TO CLIPS INDEX
- Clips for April 22, 2008
Fossil defines professor's life
The Arizona Republic - April 22, 2008 12:00 AM
Riddles of 3.2 million-year-old skeleton still intrigue ASU anthropologist
The man who found Lucy, the world's most famous fossil, is never far from her.
Just steps from
Donald Johanson's office at Arizona State University is a tiny skeleton made of
plastic casts of the
3.2 million-year-old fossil. They're wired together and propped inside a glass
box. Lucy souvenirs
decorate Johanson's office: an "I Love Lucy" button, a framed Lucy stamp issued
in Ethiopia and
porcelain Lucy salt-and-pepper shakers. She made Johanson an anthropological
superstar.
Single discoveries often define a scientist's career, but nothing in his field
was as big as the Lucy
find. In 2007, Lucy resurfaced in the news, drawing the 64-year-old back into
the spotlight.
Experts get $6.6 mil for Alzheimer's work
The Arizona Republic - April 22, 2008 12:00 AM
Scientists at Banner Alzheimer's Institute and the Mayo Clinic in Arizona have
secured a $6.6 million
federal grant to study the brains of people who carry a genetic risk for
developing Alzheimer's disease.
The National Institute on Aging grant will allow researchers to use
brain-scanning technology to
monitor the brains of 200 healthy people who either carry or lack APOE4, a
critical gene linked to
Alzheimer's disease found in one of four people. If local researchers can track
brain changes before
participants get Alzheimer's, it may yield valuable clues to develop a vaccine
for a disease that afflicts
5.2 million Americans.
Legislation to save our values would actually trample them
The Arizona Republic - April 22, 2008 12:00 AM
Stalin and Mao would applaud state Rep. Russell Pearce's sweeping proposal to
ban schools from any
instruction "in conflict with the values of American citizenship and the
teachings of Western civilization."
What exactly are those values and teachings? They're completely amorphous. This
is the kind of law that
dictators love: Enforce a hazy ideological purity, creating uncertainty and
fear. Talk about a conflict with
American values.
Texas cancer center eyes Valley connection
The Arizona Republic - April 21, 2008 11:06 AM
SCOTTSDALE - It's not unusual to find a cancer event in the Northeast Valley.
Scottsdale boasts branches
of the Arizona Cancer Center (based in Tucson) and the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center
(based in Rochester,
Minn.). Both are among the 39 elite comprehensive cancer centers funded by the
National Cancer Institute,
and they dependably capture the attention of local donors. Arizona Cancer Center
is said to be the national
leader in cancer prevention. What was unusual about a recent cancer promotion
held at Camelback Golf
Club in Scottsdale, was its focus: the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer
Center in Houston.
Alzheimer's
study gets $6.6 million grant
East Valley Tribune - April 21, 2008 - 8:49PM
Researchers at Banner Alzheimer's Institute and Mayo Clinic have won a $6.6
million federal grant to
continue and expand their research into the earliest indicators of Alzheimer's
disease. The five-year
funding from the National Institute on Aging supports a study using PET and MRI
brain scans to
measure brain changes in healthy people, some who carry a gene linked to the
disease and others
who don't. "We truly believe that this work will play a pivotal role in finding
effective treatments to end
Alzheimer's disease without losing a generation," said Dr. Eric Reiman,
executive director of the
Banner Alzheimer's Institute and the study's principal investigator.
University
of Arizona's Lute Olson ordered to appear in court
Arizona Daily Star - April 22, 2008
PHOENIX — University of Arizona men's basketball coach Lute Olson has been
ordered to appear in
a Tucson court May 7. Olson, 73, was ordered to appear before Judge Sarah
Simmons of Pima County
Superior Court after he transferred money into his personal account from a joint
account with his
estranged wife Christine, court records show. The transfer of funds from a
Charles Schwab account
came to light earlier this month, court records said. Olson was accused of
moving the money Dec. 7, a
day after he filed for divorce from Christine Olson and the same day he asked
the University of Arizona
for an indefinite leave of absence.
Salazar stamp fête to be
at UA
Arizona Daily Star - April 22, 2008
A daylong celebration for journalist Rubén Salazar — including the unveiling of
a 42-cent postage stamp
— and a symposium highlighting his career and a look at his death is set for
Thursday at the University of
Arizona. Olga Briseño, director of the UA College of Humanities Media, Democracy
& Policy Initiative,
worked for three years collecting signatures and gathering resolutions from
national Latino organizations
in support of a stamp. The policy initiative works to identify the contributions
of Latinos in U.S. politics, social
justice and the media. The national issuance of the stamp in Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C., is today.
Technology group connects businesses, students
ASU Web Devil - April 22, 2008
Since its creation in late 2006, the Advanced Technology and Innovation Center,
or ATIC, has offered ASU
students and faculty the opportunity to work with businesses in their fields to
develop new technologies.
The center focuses on creating partnerships with small- to medium-sized
businesses, and sometimes
individuals, that are looking to develop a new product, software, or technology,
said the center's founder
and director Anshuman Razdan. "Big industries have a different kind of
leverage," Razdan said, "whereas
ASU is a huge labyrinth of knowledge, it may seem overwhelming to a smaller
enterprise. ATIC becomes
the umbrella organization to channel the flow of information to the appropriate
departments.
Speakers debate civil rights bill
UA Daily Wildcat Online - April 22, 2008
In front of more than 300 members of the Tucson community yesterday, Clint
Bolick leaned in to his microphone
and told the partisan crowd what most of them did not want to hear. "I'm going
to focus my comments on the
practical side of what has come to be known as affirmative action," he said.
"But what I refer to as preferential
treatment." Bolick, director of the Goldwater Institute, the chief supporter of
the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative,
debated Dennis Shields, dean of the Phoenix School of Law, on what is the best
way to decrease institutional
racism in Arizona. Diversity in educational institutions is the backbone of what
has led universities around the
nation to thrive both academically and economically, Shields said.
Developers fight effort to roll back property tax breaks
The Business Journal of Phoenix - April 22, 2008 - 12:08 PM MST
Real estate developers, city governments and heavyweight business interests have
come out in force against a
state measure that would restrict special property tax breaks for development
projects and certain businesses.
State Sen. Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, wants to restrict cities from doling out
Government Property Lease Excise
Tax deals. GPLETs involve cities leasing their land to developers and
businesses, allowing the latter to pay lower
property taxes than if they owned the land. Several downtown Phoenix office
projects (including the Colliers Center
and Arizona Center), Cabela's sporting good store in Glendale, a planned private
hospital in Goodyear and Arizona
State University's SkySong tech center in Scottsdale are GPLETs.
Arizona Proposal Would Prohibit Race-Based Student Groups
The Chronicle of Higher Education - April 18, 2008
An Arizona legislative committee has passed an amendment to a routine
homeland-security bill that would prohibit
students at the state’s public universities and community colleges from
organizing groups based on race. The
amendment was approved by the Arizona House Appropriations Committee on
Wednesday. It still awaits a vote by
the state’s full House and Senate.