uncnews.unc.edu

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

National Coverage

Breast Cancer Patients Opting for Lumpectomy or Partial Mastectomy Might Need 2nd Surgery, Says Study
ABC News
..."The breast cancer survival rates are no different between women who undergo lumpectomy followed by radiation versus women who undergo mastectomy," said Dr. Keith Amos, assistant professor of surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "I counsel each patient before a lumpectomy that obtaining clear margins may require more than one operation."

Focus on health, not body image
NewsDay
Are you a woman older than 50 trying to lose a few extra pounds? That can be a good thing. Unless it becomes a very bad thing. A new study found that 13 percent of women 50 and older exhibited symptoms of eating disorders. Even women who didn't have an eating disorder worried — sometimes obsessively — about their body image.
UNC Release: http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2012/june/eating-disorder-behaviors-and-weight-concerns-are-common-in-women-over-50

Pigeons Create GPS from Earth's Magnetic Field
Discovery News
Pigeons may not look like a high tech device, but they can function like one. ... Kenneth Lohmann, a University of North Carolina professor of biology, told Discovery News that the study “is the most thorough investigation of the magnetic sense so far, in terms of neurobiological approaches, and it will no doubt inspire much additional work in the future.”

As Country Breaks Heat Record, Studies Analyze Climate Connection
National Geographic
...Ultimately, how people perceive the science behind numbers like these may hinge on their political ideologies. One University of North Carolina researcher found trust and confidence in science has declined since 1974 among people who are politically conservative.

Penn State scandal: Will the NCAA consider sanctions?
The Los Angeles Times
...The depth of the Penn State scandal has put the NCAA under tremendous public pressure to act, experts say. "The NCAA is faced with a public relations issue more than everything else, because everybody thinks they should do something," said Richard Southall, director of the College Sport Research Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Regional Coverage

Seau's brain to be studied for injury
The San Diego Union-Tribune
UNC researcher Dr. Kevin Guskiewicz said Thursday he was pleased the Seau family made what may have been a difficult decision to donate brain tissue for research. “Perhaps the family may gain a better understanding of why he committed suicide if significant levels of tau proteins (which indicate CTE) or structural changes to the brain are found,” Guskiewicz said. “And this will advance our scientific research and help us gain a better understanding of what repeated concussion exposure to the head might mean.”

Majority of friends overweight? You might be too
Chicago Sun-Times
...The study, published last month in the science journal PLoS ONE, reinforced previous findings that a person’s friends can affect their weight ­— and vice versa. It revisits data from the University of North Carolina’s 1994 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which surveyed thousands of high schoolers and followed them into their 20s.

State and Local Coverage

Delivering the message to teen drivers
The Burlington Times-News
Teens just don’t get it. And neither do legislators who persist in trying to overcome obduracy by passing laws that cannot be enforced. In 2006, the General Assembly imposed a cell phone ban on teenage drivers. That year, the Highway Safety Research Center at the University of North Carolina studied the driving behaviors of teens in the state. Two years later — two years after the ban took effect —researchers updated their observations.

UNC faculty key to summit, series on family planning
The Chapel Hill Herald
The scientific underpinning for the recent London Summit on Family Planning, a major meeting hosted by the United Kingdom and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, relied on work done by a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Herbert B. Peterson, M.D., Kenan Distinguished Professor and chair of the department of maternal and child health at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, is the principal investigator of a grant from the Gates Foundation to develop a series on family planning published Tuesday by The Lancet.
UNC Release: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5429/107/

Campus Y announces Global Gap Year Fellows
The Chapel Hill Herald
he Campus Y at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has selected the 2012-2013 Global Gap Year Fellowship recipients. The fellowship program provides seven incoming first-year students with a stipend of $7,500 to use toward a gap year – a break from formal education between high school and college – committed to service abroad.
UNC Release: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5422/75/

Study: Child diabetes levels higher in China than U.S.
The Chapel Hill Herald
A study led by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found Chinese teenagers have a rate of diabetes nearly four times greater than their counterparts in the United States. The rise in the incidence of diabetes parallels increases in cardiovascular risk, researchers say, and is the result of a Chinese population that is growing increasingly overweight.
UNC Release: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/5418/71/

UNC AD Bubba Cunningham: It's time to move forward
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham grabbed a copy of the UNC student newspaper from the reception desk Thursday and skimmed the pages as he walked back to his office.

On the other UNC scandal, the NCAA is quiet
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The NCAA and UNC-Chapel Hill spent countless hours investigating the improper money, perks and tutoring football players received, eventually levying sanctions that will cost the team a bowl opportunity and athletic scholarships.
Related Link: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/07/13/2194804/unc-should-search-for-substandard.html

Issues and Trends

Initiative still creating ‘good neighbors’
The Chapel Hill Herald
Now in its ninth year, the year-round Good Neighbor Initiative encourages UNC Chapel Hill students who live off campus to meet their neighbors and work with them to build community and keep neighborhoods clean and safe.

Percentage of Young Americans With College Degrees Increases Slightly
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The share of young Americans who hold college degrees edged up in 2010, according to Education Department data to be released on Thursday but provided in advance to the Associated Press. The proportion—39.3 percent of people age 25 to 34 in 2010, the most recent data available—still trails the level needed to attain President Obama’s goal of making the United States the nation with the highest portion of college graduates by 2020.