uncnews.unc.edu

National Coverage

A Professor Takes a Chemistry Trend to the Cleaners
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Joseph M. DeSimone didn't plan to go into the dry-cleaning business. ...Mr. DeSimone, who teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at North Carolina State University, started a company called Micell Technologies to market the process, and that company spawned the brand name Hangers for its chain of dry-cleaning stores.
Related Links:
http://chronicle.com/news/article/4733/chemist-at-2-universities-wins-500000-invention-award
http://www.designnews.com/blog/380000238/post/700028870.html
News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/science-and-technology/desimone-awarded-lemelson
-mit-prize-for-innovations-in-polymer-chemistry.html

Merck's Januvia Set for $4.5 Billion Sales Rejuvenating Shares
Bloomberg News (Wire Service)
Merck & Co. may control more than half of a $6 billion U.S. market for a new type of diabetes drug even after rivals start selling similar versions. ...In studies, the drug appeared safe as a placebo, said John Buse, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

Mixed Media (Blog)
Portfolio.com
Earlier this week, we asked whether Portfolio readers think there's been a change in The Wall Street Journal's quality -- either for better or worse -- since Rupert Murdoch took control of the paper in December....Chris Roush, director of the Carolina Business News Initiative at the University of North Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, takes the most popular view.

Regional Coverage

Avoca airport vulnerable to flight cutbacks, study says
The Citizens Voice (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)
Airlines could be forced in coming years to scale back or eliminate service to regional airports like Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International following a record-setting rise in fuel prices. ...“These next few years are going to be very rough for small to midsize airports,” said John Kasarda, Ph.D., an airline industry expert at the University of North Carolina who is not affiliated with the study.

Help daughters navigate road to exercise
The Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, N.Y.)
If you have a tween, you know from experience what studies have shown: Girls who are active in their middle school years are not only more confident than those who run around less, but they're also leaner. Now, researchers at the University of North Carolina say this is true regardless of how much the girls eat.

State and Local Coverage

Prize winner will use money to help others start careers
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
Joseph DeSimone, a UNC Kenan Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and winner of the 2008 Lemelson-MIT prize, said he plans to use part of his $500,000 award to "invest in ideas." Known as the "Oscar for Inventors," the Lemelson-MIT prize recognizes individuals who have developed world-changing products or processes that could be put to practical use.
News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/science-and-technology/desimone-awarded-lemelson
-mit-prize-for-innovations-in-polymer-chemistry.html

Inventor nabs $500,000 MIT prize
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The allure of creating things hasn't let go of Joseph DeSimone since he concocted a vial of purple crystals in high school. ...His business card lists academic appointments at UNC-Chapel Hill, where he directs a team of 35 students and associates, and N.C. State University, where he teaches chemical engineering.

EPA gives UNC $3.4 million grant
The Chapel Hill Herald
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded the UNC School of Public Health a $3.4 million grant to help strengthen the school's research portfolio in computational toxicology and bioinformatics. ...The four-year grant will go toward the creation of the Carolina Center for Computational Toxicology.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/unc-awarded-grant-to-improve-
understanding-of-chemical-effects-on-environment-health.html

Smithies for Peace (Under the Dome)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue's slip of the tongue gave a UNC-Chapel Hill professor another award on Wednesday. Presiding over the state Senate's honoring of Dr. Oliver Smithies, Perdue congratulated him on winning the "Nobel Peace Prize." Smithies was a joint recipient of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for his work on gene modification of stem cells in mice.
Related Link:
http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/3104797/

The public shouldn't pay to peek (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
In 1935 the General Assembly adopted a public records law guaranteeing citizens the right to scrutinize the documents of their state and local governments. The legislators certainly did not intend that a citizen would have to pay $35,000 to exercise that right. Too often today, that's the price tag for access to government records in North Carolina. (Cathy Packer, Ph.D., teaches media law in the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication and works in the school's Center for Media Law and Policy.)

Blocking heart trouble after surgery (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
There's been news lately about the number of orthopaedic surgical procedures, especially total knee replacements, performed at smaller community regional hospitals. ...The surgeons of UNC Orthopaedics have embraced this protocol, which evaluates a patient's risk for a heart attack after knee replacement surgery based on age and the presence of other illnesses. (Dr. Paul Lachiewicz is a professor and attending surgeon in the Department of Orthopaedics at the UNC School of Medicine-UNC Hospitals.)

High fuel prices cause airlines to make changes
WRAL-TV (CBS/Raleigh)
Airline ticket prices could rise about 50 percent over the next few years, one aviation expert says, and that could change the face of the friendly skies. "That means we may go back to the 1960s and 1970s, where the typical traveler was a higher-income traveler, and we move away from the mass movement," said John D. Kasarda, director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Filming ends for movie of Tyson book
The Daily Dispatch (Henderson)
As a member of the county Human Relations Commission, Don Jenkins said the Granville County Commission gives the agency a lot of leeway. That's not to say there haven't been some anxious moments. Jenkins especially recalled resistance to the Human Relations Commission inviting author and historian Tim Tyson, who is a Duke and UNC professor, to Oxford after the publication of his 2004 book "Blood Done Sign My Name."

State's American Indians weigh issues
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Twenty American Indian tribal leaders are meeting here this week to tackle issues confronting their communities around the state. ...The American Indian Center at UNC-Chapel Hill organized the workshop.

Thieves strike parking lots
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Nearly 20 catalytic converters have been stolen from vehicles in two UNC-Chapel Hill park-and-ride lots in the past week. ..."Our police officers are responding appropriately at this time," (Randy) Young said. "We're in communication with other agencies, and this is not isolated and limited to UNC."

Issues and Trends

Lab asking for students' art to help decorate walls
The Independent Tribune (Kannapolis)
The UNC-Chapel Hill lab building at the North Carolina Research Campus is set to open this fall, but with 125,000 square feet inside, the lab staff has a lot of walls to decorate. ...Scientists at the UNC institute will study the connection between human nutrition on obesity, brain development and cancer.

Some criticize stipulation attached to BB&T grant
The Winston-Salem Journal
...Winston-Salem State becomes at least the 10th university in North Carolina to receive a similar $1 million-plus gift for programs in the moral foundations of capitalism. The others are Wake Forest University, Appalachian State University, Duke University, Johnson C. Smith University, N.C. State University, UNC Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte, UNC Greensboro and UNC Wilmington.

School trustees eye Broad Street
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
A couple of N.C. School of Science and Mathematics trustees believe the school's long-term space needs will someday force it to buy commercial properties on the east side of Broad Street across from its present campus. ...Off-campus land purchases or merely talk of buying land has plunged at least two other UNC system schools -- UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. Central University -- into squabbles with neighbors.

Student starts GOP Web site
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
...Derek Belcher, a UNC-Chapel Hill senior and chairman of the university's College Republicans, thinks college-age conservatives have a variety of viewpoints.

Betting on condo buyers
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Outside a former Franklin Street gas station, hundreds of developers, dignitaries and potential condo buyers will gather under a big tent Friday. ...Buoyed in part by UNC-Chapel Hill's growth, developers think there will be enough buyers to snap up 368 condos by 2012.