Duke hosts fracking, gas drilling workshop
January 11th, 2012
Duke University hosted a workshop Monday about the environmental and social effects of hydraulic fracturing and shale gas drilling in the U.S.
The workshop, held in Reynolds Theater, focused on environmental, legal and socio-economic components of the debate.
Academic experts from Duke, Cornell, Carnegie Melon and Pennsylvania State universities worked to decipher conflicting data on the environmental challenges.
“In a perfect world, I would slow it down, yes,” said Rob Jackson, a biology professor at Duke.
Representatives from the Sierra Club and Exxon Mobile were also on hand, among others.
Judith Ferster, with the Sierra Club, said fracking seems like “sacrilege for someone who cares about nature.”
“It’s very dangerous, because once you wreck the place, it’s very hard to go back,” she said.
In some states, fracking is in widespread use and has resulted in new sources of energy, jobs and profits for landowners.
In other states, however, lawmakers are considering bans on the process because of worries that the chemicals used in the liquid that splits rocks and releases natural gas could leak into and contaminate groundwater.
“(It’s) just standard supply and demand.
Tags: Gas Drilling, Workshop
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Geeks Fighting Crime: The Best Careers for Criminal Justice Majors
January 10th, 2012
It’s a common misconception that “geeks” can only use their intense concentration and attention to detail in fields like computer science, mathematics or biology. But misconceptions were made to be busted wide open, and we hope to prove that every self-professed “geek” might feel equally at home in a township police department or courtroom.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
People with a penchant for technology or science automatically enter into similar majors once they hit college. But Criminal Justice Degrees can actually be an even better match. Read more…
Tags: Criminal Justice Degrees
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ESRC: Disabled children still being marginalised
January 10th, 2012
Too many disabled children are unable to achieve their full potential because schools and health and social care continue to marginalise them, new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has found.
Researchers who conducted the study pointed to an epidemic in labeling children as disabled and instead said that society should change its attitude, valuing and promoting diversity.
Conducting interviews with children with disabilities and their families, the Does Every Child Matter, post Blair?
Tags: Children, Disabled Children
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Some information on the EKG technician training
January 9th, 2012
If you have an innate desire to help other people and have interest in modern science you can decide to become a part of health care industry. If so, the EKG technician training can help to achieve your dreams. EKG technology is an important part of the medical process and technicians perform all the EKG duties connected to patients.
With EKG technology, you would have to use non-invasive tests to examine blood vessels and hearts of patients for different diseases and disorders. An EKG machine is used by the technician to perform tests on patients to diagnose various problems. Read more…
Tags: ekg technician training
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DISD should pursue state money for middle schools
January 4th, 2012
Last summer, I posted an entry encouraging the Dallas school district to go after funds that Texas legislators set aside in the state’s current two-year budget for the Student Success Initiative. Among the strategies that could compete for funds was this topic: middle school initiatives.
The amount included in the rider was not great: about $20 million for fiscal year 2012 and $20 million for fiscal year 2013. Since then, the figure has been whittled down even more. Earmarks have been placed on some of that money.
Still, there is about $9 million available. And it shouldn’t take that much for Dallas to launch a pilot project that targets struggling middle schools.
Dallas Rep. Eric Johnson showed an interest in this concept last year. The Democrat especially wanted to target middle schools in southern Dallas, which he helps represent.
He was right. Eight of southern Dallas’ middle schools are on the state’s list of the lowest performing schools. That means one of two things: At least 50 percent of their students failed the state’s achievement test in two or the last three years or the school was rated unacceptable for one of the last three years.
Tags: State, State Money
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In Tight Times, Medical Schools Market Themselves
December 29th, 2011
Hospitals stepped up their advertising in 2011, and some newcomers to the national marketing game are academic medical centers. While the coast-to-coast commercials help attract faculty and students, they’re also aimed at getting more paying patients to travel for treatment.
The biggest spenders on advertising are, not surprisingly, the household names in medical care. Mayo Clinic, Mount Sinai and New York Presbyterian led the way for the first half of 2011. Overall, hospitals shelled out 20 percent more during that period than in the previous year, according to the research firm Kantar Media.
One of the newcomers trying its luck on the national stage is Vanderbilt University Medical Center. In one recent ad, the facility promised that “the most amazing part is that the most amazing part is yet to come. That’s the promise of discovery.”
In the last year, the Nashville-based teaching hospital bought sponsorship time on CNN, Fox News and NPR.
Vanderbilt’s chief marketing officer, Jill Austin, says that the marketing campaign has many goals.
“We think of it almost as a service to the public, to get the word out,” she says.
The Vanderbilt ads focus primarily on treatments for cancer and heart disease that are based on an individual’s DNA.
Tags: Market
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UNC-CH faculty shares concerns about role of athletics
December 17th, 2011
In the wake of an NCAA investigation and amid the hiring of a new football coach, some University of North Carolina faculty members are urging the university’s leadership to assess the role of athletics in campus life.
“We want to make sure that the academic integrity is protected,” UNC history professor Jay Smith said Wednesday during a telephone interview. “We want to see what we can do to reduce the walls of separation that leave athletics on one side and academics on the other and that segregates students and takes student-athletes away from the rest of the campus.”
Smith and four other members of the UNC faculty recently wrote an open letter to the UNC Board of Trustees that expressed concern about the role of athletics at UNC. The faculty members released the letter on Friday, the day that UNC introduced Larry Fedora as its new head football coach. The university agreed to a seven-year contract with Fedora that will pay him $1.73 million annually.
In the letter that Smith and other faculty members wrote, they asked the university’s trustees to address five questions. Read more…
Tags: Role, Role Athletics
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