uncnews.unc.edu

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

International Coverage

Study: Heavy drinking rewires brain
United Press International
A study using mice found heavy alcohol use rewires the brain making it harder for alcoholics to recover from a traumatic experience, U.S. researchers say. Study author Thomas Kash of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine said those who drank heavily were at increased risk for traumatic events such as car accidents and domestic violence, but that only partially explained the connection.
UNC Release:
http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2012/september/heavy-drinking
-rewires-brain-increasing-susceptibility-to-anxiety-problems

Obesity weighing on Latin America
The Christian Science Monitor
..."There is an increased push by global food companies," says Barry Popkin, a global nutrition expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Because of growing incomes in Brazil and all the growth in China," he cites as two examples, "they are putting their efforts there now."

Buy-out groups face grilling on tax breaks
The Financial Times
...The IRS has not issued guidance on the topic, which revolves around arcane tax law detailing the treatment of hard to value profit shares in a partnership, which may or may not be legitimately applied to fee waivers. In a 2009 paper on the subject, Gregg Polsky, law professor at the University of North Carolina, described it as “extremely aggressive and subject to serious challenge by the IRS”.

National Coverage

In North Carolina, Obama’s 2008 Victory Was Ahead of Schedule (Blog)
The New York Times
We continue our Presidential Geography series, a one-by-one examination of the peculiarities that drive the politics in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Here, a look at North Carolina, the Tar Heel State. FiveThirtyEight spoke with Eric Heberlig, an associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, and Ferrel Guillory, a longtime writer and editor for the The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., and an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Chat Archive: Tuesday At The Democratic Convention (Blog)
"It's All Politics" National Public Radio
On Thursday, NPR's Frank James hosted a live chat during the Democratic convention. He was joined by Neal Carruth, NPR's elections editor; political science professors Sarah Treul of the University of North Carolina and Melody Crowder-Meyer of Sewanee: The University of the South; and Jake Silverstein, editor of Texas Monthly. Read below to see how it unfolded.

Is It History Yet?
Inside Higher Ed
...In “Opening Archives on the Recent Past: Reconciling the Ethics of Access and the Ethics of Privacy, “ Laura Clark Brown and Nancy Kaiser discuss a number of cases of sensitive information about private citizens appearing in material acquired by the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Regional Coverage

Southern discomfort: Obama should use convention to finally connect with the South (Editorial)
The Anniston Star (Alabama)
Four years ago, Barack Obama won the presidency with an optimistic message of pursuing better days ahead for the United States. It was a pitch-perfect call for a nation weary of George W. Bush’s administration. ...As Gene Nichol, the director of the University of North Carolina’s Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity, remarked at a Charlotte panel discussion Sunday, the South is the “native home of poverty, which means we have more poor people and more political leaders who are untroubled by it than the rest of the country.”

Surge warnings went out before Hurricane Isaac hit
The Times-Picayune (New Orleans, La.)
...Maps showing similar heights were the product of an ADCIRC computer model overseen by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Notre Dame and LSU Coastal Emergency Risks Assessment program, and they were made available to the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the Army Corps of Engineers and some local emergency managers. The corps uses the ADCIRC model runs to decide when to close surge gates in the New Orleans area.

A county-by-county map of the young veteran population (Blog)
The Oregonian (Portland)
The active-duty services don't track their members by hometown, but a project called the Citizen Soldier Support Program at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill does. I can't lift the Oregon map from the site for copyright reasons, but you can click the link and do it yourself.

Pre-k turns 20: Should it be an equal priority to HOPE? (Blog)
The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Bobby Cagle, commissioner of Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, met with the AJC a few weeks ago and talked about his first 18 months in the job. ...They have 777 centers volunteering to be rated under a star system. The agency is using the University of North Carolina experts to create the system. “We are aiming to make this the best quality rating system in the country,” he said.

State and Local Coverage

‘Patients Over Politics’ tour comes to Durham
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
...Durham resident Cedric Bright, a physician at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, said the Affordable Care Act is not perfect, “but is a viable solution to change some of our health-care dynamics.” He said the public should be informed and vote. “What we say is that what’s most important are individual rights, and we should make sure that we as individuals express our rights, and get out and vote in the upcoming election.”

Carry New Hanover then carry NC? Maybe not this November (Blog)
The Star News (Wilmington)
So goes New Hanover County goes North Carolina on Election Day? That’s been true for the past three presidential elections. But that might not hold true this November, states the The New York Times political blog FiveThirtyEight. Blogger Micah Cohen, who talked to Eric Heberlig at the University of North Carolina–Charlotte and Ferrel Guillory with the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, writes that New Hanover mirrors the changing face – and political leanings – of North Carolina.

Researchers receive autism grants
The Chapel Hill Herald
Two autism researchers in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine have each been awarded $12.6 million grants in the latest round of funding from the National Institutes of Health’s Autism Centers of Excellence (ACE) research program. UNC, which was ranked No. 2 among the top 25 institutions in the world publishing autism research in 2010 by the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, is one of only two institutions that have received more than one Autism Centers of Excellence grant.
UNC Release:
http://news.unchealthcare.org/news/2012/september/two-unc-faculty-
receive-autism-center-of-excellence-grants-to-fund-new-research

Henderson High: More students need access to alternative (Editorial)
The Salisbury Post
...But Henderson may not have found the right balance yet between ensuring quality instruction and providing adequate support to the rest of the school system — by helping more students benefit from its programs. Spending more to reach at-risk students is a legitimate use of funds, says Eric Houck, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Education

PlayMakers’ PRC2 season opens with ‘An Iliad’
The Chapel Hill Herald
The Obie Award-winning play “An Iliad” will kick off the sixth season of PRC2, PlayMakers Repertory Company’s second stage series of topical plays, with performances Wednesday through Sept. 9. PlayMakers is the professional theater in residence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Giscombé named 2012 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ‘Nurse Faculty Scholar’
The Chapel Hill Herald
Cheryl Giscombé, Ph.D., RN, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing, is one of just 12 outstanding nursing educators to win a competitive grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Nurse Faculty Scholars program this year. Giscombé will receive a three-year, $350,000 award to promote her academic career and support her research. The Nurse Faculty Scholar award is given to junior faculty who show outstanding promise as future leaders in academic nursing.

Guide offers best food on tight budget (Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Grocery shopping can be a challenging chore. You want enough staples on hand for meals that are quick and good-tasting but also nutritious and reasonable in cost. You want foods that are a good value, all things considered. That’s why I think you’ll like a new shopping guide from the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. (Suzanne Havala Hobbs is a registered dietitian and a clinical associate professor in the department of health policy and administration in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill.)

UNC wants better, not bigger, facility (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Chapel Hill News
About 70 people attended a public hearing last month about UNC’s request to modify its wastewater treatment permit for the Bingham Facility. Let me take this opportunity to explain our proposed modifications and to address concerns expressed at that meeting and in an Aug. 22 guest column by Preserve Rural Orange. (Bob Lowman is the associate vice chancellor for research at UNC.)

After Three Years As Provost, Carney Turns Back To The Skies
WCHL-FM (Chapel Hill)
As UNC Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Bruce Carney prepares to step down, he says his successor will need to focus heavily on maintaining academic integrity at the university—but he adds that by the time a replacement is named, the scandal surrounding African Studies will hopefully be resolved.

Easy does it (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
One thing’s for certain. The NCAA isn’t exactly CSI. One wonders how the NCAA, governing body of college athletics, would approach the cracking of a cookie jar.

Issues and Trends

In North Carolina, student insurance costs rise under Obamacare (Blog)
CNN
President Obama's health care reform law, which expands preventative care and lets young people remain on their parents' health insurance plans well into their 20s, is a central part of his election year pitch to college students. ...In April, Tom Ross, the president of the University of North Carolina system, sent a letter to the university's board of governors announcing that students should brace for a hike in the cost of university-provided insurance plans.