April 27, 2006

Carolina in the News

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

National

Disinfectant Wipes Safe for Computer Keyboards
"Morning Edition," National Public Radio
Is your computer making you sick? It's not always easy to point to the cause of health problems, but Bill Rutala is always looking for sources of infection. His job is to battle bacteria at hospitals and clinics in the University of North Carolina health-care system.
Related Link: http://www.webmd.com/content/article/121/114316
UNC Health Care Release: http://www.unchealthcare.org/site/newsroom/news/2006/Apr/keyboards

Lessons from Chernobyl
"Newshour," PBS
Twenty years after Chernobyl, the world's worst nuclear disaster, debate resumes over the use of nuclear power. Two experts discuss what happened at Chernobyl and current concerns over nuclear power. ... "Well, in fact, the University of North Carolina did do a study on the Three Mile Island event," said Paul Ginter, the director of the Reactor Watchdog Project at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/feb97/wing.html

Study: Birth order has no effect on IQ
Untied Press International (National)
An Ohio study finds that the notion that first-born children are more intelligent is a myth. Aaron Wichman, a psychologist at Ohio State University, and colleagues at the University of Oklahoma and University of North Carolina studied 3,000 families as part of a national study from 1986 to 1998, the Columbus Dispatch reported. They found the differences in intelligence between first- and later-born children disappeared when they considered the ages of their mothers when they had their first children.

Regional
N.Y. Daily News will look at PNI
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Executives of the New York Daily News are expected to meet today with investment bankers and managers of The Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News as they consider whether to join final bidding for the two newspapers. ... Philip Meyer, Knight professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, noted that, since the Daily News is not a public corporation, "Wall Street analysts won't be looking at your quarter-to-quarter earnings. That's exactly the relief that the Philadelphia papers need."

The Diet Detective: Test your nutrition IQ
Clarke Times-Courier (Berryville Va.)
Here are a few of the latest truths, myths and facts that I've uncovered in my continuing effort to decipher "what's what" in the world of nutrition. See if you're a nutrition expert: ... Yes. Believe it or not, washing poultry or meat (with regular water) does not effectively reduce the pathogens that cause food-borne illnesses, says Mark Sobsey, a professor of public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

State & Local Coverage

PDAs put social skills in grasp of autistic students
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Toggling quickly from screen to screen on his PDA, Jonathan Libby, 18, scrolled through a checklist of conversational tips reminding him to smile, make eye contact and address people by name. Most of all, he emphasized, don't interrupt or rattle on without letting others get a word in edgewise. ... Gary Mesibov, a UNC psychologist and autism specialist who is co-directing the project, said the clear, visual prompts play to the learning strengths of people with autism.

Going straight to the source
Oral history project to come to town Thursday
The Daily Tar Heel
Fifty-three-year-old Rodger Tygard lost his wife to cancer three years ago. He's been searching ever since for the best way to tell her story. "She was phenomenal in the way she lived her last days," he says, his salt-and-pepper beard framing a smile."... Enter StoryCorps, an oral history outfit that has made folklore both glamorous and important and has given its participants' stories notoriety by airing selections on National Public Radio stations nationwide. It will be in Chapel Hill from Thursday to Saturday in front of Morehead Planetarium and Science Center.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar06/storycorpsadvance031506.htm

UNC faculty to vote on funding from Pope Foundation
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
UNC faculty members will hold a special meeting May 10 to vote on a resolution that the university stop seeking funding for western civilization courses from a conservative organization called the John William Pope Foundation.

Mumps making comeback across country
WRAL.com (Raleigh)
A mumps outbreak started in Iowa and has spread to neighboring states and now the Centers for Disease Control is investigating scattered reports in seven more. ... University of North Carolina Epidemiologist Dr. David Weber said North Carolinians need to be prepared.

Beverage Guidance Panel helps avoid excess liquid calories (Commentary)
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Over the past two decades, Americans' consumption of liquid calories has grown to between one-fifth and one-fourth of all calories consumed. ... Barry Popkin, PhD, is a professor of nutrition in the schools of medicine and public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Note: No link available

UNC-Chapel Hill to bestow service awards
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
UNC-Chapel Hill will honor six employees Saturday with 2006 C. Knox Massey Distinguished Service Awards:
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/apr06/massey042606.htm

Two ROTC buildings vandalized
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Vandals staged attacks early Wednesday on the buildings used by the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at N.C. State University and UNC-Chapel Hill, echoing similar assaults on three Triangle recruiting stations last month.
Related Link: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/14442016.htm

Issues & Trends

Schools join trend by creating centers to study inequality
San Francisco Chronicle
Stanford University and UC Berkeley have joined a trend among the nation's elite universities and are developing centers dedicated to fighting poverty worldwide as economic inequalities grow ever starker. ... Last year, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill started the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, with John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator as director.

Orange gets handle on visitors
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Chapel Hill and the rest of Orange County are the antidotes to stress. That's what John Pelletier, the chairman of Equat!on Research, told the Chapel Hill/ Orange County Visitors Bureau Wednesday morning. The bureau must devise a more-focused strategy and know what type of travelers to go after. ... Almost half of the visitors come because they have some relationship with UNC-Chapel Hill.

Produced by News Services, Carolina in the News is an e-mail sampling of current news media coverage about Carolina people and programs, as well as issues and trends that affect the university. Stories usually will be online and available free for a limited time - often one to two weeks. Expiration dates before stories move to archives vary by media outlet. Some outlets require free user registration or a subscription.

Carolina in the News is also posted daily to the News Services Web page, http://www.unc.edu/news/clips/index.shtml.

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