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Dec. 19, 2005
Carolina in the News
Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina
people and programs cited recently in the media:International Coverage
Cancer support cells may evolve
United Press International
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists demonstrated that cancers may cause surrounding supportive cells to evolve and promote cancer growth. The research offers what is believed to be the first evidence that mutations within cancer cells can signal surrounding tissue cells to alter their molecular composition in ways that promote tumor growth and proliferation. The findings also suggest that cell mutations that promote cancer progression may arise in cells other than the predominant cancer cell, according to study author Dr. Terry Van Dyke.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/dec05/cancerevolves121605.htmNational Coverage
Pentagon May Not Hand Over Rumsfeld Papers
The Associated Press (National)
The Pentagon will comply with a House subpoena for internal documents detailing Hurricane Katrina-related correspondence except, perhaps, from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, an official said Friday. ...University of North Carolina law professor Michael Gerhardt said that only the president has authority to grant privilege. "Secretary Rumsfeld doesn't have roaming authority to claim executive privilege on his own," Gerhardt said.
UNC Experts Database: https://s4.its.unc.edu/UNCExperts/uncexperts/getperson?ID=RWFXTTWWF
Don't Swallow Everything!
U.S. News & World Report
Even in a Web-smitten age, a poll just last summer showed that Americans still rely heavily on newspapers, radio, and TV for health news. Trouble is, it's hard to know whether you're getting the whole story about that startling new study. For that matter, how good is the study itself? A few tips will help clear a path through the journal jungle in the year ahead. Time is precious on radio and TV, and pressure to produce snappier stories has risen. "The average length of a TV report is decreasing, especially on local news--like the 60-second 'medical minute,' " says Tom Linden, a physician who spent years as an on-air medical correspondent and now runs the University of North Carolina's medical journalism program.
UNC Experts Database: https://s4.its.unc.edu/UNCExperts/uncexperts/getperson?ID=RXVRTDXFE
Regional Coverage
Displaced doctors rebuilding lives
The Shreveport Times (La.)
Like so many business owners in the city, New Orleans doctors who spent years building their practices lost everything to Hurricane Katrina. ...The best information D'Antoni has seen on the displacement comes from a study the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill did in September, which says almost 6,000 doctors, including those in residencies, were dislocated after Katrina and about 4,486 were from the main New Orleans parishes of Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/sep05/ricketts092605.htmEdmonds case gets national attention
The Jackson Clarion-Ledger
The case involving the 2003 killing of Joey Fulgham is becoming a national cause celebre. ... A University of North Carolina Law Review article reviewed 125 cases where confessions were later proved false by DNA or other evidence. Of those, 40 were juveniles — 22 of them 15 and younger.
Books Don't Focus Enough On Teen Safety, Study Says
NBC-4 (Burbank, Ca.)
Books offering advice to parents about teens don't pay enough attention to preventing injuries, according to a study at the University of North Carolina. While books about smaller children focus on keeping them safe, books about adolescents often neglect things such as preventing car crashes, the leading cause of injuries to adolescents, the researchers said in a news release.
State & Local Coverage
Midyear commencement full of music, fun, excitement
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
In relative terms, UNC's fall commencement ceremony Sunday was a small affair. ... Speaker Etta Pisano, a renowned researcher in breast cancer detection, told the graduates it was possible to balance a full career with a family. "You are interested in a better balance between work and family than many of your workaholic parents had," the mother of four said. "This is a burning issue to your generation. Well, I say, 'Bravo! Hooray!' If the world changes because of your efforts, it will be a better place for all of us."
UNC Speech Transcript: http://www.unc.edu/news/Speeches/pisanodeccommencemnt121805.htm
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/sep05/commencement092805.htmGive honor where it's due
The News & Observer
From a speech by Bernadette Gray-Little, dean of the UNC-Chapel Hill College of Arts and Sciences, at the dedication ceremony of the Unsung Founders Memeorial at the university. The memorial, according to its inscription, "honors the university's unsung founders, the people of color bond and free who helped building the Carolina that we cherish today.
Note: No link available.
UNC Speech Transcript: http://www.unc.edu/news/Speeches/unsungfoundersgraylittle110505.htm
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/nov05/unsung110205.htmDid Jesus really say that? (Question-answer)
The Charlotte Observer
Bart Ehrman, head of the religious studies department at UNC Chapel Hill, has written a new book, "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why" (HarperSanFrancisco, $24.95). Reading Life editor Jeri Krentz talked to him about the book's premise -- that ancient scribes changed the Bible and distorted Jesus -- and what it means to Christians. The interview was edited for clarity and length.
Triangle universities and colleges
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Obesity Research: A research team headed by an NCSU design professor hopes a new project will help stimulate physical activity and promote healthy habits among preschoolers. With a $275,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, NCSU professor of landscape architecture Robin Moore is joining with researchers from the College of Design, UNC's School of Public Health and Emory's School of Public Health to develop a tool to measure how effective outdoor play spaces are in generating physical activity in children.
Road Closed: Vehicles can take an alternate route while Emergency Drive at UNC Hospitals is closed. The road will be blocked indefinitely from Manning Drive to the front of the emergency department, beginning at 8 a.m. Wednesday, for construction.
UNC News Brief: http://www.unc.edu/news/briefs/2005/120805.htmCancer Advance: UNC scientists have demonstrated in a living organism that cancers may cause surrounding supportive cells to evolve and ultimately promote cancer growth.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/dec05/cancerevolves121605.htmNew Web site: A new Web site created by the UNC Library opens a digital window on Jewish history and life in the South.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/dec05/portion121505.htmAtom Bomb book: A UNC researcher has written the first comprehensive account of an ill-fated Cold War engineering idea to use nuclear weapons for projects such as a canal and a harbor.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/dec05/kirsch121405.htmWeb site reflects on Jewish history
The Chapel Hill Herald
A new Web site created by the UNC libraries opens a digital window on Jewish history and life in the American South. "A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life" chronicles the story of southern Jewish settlers and their descendants from the late 1600s through the 21st century. The free site, www.lib.unc.edu/apop, recounts generations of history with portraits, maps, historical documents, ritual books and objects from the early period through the present.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/dec05/portion121505.htmDoctor accused of inappropriate care
The Charlotte Observer
Dr. Joseph Jemsek, an infectious disease specialist who treated the first AIDS patient in Mecklenburg County in 1983, has been accused by the N.C. Medical Board of inappropriately diagnosing and treating Lyme disease. ...Dr. David Weber, an infectious disease specialist at UNC Chapel Hill medical school, said he is not aware of data that supports antibiotic therapy for Lyme disease for longer than a month. He is not connected to Jemsek's case, but agreed to talk to the Observer about Lyme disease in general.
Active patients get the best medicine (Commentary)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
At age 56, Stephen Schneider was at the peak of his career. A widely published, globe-trotting climatologist at Stanford University, his many honors included a MacArthur Fellowship genius award. Then he was dealt a stunning a setback: Doctors diagnosed him with a rare cancer of the lymphatic system -- mantle cell cancer. "I was scared to death," he writes. ...Albert Howard Carter, Ph.D., is adjunct professor, Social Medicine, School of Medicine, UNC-Chapel Hill.
Death penalty study starts today
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Death penalty opponents may have failed to win passage of a two-year hiatus on executions, but their hopes are now riding on what they did get -- a legislative study committee. ..."This will be the state's occasion to ask every question it has, every question it ought to have, about whether this punishment is being applied fairly and accurately and whether there are substantial or procedural reforms that could make it work better," said Jack Boger, a death penalty opponent and a law professor at UNC-Chapel Hill.Journalism 101 (Opinion column)
The Winston-Salem Journal
It's just grand that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has announced a program to bring foreign journalists to the United States so they can learn how to "tell the story of democracy to their countries," according to news accounts. This comes, of course, as some in our military are catching well-deserved heck for paying Iraqi newspapers to run favorable stories about the American effort. Through Rice's program, the foreign reporters will observe American newspaper folks at work and attend seminars at some of our universities, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Condoleezza Rice Speech Transcript: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/57989.htm
UNC helping bring air ambulance to Fayetteville
The Chapel Hill Herald
UNC Hospitals is partnering with Cape Fear Valley Health System to bring an air ambulance to Fayetteville. ...Effective Jan. 3, a flight crew and helicopter from UNC Air Care will be stationed at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center from 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., seven days a week. Eventually, the service will expand to 24 hours a day, with a flight crew primarily housed on the medical center campus.
Mebane neighborhood gets water and sewer service
The Chapel Hill Herald
It took nearly five years of working with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and city officials, but 40 houses in West End near Mebane now have water and sewer service. ... "What we were out to look at was whether septic systems might increase the amount of microbes that might be getting into drinking water, and into streams, and so forth, and to take a look at whether these might be causing health effects in the people of Mebane," said Douglas Crawford-Brown, a UNC-professor of environmental science and policy and director of the Carolina Environmental Program.
Issues & Trends
Burr reaches out to Democrats
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
U.S. Sen Richard Burr is trying to work a deal with U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy to get his bioterrorism bill through the Senate. ...Among the major beneficiaries of the bill are likely to be the research and medical facilities at UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University and Wake Forest University, which have announced plans to build a biosafety lab.Molly Broad's legacy
The Charlotte Observer
When Molly Corbett Broad became president of the 16-campus University of North Carolina system in the summer of 1997, she took over a venerable institution facing significant challenges. There would be an onslaught of student growth the system was ill-equipped to handle. Still, too many N.C. students never seriously considered college. A technology revolution presented problems and opportunities that could transform traditional learning.
Related Links: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/editorial/13434150.htm
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/opinion/13434226.htm
Broad builds legacy
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Molly Broad is building a house in Chapel Hill and, because she likes complexity, the roof line will have a lot of ups and downs. The UNC system president, who will retire at the end of the month, jokes, "I'm going to be my own CM."
Tuition breaks for immigrants? Not first on her list (Question-answer)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Last week, El Pueblo -- North Carolina's largest Latino advocacy group -- named M. Zulayka Santiago to be its next executive director. Santiago, 30, was born in Puerto Rico and now lives in Pittsboro. She has been with the Raleigh-based group for two years as its youth director.
N.C. lawmakers should undo a poor decision on out-of-state scholarships (Editorial)
The Asheville Citizen-Times
State lawmakers will have plenty of issues facing them upon their return to Raleigh next year. ...We agree with the North Carolina School Boards Association, which has called for the revocation of a provision in the state budget — passed with no public debate — to allow schools in the UNC system to count scholarship students, every one of them, as in-state students. When originally proposed this move was advertised as costing the state no money. What do you know; that provision somehow disappeared from the final wording.
Our antiquated tax code is breaking the bank. So how do we fix it?
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Traffic congestion in the Triangle often turns Interstate 40 into a parking lot. Trailers clutter so many Wake school campuses that they resemble mobile home parks. And state lawmakers have grown so desperate for money that they are starting a lottery, planning toll roads and going deeper into debt. All of these are signs that the state's piggy bank is cracked. North Carolina, many experts believe, is likely to run short of the money it needs for adequate roads, schools and other public services for one of the nation's fastest-growing states.
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.
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