uncnews.unc.edu

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

National Coverage

Kids of Meth-Using Moms at Risk of Behavioral Woes
HealthDay News
... Dr. James C. Garbutt, professor and medical director of the Alcohol & Substance Abuse Program at the University of North Carolina, said that "these data suggest that exposure to methamphetamine in utero might lead to behavioral problems in children, and this is something that needs to be noted and considered for future research."

'James ossuary' verdict adds to burial box furor
USA Today
... "For archaeologists, the court decision doesn't really change anything," says University of North Carolina archaeologist Jodi Magness, author of Stone and Dung, Oil and Spit: Jewish Daily Life in the Time of Jesus. "There is no way to tell where the ossuary came from, and without that context, the ossuary is worthless."

Wanted: Dedicated Deep Thinkers (Column)
The Chronicle of Higher Education
For the better part of two decades now, businesses the world over have preached the importance of innovation. ... Although the roles of innovation officers differ in practice, generally speaking, they are charged with generating and nourishing new ideas, and transforming those ideas into profitable products.
(Peter A. Coclanis is a professor of history and director of the Global Research Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)

Aging Professors Create a Faculty Bottleneck
The Chronicle of Higher Education
... According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of professors ages 65 and up has more than doubled between 2000 and 2011. At some institutions, including Cornell, more than one in three tenured or tenure-track professors are now 60 or older. At many others—including Duke and George Mason Universities and the Universities of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Texas at Austin, and Virginia—at least one in four are 60 or older.

Lack Of Compassion Can Make People Feel Less Moral, Study Shows
The Huffington Post
... "Compassion is such a powerful emotion. It's been called a moral barometer," study researcher Daryl Cameron, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a statement. The researchers had study participants look at 15 images of people, including victims of war, crying babies and homeless people.

Question of Fairness (Letter to the Editor)
The New York Times
Re “North Carolina Penalized,” March 13: After a two-year investigation, University of North Carolina football has been barred from playing in any postseason games during the coming season, docked 15 football scholarships over the next three years and placed on three years’ probation starting next season. But who actually committed the violations in question? A handful of players no longer on the team, many of them playing in the N.F.L. Yet the current and future teams are being sent to bed without supper.

Regional Coverage

Can We Use Tax Credits to Stop Steadily Climbing Obesity Rates?
The Atlantic (Washington, DC)
... According to a recent University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study, calories per capita from carbonated soft drinks (CSDs) sold by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo in the United States have actually declined 26 percent over the past decade.

State and Local Coverage

Modified proteins cut heart damage
The Charlotte Observer
Following a heart attack, heart cells are deprived of oxygen – and under stress. The cells recruit protective proteins, which prevent damage and death … if they arrive on time. Fortunately, new research may help them get there. Professor of pathology Joan Taylor and colleagues from UNC Chapel Hill demonstrated that modified “rescue” proteins reduced heart damage in mice.

Friends students mobilize against Amendment One
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
... If the amendment is not defeated, Maxine Eichner, a law professor at UNC Chapel Hill, told the students Sunday, “we’re all going to have to be living with the effects of it for a very long time.” Those effects, she said in a discussion of the legal ramifications of the amendment, could include the loss of domestic violence protection orders for unmarried couples and could limit parenting rights of unmarried partners.

Plans for alternative UNC graduation set
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
A group of UNC students disenchanted by the university’s selection of New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg as this year’s commencement speaker has finalized plans for a concurrent alternative graduation. The alternative commencement exercise will be held May 13 in the outdoor Forest Theatre on the eastern edge of campus at the same time as the university’s regular graduation ceremony.

Cases question life in prison sentences for juvenile crimes
The Star News (Wilmington)
... "I can imagine, depending on how the case comes out, there could be language helpful to those wanting to change the juvenile age in North Carolina," said James Markham, assistant professor of public law and government at the UNC School of Government.

Real UNC victims are those who played by the rules (Editorial)
The Winston-Salem Journal
The NCAA's sanctions against the UNC Chapel Hill football program, although perhaps not harsh enough for the school's critics, are generally fair. The penalties, when considered with the negative consequences of the long investigation, should be enough to persuade the university to reform. If the financial and competitive losses fail to encourage better behavior, then the university's embarrassment should.

Cunningham: "Ready To Move On" From NCAA Probe
WCHL 1360-AM (Chapel Hill)
After a seeming eternity, this week finally saw the end of the NCAA’s 20-month investigation into the UNC football program, and athletic director Bubba Cunningham says he—and the entire Athletics Department—are ready for a return to normalcy. "I think everyone is fatigued by the entire process, and they're ready to move on," he said in an interview with Carolina Connection’s Mike Tomsic. "Let's figure out how to minimize the chance of it happening again, but move on and support the kids and coaches we have today."

Make grads, not war
The Chapel Hill News
What would you do if the government denied your right to attend college because of your religion? ... As part of our response, at 7 p.m. Tuesday March 27 at UNC’s Global FedEx Center there will be a free screening of a documentary about the attacks on Baha’i students.

UNC’s Morgan Family writers program closes with visit by playwright Athol Fugard
The Chapel Hill News
At the age of 80, South African playwright Athol Fugard is the hottest property in American theater right now. ... So it is with particular relish that UNC brings Fugard to Chapel Hill this week as the Morgan Family Writer-in-Residence.

Issues and Trends

Student housing project on council agenda
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
A concept plan for a large student housing community on Homestead Road might look familiar to the Town Council when it gets its first peek Monday night. That’s because the “Retreat at Homestead” is a similar, albeit scaled-down, version, but with the developer of the defunct “Cottages at Chapel Hill,” which received an ice-cold reception from council about 22 months ago.

Protest lobs ‘seed bombs’ at planned Carrboro CVS site
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
... Alderman Dan Coleman said he will oppose the rezoning because the current zoning better serves that part of downtown’s historic character. Coleman said he is also concerned about growing traffic from other nearby developments and UNC-Chapel Hill’s future Carolina North campus.