wise in the ways of media manipulation, and well-off enough to have access to the Internet; that is, the government must bridge the "digital divide" between black and white, wealthy and poor, North and South.

Today, we stand at the threshold of this new world, and, although it's yet on the horizon, the view looks pretty good.

News Annoyance *Both liberal and conservative media watchdogs panned U.S. television and print coverage of the Iraq war.

*The Left, together with many foreign observers, saw an unprofessional display, especially on TV, of patriotism and unquestioning support of the U.S. government and military.

*The Right discerned a cynical and suspicious attitude toward the U.S. venture in Iraq in most of the major-media coverage.

*Discovering whose criticism is "right" is a nearly impossible task.

*The solution to the perceived partisanship problem in the U.S. media may lie in the proliferation of press outlets worldwide, united by the Internet, that together give news consumers a balanced array of news and views.

A conservative watchdog finds in the major U.S. media "too little skepticism of enemy propaganda, too much mindless negativism about America's military prospects."

"For the health of our democracy," says the BBC director- general, "it's vital we don't follow the (flag-waving) path of many American networks."

Reid Emil is a freelance writer in Maryland who specializes in media issues. Copyright Washington Times Corporation Nov 2003

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Don't be a litterbug!

Nov. 1, 2003
American Fruit Grower
By Peterson, Jasmine
© Copyright 2003 ProQuest Information and Learning Company

As the season comes to an end, it is important to use techniques to reduce leaf litter in the orchard.

LEAF litter can create a habitat for pest infestation. Just think - a colony of insects breeding during the arctic months of winter, just waiting for the first warm, sunny day to break free on your new crop.

Leaf litter is a manageable problem, but if left untreated, it can pose a threat the next growing season. Debris left on the ground following pruning, thinning, and harvesting can be the beginning of the end of your crop.

Several disease-causing fungi can survive from season to season in leaf litter. Though Venturia inaequalis (the cause of apple scab) is the most important pathogen that overwinters in leaves, we must not forget about Mycosphaerella pomi (the cause of Brooks spot) and Alternaria mail (the cause of Alternaria blotch), says Turner B. Sutton, professor of plant pathology at North Carolina State University. Additionally, leaf litter is an overwintering site for various insect pests including leafrollers and leafminers.

Mowing is very effective in managing leaf litter, but growers must be able to mow as many leaves as possible, which means that they may have to rake them from under the tree.

A Pest's Playground Methods for killing the apple scab fungus in leaves have been studied for more than 70 years. According to the 2001 Southern Appalachian Apple IPM Update, early studies used materials such as elgetol, lime sulfur, and Bordeaux, which were applied to the leaves either on the tree just prior to leaf fall, or to leaves on the ground. More recent studies have examined the effects of applications of fungicides just prior to leaf fall. These fungicides were very effective in reducing the inoculum; however, their use has been discouraged because of the possibility of developing resistance.

The 1960s were a time for change, especially in dealing with leaf litter. Studies conducted in England demonstrated that applications of urea to leaves in the fall could effectively reduce the inoculum of apple scab by as much as 90%.

Urea is a fertilizer, or a nitrogen source. There are several hypotheses on how it works, Sutton says. "One suggests that the urea stimulates microorganisms (fungi, bacteria, etc.) that parasitize the overwintering structures of the apple scab fungus," he explains. He suggests that leaves treated with urea are more likely to be colonized by various organisms that break down leaf litter.

Leaf shredding is also another effective way to clean up leaf litter. In studies conducted in New Hampshire, leaf shredding with a flail mower has been shown to reduce apple scab inoculum by an average of 60%. According to the 2001 Southern Appalachian Apple IPM Update, when an offset mower was used, leaf shredding reduced apple scab inoculum up to 90%.

Sutton says there isn't much difference in the effectiveness of either treatment. He and retired professor of plant pathology William MacHardy, from the University of New Hampshire, actually found that thorough shredding was more effective than urea in reducing the ascospore dose (the number of airborne ascospores trapped the next spring).

What is important, Sutton explains, is to use a technique that will allow as many leaves as possible to be either treated with urea or shredded. "The greater proportion of leaves that are affected in one way or the other, the greater the reduction in the dose," he says. "Often you can get better coverage with the urea if it is sprayed on the tree just prior to leaf fall - as opposed to spraying it once the leaves have fallen."

Mow Them Down Mowing is very effective, but growers must be able to mow as many leaves as possible, which means that they may have to rake them from under the tree. "Some growers have used a brush rake to rake the leaves from under the tree to the middles where they can be mowed," Sutton says. "Or some have offset mowers."

Sutton advises growers to use the urea spraying instead of mowing, especially if they are looking for the easy way out. "It's probably going to be easier to spray, but it really depends on a grower's operation and what equipment is available."

Mowing, on the other hand, is more likely to reduce the population of insect pests that overwinter in the leaves since it chops the leaves into small pieces, he adds.

There has, however, been some concern that fall applications of urea will stimulate tree growth late in the fall which may predispose trees to winter injury, but there are no data to support this concern. "Urea treatments may be more expensive, since you have to purchase the urea, but then you have to balance this against the cost of mowing, or raking then mowing," Sutton adds.

The Culprits ACCORDING to Turner B. Sutton, professor of plant pathology from North Carolina State University, there are four specific pathogens that overwinter in leaf litter.

* Venturis inaequalis: cause of apple scab * Mycosphaerella pomi: cause of Brooks spot

* Alternaria mali. cause of Alternaria blotch * Glomerella cingulata: cause of Glomerella leaf spot

Jasmine Peterson is assistant editor of Greenhouse Grower, a Meister publication. E-mail questions or comments about this article to jasmine_peterson@meisternet.com. Copyright Meister Publishing Company Nov/Dec 2003 Photograph

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Radio Clip

Dec. 9, 2003
Marketplace
By Amy Scott
© Copyright 2003

eBay has begun selling the price data generated by its Internet auction site in the hope that such information will set a benchmark for the value of a wide range of goods. Execs at the auction king expect the company to become "the NASDAQ of online commerce." In the past, businesses would have had to pore over classifieds to value used goods or rely on market research to set retail prices. Looks like eBay may be taking a page from the financial markets: The NYSE and the NASDAQ make millions of dollars a year selling information about their prices.

You can hear Peter Wurman on Marketplace. Follow the link on the eBay story.

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About Physics

Dec. 11, 2003
About.com
By Joseph Andersen
© Copyright 2003 About.com

Ever eager to confirm things for himself, your guide conducted this experiment in his kitchen. In order to protect my microwave, I took the probably unnecessary (but I would recommend doing this to everyone) precaution of placing a half glass of water in the microwave - if there is insufficient material in a microwave, you can blow the internal fuses, rendering the microwave inoperable. However, as the microwave then had to heat the water as well, the melting process took almost two minutes, rather than twenty seconds.

Once I took the chocolate out of the microwave (not have access to Milky Way Stars, I used a block of Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate - a solid block of chocolate conducts heat along its length more than a collection of small chocolates, so I would recommend using some sort of chocolate chips when you do this your self) I measured the distance between the melted points from my sample was 6cm.

As my microwave didn't have a frequency reading on the back, I will use the 2.5GHz "typical" value I found after a brief web search.

Thus: the wavelength is .06m x 2 = 0.12m

Then the speed is 0.12m x 2.5 x 109 /s = 3 x 108 m/s, which is a pretty good estimate! If you want to do better, you can try repeating the measurement many times (and making very accurate measurements) and applying statistics to get an average, and an estimate of how much uncertainty you have.

Pablo Coronel, of the Food Science Department at North Carolina State University, has sent me a few more suggestions like this one:

1. Marshmallows, they swell when heated in the Mico-Wave oven, so it can be fun.

2. Fax paper, the thermal type, place a piece of cardboard and a wet (but not soaked) paper towel beneath the fax paper. There will be dark spots where the antinodes are.

Another reader also recalled having, as a microwave technician, tested the wavelength of microwaves using a small bulb and a short piece of wire connecting the bulb's terminals. If the wire is at a node, then there will be no current in the wire and the bulb will not glow. However, if the bulb is away from the nodes and is aligned parallel to the direction of the electromagnetic field at that point, the field will cause a current to flow in the wire, lighting the bulb. The bulb will light brightest at the anti-node. However, I do not recommend trying this at home, as metal objects should not be placed in the microwave.

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Putting Flies to Work on Pig Manure

Dec. 11, 2003
Pork Magazine
By staff report
 © Copyright 2003

Black soldier flies’ persistence in attacking manure and working on it to create valuable feedstuffs, may be a future pork production technology. The procedure has been proven with poultry and now is being studied with pig manure at North Carolina State University.

Black soldier flies are reducing the volume of pigs’ manure by more than 50 percent, the same as with poultry. The resulting, value-added end product contains about 42 percent protein, 36 percent fat and a wide range of minerals.

The big, black flies are 3/4 inch to 1 inch long. Their eggs hatch and become pre-pupae, caterpillar-like worms also about 1 inch long. They thoroughly “digest” a batch of fresh pig manure in about 2 weeks.

Air-dried pupae successfully replace soybean meal and fish meal in catfish and tilapia rations. They are expected to perform equally well in swine rations, according to Wesley Watson, North Carolina State veterinary entomologist in charge of the study.

Much of the manure’s mineral content is deposited in the pre-pupae, except iron. Drying and marketing the product off-farm helps prevent undesirable buildup of certain trace elements in the soil.

Unlike house flies, adult soldier flies are not attracted to humans or humans’ food, they actually reduce house-fly numbers in their vicinity.

The research project uses low-moisture pig manure from an under-slat belt system, which allows most of the liquid to drain off. The damp manure flows to a concrete “larval basin.”

Once black soldier flies are established, Watson explains, they reproduce and maintain their population indefinitely. They “work” the year-round in unheated buildings in the South. “We are investigating ways, such as supplemental heat or insulation,” says Watson, “to enable soldier flies to function in winter in North Carolina and further north.”

The soldier-fly study on a North Carolina State research farm is one of the many manure-management technologies being studied as alternatives to lagoons and sprayfields.

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Researchers Manipulate Tiny, Floating Droplets on a Chip

Dec. 10, 2003
Innovations Report
By staff report
 © Copyright 2003

In an innovative study, researchers at North Carolina State University have designed a way to control the movement of microscopic droplets of liquid freely floating across centimeter-sized chips packed with electrodes. The discovery allows the performance of new types of chemical experiments on the microscale.

The breakthrough came as the researchers – Dr. Orlin D. Velev, assistant professor of chemical engineering, and two NC State doctoral students, Brian Prevo and Ketan Bhatt – learned how to circumvent friction by suspending the droplets of water inside a fluorinated oil, and then using electrical voltages to allow the liquid to hover over the electrical circuits of the chip. Switching the chip’s electrodes on and off – either manually or with the aid of a computer – lets researchers move the droplets across the oil surface to any location on the chip.

The chip also allows researchers to conduct experiments with mixed droplets, as liquids can be moved along different paths and then merged or encapsulated in oil or polymer droplets.

The discovery has wide-ranging scientific implications. Besides analyses and characterizations of chemical samples, the chip can serve as a tiny factory, Velev says, allowing researchers to mix droplets to test chemical reactions, for example, or add specific amounts of toxin to a cell to see how long it takes the cell to die. Velev is also eager to synthesize new particle materials or crystals inside liquids.

The research was published in the Dec. 4 edition of Nature.

“Moving droplets of liquid on solid surfaces as other researchers have done before us has a number of limitations,” Velev said. Other research in moving droplets on solid surfaces was stunted by friction if particles or solids were moved along the channels or solid surface of a chip. “But the freely suspended droplets on this microfluidic chip never touch solid walls and thus can act as reactors for materials synthesis or precipitation,” he said.

Velev’s interest in microfluidic chips stems from his lab’s work on growing self-assembling microwires by moving gold nanoparticles with alternating current in water, and his earlier work on using floating droplets as assembly sites for complex particles.

“Experiments and bioassays, or determinations of the presence or concentration of biological molecules, that we presently do with test tubes and beakers can now be done on the microscale. This device enlarges the scope and capabilities in the field of microfluidics, which is just a few years old,” Velev said.

The chip – which was simple and inexpensive to make, Velev says, and is reusable – has received a provisional patent, with application in place for a full patent.

The research is funded by Velev’s National Science Foundation Career Award and by an ARO-Stir grant.

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On the trail of robo-crabs

Dec. 11, 2003
Chicago Tribune
By Howard Libit
© Copyright 2003 Baltimore Sun

What do you call an adult female crustacean with a tiny computer strapped to its back?

Robo-crab.

Scientists hope the backpack-toting animals will provide crucial insights into the life cycle of the Chesapeake Bay's female blue crabs and a boost to a population struggling to rebound after decades of overharvesting.

Specifically, the robo-crabs are answering what seem like two simple questions: After female crabs mate in the upper Chesapeake Bay, when do they start heading south? And how do they travel?

Finding that information - which could lead to adjustments in fishing sanctuaries for spawning females - has required more than a bit of creativity: The live, adult females are transformed into robo-crabs by strapping miniature computers to their backs. The 4-centimeter devices, built in a lab at North Carolina State University, contain instruments that record such data as water temperature, salinity and depth.

That's what happens every six minutes as the females make the long journey from the mating waters of Maryland to the spawning grounds of Virginia.

"With just $30 of parts, we can collect a wealth of information," said Thomas G. Wolcott, a professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State. "We can take the data and basically re-create the path they take as they migrate down the bay."

The robo-crabs - a term Wolcott disavows but was coined by other scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration - represent something of a technical compromise between the two most common methods of tracking animals.

Most of the time, scientists fix simple identifying tags to hundreds of animals, and the tags are returned when the animals are caught. Scientists rely on fishermen to record where they tags were recovered, and usually offer a few bucks for each tag to make it worthwhile for the fishermen. It's a low-cost, low-tech way to track population movement and size with three pieces of information: where the animal was released, where it was caught and how long it was loose.

For minute-by-minute records of animal activities, scientists use radio tracking devices, a process known as biotelemetry. But the gadgets are expensive, and for small marine animals, scientists often have to stay nearby on boats to keep a running log of data. Larger, more powerful transmitters that send data through satellites aren't feasible for most crab experiments.

Enter Wolcott, who fancies himself a "gadgeteer" and studies animal behavior and interaction with his wife, Donna, also a professor at North Carolina State. He decided to invent something between those extremes specifically for blue crabs.

"It's call the focal animal approach," Wolcott said. "We got lots of information from a few individuals to find out what they're actually doing."

Scientists knew that after reaching maturity, crabs typically mate in the upper bay. Then the females travel south into the spawning grounds along Virginia. Having only one partner, they store the sperm and use it over and over to produce batches of fertilized eggs, sometimes for three years or more.

But researchers wanted to know more about the migration. Do the crabs make the journey all in one year, or stop to "winter" in the bay by burying themselves in the mud? How do crabs travel - by crawling along the bottom or rising up during ebb tides to catch an easy, floating ride toward the mouth of the bay?

And, perhaps most significantly, what path do the crabs tend to follow? Advances in technology during the past two decades have enabled watermen to target more females in deeper waters. Knowing where the crabs travel is crucial infomration for establishing sanctuaries to protect the migrating females from harvest just as they're about to reproduce.

About 150 mature female crabs were collected each year. Walcott's devices - which he calls dataloggers - were then attached to the crabs' backs. Last year, Wolcott used wire to bind the dataloggers to the crabs' lateral spines, but he switched to nylon cable ties this year because they were easier to manipulate. The crabs were then released along the east and west sides of the bay near Annapolis.

While it's under water, the datalogger - which has a real-time clock - takes a reading every six minutes. First, it determines whether the water is warm enough for the crab to be active - at least 10 degrees Celsius, or about 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Whenever the temperature is right, the datalogger polls its other measuring devices. For salinity, it relies on a small circuit to check electrical conductivity - water with higher salinity conducts more easily. Depth is checked by testing water pressure.

Because global satellite positioning equipment doesn't work underwater, Wolcott says, he uses the other data as a rough substitute to track a crab's path.

Higher salinity means a crab has traveled down the bay toward the ocean, while shifts in depth and temperature correlate with different areas of the bay. Federal and state agencies, including the U.S. Geological Survey, regularly record data from buoys and trawls through the bay, which allows scientists to map shifting conditions to the data recorded by a crab's computer.

When a crab is caught, its bright pink backpack provides the waterman with information for sending it back to the scientists, who pay $25 for each device.

"We had about 30 percent come back in the first year, which is a really high number for a tagging experiment," said Derek M. Orner, a fishery biologist at the NOAA's Chesapeake Bay Office. "A reward of $25 and a hat makes a difference."

Early data suggest that the crabs simply walk down the bay, spending the vast majority of their time along the bottom in the deepest channel, Wolcott said.

But there are still many crabs to be accounted far. All of the captured crabs have been returned within a few weeks of release, and Walcott is hoping that watermen will find some that have been released for six months or more and reached Virginia waters. The datalogger batteries can last at least a year, and there's enough memory to save more than 16,000 readings.

This spring, Walcott says he hopes to expand the experiment to Virginia waters .

"Females used to be relatively immune to the fishery, but now, when you have things like hydraulic pot pullers that can help capture crabs at 70 feet or more, they're being targeted," Wolcott said. "If we want to maintain a sustainable fishery, we really need to learn more about how the females live and how they migrate."

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Chat with George B. Vaughan

Dec. 11, 2003
Chronicle of Higher Education
 © Copyright 2003 Chronicle of Higher Education

Join a live, online discussion with George B. Vaughan, a professor of higher education at North Carolina State University, on whether community colleges should establish selective admissions, Thursday, December 11, at 1 p.m., U.S. Eastern time.

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Norm Sloan, Former Wolfpack Basketball Coach, Dead At 77

Dec. 11, 2003
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By staff report
 © Copyright 2003

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Norm Sloan, who coached the North Carolina State Wolfpack to the NCAA men's basketball title in 1974, died Tuesday morning at Duke Hospital.

Sloan, 77, took over the Wolfpack for the 1966-67 season and struggled to a record of 7-19 overall and 2-12 in Atlantic Coast Conference play. Sloan, however, soon turned the program into a winner, culminated in a championship in 1974.

His final season with the Wolfpack was in 1980 when he finished 20-8. He left State after that season to become the head coach at Florida.

In 14 seasons at N.C. State, Sloan had a record of 266-127. Sloan is also one of only six men to win three ACC championships.

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Obituary: NORMAN LESLIE "NORM" SLOAN, Jr.

Dec. 11, 2003
News & Observer

NORMAN LESLIE "NORM" SLOAN, Jr., 77, of Raleigh and Newland, died on Tuesday, December 9, 2003 as a result of complications from Pulmonary Fibrosis. Norm was born in Anderson, Indiana on June 25, 1926 to the late Mary (Seacat) Sloan and Norman L. Sloan.

To Norm, the most important successes in his life were his marriage of 55 years to Joan Wildridge Sloan, his high school sweetheart and the love of his life, and his children and their families. Norm and Joan initially met in high school at Lawrence High School in Lawrence, Indiana. Norm was the star of the basketball team and Joan was a cheerleader and, by most people's standards, out of his league. Over a period of years, Norm using his charm and good looks, convinced Joan to date him and eventually, to his great fortune, to marry him. For 55 years they were a team in everything they did in life. Joan, who trained as a classical musician and singer at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, was by his side throughout his career and sang the national anthem before every home game at each school where Norm coached.

Norm joined the Navy after high school and upon his discharge came to Raleigh to attend North Carolina State University and play basketball for Coach Everett Case. He was in Coach Case's first recruiting class in 1946 and was known as one of the "Hoosier Hotshots". While at N.C. State, Norm was the only four sport letterman in the history of the school, lettering in basketball, football, baseball and track and field.

After graduation from N.C. State, Norm began a coaching career which spanned 37 years. His first coaching position was as the head coach at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina where he coached from 1952-1955. He was an assistant coach at Memphis State University in 1955 and then became the head coach at The Citadel from 1956-1960. In 1960, he left The Citadel to become the head coach at the University of Florida, where he coached from 1960-1966 and from 1980-1989. At the University of Florida, he led the 1988-89 team to the school's first ever Southeastern Conference Championship. In 1966, he returned to his alma mater where he was the head coach from 1966 to 1980. While at N.C. State, his teams won three ACC Championships (1970, 1973 and 1974) and his 1974 team won the NCAA National Championship. He was named "National Coach of the Year" in 1974. It was while he was at N.C. State that he acquired the moniker "Stormin' Norman" and became known for his plaid jacket and yellow pants.

Coach Sloan ended his career with 627 wins and was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame as a player and coach (1984), the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame (1994) and The Citadel Athletic Hall of Fame (2002).

While known as "Stormin' Norman" on the basketball court, he was anything but at home and away from the court. Norm was a good friend to many, including his former players, and was a loving, caring and generous husband, father and Papaw to his grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.

Norm is survived by his wife, Joan Wildridge Sloan, and his three children, Deborah Hollis Banks and her husband, Stuart of Atlanta, Georgia, Michael C. Sloan, D.D.S and his partner, Tom Wilhelm of Lincolnville Beach, Maine, and Leslie Sloan Nicholls and her husband, Biff Nicholls of Wendell, North Carolina. He is also survived by his four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren who were the lights of his later life. He will be sadly missed by his grandson, Benjamin Hollis and his wife, Leeanna, of Atlanta, Georgia; his granddaughter, Wendi Hollis and her partner, Michael Donehoo, of Atlanta, Georgia; his granddaughters, Blake Nicholls and Tayler Nicholls of Raleigh, North Carolina, and his great-grandchildren, Christopher and Michaela Donehoo of Atlanta, Georgia. He is also survived by his dogs, Schinn and Bunny. Norm is also survived by his sisters, Vivian Lineberry of Lake City, Florida, Twanda Negley of Atlanta, Georgia, Janet Shrigley of Evansville, Indiana and MaryJo Hall of Rock Hill, South Carolina and a brother, Charles "Chuck" Sloan of Raleigh, NC.

He was preceded in death by his brother, Marvin; his parents and his son-in-law, Larry Hollis.

Norm was a longtime member of the Edenton Street United Methodist Church and was a Mason. His organs were donated to Duke University Medical Center for research related to the disease of Pulmonary Fibrosis.

The family will receive friends from 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 11th at BrownWynne Funeral Home on St. Mary's Street in Raleigh.

A memorial service will be held on Friday, December 12th at Edenton Street United Methodist Church at 11:00 a.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Norm & Joan Sloan Endowment, c/o The Wolfpack Club, P.O. Box 37100, Raleigh, NC 27627 or to Edenton Street United Methodist Church, 228 West Edenton Street, Raleigh, NC 27603.

Condolences may be sent to the family at www.MeM.com

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