Dec. 21, 2005

Carolina in the News

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

National Coverage

Fewer Teeth May Mean More Heart Woes
HealthDay News
There's a strong link between tooth loss and heart disease, according to U.S. researchers. ...However, the results should be interpreted with caution, added James Beck, Distinguished Professor of Dental Ecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Healthy Life
ABC News
Dr. Alan Hinderliter, associate professor in the School of Medicine's Division of Cardiology, was featured live on ABC News Now about two newly published studies that show a link between air pollution and heart disease.

Regional Coverage

Airport security shortens list of banned objects
The Providence Journal (R.I.)
Securitywise, it was business as usual yesterday at T.F. Green Airport. Travelers took off watches, jewelry and belts before walking through metal detectors. Federal agents scanned carryon luggage with x-ray machines. ..."Screeners were spending a disproportionate amount of their time searching for those items and diverting them from other more important tasks, such as whether people were wearing suicide bombing belts," David H. Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said in an interview yesterday.

State & Local Coverage

Study lays childhood obesity at feet of advertisers (Commentary)
The Charlotte Observer
SpongeBob will grow hair before the food industry gives up marketing junk foods to kids. But that's what the Institute of Medicine says needs to happen. In a report written for Congress, the Institute of Medicine calls for major changes in the way the food, beverage, restaurant, and entertainment industries approach food advertising aimed at children.

Thorough inspection (Letter to the editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The writer of a Dec. 19 People's Forum letter said that Association for the Assessment and Accreditation for Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC) certification "is a farce" and is "used as a smoke screen" by research laboratories. Based on personal experience I take exception to these unfounded charges. I serve as an "outside community representative" on the UNC Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). IACUC reviews all research protocols that use laboratory animals. I am not a UNC employee but serve as a community representative on the committee. I was present during portions of the most recent AAALAC site visit at UNC-Chapel Hill and can unequivocally state that the review of the UNC policies/procedures for handling laboratory animals was fair and unbiased. ...James A. Bond, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief, Chemico-Biological Interactions, Durham

Katrina college students returning to Gulf Coast
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
With the end of fall semester recently, area universities said good-bye to undergraduates who took refuge there after Hurricane Katrina smashed their alma maters on the Gulf Coast. ...UNC has maintained a policy similar to Duke's. As of late last month, only one of 13 Katrina-displaced undergraduates had expressed interest in remaining at the Chapel Hill campus for the spring semester, said university spokesman Mike McFarland. Seven of those undergraduates are freshmen, he said.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/sep05/katrina090105.html

Explosive booms heard across Southeastern North Carolina
WWAY-TV (Wilmington)
Thousands of people reported hearing a series of explosive "booms" all across New Hanover County and in some sections of Brunswick County late Tuesday afternoon. ...We asked a Jonathan Lees, an Associate Professor of geophysics at UNC-Chapel Hill, his professional opinion. "There are possibilities of earthquakes that occur off the coast, it could be a fault zone that are along the coast there and it could be something along the military bases out there. I'm very suspicious about the military theory," Mr. Lees said.

Issues & Trends

Bowles addresses grads at ASU
The Charlotte Observer
Erskine Bowles, president-elect of the University of North Carolina system, spoke to more than 950 graduates of Appalachian State University during commencement on Dec. 10. Bowles also served as director of the Small Business Administration from 1993 to 1994, as deputy White House chief of staff from 1994 to 1995 and as White House chief of staff from 1996 to 1998.

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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