April 19, 2004

Carolina in the News

Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina
people and programs cited recently in the media:

International News Coverage

A new window to the cosmos opens in Chile
Reuters International wire service, U.K. & India
Astronomers have opened a new window to the cosmos by inaugurating a powerful U.S.-Brazilian telescope under northern Chile's famously clear skies...Builders broke ground on the telescope project six years ago. It was financed by the U.S. government's Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the government of Brazil, and the U.S. universities of Michigan and North Carolina.
(See below for more SOAR Telescope coverage.)

National Coverage

The Recording Industry Soldiers On Against Illegal Downloading (Editorial Observer)
The New York Times
In the past few weeks there have been some mixed developments in the recording industry's battle against illegal file sharing....And - perhaps worst of all from the industry's perspective - a new academic study prepared by professors at Harvard and the University of North Carolina concludes, "Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero."

Thought therapy
Los Angeles Times
It's a treatment that can relieve depression, calm anxiety, improve sleep quality and reduce chronic pain....In a study published last month among 131 cancer patients, researchers at the University of North Carolina tested a five-session cognitive behavior program tailored to address pain and individuals' psychological needs.

Tall Order for Short Folks (Editorial)
Los Angeles Times
Is it the weather, or are tall people really becoming more annoying by the day?...Timothy Judge of the University of Florida and Daniel Cable of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studied several different studies on height; their results will appear in June's Journal of Applied Psychology.

WEEK IN REVIEW
The Washington Post
U-Md. to Help Students Pay for College Goal of Program Is Debt-Free Graduation With tuition due to rise again, the University of Maryland announced a program to guarantee that students who can least afford college will graduate debt-free. The Maryland Pathways program, which will begin in the fall for incoming freshmen, follows similar initiatives introduced by the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

A Tragic Vulnerability
Newsday, New York
Ethel Danzker was wearing a thin polyester dress, stockings and sneakers when she wandered out of Birchwood Assisted Living in East Northport and into the darkness...."It becomes like a way of being," said Sheryl Zimmerman, co-director of the Program on Aging, Disability and Long-Term Care at the University of North Carolina.

S.F. abortion trial waits for decision
Sacramento Bee
One of three simultaneous federal trials of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act drew to a close Friday without a clue to the judge's decision but with a signal that a comprehensive nationwide injunction won't be part of it....In summing up Friday, Planned Parenthood lawyer Eve Gartner cited testimony by one government witness, Dr. Watson Bowes of the University of North Carolina medical school, that the banned procedure could be used only when there was at least a 50 percent chance that a woman would die without it.

Courts must guard liberty in war
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
This month the Supreme Court hears three of the most significant cases in a generation....Richard H. Kohn, a former Chief of Air Force History for the Air Force, teaches military history and chairs the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

State & Local Coverage

Mighty telescope promises the stars
The News & Observer
In one picture projected onto a planetarium dome Friday, UNC-Chapel Hill finally had a visual to convey the promise of a world-class telescope that took 18 years to build...."It looks to me like we really made it, finally," said UNC-CH astronomer Wayne Christiansen, who dreamed up the telescope in 1986 with fellow campus astronomer Bruce Carney.

UNC plays big role in new look skyward
The Herald Sun
While scientists continue to fine tune its delicate but powerful workings, a new telescope will be dedicated today on an Andean mountaintop in Chile by a gathering of UNC representatives and other partners in the project.

Hickory native aids UNC with software
The Charlotte Observer
A 23-year-old Hickory native co-developed software that later this year will allow UNC Chapel Hill faculty and students to operate one of the world's most advanced telescopes from thousands of miles away.
Related link: http://www.dailytarheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/04/19/4083d37ce59da

Telescope will 'do science in a different way'
The Daily Tar Heel
The University celebrated the completion of a telescope in Chile on Friday with a planetarium show, live video link from Chile and time-elapsed video footage of construction.

Carolina North is not going away (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
That there will be a Carolina North seems incontrovertible. UNC will build a research park of some sort on some part of the Horace Williams tract in the center of town. The university has put too much time, too much money and too much effort into the project for it to go away. To think otherwise, or to wish otherwise, at this point is simply refusing to face blatant reality.

Let the talks begin (Editorial)
The Daily Tar Heel
Ignoring a problem never makes it disappear, but Chapel Hill Town Council members have decided to put off a controversy that they don't want to address.

UNC-CH's sick mice offer hope
The News & Observer
A final, confounding mystery about how cystic fibrosis triggers lung disease and death has baffled scientists for years, but researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill now believe they have found the key: water.

UNC Scientists Make Breakthrough Research Regarding Cystic Fibrosis
WRAL-TV (CBS, Raleigh)
Cystic Fibrosis is a deadly disease that attacks the lungs of children. Five-hundred families in North Carolina struggle with the genetic illness....Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have uncovered the major cause, which they said will lead to better treatment and, ultimately, a cure.


Job gains tough for jobless to celebrate
N.C. Associated Press
Cindy Scott is in a fix. The 47-year-old Florence, Ala., woman signed on at VF Jeanswear two days after high school graduation and worked her way up from seamstress to supervisor over the next 26 years...."I mean, we've lost a half a million textile jobs in 50 years, which we should be celebrating, not sad about," says [James F.] Smith, a professor of finance at UNC Chapel Hill.

School choices: How big, how far
The Charlotte Observer
These days, Cabarrus County Manager John Day may sound as if he's pushing an agenda for the county schools or the city of Concord....The N.C. Department of Public Instruction estimates it costs $12,700 per student to build a 300-student school, compared with $11,000 per student for a 650-student school, according to a study by the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at UNC Chapel Hill.

Ewing leaving for Union County job
The Charlotte Observer
Cabarrus County's chief economic developer for the past decade is on his way to Union County, even as the county struggles to recover from the Pillowtex Corp....The Cabarrus Regional Chamber of Commerce has hired Jim Johnson, an economic-development expert at UNC Chapel Hill, to study options for improving the county's economic development.

UNC trustees crack down on 'servitude'
The News & Observer
A UNC-Chapel Hill fraternity pledge was sent to Charlotte to retrieve an upperclassman's dog, bring it to Chapel Hill for a quick pat on the head, then deliver the
animal back to Charlotte.

New organization will focus on promoting downtown Chapel Hill
The Herald Sun
A new organization to recruit new businesses, work with landlords to fix up buildings and otherwise boost the vitality of downtown could be up and running this
summer.
Related link: http://www.dailytarheel.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/04/16/407fd75c870a0

Doctoral student takes heroine to task
The Herald Sun
Yonni Chapman, a doctoral student in UNC's history department, is part of a movement attempting to convince university leaders to impose a moratorium on a campus award because it is named after a racist.

Hunley crew is laid to rest
The Charlotte Observer
Confederate cannons thundered over this city's historic harbor Saturday as more than 30,000 people packed the streets for the Super Bowl of Civil War nostalgia...."The South just isn't consumed by the Civil War the way it once was," said Ferrel Guillory, director of UNC Chapel Hill's program in Southern politics, media and public life. In Chapel Hill he hadn't heard much of anything about the sub until a reporter called last week.

Issues and Trends

Smoking rules create no stink at schools built with tobacco money
The News & Observer
They once stood as majestic symbols of the power of Big Tobacco, universities built or bolstered by cigarette fortunes....At Duke University, Wake Forest University and most recently the University of North Carolina, efforts to restrict smoking and the on-campus sale of cigarettes have raised plenty of irony, but barely a whiff of protest.

Note: If you have any questions about Carolina in the News, please call Russell Campbell at News Services, (919) 962-2091, russell_campbell@unc.edu, or Mike McFarland in University Communications, mike_mcfarland@unc.edu

Note: Web links on this page are time-sensitive, so stories might not be available after the day they first appeared.