March 6, 2007

Carolina in the News

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

International Coverage

Heart attack risk factors identified in Latinos
Reuters
Abdominal obesity is a bigger heart attack risk factor in Latin America than elsewhere, partly because of surging consumption of junk foods loaded with sugar and fat, researchers reported Monday. ...In an accompanying commentary Sidney C. Smith Jr., director of the Center for Cardiovascular Science and Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, wrote that high energy-dense foods such as highly sugared drinks and fatty fast foods were taking developing regions by storm.

Teens exposed to danger while on the job
United Press International
A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study finds one-third of U.S. teens are not receiving safety training before using dangerous equipment. ...Study author Carol Runyan, director of UNC's Injury Prevention Research Center, says physicians treating adolescents should ask teens about their jobs as part of standard medical practice.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar07/teenwork030107.html

Illegal-immigrant credit stirs debate
The Associated Press (International)
When news broke that Bank of America Corp. was testing a new credit card available to customers who may be illegal immigrants, the reaction was predictably harsh. ..."It's a no-brainer. It's a very large market," said Jim Johnson, director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The bank is just the latest example of a major corporation recognizing the impact of doing business with Hispanics."

National Coverage

Hiring Becomes Family Affair
The Wall Street Journal
To recruit daddy's little girl, some employers in the U.S. are courting daddy. ...Employers are saying, "'If we can't beat them, we might as well join them,'" says Marcia Harris , director of career services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In Diversity Push, Top Universities Enrolling More Black Immigrants
The Washington Post
The nation's most elite colleges and universities are bolstering their black student populations by enrolling large numbers of immigrants from Africa, the West Indies and Latin America, according to a study published recently in the American Journal of Education. ...The percentage of black freshmen in elite colleges and universities ranged from a high of 12.3 percent at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to 1.4 percent at the California Institute of Technology.

White Teens More Likely to Take Smoking Cues From Media
The Los Angeles Times
White teenagers who are the most avid watchers of R-rated movies or who have television sets in their bedrooms are more than twice as likely to take up smoking compared with white teens who don't, according to a report published today. ...Christine Jackson, a social ecologist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Chapel Hill, N.C., and colleagues from the University of North Carolina interviewed 382 white students and 353 black students from the central part of the state in spring 2002.

Entrepreneurs Need a Dose of Cockiness
BusinessWeek
Yes, entrepreneurs need to network, but don’t ignore the importance of cockiness. ...Elliot McGucken, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of North Carolina, bemoans that "a lot of schools have dismissed the idea of teaching the great books."

Depression Worsens Outcomes for Heart Failure Patients
HealthDay News
Depression is a major factor in poor medical outcomes for heart failure patients, says a new U.S. study. The study, conducted by researchers at Duke University Medical Center and the University of North Carolina, included 204 heart failure patients who were followed for an average of three years.

Isentress Works When All Other AIDS Drugs Fail, Study Shows
WebMD.com
"Incredibly exciting." "Road to hope." "Very exciting." "A very important milestone in HIV treatment history." ...Joseph J. Eron Jr., MD, of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, reported the combined findings from the studies at the 14th annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic infections.

How math geeks are changing IBM!
Fastcompany.com
There's a calculus to knitting. An untamed batch of wool gets twisted and fed into a spinning wheel, a wooden contraption about as high-tech as an abacus, that binds the fibers into a single strand of yarn. ...A number-theory class at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill changed Dietrich's mind about becoming a doctor. Math was a revelation, like hearing music for the first time. "There's structure and symmetry and the most gorgeous theory," she says. "It made me believe in some underlying order in the world."

Regional Coverage

Employers of teens often break federal law, study says
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Many companies that employ teens may be in violation of federal law, according to a study from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, released yesterday.
Related link: http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=4496
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar07/teenwork030107.html

Web site rates area hospitals
The Sacramento Bee
For pneumonia patients, Kaiser Permanente's south Sacramento hospital, Mercy General and Methodist Hospital earned top marks. ..."Public reporting of data will drive change. Moving to a pay-for-performance model also is going to be driving change. Those hospitals that are the best performers will make money," said Larry Mandelkehr, director of performance improvement at the University of North Carolina Healthcare.

Schools want more money for pre-kindergarten programs
The Observer-Dispatch (Utica, N.Y.)
Some suburban and rural school districts in the Mohawk Valley say the state isn't giving them enough money to launch the pre-kindergarten programs Gov. Eliot Spitzer is promoting. ...Not all educators and parents believe children should be in school at age 3 or 4, said Sharon Ritchie, a senior scientist with the Child Development Institute at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. But parents who want to send their children to public pre-k should have that opportunity, she said.

State and Local Coverage

UNC plans media law center
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
UNC is planning to open the Center for Media Law and Policy as a partnership between the university's journalism and law schools, and at the partnership's inaugural event Monday, Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin J. Martin spoke about how the FCC confronts the challenges of the digital age.
Related link: http://www.heraldsun.com/state/6-826340.cfm
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar07/fccchairman030107.html

FCC chairman calls for a la carte cable service
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Buying cable television service may be a lot different in a few years, if Kevin Martin can persuade industry executives to agree with his reasoning. In a speech Monday on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus, the Federal Communications Commission chairman said he has encouraged the industry to move toward "a la carte" service, in which consumers can select only the channels they want.
Related link: http://www.news14charlotte.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=135194

Center to research mammography advances
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
UNC-Chapel Hill announced a multi-year agreement today with GE Healthcare to establish a Center for Research Excellence in Breast Cancer Imaging. The center will operate as part of the university’s Biomedical Research Imaging Center.
Related link: http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-826208.cfm
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar07/bric_ge030507.html

Company they keep (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Drug companies pay for lots of research, some of it groundbreaking, and that's good. ...But a study from a UNC-Chapel Hill oncologist, along with some colleagues from Harvard, says that drug trials when funded by drug companies are more likely to have favorable reports on the drugs tested than are those funded without the financial backing on those companies.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/feb07/trials022107.html

Old arguments, sad situation (Opinion-editorial column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
I'm a practicing dentist who has, over a 25-year career, done my best to provide equal access to my services to all, including Medicaid recipients, those with low incomes and those who simply cannot afford to pay. ...Raise Medicaid reimbursement rates, increase the dental class size at UNC-Chapel Hill, offer incentives to encourage practice in underserved areas, increase prevention and education efforts -- all very good ideas, none new.

Triangle Hospitals Participate in Patient Safety Training Exercise
The Associated Press (N.C.)
UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University will work together today at a patient safety training exercise for medical and nursing students. The event will take place at UNC-Chapel Hill. It's funded by a $1.65 million dollar grant that the North Carolina GlaxoSmithKline Foundation gave to the two schools last year.
UNC News Release: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/mar07/safety030207.html

Summerfield councilman to act on property concerns
The Greensboro News & Record
Summerfield Councilman Bob Williams said Thursday that he intends to consult with the town's attorney to determine if he has any conflict of interest in the town's search for land for athletics fields. ...Fleming Bell, a professor at the School of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill, said the question of whether there is a conflict of interest rests on whether Williams has any financial interests at stake.

For Silvers, progress means uprooting the remains of the past
Eastern Wake News (Zebulon)
All for the sake of family, Charlie Hinton Silver will move just about anything — a house, even a cemetery. ...“Both men were leading planters and landowners and slaveholders in the early history of Wake County. “The colonel and the major were officers in the American Revolution and the colonel was one of the first Europeans to claim land here in Wake County,” said Dr. Harry Watson, professor of history at UNC and director of the Center for the Study of the American South.

Now we get it (Letter to the editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
With our principal wage earner retiring over two decades ago, we have experienced the double whammy of rampant inflation and rising medical care costs. ...We had trouble understanding this, until The News & Observer item of Oct. 13 revealed that UNC Health Care System bonuses in 2006 ran to more than $2.5 million.

Not at all amusing (Letter to the editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
I was shocked to see your lighthearted Feb. 21 coverage ("Online breakup is dramatic -- or is it drama?") of the recent "breakup in the Pit" incident at UNC-Chapel Hill. ...Susan Bickford, associate professor, Department of Political Science, UNC-Chapel Hill.

Taheri-Azar hostile, profane in court
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
It started as soon as Mohammed Taheri-Azar got out of the deputy's car at the Orange County Courthouse. The man accused of trying to run down and kill people in the Pit on the UNC campus a year ago made an obscene gesture at photographers and cursed them as he entered the back door of the courthouse.
Related link: http://www.newsobserver.com/1166/story/550255.html

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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