January 20, 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

Cretaceous duck ruffles feathers
BBC News
Ducks may have been paddling about in primeval swamps when T. rex was king of the dinosaurs, scientists have announced in the journal Nature...."This is basically an unidentifiable bundle of bones," Alan Feduccia, a bird expert from the University of North Carolina, US, said.

National Coverage

Despite Harvard's president, the myth of female inferiority in math and science doesn't add up (Opinion-Editorial Column)
Newsday (N.Y.)
Harvard president Lawrence Summers has done real damage by suggesting that women are absent from senior faculty positions at universities - especially in math and science - because of innate gender differences....Researchers Erin Leahey and Guang Guo at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, followed 20,000 4-to- 18-year-olds to track specific math abilities.

Winners Of Public Domain Contest Announced
National Journal
The Duke University law school's Center for the Study of the Public Domain on Friday announced four winners of a contest that asked filmmakers to create two-minute movies to explain how intellectual property laws are affecting either their art or music businesses...."One interesting thing to me is that only one film really looked to the future," said Paul Jones, director of the public digital library ibiblio.org and one of the competition's judges.
Note: This article is not available online, please email rcc3@unc.edu for full text.

State & Local Coverage

A form of flattery (Editorial)
The Daily Tar Heel
The University of Virginia has decided to expand the funding and reach of AccessUVa - a program modeled largely on UNC's Carolina Covenant - to help more students from low-income backgrounds attend UVa. and graduate debt-free.

Oxford native's book chosen for UNC's summer reading
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
The words, uttered nearly 35 years ago, landed with such thunderous impact that Timothy Tyson will never forget them....On Wednesday, a committee at UNC chose the book for the university's annual summer reading program, a high profile and occasionally controversial exercise for new students.
UNC news release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/jan05/srp011905.html
Related link: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/2039808p-8423394c.html

'Blood' to serve as summer read
The Daily Tar Heel
A 23-year-old black man lay dead in the middle of a street in a small North Carolina town. The two white men who shot him in the plain view of many witnesses later were acquitted by a jury of their peers.

UNC needs to hold line on tuition (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser was right to choose the option he did for a small tuition increase for university students next year. And the UNC system Board of Governors will be right to reject Moeser's recommendation.

Hoopla, moola ill spent, says UNC expert
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
Today's presidential inauguration is the nation's 55th, a $40 million affair with a dramatic theme -- "Celebrating Freedom, Honoring Service" -- and four days of events that include spectacular fireworks displays plus nine gala balls....But to William Leuchtenburg, UNC's renowned presidential scholar and historian, it's "hoopla" the nation could do without.

Disease emerges from shadows
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Priscilla Fairley's life was speeding along at about "warp 8," she said, when coughing, shortness of breath, rapid weight loss and extreme fatigue overcame her...."Many people are depressed because they have it, and they just don't feel good, and no one believes them," said Dr. James Donohue, chief of pulmonary medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Clinics need regulation, physicians say
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Some doctors say laser hair-removal procedures should be regulated, and they are pointing to the death of Shiri Berg as proof of what can go wrong...."We've been crusading about this for years," said C. Scott Hultman, division chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the UNC School of Medicine.

Undergrads go for experience
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Forget the Peace Corps, beach trips and vacations in Europe...."Employers have become much more savvy," said Marcia Harris, career services director at UNC-Chapel Hill.

About those votes ...
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
A national nonpartisan voting rights group will touch down in North Carolina next month to conduct workshops on fixing voting problems that plagued the elections last year....Panelists include: state Rep. Paul Luebke, a Durham Democrat who plans to introduce legislation to end separate runoff elections; UNC-Chapel Hill professor Anita Earls, advocacy director of the law school's Civil Rights Center; and Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina.

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/newsserv/clipsindex.htm.

Please share any questions, comments or suggestions at news@unc.edu.