SPACE.com
Mars Rover to Celebrate New Year’s Eve at Big Crater
12/29/2010
NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity has its plans for New Year’s Eve all sorted out — it will be poking around a football-field-size crater called Santa Maria. And Santa Maria is special as far as craters go. The crater appears to be extremely young in the geological scheme of things, so its surface hasn’t been too grimed over by weathering. “We’ve never seen a crater this fresh, this big,” said Mars Exploration Rover deputy principal investigator Ray Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis. Link to Article See also Yahoo News , Universe Today , MSNBC.com
The Hill
Obama works around Congress on healthcare, climate change
12/30/2010
Republicans are preparing an array of budgetary, legislative and political strategies to fight regulatory action by President Obama. A Tea Party group said this week it would launch a grassroots campaign to pressure Congress into rejecting “outrageous” regulations by making use of the Congressional Review Act. Efforts to enact policy through regulations come with some drawbacks, and it won’t generate positive front-page headlines heading into the 2012 presidential campaign. “If you want to build a reputation as an effective president, the regulatory process is not a particularly attractive way to go,” said Steven S. Smith, a congressional expert at Washington University in St. Louis. Link to Article
Newsday / The Associated Press
12/30/2010
Nov. 26 — Connecticut beat Howard 86-25 to win it’s 82nd straight game, setting an NCAA women’s basketball record for consecutive victories. Maya Moore scored 20 points to help top-ranked UConn break its tie with Washington University in St. Louis, a Division III school, which won 81 straight between Feb. 20, 1998-Jan. 12, 2001. Link to Article
Wall Street Journal
Using Its Noodle, Xi’an Expands
12/30/2010
Xi’an Famous Foods is making a mark on New York’s culinary world with its hand-pulled noodles and spicy Chinese fare. The father-son team behind the food with a cult following has four postage-size restaurants and plans for many more. Jason Wang and his father, David “Liang Pi” Shi, are in the process of building a commissary in a vacant warehouse that will have a model kitchen, training center and a production facility for frozen food they eventually hope to sell at local grocery markets. “At least a dozen restaurants can be serviced from there,” said Mr. Wang, 22 years old and a recent graduate of Washington University in St. Louis. Link to Article
WasteAge.com
Commercial Composting Program Launched in St. Louis
12/29/2010
St. Louis Composting Inc., operator of the largest composting facility in Missouri, has launched a commercial food waste and organics composting program. The program is fed by material from Washington University, Frito-Lay, the National Guard, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the Missouri Botanical Garden. The Valley Park, Mo.-based composter says the program is the first of its kind in the St. Louis region. Link to Article
Housatonic Times (Connecticut)
‘Through the Eyes of Robert Andrew Parker’
12/30/2010
Robert Andrew Parker, an 83-year-old illustrator, artist and writer, has a new exhibit opening Jan. 8 at Gunn Memorial Library in Connecticut. Best known for his book illustrations, Parker’s fine art first found an audience in the 1950s, alongside the works of Jackson Pollack, John Marin and Stuart Davis. Parker was honored earlier this year at Washington University in Missouri, which has an archive of 1,800 pieces of his work. Link to Article
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Market growing for smokeless tobacco
12/30/2010
As cigarette sales have plummeted, Snus and smokeless tobacco are becoming more popular. With smoking bans in place, many are looking for a replacement that gives the oral sensation they get from smoking. Douglas Luke, director of the Center for Tobacco Policy Research at Washington University in St. Louis, said, “The smoke-free policies tend to be around protecting people from exposure to secondhand smoke. So, since smokeless products don’t have that, the gold standards are silent on that.” Link to Article
St. Louis Beacon
Early diagnosis is key to developing effective treatments, says local Alzheimer’s expert
12/29/2010
This year produced promising medical advances in the battle against Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. John Morris, a neurology professor and principal investigator at Washington University Medical School’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, was among neurologists and other scientists who discussed a new test earlier this year for diagnosing the disease. Last week, Morris mentioned an important new discovery about Alzheimer’s by his colleague, Dr. Randall Bateman, also of the Washington University Medical School. Link to Article
News in Higher Education
USA Today / The Associated Press
Tibetan monks turn to USA to train minds in science
12/20/2010
Some of the newest students at Emory University’s student body may act like typical college kids, but there’s a key difference: They’re Tibetan monks sent by the Dalai Lama to the United States to learn science. Wearing the traditional crimson robes and closely shorn heads of Tibetan monastics, the six men — most in their 30s — are taking physics, biology and chemistry classes with hopes of returning to Tibetan monasteries in India to teach science to other monks and nuns. The program is the newest evolution of the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative, which is helping the Dalai Lama with his goal of training monastics for the 21st century. Link to Article
Washington Post
Why ROTC shouldn’t be on campus
12/30/2010
Now that asking and telling has ceased to be problematic in military circles, ROTC has resurfaced as a national issue: Will universities such as Harvard, Yale and other Ivy League schools be opened to Reserve Officers’ Training Corps since colleges can no longer can argue that the military is biased against gays? “ROTC and its warrior ethic taint the intellectual purity of a school, if by purity we mean trying to rise above the foul idea that nations can kill and destroy their way to peace,” writes Colman McCarthy, a former Post columnist. Link to Article
Forbes
Schooling That Works: Four Great Innovations
12/28/2010
Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, often rants about higher education, suggesting that higher education in America is highly inefficient, overpriced, and produces dubious outcomes, including many graduates who end up in relatively low end jobs. But not all of higher education is like that. In this article, he discusses four examples of schools or ideas that work – that lead to either a higher quality or lower cost educational experience – or both. These examples, he suggests, are indicative of how higher education could transform itself into being more effective. Link to Article
Deseret News (Salt Lake City)
PETA sues University of Utah for animal research records
12/29/2010
The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has filed a lawsuit against the University of Utah seeking information about the school’s animal research programs. In November 2009, PETA requested documents from the U. including animal requisition records, research protocols and veterinary care reports. At the same time, the organization was protesting what it said were inhumane research practices at the university after an undercover PETA investigator secretly videotaped on-campus laboratories for several months. PETA particularly condemned the purchase of dogs and cats from Utah animal shelters. Link to Article
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