tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48658010376023516952024-02-06T20:53:47.726-05:00The Light in the MineCome and Pick our Brains!James Hathawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11296720304198719066noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-87326288119218116012015-07-28T14:59:00.000-04:002015-07-28T14:59:18.263-04:00What has the past done for me lately?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>(Note: This is the
last in a series of three posts discussing UNC Charlotte’s Mount Zion
Archaeology project. Previous posts are <u><a href="http://thedatamineatuncc.blogspot.com/2015/07/applied-research.html">here</a></u> and <u><a href="http://thedatamineatuncc.blogspot.com/2015/07/what-stones-say.html">here</a></u>.)</i></div>
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What faculty at universities should teach and do research on
is a fraught topic, especially in these days when the funding states spend on
their public universities has come under close scrutiny. I mention this here,
not because I want to engage in that larger debate (that’s for the citizens of
the state and the legislature to argue over, not me), but because the very
field of anthropology (which includes archaeology) has, in recent years, <u><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/10/12/florida_governor_challenges_idea_of_non_stem_degrees">come into question</a></u> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as to whether its study has public value.<o:p></o:p></div>
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If you’ve been reading these posts, I’m curious -- what do
you think?<o:p></o:p></div>
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As someone who writes about university research and academic
endeavors, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I</i> think that there is no
question that anthropology and archaeology are worthwhile endeavors, but I also
understand why that might not be obvious to many people outside the realm of
university life. The scientific study of the human past seems so… academic. But
is it, really?<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the first post I wrote, a North Carolina businessman,
university graduate student and supporter named Henry Doss already made a
very impassioned argument for the value of the Mount Zion project as a learning
experience for our students, so I don’t need to say that again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are a lot of other arguments that could
be made, but here I’d like to make the most basic one: We can’t understand
where we are – the dynamics of our world and the issues that confront us
--<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>unless we also know and understand
the events and processes that got us here. As William Faulkner once famously
said, “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLaXcBukiQK9gomeFrm_ETCztbv624t0xWeEX5s_rE1aO593lXl_yyQ8lQDuXwvppXpazKSYI9lNJOFnLoonYu7EA_hUQf4umwdzY8lujZSiK-zX1YtzzUTj_SQnJ1W2D3NSOv3gAsV5o/s1600/photo+1-4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLaXcBukiQK9gomeFrm_ETCztbv624t0xWeEX5s_rE1aO593lXl_yyQ8lQDuXwvppXpazKSYI9lNJOFnLoonYu7EA_hUQf4umwdzY8lujZSiK-zX1YtzzUTj_SQnJ1W2D3NSOv3gAsV5o/s400/photo+1-4.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jerusalem, from the Mount of Olives.</td></tr>
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Consider Jerusalem. It’s one of the world’s oldest cities
and it’s a holy city to three of the world’s great religions, each of which
have occupied it and controlled it at various times. These succeeding
civilizations have left marks, which remain to this day in sacred monuments and
distinct populations in different “quarters”: Jewish, Muslim, Christian and
Armenian. When it wasn’t controlled by a religious interest, the city was also
a prize and toy to various empires – Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman,
Muslim (there are several of these), Ottoman, British… and so on to today. It’s
a complex history that has not only left its marks in the stones and the
streets, but is also still playing out in the politics and the social dynamics
of the 21<sup>st</sup> Century. The issue of Jerusalem and who should control
it is not only really important to Israelis and Arabs, but also has global
ripples that are reflected in the international news media and even reverberates
in American political campaigns.</div>
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The diggers at Mount Zion see beneath their shovels the ebb
and flow of civilizations, and they are reminded that this is still relevant
when they walk through Zion Gate every morning, still pockmarked with fresh
bullet holes left when the Israeli Army took the city in 1967, during the Six
Day War. They have also felt a connection to the past with the Second Intifada,
which prevented their project from really beginning for the long period of 2000
through 2007, and in the violence that flared up again last summer, bringing
that year’s excavation to an early end. The issue of who controls the city is
still being fought over. In Jerusalem, it is impossible to ignore the past
because history is still in process.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgysoHKn3r7jM4miOPWwHSICd8-WVz5SjqeQ4fN3GFCc_FVj4QnATsape6oaokDax176j2ZJz5GZMUp2MuMIQ75rDSUSKw0jO7mm9QWR04lTPjzhwCVPKSdRZM330WS4I0WNlHMIIh0Ng0/s1600/photo+3-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgysoHKn3r7jM4miOPWwHSICd8-WVz5SjqeQ4fN3GFCc_FVj4QnATsape6oaokDax176j2ZJz5GZMUp2MuMIQ75rDSUSKw0jO7mm9QWR04lTPjzhwCVPKSdRZM330WS4I0WNlHMIIh0Ng0/s400/photo+3-2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zion Gate in Jerusalem. Note the bullet holes.</td></tr>
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But not everyone sees the whole picture the way the
archaeologists do, as people tend to rebuild cities and monuments to reflect
the primacy of current owners and to tell narratives that support political
ends. The past may not be past, but it’s
often half forgotten.</div>
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The Mount Zion Project, perhaps, is a useful corrective for
that – a kind of truth commission for history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Once it is completed, the project will have laid bare for all to see
2000 years of history, and the physical signs of all the various peoples that
have come, gone … and, in part, remained in the current place. <o:p></o:p></div>
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To this end, Gibson and Tabor are in discussion with local
authorities to turn the excavation, once it is completed (in the next couple of
years), into an archaeological park that will show tourists and residents the
history the dig has uncovered – Jewish houses, Byzantine houses, Muslim houses
– their stones in layers, the layers intertwined. In the following video,
project director Shimon Gibson talks about this proposal: <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/science-technology/article27905509.html">Click Here to View Video</a><br /><div class="MsoNormal">
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So, is archaeology merely academic? Are public understanding
and the pursuit of peace academic? I don’t think so. Archaeology is a deep look
into the past – a past that shouldn’t be forgotten – a past that really
“applies” to today’s world. <o:p></o:p></div>
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James Hathawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11296720304198719066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-34264234802932504662015-07-23T11:34:00.000-04:002015-07-23T11:34:28.321-04:00What the stones say<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>(Note: this is the second of three posts
about UNC Charlotte’s Mount Zion Archaeology Project)</i></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Here’s another
reason why the Mount Zion project is “unorthodox archaeology,” as I claimed in <u><a href="http://thedatamineatuncc.blogspot.com/2015/07/applied-research.html?spref=fb">the last post</a></u>: it’s complicated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6S1UhldpVbkd5Cg_8cbIp_hZDS-EkPh1VO_tNdRiySQ6Gl9nsTY9J9Jy3MVA_Sw8dBcARlGYsKY9_0FmcBTF1M7hkdlA2kLOJv6p9rmmU6uh4EoibqgMIcne3dvPQz-3dLe7HEXMSutM/s1600/its-complicated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6S1UhldpVbkd5Cg_8cbIp_hZDS-EkPh1VO_tNdRiySQ6Gl9nsTY9J9Jy3MVA_Sw8dBcARlGYsKY9_0FmcBTF1M7hkdlA2kLOJv6p9rmmU6uh4EoibqgMIcne3dvPQz-3dLe7HEXMSutM/s400/its-complicated.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">OK, this isn't exactly what I mean...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Of course most
archaeological excavations are complicated in their own ways, but
archaeologists tend to prefer to dig sites where, as they say, “the
stratigraphy is undisturbed.” Lay translation: they mean where someone hasn’t
re-inhabited the area, dug up the site and mixed up the buried layers of
history. Once this happens, it’s a little hard to figure out what goes with
what period, because older stuff can end up on top of or in the middle of
younger stuff.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh46oTnBwI6U8BP6BK57c9JK7bCX7bUgnWs6SrweP9S_gYGStWXdwyKFStDylclVHctPQAgbhictyvzjY3rOipOPaZxR_X7elGw7qGAWkN6M2fdj0sLW28oMuFmPSHaq2pvULrevhtMtgg/s1600/photo%252810%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh46oTnBwI6U8BP6BK57c9JK7bCX7bUgnWs6SrweP9S_gYGStWXdwyKFStDylclVHctPQAgbhictyvzjY3rOipOPaZxR_X7elGw7qGAWkN6M2fdj0sLW28oMuFmPSHaq2pvULrevhtMtgg/s320/photo%252810%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stratigraphy: why we nail tags on dirt walls.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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“Undisturbed
stratigraphy” unfortunately does not describe the situation in Mount Zion. When
your site is in the middle of a city, especially a city that has been inhabited
and fought over for three thousand years, there is going to be a little messing
with the archaeological record of the site and some churning of the layers of
history. Life has gone on here for a
long time, untold struggles have occurred, and, as a result, Jerusalem is very complicated.
Mount Zion is too.</div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">So why dig there?
Well, there are some good reasons that the usual thinking might miss. Like the
stuff that’s there anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Dig director Shimon Gibson notes that the oldest houses in
the area were<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1<sup>st</sup> Century
houses that were abruptly abandoned when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70
CE because of a Jewish revolt. “The ruined field of 1<sup>st</sup> Century
houses in our area remained there intact up until the beginning of the
Byzantine period (early 4<sup>th</sup> Century),” Gibson said. “When the
Byzantine inhabitants built there, they leveled things off a bit but they used
the same plan of the older houses, building their walls on top of the older
walls.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcVfECMfcjKhm8Ohn9P4DoLKCx3NJN8XoWGShBg1r1kZBkBnkvKc_Si063RBPDsj5gjGZ4y4R0brGUQOys5F157hBPkH34cHIOjIrUMoXTu23RzfrWgieilpoq63SB2YHY8P9y02YJ6I/s1600/photo%252811%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZcVfECMfcjKhm8Ohn9P4DoLKCx3NJN8XoWGShBg1r1kZBkBnkvKc_Si063RBPDsj5gjGZ4y4R0brGUQOys5F157hBPkH34cHIOjIrUMoXTu23RzfrWgieilpoq63SB2YHY8P9y02YJ6I/s400/photo%252811%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the complex jumble of the Mount Zion dig.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</o:p></div>
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Subsequently, the sixth century Byzantine Emperor Justinian
contributed further disturbance when he completed the construction of <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Nea Ekklesia</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> up the
hillside from the site<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">. The
construction involved the excavation of enormous underground reservoirs and the
excavation fill was dumped downhill, burying the more recent Byzantine
constructions. But for preservation purposes, <i>this</i> disturbance was
actually a good thing.</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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“The area got submerged, “ Gibson said. “The early Byzantine
reconstruction of these two-story Early Roman houses then got buried under
rubble and soil fills. Then they established new buildings above it. That’s why
we found an unusually well-preserved set of stratigraphic levels.” Even out of
chaos comes some order.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But, in fact the situation is still far more complex than
that because the area is a hillside – some 1<sup>st</sup> century structures
appear to be at a higher level than some structures that are clearly Byzantine
and built five centuries later. “In many places, reverse stratigraphy is going
on,” Gibson noted. “There is a hodgepodge of levels.” The site is a complex
puzzle of historical levels, reflecting not only a complex history, but a
complex topography and complex changes to the landscape. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_i9ToZo8h6_SFkzgyi5F4YJfXqeiBgwUU2wZo6Rmg3IT2CdrRfxFBdt-Ql0CmVnjVribqElZPlzo0TWB_IFA6T0x8hRlKuSmyBe-SNE1n7r0yRRWWs6r1zMhH5ekN8oP2F2Abn2pfRz8/s1600/mtziondiguncc2015rw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_i9ToZo8h6_SFkzgyi5F4YJfXqeiBgwUU2wZo6Rmg3IT2CdrRfxFBdt-Ql0CmVnjVribqElZPlzo0TWB_IFA6T0x8hRlKuSmyBe-SNE1n7r0yRRWWs6r1zMhH5ekN8oP2F2Abn2pfRz8/s640/mtziondiguncc2015rw.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The whole dig at the end of the 2015 season. Photo: Rachel Ward.</td></tr>
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This all might be
a problem if analysis depended completely on looking at small objects in the
soil, but buildings, of course, can tell us even more than artifacts, and the
excavation has uncovered several, some sufficiently intact to give the feeling
that the lives of the people who abandoned them are still knowable in the
spaces they inhabited.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">In one of several
structures that appear to be Jewish houses from approximately the time of Jesus,
a large underground water supply – a cistern – contained something strange –
cooking pots and the remains of an oven, indicating that someone may have been
living in the emptied tank. What was going on here remains inconclusive, but
the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus mentions Jews hiding from the attacking
Roman legionnaires in underground water systems, when the city was besieged and
destroyed in 70 CE, so this may be the record of a family’s last days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjou40BjHTnZvKQo4bljIfwQu_cHv1DzmwEsBoUlgUbL3F1CmDoeoSO0oqI1BWJKEexusribaozYV0mIZcTz5bXDEQ3eG5_SK2lecLK5rrGedxIZSqenz4sNFR2DuDqIhrzVd1K1dnsKkc/s1600/mtzionbath1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjou40BjHTnZvKQo4bljIfwQu_cHv1DzmwEsBoUlgUbL3F1CmDoeoSO0oqI1BWJKEexusribaozYV0mIZcTz5bXDEQ3eG5_SK2lecLK5rrGedxIZSqenz4sNFR2DuDqIhrzVd1K1dnsKkc/s400/mtzionbath1.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1st Century Roman-Jewish bathroom with tub: a<br />sign of opulence. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The same structure
contained other revealing details. Like many large Jewish houses of the time,
the structure contained an underground pool – a mikveh --designed for
ceremonial bathing, but unlike all but one other Herodian building ( a palace)
that has been excavated in Jerusalem, this mikveh also had an attached entry
room with a carved bathtub for pre-ceremonial cleaning. This unusual feature,
the team believes, was an extravagant add-on, a sign of the fairly extreme
wealth of the inhabitants. Intriguingly also found in the structure were a
large number of shells of the murex sea-snail – the source of the famous Tyrian
purple dye (“imperial purple”), an expensive luxury commodity. Since sea snails
are not creatures native to the mountains of Jerusalem, this implies that the
inhabitants may have been involved in supplying luxury products.</div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">In other words,
the building provides a glimpse into “the lifestyles of the rich and famous”
(or at least of the rich) of Jewish society in Jesus’s Jerusalem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other houses on the site from other periods –
Byzantine, Muslim -- may divulge other telling details of the personal and
domestic lives of the people who inhabited them. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss, O the
stories stones can tell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs7A2a9UL27KFBMPzDpW5zqL57XmTRhqUkSC_UskpsCAlTZhh6ZLG7wVh6fkEhOUHeSJEd-ZfAzEc7fOmuC2pdodhzAsHQNlSY8b7M7VcSMlG0f2NjhmFdodVsrxX2-BJVz7hk6cS36JI/s1600/MurexSnail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs7A2a9UL27KFBMPzDpW5zqL57XmTRhqUkSC_UskpsCAlTZhh6ZLG7wVh6fkEhOUHeSJEd-ZfAzEc7fOmuC2pdodhzAsHQNlSY8b7M7VcSMlG0f2NjhmFdodVsrxX2-BJVz7hk6cS36JI/s200/MurexSnail.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A shell of the Murex sea snail, <br />the source of Imperial Purple dye.</td></tr>
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We may never know
specifically who those inhabitants were, or whether or not they were famous
people from history, so why do these details matter? Gibson points out that in most cases, all we
know about history are the major events and the famous people, but we really
know very little about life was actually like in the surrounding worlds of the
times.</div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">“In the case of
the Muslim history of Jerusalem, we know about the mosques and madrassas, but
we hardly know anything about the daily life,” Gibson said. “Here in this site
we have three superimposed levels, belonging to the Umayyads (7<sup>th</sup> to
mid 8<sup>th</sup> Centuries) Abbasids (mid-8<sup>th</sup> to 9<sup>th</sup>
Centuries) and Fatimids (9<sup>th</sup> to 11<sup>th</sup> Centuries) which
allow us to reconstruct the cultural life in the houses from these periods.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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What we see at Mount Zion, more than we do at the usual
excavations of royal palaces and temples and grand public buildings, is
evidence of the lives of real people. We see the lives of many real people<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">s</i>, in fact, whose times overlapped and
replaced each other. The site shows us a history, but it’s the intricate history
of life, not just a neat summation of major events, generals and rulers. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This jumble of ruins is messy and confusing – like real life
– but it may have more to say to us than what we usually get from the usual stories
of the past. It’s complicated, and only time and more digging and analysis will
tell us all it has to say.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(Next post: What has
the past done for me lately?)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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James Hathawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11296720304198719066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-84632761479600089432015-07-21T11:20:00.000-04:002015-07-22T14:36:54.164-04:00Applied Research<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>(Note: this is the first in a series of three blog posts about UNC Charlotte's Mount Zion Archaeology Project.)</i></div>
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I know what you’re thinking, and no, this isn’t about that.
There are no stories forthcoming in this post about new nanoparticles that will
allow some company to make better solar cells, or molecular biology that is
going to lead to a new way to attack cancer and maybe make a pharmaceutical
company a lot of money.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8EOTlXkv_3ym1TQcVa5nCBmqDFGMo-_JphQaA_-WTEcqxsCL6znKapP_32a1rxeqFO2lCWmu6HvmO1_tqAzFCvh1nkWVZ9KH9gIqC6czhIdAE82u0jQdlbltNS_ncpIb_pM8VNrx_4s/s1600/no-money-clipart-k8899763.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx8EOTlXkv_3ym1TQcVa5nCBmqDFGMo-_JphQaA_-WTEcqxsCL6znKapP_32a1rxeqFO2lCWmu6HvmO1_tqAzFCvh1nkWVZ9KH9gIqC6czhIdAE82u0jQdlbltNS_ncpIb_pM8VNrx_4s/s400/no-money-clipart-k8899763.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We're not in this for the money. This time.</td></tr>
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<o:p> </o:p>Not that that kind of research isn’t important stuff, but
what I’m writing about here is important too. I’m writing about archaeology.
Unorthodox archaeology at that.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy6R7M_9kplbj7U2XzSWDj0cZYFi36a2Ik69C6jTwDQbn203v8aVtixxbMIUwX2X3JA5WR0EKuStSKR-7Ah0Yl3CpbhokKMpOPld8d-5bbmViYOW4m_TetSxbj4otpMJcyJbxA1ddTIf4/s1600/fishhookmtzion2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy6R7M_9kplbj7U2XzSWDj0cZYFi36a2Ik69C6jTwDQbn203v8aVtixxbMIUwX2X3JA5WR0EKuStSKR-7Ah0Yl3CpbhokKMpOPld8d-5bbmViYOW4m_TetSxbj4otpMJcyJbxA1ddTIf4/s400/fishhookmtzion2015.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Getting hooked on unorthodox archaeology and why 750-year-old fishbones matter. Photo by Rafi Lewis.</td></tr>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’ll forgive you if you don’t think archaeology is as
important a research topic as discovering compound to cure cancer or build a
faster circuit. If you think that, you have a lot of company. And how in the
world, you’re thinking, can archaeology be “applied”? But please allow me to try
to show to you why that kind of “applied thinking” might be a little wrong.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I just got back from a trip to Jerusalem, where I got a
chance to visit UNC Charlotte’s Mount Zion project, the only
American-university-led archaeological excavation currently licensed in the
city of Jerusalem by the Israel Antiquities Authority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The excavation at Mount Zion has been going
on since 2007, and<a href="http://publicrelations.uncc.edu/news-events/news-releases/mt-zion-dig-reveals-possible-second-temple-period-priestly-mansion"> <u>I’ve written about it before</u></a>, back in 2013, when some
interesting discoveries were made. This time, I went not only to look at new
discoveries, but also to participate in the dig itself, which was a new experience
for me, though I have visited many other archaeological sites in my career as a
science writer. This dig is a little different from any of the other digs I’ve
written about, and I thought I needed to participate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was right. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The dig at Mount Zion, Jerusalem, following the 2015 season. Photo: Rachel Ward</td></tr>
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How is this archaeological dig different? Well, to begin
with, most archaeological “investigations” (as an archaeologist would call a
project) are more “focused” in their goals than this one is. Generally, in
order for an archaeologist to mount a major excavation, they need to first get
funding to pay for materials, to pay for the dig staff, to pay working expenses
in some far away locale. To get funding, archeologists need to get grants, and
funding agencies don’t tend to give money to a scientist who says “I think I’ve
found an interesting piece of ground, and I want to dig into in and see what is
down there.” Instead, funders want a specific goal – a specific important ruin
that has just been located and/or no one has ever investigated before or a
specific scientific question (“what was the domestic economy of 13<sup>th</sup>
Century Zuni village life based on?”) that needs to be answered. They want an archaeological investigation to
be a lot like a scientific experiment, with a specific phenomenon to be
explored or a specific hypothesis to be answered.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Mount Zion dig is
not like that and is not funded like that – it has been funded by small grants
from the university and relatively small, private donations from donors – many
of whom have come and volunteered to work on the dig.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This gives the excavators the freedom to cast
a wider net. And the dig has been able to make extensive progress over the last
seven years working on a shoestring budget because many participants in the effort
paid their own way to the site and volunteered their labor – often a lot of
hard, dirty labor. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ah, the glamor of archaeology! (Note the sweat stains.)</td></tr>
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<o:p> </o:p>Mount Zion is really different because it is not a targeted
exploration of a known set of ruins nor the testing of some sort of
anthropological question. Instead it started from very basic historical
premises and as a kind of research gamble.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the beginning, the project -- as conceived by UNC
Charlotte Visiting Professor of history Shimon Gibson, a widely respected middle
eastern archaeologist, and Professor of Religious Studies James Tabor -- was to
explore a couple of acres of vacant land in the old city of Jerusalem (where
there is virtually no vacant land and almost everything is some kind of
historical structure that can’t be disturbed) on a steep hillside between the
Ottoman-built city wall and a modern roadway.<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the project’s start no one really knew what the
excavation would find. When Gibson and Tabor first received a license to
excavate from the Israeli Antiquities Authority in 2000, they began to get an
inkling of the potential of the site, but full-scale operations did not begin
until 2007, due to political tensions and unrest in the city. At that time, the
information regarding the area was sketchy but tantalizing. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The site was a vacant strip of land that a renowned Israeli
historian and archaeologist named Magen Broshi had probed at in the 1970’s as
part of a large series of digs he was doing, surveying what might lie buried
just beyond the city’s 16<sup>th</sup> Century Turkish walls. Broshi’s findings
were unpublicized, but Gibson had observed the excavations as a child and
remembered that some ruins of buildings had been partially uncovered. Though
the site’s contents were unknown, Gibson and Tabor suspected that it might
contain something important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It may
look like a vacant out-of-the-way spot in our time, but Jerusalem and its walls
have shifted around over the millennia,” noted Tabor. “Back in the time of
Jesus, this was at the center of things.” Note that it was a strong knowledge
of history, not the presence of some specific data, like a stone wall, that led
them to the site – knowledge matters.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYqrsNRLrEh-G2S3AY18dR5fOsbAUDpP7S9zz_i4ceNqQNT-Lf_XbN0j5elmquXK25QqEyvBc9zoW9yx0rQjmvcE1FNhnWiAhAFSy4VPjg_Psz7n5Ga4ZPlwWcwgtP3BOf3oElm-r_0As/s1600/Map+mount+zion.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYqrsNRLrEh-G2S3AY18dR5fOsbAUDpP7S9zz_i4ceNqQNT-Lf_XbN0j5elmquXK25QqEyvBc9zoW9yx0rQjmvcE1FNhnWiAhAFSy4VPjg_Psz7n5Ga4ZPlwWcwgtP3BOf3oElm-r_0As/s640/Map+mount+zion.png" width="464" /></a></div>
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They didn’t know what they might find, but they knew they
would find <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>significant. One goal the excavators did have
was to explore the wealth of history left by the wealth of cultures that have
controlled the city over the last 2000 years, and this rare, abandoned piece of
ground in the old city promised to offer some record of that. And so they dug…
and found a lot.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSo5Y48PvrH_eVD4JA9khYsXw2jyvQ5u6aGHlvj3PD-cxdcHK14P_BA9PBhiNJ_SjQ7wSkPp0YkQP2F3WnzXpF7vCKPDxGpa7fZAymatqxYxN8xQ29utxCaFgTjfA94gRs8vC8vme-Zms/s1600/sortingpotsherdsmtzion2015rw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSo5Y48PvrH_eVD4JA9khYsXw2jyvQ5u6aGHlvj3PD-cxdcHK14P_BA9PBhiNJ_SjQ7wSkPp0YkQP2F3WnzXpF7vCKPDxGpa7fZAymatqxYxN8xQ29utxCaFgTjfA94gRs8vC8vme-Zms/s400/sortingpotsherdsmtzion2015rw.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sorting a few of the thousands and thousands of potsherds <br />
from the site. Photo: Rachel Ward.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<o:p> </o:p>It turns out that
the site is packed with physical evidence of Jerusalem’s rich history. “We have
found material on this site from every historical period from the Herodian Roman
through the Byzantine, from the Umayyads through the Crusaders, from the Ayyubids through the Ottomans,”
Gibson noted. Though there are not any plans to dig deeper, the team has also
found some even older material from the late Iron Age.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Peeling it back,
layer by layer, the site has been a living history book. This year, digging in
an area being supervised by UNC Charlotte graduate student Kevin Caldwell and
his staff (a diverse group of students, staff, retirees, Charlotte friends and
donors) found in the sweat-moistened dust evidence of a once-prosperous market
from the time of Saladin (potsherds, coins, fish bones, hooks, clam shells)… then,
immediately below that, evidence of occupying Crusaders (pork bones, northern
European horseshoe nails) and signs of fighting (pieces of metal from belts
that got ripped off in physical struggle). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">When you
participate in this dig, you can literally touch historical events as your
hands clear away the dirt and go deeper and deeper in time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTk5gL3pAX7JlxeaLPkTU6EKGjg2gqjkMQlgmyx1OoEKJaTvBPogaEWnWWcIPZXXeCHpIsoM9ekC1J3E4B-lemSFwky4T82tNJdBHnxkpahbw6P4GRtDcrRMuhATD09pkrpwHyAImHP7Q/s1600/digteamMtZion2015rw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTk5gL3pAX7JlxeaLPkTU6EKGjg2gqjkMQlgmyx1OoEKJaTvBPogaEWnWWcIPZXXeCHpIsoM9ekC1J3E4B-lemSFwky4T82tNJdBHnxkpahbw6P4GRtDcrRMuhATD09pkrpwHyAImHP7Q/s640/digteamMtZion2015rw.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kevin Caldwell (far left) and his excavation team in early July. Also in this photo: Henry Doss (back row, third from left) and UNC Charlotte Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Nancy Gutierrez (black shirt, center front) Photo: Rachel Ward</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The nearly constant
discovery of finds like these are what drive the volunteer workers to work so
hard and to keep coming back. It’s thrilling, but more than that, it’s
meaningful, as they see the complex history of the city and its many conflicts
– conflicts that are still going on today – being revealed under their feet.
You <i>understand</i> Jerusalem when you get
to touch its depth. Just ask Henry Doss, one of Kevin’s volunteer workers and a
Charlotte area entrepreneur who has com to Mount Zion now for several dig
seasons.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">“Archaeology is
about 95% digging dirt and carrying buckets full of dirt and emptying them,”
said Doss. “It’s hot and dirty and dusty and tiring. But it’s also part of a
process of accumulating, and understanding and learning about this region and
its people and its history. “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">Doss muses: “It’s difficult
to explain how this kind of aggregates over time. So if you look around and see
dirt and dust, you see one thing, but the experience -- the total experience of
being here -- is really a magical thing. You have this profound sense of place
and time. I am absolutely convinced that this kind of experience, especially
for young people, undergraduates and graduate students, is one of the most
important things they can possibly do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiONg50Qpe13Ckfa2fWmAuow8QB1zpNSkcvTBZieeB4ZGFqOcdUFhwwFOKpAiAgHwr8LtlnvYhknMcKLNXUoucJ45-cyP3JrXfWY9b88CTF92f-IdYfocAwr8KSwRtH8Bm8rggkL7_oBUs/s1600/BrijeshKishanMtZion2015rw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiONg50Qpe13Ckfa2fWmAuow8QB1zpNSkcvTBZieeB4ZGFqOcdUFhwwFOKpAiAgHwr8LtlnvYhknMcKLNXUoucJ45-cyP3JrXfWY9b88CTF92f-IdYfocAwr8KSwRtH8Bm8rggkL7_oBUs/s320/BrijeshKishanMtZion2015rw.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UNC Charlotte student Brijesh Kishan<br />
Photo: Rachel Ward</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">“And it’s
important in a number of dimensions. Number one is coming to a place like this
and participating in this work is a wonderful exercise in leadership
development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Probably the best I’ve ever
seen, and I’ve been in leadership development all of my adult life. Students
who come here learn to make decisions, they learn how to discern things, they
learn how to think in certain ways. They learn how to interact with other
people and they learn about history and culture. They have a really, really
deep sense of place and time by being here... It’s priceless, absolutely priceless.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;">And so, this
unorthodox project has unorthodox results, but perhaps better research results
than you would expect. By not looking for something specific, the excavation at
Mount Zion has found something perhaps more important, more interesting, more
relevant… and really useful. It’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">applied</i>
research – and learning the researchers themselves can apply. If you doubt
that, come to the dig next year and see for yourself.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma;"><i>(Next post: What
the stones say.)</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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James Hathawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11296720304198719066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-77712029071141812732015-02-09T11:49:00.000-05:002015-02-09T11:49:13.181-05:00Into The Hood: A Coyote Story<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Into the Hood: A Coyote Story</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Kristina Drye</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Throughout
history, there have been various “sightings” that have become infamous.
Sightings of the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland, for example, or Bigfoot in the
Himalayas. Along the Eastern seaboard of the United States, however, the most
common creature sightings are of coyotes. Stuart Wine, Sara Gagne, and Ross
Meetemeyer have completed a study that uses citizen science as a means of more
accurately tracking the relationship between urban ecosystems and coyote
encounters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj397w9OZPw_MWViU48ayrWOIAjkRyaTa3dfuKMcEazd_Gte4fbFl5IHrddMXtoCOYlUCXqc2W1O96s-aBV9OplfLe8by8FdvMsZksH_LeWkcDHwDJqjGHSKczYI9-bTdDlotF-3kFrPlak/s1600/coyotebus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj397w9OZPw_MWViU48ayrWOIAjkRyaTa3dfuKMcEazd_Gte4fbFl5IHrddMXtoCOYlUCXqc2W1O96s-aBV9OplfLe8by8FdvMsZksH_LeWkcDHwDJqjGHSKczYI9-bTdDlotF-3kFrPlak/s1600/coyotebus.jpg" height="271" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
the past, most coyote science has been completed using information on coyote </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">environments and traditional methods like radiotelemetry (a measurement using
radio waves from a remote device to gather information). This study is
different in that it uses socioeconomic data and citizen science to draw
conclusions about human0coyote encounters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Citizen
science is exactly what it sounds like- everyday citizens’ reported
observations about their environment. Using public reports of coyote sightings
in addition to US Census data tracking building density, household income,
educational attainment, and occupation, Wine et. al concluded that the use of
citizen science and socioeconomic data in addition to the traditional methods
proved highly effective in drawing more detailed conclusions of human-coyote
encounters. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMCrx6xlEa1qbNLGfGC1zLSZoOlySq5cvsaq7P5GZKlutnN83JQZkEkY5WGGGbze9urwXh7d7z_F8EncpchZh9YHuIEZrL8Pjbp3itL8Kknxwrj2x-ifBwhMCYN2LI8eOSHkuzwheElyB0/s1600/coyoteblackandwhite.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMCrx6xlEa1qbNLGfGC1zLSZoOlySq5cvsaq7P5GZKlutnN83JQZkEkY5WGGGbze9urwXh7d7z_F8EncpchZh9YHuIEZrL8Pjbp3itL8Kknxwrj2x-ifBwhMCYN2LI8eOSHkuzwheElyB0/s1600/coyoteblackandwhite.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Building
density, household income, and occupation had a positive influence on the
probability of a human-coyote encounter. Coyotes preferred areas with golf
courses and large forested parks, which tend to be located in areas of high
human densities, high incomes, and high educational attainment. In addition,
high building densities mean that there is a higher probability of a human
seeing a coyote and thus reporting it. It was hypothesized that higher income
and human-coyote interactions were positively correlated because those with
higher incomes tend to have more manicured lawns and available resources
(gardens, pools, shrubbery, tree cover, etc.) for coyotes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Though
this study offers new insights into the body of information available on
human-coyote interactions, perhaps more important is the implications it offers
for the use of citizen science as a resource for scientific studies. Though
this study suggests that citizen science is highly important and useful for
academic work and science that relies on observation, it also suggests that
studies shouldn’t rely on citizen science alone. Firstly, citizen science is
accompanied by many methodological challenges, including but not limited to
observer quality, accuracy of observer recollection, and variation in sampling,
all three of which have the potential to result in study error and bias.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Secondly, the abundance of citizen science data available might not be
representative so much of the species in question as it is representative of
the number of humans observing them. For example, in a highly dense area, there
may be ten reported coyote sightings but all ten individuals are seeing the
same coyote, as opposed to a less densely populated area that has three
reported coyote sightings, but all three are of different coyotes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These
caveats should not deter scientists from using available citizen data, but it
should bring awareness to both the advantages and disadvantages of using
citizen science, in addition to sparking discussions on how best to mitigate
the negative effect the disadvantages pose. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigZx2G7oh8K_49oCx12wXvVD12lDjQXvWuEm9vrOGD3nbrRZfYwWzb3ViTYY9s5NYItc09Hdeo0NvCeF_bK4lWijForoOTIHXGifrY9X_v0BjGvmmOX-cHcdnjJQ5HrEzGOJQL9mll3OIQ/s1600/coyoteneighborhood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigZx2G7oh8K_49oCx12wXvVD12lDjQXvWuEm9vrOGD3nbrRZfYwWzb3ViTYY9s5NYItc09Hdeo0NvCeF_bK4lWijForoOTIHXGifrY9X_v0BjGvmmOX-cHcdnjJQ5HrEzGOJQL9mll3OIQ/s1600/coyoteneighborhood.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kristina Dryehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07590145032628866749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-42157676546614955102015-01-23T11:24:00.000-05:002015-01-23T11:27:45.292-05:00Blast from the Past: UNC Charlotte's excavation in Jerusalem.<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">UNC
Charlotte students who are interested in religion, history, and/or archaeology
are being given a very unique opportunity unlike anything other universities in
the United States have to offer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’m
speaking of the excavation currently taking place in Jerusalem under academic
oversight of the University – the only American university licensed in
Jerusalem to carry out excavations. This project, which is located in Jerusalem
in an area called “Mount Zion,” gives students the opportunity to unearth the rich
history of the land first hand, while learning about the cultures that once
inhabited them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUyjy0e1r4ewsRO8DnXgcWRUXy8A_ZvCye4S4WsaeECXs9esh7W67aUvvs7-gLtgaqkFloNYYpqryREshd6_PKvlHZsrsSUEnXGyYZMuXGFpoaBNxXThmqtTVTH9_crfCXwNj_5eAQRng/s1600/Map+mount+zion.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUyjy0e1r4ewsRO8DnXgcWRUXy8A_ZvCye4S4WsaeECXs9esh7W67aUvvs7-gLtgaqkFloNYYpqryREshd6_PKvlHZsrsSUEnXGyYZMuXGFpoaBNxXThmqtTVTH9_crfCXwNj_5eAQRng/s1600/Map+mount+zion.png" height="320" width="232" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Map of the location of the excavation.</span></div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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This ongoing project is spear
headed by Dr. James Tabor, chair of the Department of Religious Studies at UNC
Charlotte, and Dr. Shimon Gibson.<o:p></o:p></div>
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While there have been many
intriguing finds at the site, the most notable was discovered in 2013.
Archaeologists believe to have found the well-preserved lower levels of an
early Roman period mansion. Particularly intriguing is the well-furnished
bathroom, complete with a bathtub, adjacent from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mikveh: </i>a large belowground pool used for cleansing. This addition
is a sign of status and wealth of the resident that lived in this part of the
site.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually, bathrooms of this type
are only found in palatial buildings.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAey7JWXa-XqYH6pnhAfGpVS6J4keE4lc5f9CWwPO_oMAFXA-us8abYndCPiVtBJ3IWS-qEnMT3NzjnCEGIqsM6hZm7Vhh_LHdK2SDObARR8BeAzfXdI9c6XiS7ki2yrenVNKxZPXYaiM/s1600/bathroommountzion.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAey7JWXa-XqYH6pnhAfGpVS6J4keE4lc5f9CWwPO_oMAFXA-us8abYndCPiVtBJ3IWS-qEnMT3NzjnCEGIqsM6hZm7Vhh_LHdK2SDObARR8BeAzfXdI9c6XiS7ki2yrenVNKxZPXYaiM/s1600/bathroommountzion.png" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The bathroom found in the mansion, adjacent to the </span><i>Mikveh</i></div>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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Early excavations revealed a wide
array of finds including a stamped handle<o:p></o:p></div>
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that could be traced back to the second Iron Age, houses,
pottery, and coins from the Early Roman age, a mosaic floor thought to be from
the Byzantine era, more building traced back to the Early Islamic age, remains
thought to be the remnants of a battle in the Crusader era,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Porcelain from China and other foreign
lands traced to the Late Ottoman era.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What is so
remarkable about this site is how well preserved the artifacts seem to be, due
to, at least in part, to the construction work during Byzantine times. During
that time, in order to make a foundation to support new buildings, an
artificial leveling fill of stones, soil, and other debris were poured atop the
remains of the Early Roman period houses.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-EE8p3X-wJ-T0ukIHOezUnXyrYwQoVVYElXlVQtY7DSWPzwEwGpNc_r2pf3KHIHfdygokhJSnJbKlgQRImhM50ADb9OoJe9RdAGndaI4c6SyppTv2tS_y8GPHJjx6M2lhkG9bBT6Khr8/s1600/Mountzion.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-EE8p3X-wJ-T0ukIHOezUnXyrYwQoVVYElXlVQtY7DSWPzwEwGpNc_r2pf3KHIHfdygokhJSnJbKlgQRImhM50ADb9OoJe9RdAGndaI4c6SyppTv2tS_y8GPHJjx6M2lhkG9bBT6Khr8/s1600/Mountzion.png" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Looking down into the lower level of the mansion.</span> </div>
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“The area got submerged,” said Gibson. “That’s why we found
an unusually well-preserve set of stratigraphic levels.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is not
the first time this site has been excavated. Back in the 1970’s, Magen Broshi
of the Israeli Museum, conducted excavations in this area. Later, in 2000 and
2005, and then largely in 2007, excavations were resumed by UNC Charlotte under
a license from the Israeli Antiquities Authority and the Israeli Park
Authority. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If you are
a student of UNC Charlotte that is interested in knowing more about this
awesome opportunity you can find more information about the dig, as well as
information on getting involved in their 2015 season, which we be on June 14<sup>th</sup>
through July 10<sup>th</sup>, 2015, at the Dig Mount Zion website, <a href="https://digmountzion.uncc.edu/">https://digmountzion.uncc.edu</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08527199115052936568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-67771385402950185252014-12-05T12:00:00.002-05:002014-12-05T12:00:49.068-05:00How is Bioinformatics Helping the Ebola Outbreak? <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In recent months, Ebola
has moved from a winning disease on the popular Plague Lab and Epidemic phone
apps to a very serious global health issue. According to the Center for Disease
Control (CDC), as of November 11, 2014, the total cases of the Ebola virus
totaled 14413; 8920 of those were confirmed laboratory cases, and 5177
constitute total deaths. Though there have been a few well-documented cases in
the United States and Spain, the vast majority of these cases have occurred in
West Africa, in the countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Mali. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Many
reasons can be cited for the spread of the Ebola. West Africa lacks proper
infrastructure, facilities, and resources to handle the disease. In addition,
Ebola doesn’t show symptoms until at least two weeks after contraction of the
disease, and the first symptoms manifest in the same manner symptoms from a common
cold or flu do; by this time, everyone that person has come in contact with has
been exposed to the virus. Further, once the affected have passed away, most
villages do not have proper disposal techniques, and in many areas, burning the
body (the most sanitary and available means of disposal) is seen culturally as
an improper means of burial. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zrkiHJPIqIMJS_r-maAC8MBzSttWKS-AftoKbkvqJ1rW714jYEz1iu-P23Sch4CI1-V4eIXEdr0FkUej5aSsuFBbcdK4b85D6umR_N-j7UvJNTwje_R0dnUdGPSeIA7_CszxDo4Zs7jq/s1600/ebolavirus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2zrkiHJPIqIMJS_r-maAC8MBzSttWKS-AftoKbkvqJ1rW714jYEz1iu-P23Sch4CI1-V4eIXEdr0FkUej5aSsuFBbcdK4b85D6umR_N-j7UvJNTwje_R0dnUdGPSeIA7_CszxDo4Zs7jq/s1600/ebolavirus.jpg" height="197" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Though
all of the problems mentioned above (and the problems Ebola poses are by no
means limited to those) do not have a panacea, there are things being done to
combat aspects of the unprecedented difficulty Ebola has posed to West Africa
and to the world. In addition to all of the humanitarian and medical aid
needed, aid is also being given in the form of bioinformatics. Bioinformatics
is the field that combines technological methods and software programs in an
effort to develop more tools for understanding biological data. Scientists of
bioinformatics must be versed in computer science, mathematics, and
engineering, amongst other fields.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Dr.
Ketan Patel, of the US Naval Medical Research Center and former postdoctoral fellow
in bioinformatics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, has used
his experience in bioinformatics to assist in the establishment of a
high-technology mobile laboratory in Liberia, a project located near a
treatment unit that is supported by the World Health Organization (WHO). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1naMbBltQJIjGmamv2PRxVfr1OZS9nltt8t-IzzBOa0FPGEh7oKmAWc3Y3XLN5aX0CnBeupIJC62ht6HJDtR6UuuGJrE6crY6lmRuqYkolGOerZFAK-jS-FLz1c4IMupRTCmYHrirn8Et/s1600/ketanpatel1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1naMbBltQJIjGmamv2PRxVfr1OZS9nltt8t-IzzBOa0FPGEh7oKmAWc3Y3XLN5aX0CnBeupIJC62ht6HJDtR6UuuGJrE6crY6lmRuqYkolGOerZFAK-jS-FLz1c4IMupRTCmYHrirn8Et/s1600/ketanpatel1.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ketan Patel in the laboratory separating genomic material. (Photo courtesy of WHO).</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> This
laboratory, situated in what was previously an abandoned house of sorts, is
meant to speed up the time for diagnosis. As can be inferred from the earlier
explanation of Ebola symptoms, early diagnosis is key for control. Prior to the
establishment of Patel’s lab, even preliminary Ebola diagnosis took anywhere
from two to five days. Because of the advanced bioinformatics technology in
this fledgling laboratory, results can be rendered in just three to five <i>hours</i>; a significant decrease in time
and the effective elimination of days of potential exposure of Ebola victims to
those uninfected. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> To
diagnose, the laboratory follows three steps. First, the Ebola virus within the
sample is inactivated, allowing for safety of testing. Secondly, all genetic
material is extracted from the blood sample- by doing this, doctors can
identify unique ribonucleaic acid (RNA) associated with Ebola. Once this is
identified, copies of the RNA are made through a process called polymerase
chain reaction (PCR). Depending on the prevalence of the virus in the provided
blood sample, this last step (the actual diagnosis step) can take anywhere from
just a few cycles to very many cycles. The entire process is streamlined and
carefully monitored for cleanliness and safety; workers use biological safety
hoods and suits, in addition to chlorine “dunk tanks” to avoid direct contact
and eliminate any potential or accidental contamination. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAH8MfMudOX3qyIAam3tbNwQ-SKLsIjV-D3I-dwL2QIwEzkn-gcN1Uko2Rj2DXI1kYT4FBQUH7F0N8OpmVhBy_VMTb6Jx5_9uMeZaNPm76uGL6H-q5JI8mVbFE8beV9l85l9lzpfOUgdrz/s1600/ketanpatel2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAH8MfMudOX3qyIAam3tbNwQ-SKLsIjV-D3I-dwL2QIwEzkn-gcN1Uko2Rj2DXI1kYT4FBQUH7F0N8OpmVhBy_VMTb6Jx5_9uMeZaNPm76uGL6H-q5JI8mVbFE8beV9l85l9lzpfOUgdrz/s1600/ketanpatel2.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ketan Patel prepares to work in the laboratory. (Photo courtesy of WHO). </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Amalgamated,
these steps take anywhere from three to five hours, with a maximum of sixteen
samples in a rotation. The laboratory was established in October and, since
then, over 500 blood samples have been processed and, of those, approximately
fifty percent identified as positive for Ebola. Thanks to Dr. Patel and the
help that his bioinformatics experience has aided to the laboratory in Liberia,
the fight against Ebola has advanced that much more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kristina Dryehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07590145032628866749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-50727038844656682412014-10-13T16:19:00.001-04:002014-10-13T16:19:38.349-04:00A Toy Story<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
Toy Story <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">During my interview with Dr. Maher, Chair of
Software and Information Studies at UNC Charlotte, we played with multiple
interactive technology tools as she demonstrated to me how she was using them
in her research. While we played with various toys, I noted to her that
remembered when the most “interactive technology” that was used in the
classroom was an etch-a-sketch. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I still remember the day in kindergarten when our
chalkboard was replaced with a whiteboard, and everyone became incredibly
excited because, at the time, the whiteboard was the second thing that defined
our classroom as “modern”- succeeded only by the old computer we had for
occasional rotation, on which we were allowed to play Oregon Trail and KidPix
in fifteen-minute intervals in groups of four.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I remember even more vividly the day that the Ipod
was released, and the Ipad, and the first online class I took- a revolutionary
step at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Looking back to those memories, it’s difficult to
fathom how far we’ve really come in classroom interactive technology, and even
more difficult to fathom to what lengths technology is aiding actively in the
learning process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dr. Maher showed me just how far we’ve come when I
sat down with her to discuss her research. She has a background in design and
works with various students and institutions to develop new and more innovative
ways to improve the relationship between cognition and technological
interaction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She explained to me that she worked in conceptual
blending and the connection between cognition and formal representation of that
cognition- in other words, the relationship between what we’re thinking and how
we tangibly represent that thought. In the past, we were only limited to
writing and to various forms of art. Now that digital interfaces are available,
our potential to directly relate the original cognitive thought in a more “honest”
tangible form has grown.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Dr. Maher
believes that if we approach this connection innovatively, we can improve
learning and our representation of it into ways that are more relatable and far
more instructive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Still mystified by these vague terms, I asked her to
show me examples of what she was talking about. How was her team more
innovatively connecting our cognitive functions and their formal
representations, and how was it more useful in instruction? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">First, she showed me a device her team was working
with for younger students. Called “siftables,” they are small cubes that are
activated by Bluetooth and can be connected to each represent any number of
patterns. Below you see them being used to create math problems, but they can
also display any number of patterns, shapes, and images. Dr. Maher and her team
are already implementing these into schools to see if they are useful in the
classroom. Thus far, the evidence points to the benefits of the siftables.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For middle and high school kids, she’s envisioned
using a device called “Arduino.” Pictured below, the Arduino is a device that
can be used to create small robots and other interactive devices, and is an
introductory tool to learning robotics and engineering. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps the coolest thing she showed me, though, was
the Colorado Tabletop. After we played with the two toys above, she led me
across the hall to a small laboratory where there were many students working.
In the middle of the glass-walled room was a massive interactive touchscreen
tabletop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She began to explain that this tabletop was meant to
be the precursor marrying nature with technology. She showed me how, on the
table, there was an interactive map of a local nature trail. She showed me how
I could follow the trail virtually, clicking on different spots to view images,
facts, extended information pages, and videos. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even cooler was that all of this information was
crowdsourced- she calls it “citizen science.” The idea was that as visitors
walked through this nature trail, they would take pictures and videos. When
they came across one of the installed interactive tabletops, they could share
their photos, videos, and other information with the table, joining their
experience to dozens of previous other ones. If they had any questions, they
could interact virtually with their surroundings to get answers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While the table she showed me in the small room at
UNC Charlotte was a prototype of a local trail, she was preparing to travel
Colorado to establish an outdoor tabletop in one of its national parks. It
would be the first of its kind, and the success of the Colorado Tabletop, she
says, will indicate how society truly interacts and uses such technology, if
made available freely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Though her research seems to be varied, it centers
around one thing- interaction with the user. She worked previously on something
she calls “gesture interaction,” with installments that viewers can actually
“walk up and use.” In a world that is driven by the growth of technology, she
says, it’s important to develop technology that engages the user to the highest
degree possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She has high hopes for the potential of bringing the
formal representation of our cognition as close to our actual cognition as
possible, creating tools and resources that can be used efficiently and
effectively- and rather than becoming tools for distraction, they’ll become
toys for instructive interaction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dr. Maher is at the beginning of the pursuit of the
ultimate toy story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kristina Dryehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07590145032628866749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-23877724248748895272014-08-07T14:34:00.000-04:002014-08-08T11:11:12.226-04:00Probing the History of the Planet Through the Genes of Shy Creatures<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwFD09lfraiSCN7Aw5Sf__oXEs7iT6akntd2jNOc2bz9AtBCscLuB9sd-N8-RAtVEHJzWuDCgY5VJosJ8K62GpIqKq4SQy9lHNZ_1Zm5pB0CM29Iqo3cpjDCESBTDhT22jcwxOobRvvM/s1600/Brazil_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGwFD09lfraiSCN7Aw5Sf__oXEs7iT6akntd2jNOc2bz9AtBCscLuB9sd-N8-RAtVEHJzWuDCgY5VJosJ8K62GpIqKq4SQy9lHNZ_1Zm5pB0CM29Iqo3cpjDCESBTDhT22jcwxOobRvvM/s1600/Brazil_4.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Creep-out! A harmless, but ancient (in form) daddy longlegs from Brazil.</td></tr>
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They are in your basement, or in your yard, hiding in the
fallen leaves at the foot of your trees. They are living relics, walking the
earth virtually unchanged since they first appeared 400 million years ago--
about twice as long ago as the first dinosaurs. They are hiding in plain sight,
but in their genes they hold a record of the deep history of the planet and its
landmasses.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And they are also the reason National Geographic helped send UNC Charlotte bioinformatics postdoctoral researcher Ronald Clouse to the
Philippines this summer, and asked him to blog about the experience.<o:p></o:p></div>
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These unusual animals are Opiliones, otherwise known as
daddy-long-legs or harvestmen. Though most of us confuse them with spiders
(there <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i> some varieties of spider
that are called “daddy-long-legs”) they are actually a significantly different
group of arachnids more closely related to scorpions, from which they diverged
a little over 400 million years ago, shortly after scorpion ancestors first
came on land. Contrary to their popular name, not all daddy-long-legs have long
legs – those Clouse will be studying (<span style="color: #072930;">Cyphophthalmi,
or “mite harvestmen”)</span><span style="color: #072930; font-size: 13.0pt;"> </span>look
like tiny short-legged spiders and live in humid leaf litter, where they tear
up and eat plant matter and even tinier insects with the miniscule claws they
have in place of spider fangs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiro940IWjP7arqGQpUvZxIkCwoWPmsDe7JUGLYTjwP5NEdv_GBeTFllzsnP_7lgHacoYdxCz537tBoq6v29TmzJiUFC65uHy1JDAqd6hohyphenhyphenA6Alua16ktudmeWj0lNvb8ckmeyidNfo5g/s1600/stylocellid_C_Rahmadi-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiro940IWjP7arqGQpUvZxIkCwoWPmsDe7JUGLYTjwP5NEdv_GBeTFllzsnP_7lgHacoYdxCz537tBoq6v29TmzJiUFC65uHy1JDAqd6hohyphenhyphenA6Alua16ktudmeWj0lNvb8ckmeyidNfo5g/s1600/stylocellid_C_Rahmadi-2.jpg" height="400" width="386" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of Clouse's litter-dwelling "daddy longlegs," greatly enlarged.</td></tr>
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They are obscure animals, and though widespread and probably
present nearly everywhere on the planet, there is a lot we don’t know about
them. Some of the things that we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i>
know about them, however, make them important to science, Clouse points out. “We
think they are exciting animals, we think they give us a lot of great
information about deep, deep history,” he said.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First of all, they
have passed through a very long stretch of time virtually unchanged.
“Daddy-long-legs evolved from scorpions – they are sister groups – and
scorpions started to come out on land about 425 million years ago and at 400
million years ago there is a beautiful fossil from Scotland of a
daddy-long-legs that looks almost exactly like the ones in your basement
today,” he said.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRxeNA9E6okvCdrGjLhJvX2pketI4mP5K4mReFN_bcQuDKyvB0vNTLTQ7Sxe9BHbnU3MRoAe52Lj0lZMqnHZdb7Qp2jsod9Gj9hEgwu_pyLejSF3rzIxj2__ovg4tNo3w_5LvEsn6mO80/s1600/Brazil_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRxeNA9E6okvCdrGjLhJvX2pketI4mP5K4mReFN_bcQuDKyvB0vNTLTQ7Sxe9BHbnU3MRoAe52Lj0lZMqnHZdb7Qp2jsod9Gj9hEgwu_pyLejSF3rzIxj2__ovg4tNo3w_5LvEsn6mO80/s1600/Brazil_2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What may just seem to you like a garden spider is, in fact, a living fossil <br />
that lived on this land before your ancestors were mammals!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Clouse notes that Opiliones seem to have quickly found land
niches everywhere and then remained happily in them. “We have a fossil of the
southeast Asian ones from 100 million years ago in amber,” he said. “It looks
like they first showed up from 425 to 400 million years ago and they quickly
evolved into these really elaborate morphologies that we have today. And it was
another 200 million years before the dinosaurs showed up, and the dinosaurs
blink out after a little more than a hundred million years. These guys have
been hanging tough the whole time.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Second of all, it turns out that daddy-long-legs have
perfected a lifestyle that makes them extreme homebodies. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“The reason we like this group of animals is they don’t go
anywhere in their lives and when we find them in the forest floor in the leaf
litter, even if we find a bunch of them, there will be a completely different
species a few kilometers over. They are very highly local,” he said.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“What makes them so localized is that they really require
humid leaf litter. They don’t like leaf litter that gets too wet or too dry.
And so they like pristine forest, deep leaf litter where there is the right
kind of layer for them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“So why didn’t they just evolve the ability to not need that
humid leaf litter?” Clouse asked. “Because they also have behavioral issues
where they just don’t go anywhere. Even super long-legged daddy longlegs that
have the ability to move around a lot, they also don’t go anywhere. During the
day they are under a log and at night they walk out a couple of meters and they
will sit there all night.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Clouse knows that Opiliones are confirmed stay-at-home types
thanks to bioinformatics. “When we sequence their DNA we find that all the ones
in this forest, even though some groups may be spread out over wider areas,
when you look at it population by population, there is almost no gene flow,” he
noted. “Everyone here has one set of sequences, everyone there has a completely
different set of sequences.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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And the small, leaf litter dwelling types turn out to be
even more localized. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“For these little guys – we were down in Florida sequencing
and we found that just a few meters away the sequences were different. When we
find them in the forest floor in the leaf litter, even if we find a bunch of
them, there will be a completely different species a few kilometers over. They
are very highly local. And the entire group, which is found around the world, exhibits
the same the same high-need microniche requirements and the same behavior.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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This old, established pattern of localization has some
important implications that go far beyond invertebrate biology. You can find
markers for the ancient history of the earth in a daddy-long-legs’ genes,
Clouse explained.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“The end result of this is that their current distribution
around the world is due to the movement of continental landmasses. So, when we
reconstruct their history from their DNA, we get a nice match to the history of
the landmasses on which they live,” he said. <o:p></o:p></div>
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“There <a href="http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2014/f/z03814p201f.pdf">one is South Carolina on Sassafras Mountain</a> – its
genes show its closest relative is in West Africa. These species split apart
about 200 million years ago. And guess what? Geologists say the Atlantic Ocean
opened up about 200 million years ago.”<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPP8gNbeCBsbZ2jOtBQWrMOSY3XXLN10_HpAQPyMyzhxaTTKY2WyGJiZaPtmtqNVIDS6D6HBi3zMFhSaDy_cC4b4rjn7kEKIzRAX2B-u7_UwnYDA1sLFLEVPKEYFY4DcKHFQsL0kHyAoU/s1600/laurasia-211245-321-400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPP8gNbeCBsbZ2jOtBQWrMOSY3XXLN10_HpAQPyMyzhxaTTKY2WyGJiZaPtmtqNVIDS6D6HBi3zMFhSaDy_cC4b4rjn7kEKIzRAX2B-u7_UwnYDA1sLFLEVPKEYFY4DcKHFQsL0kHyAoU/s1600/laurasia-211245-321-400.jpg" height="400" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Continental drift and the movement of landmasses. If you stay<br />in one place long enough, you get moved around.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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According to the geology and the theory of continental
drift, evidence indicates that all the planet’s landmasses have not always been
where they now are, but have drifted around the planet, colliding and joining
with each other and then separating -- again and again. Around the time
Opiliones first established themselves on land, all landmasses were shoved
together in a supercontinent geologists refer to as Pangea, and geologists know
that what is now North America was continuous land with what is now Europe and
Africa. <o:p></o:p></div>
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But on other parts of the globe, the evidence for exactly
what happened is not quite as clear. Just like we might think daddy-long-legs
are spiders, we might assume that the Philippine Islands all came from the same
place… but again we would be wrong.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“It turns out that the geologists don’t always have a very good
handle on what is going on,” Clouse notes. “The Philippines is one of those
places where they really have a very poor view of what happened in the past.
All those islands are coming from different directions. So the Philippine Opiliones
project kind of got legs because these animals are a nice model for tracking
origins of the land.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Though the animals are small, this is big science -- which
is perhaps why National Geographic, one of the premier public providers of
scientific content on the internet, has asked Clouse to blog about his work in
the field, though the animals he studies are not as charismatic as jungle birds
and butterflies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“I was apologetic to national Geographic about the possible
lack of action in our field work and said most of it consists of us sitting on
a log, looking at a pan of leaf litter, examining it for daddy long legs. These
guys will curl up in a ball and look like a piece of dirt.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“They just try to wait until they think you’re gone. That’s
why they are so obscure, so poorly known for centuries and why people have
overlooked them. Now that we really look for them, we find that they are
everywhere.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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“They said ‘Oh, don’t worry. That gives us new ideas – in
fact you could take a picture of your pan of leaf litter in high resolution and
we could put it up and ask people if they can find the daddy-long-legs.’”<o:p></o:p></div>
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In a sense, Clouse said, it is a chance for daddy-long-legs
to get their “close-up” in the spotlight of science.<o:p></o:p></div>
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“The animals I want for the science but it’s also a chance
to put these animals up on a stage because there are a lot of myths about them
– people think they are dangerous or poisonous, and we know that they are not
but that they are really, really interesting. In fact some of them are right
here in South Carolina tell deep, deep history about the southern US. I think
that’s very exciting.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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So, if you run into a daddy-long-legs in the garden or in
your basement, be respectful. Chances are, its ancestors lived in this place a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lot</i> longer than your kind has. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And oh, the stories they can tell.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You can follow Dr. Ronald Clouse <a href="http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/07/03/cyphos-found/">blogs from the field</a> at: <a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/projects/">http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/projects/</a>
or from a link at his author page: <a href="http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/author/ronaldclouse/">http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/author/ronaldclouse/</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
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James Hathawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11296720304198719066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-20753688699906925752014-05-06T18:52:00.001-04:002014-10-14T15:41:34.150-04:00Social Sustainability <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Social Sustainability<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Sustainability has been on the
forefront of innovation of scientific research for generations. An economy
cannot thrive unless it can sustain itself, and many of us think that the
things we use in our daily life must be made to sustain the health of our
environment with greener technologies, but how do you determine the
sustainability of a society, a culture, and a civilization? That is what Dr.
Nicole Peterson is trying to figure out through a grant that allows her to
further research this field.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On January 24<sup>th</sup>, I sat
in on a talk by Dr. Peterson in which she talked about an idea called “Social
Sustainability.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Dr.
Peterson explained to us her definition of sustainability, which was maintaining
“the world in which we continue to live as humans without sacrificing the
ability of allowing future inhabitants to exist.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her idea of sustainability was split into
three “legs” of a stool, in which two legs were Economic and Environmental
sustainability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Peterson identifies
the last leg to be the Social leg, or the leg that deals with the social aspect
of sustainability.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1lMjKd8Cso4UoKpqLgdxt3-L4W5k9FraMQ6aW9kzvl4oKoCu53_1AuVBWDMN5TayfExJQXff1Czp8l2xIolftB5Ezf4CQX00x6F1EzzExlbuxyiT0kgwYlYsTO2Yu8py1Iox8nFQP2dw/s1600/stool.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1lMjKd8Cso4UoKpqLgdxt3-L4W5k9FraMQ6aW9kzvl4oKoCu53_1AuVBWDMN5TayfExJQXff1Czp8l2xIolftB5Ezf4CQX00x6F1EzzExlbuxyiT0kgwYlYsTO2Yu8py1Iox8nFQP2dw/s1600/stool.gif" height="320" width="232" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She then
used the example of a fishing village in Mexico and how this fishing village
was affected by a changing global economy and climate. Fishermen in this
village were starting to see a decrease in fish stocks in the surrounding
ocean. Fisherman blamed many things from the Colorado River no longer reaching
the Gulf of California, tourism, different fishing techniques, and large
industrial fishing. She points out the fact that the things affecting this
fishing village were both economic and environmental issues.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The three
“legs” of sustainability, she argues, are interrelated. The vitality of an
economy is reliant on healthy ecosystems, and as the recent recession
illustrated, economic and social integrity are also linked. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Despite its
interconnectedness, social sustainability is the least understood and defined.
If one were to try and explain it, it might be best explained as the
relationships, interactions, and institutions that affect and are affected by
social development. For example, the way a social protest can affect the place
it is focused on; a government can be hurt by a social protest, its stability
then loses integrity, and its economy takes a blow.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Dr.
Peterson also took her research home here to Charlotte, NC, with her project of
understanding food systems within the city. A project she was involved in and
studied, Mobile Markets, takes fresh produce from the gardens and other places
and sells it at the transit hub in uptown. This provides a place for people to
buy fresh produce in a location <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that
wouldn’t originally have it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw9H6-MCfcxwHQiSQ6Vii9EjzQcrQRHdrSBRr2_fktU6Ih8Z4aPg6mrOhbxxaioRCtW0EIhxVcP-e0worQJrcKZAl6zkeLaO47ZhVwOddcHeTYGPlvjsA3-tagtFRxfXYO_GA4PTCOpFw/s1600/Atherton+Market+Blueberries.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw9H6-MCfcxwHQiSQ6Vii9EjzQcrQRHdrSBRr2_fktU6Ih8Z4aPg6mrOhbxxaioRCtW0EIhxVcP-e0worQJrcKZAl6zkeLaO47ZhVwOddcHeTYGPlvjsA3-tagtFRxfXYO_GA4PTCOpFw/s1600/Atherton+Market+Blueberries.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
research, however, is just touching the beginning of understanding social
sustainability… if it can be understood at all. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the
global community we live in, the means to achieve sustainability is dependent
on many different aspects. Geography, political systems, and culture can all
directly affect what a certain country may need to sustain itself. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In my
opinion, social sustainability should instead be used as a measure of overall
sustainability, and instead of seeing sustainability in three separate
segments, it can be be concluded that they are all, in fact, the same. Economic
sustainability IS environmental sustainability and ALSO social sustainability.
They are all interdependent and therefore wouldn’t exist without the other.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If we hope
to perfect one, we must perfect the other. So is perfection ever really
possible at all? What, then, is considered perfect sustainability, and can it
be really viewed as a blanket statement for all involved?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These are
the kind of questions that Dr. Peterson and the Integrated Network for Social
Sustainability (INSS) are trying to answer. You can even get updates from their
page at <a href="http://clas-pages.uncc.edu/inss/">http://clas-pages.uncc.edu/inss/</a>.
<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08527199115052936568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-88606733349302655842014-05-06T14:58:00.000-04:002014-05-06T14:58:04.114-04:00Paleotempestology<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Paleotempestology. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This term is the core of UNC Charlotte professor
Scott P. Hippensteel’s research. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Though it seems a complex word, if broken down, the
meaning is simple. “Paleo” is the Greek derivation for “ancient” or “long ago.”
Tempest is defined as a storm, usually a violent one. “logy” is a Latin and
Greek root meaning “a branch of science,” or the specific study of something. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus, <i>paleotempestology
</i>means the study of ancient storms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Scott Hippensteel focuses more specifically on
hurricanes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHWySerKnYBfWq1Zd6nqsGvt8Z3Kq1GrqYsz9zVDUpWZM1XsKSx69DrWhvnwGxyZkR925MXoFd_ua7QVXeK_7IRYXvEd4XiniLlcVFQwM1kWK2w8fhVrULI5Wt2HcCM4nlMkBMUzlum4ts/s1600/hurricane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHWySerKnYBfWq1Zd6nqsGvt8Z3Kq1GrqYsz9zVDUpWZM1XsKSx69DrWhvnwGxyZkR925MXoFd_ua7QVXeK_7IRYXvEd4XiniLlcVFQwM1kWK2w8fhVrULI5Wt2HcCM4nlMkBMUzlum4ts/s1600/hurricane.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our formal records of storms and their effects upon
the environment of the world only extend approximately a century or two;
in-depth records are even younger, and the use of modern technology to record
and predict such patterns- the internet, SONAR, radar, satellites, among
others- extend, at the earliest, from the second half of the twentieth century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This means that our understanding of patterns of
weather is severely limited. Though we see changes in our environment and can
track weather patterns over the extended period of time we <i>have</i> had access to these records, we cannot track macro patterns as
they extend across multiple centuries and millennia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This becomes problematic when you look at
definitively proving claims of climate change. This leads to problems in other
areas, including but not limited to: affecting climate change policy,
implementing new energy techniques, preparing adequately for future disasters,
and predicting extended future weather patterns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Through his studies of paleotempestology, Scott
Hippensteel thinks that he has found an answer, in a microorganism called <i>foraminifers. </i>Foraminifers are an
aquatic microorganism that reside in the sediment of the sea bed. When they
die, they leave small shells that can be traced through time. Think of
foraminfer fossil deposits as a form of time capsule. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1CixPXEWRLQAcG6NAXURhCT535azD5NTXp-gyPLlvKbhHyjCOlqFs_NXqebtlL6bAxT_6An95YDcLJCvAPgyCwzT29S9o-GmV2vXg7i-yrcYqXMoDMymXEjyifdByrxLW3UbbOjWPtTDB/s1600/foraminifers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1CixPXEWRLQAcG6NAXURhCT535azD5NTXp-gyPLlvKbhHyjCOlqFs_NXqebtlL6bAxT_6An95YDcLJCvAPgyCwzT29S9o-GmV2vXg7i-yrcYqXMoDMymXEjyifdByrxLW3UbbOjWPtTDB/s1600/foraminifers.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Foraminfers usually reside off of the shores of land
masses. When a significant storm- say, a Level 5 hurricane- arrives, the power
of the storm whips up the sediment on the sea bed and deposits it closer to the
shore, in the bays and directly off of the land mass. They remain in this new
location and, as Hippensteel has found, can be used as indicators of large
hurricanes in the past. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hippensteel has been collecting sediment in Onslow
Bay and other areas off of the shores of North Carolina and its Outer Banks.
After filtering through the sediment to find these foraminifer microfossils, he
can date the fossils and track significant storms through time- storms that our
records are too young to display. One can see why this finding is significant.
If one can create a map through time of significant storms, it can be compared
to our weather records. This comparison can help to see if patterns have been
consistent or if they are indeed changing with time and human development.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Unfortunately, there are difficulties. In some
areas, foraminifer deposits have been disturbed by other foraging aquatic
creatures, such as fiddler crabs. In this way, some foraminifer microfossils
are displaced and display inaccurate records. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheBPTB9U5Dmr-epIdAYz3mt7WCIzT2Hg0sljsG0DVfswjjIZMU7xmpXA-ezu1YmDOI5ynNHqoOM8lpqmHroafAGUwGsyo8Mygk5hnuyQ6-HQLae-nCvSDkbeNLhhhA4EQCP-pTdWEFfDYN/s1600/crab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheBPTB9U5Dmr-epIdAYz3mt7WCIzT2Hg0sljsG0DVfswjjIZMU7xmpXA-ezu1YmDOI5ynNHqoOM8lpqmHroafAGUwGsyo8Mygk5hnuyQ6-HQLae-nCvSDkbeNLhhhA4EQCP-pTdWEFfDYN/s1600/crab.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
(He's cute though, right?)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Only large storms- Category 5 hurricanes, as
mentioned before- have the strength required to move the quantities of foraminifer
fossils necessary for analysis and subsequent mapping. Therefore, even through
this method, we can only detect significant storms- leaving us blind to a
record of all ancient storms, and not just the especially destructive ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Though Hippensteel and his team have faced doubts
about the validity of many records, they do not doubt the potential that this
research has to affect environmental science. They have used these initial
failures as a catalyst to increasing the science of understanding hurricane
deposition and preservation. Once this area is clarified, further research can
be done in geochronology through paleotempestology. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kristina Dryehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07590145032628866749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-23715587698573471672013-10-29T12:57:00.002-04:002013-10-29T22:14:49.775-04:00Chinese Internet and how it functions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
Dr. Min Jiang is an associate professor and diversity coordinator
in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina
Charlotte. Her research interests include Chinese internet, politics and
policy, global media, international communication, and media activism.<br />
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
As a Chinese
native, Dr. Jiang spoke to me about her perspective of the authoritarian
deliberation of Chinese internet, or more simply put, the filtering of content
that the Chinese government partakes in over the web.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
From Dr. Jiang’s
perspective, there are multiple layers, or “spaces,” that Chinese internet
exists in. Think of it like an onion. The first layer is closest to the core
but also the toughest, and then, with each layer, the onion becomes softer
until the outer layer, which encompasses the largest space, is reached. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br />
Now unlike an
onion, the ones doing the peeling of these layers are probably not crying over
it.</div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
So now you’re
thinking, “Wait, what?” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br />
Allow me to
elaborate.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Layer
1. Central Propaganda Spaces</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Control percentage, 100%</div>
</h4>
</div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Think Yahoo.
Then give the government absolute control over it so the website is closely
watched for anything that might be harmful to the government and carefully
filtered, making sure that the information provided is correct and useful before it gets into the public eye. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
Okay never mind,
it’s not like Yahoo at all, but you get the point. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br />
These websites
use different forms of media to provide information to the public. Dr. Jiang
showed me on one for the government sites how the Chinese government even
opened up “Q&A” forums where anyone can ask public questions concerning
just about anything involving federal policy... Whether or not these questions
would be published is still up to the filtration of the government.</div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Layer
2. Government-Regulated Commercial Spaces</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Control percentage, 75%</div>
</h4>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="Body">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="Body">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="Body">
This
space incorporates the best part of the internet: entertainment! Included in
this space’s content is music, instant messaging, news, search engines, online
videos, and gaming, so the users, or “netizens,” are usually younger. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Although entertainment
companies usually run these spaces, they are still subject to the filtration
regulations of the Chinese government. However,
because of the massive number of users in this space, filtration of all content
is pretty much impossible. Netizens also use words that sound similar to the
filtered words, or contextual references to get a point across without actually
going against the filters in place. For example, after the protests of
Tiananmen square, the Chinese government would not allow any pictures to be
posted on the web concerning the incident. So netizens got creative. They took
the famous “Tank Man” picture where a protestor stood in front of 4 tanks and
halted their movement, and replaced the tanks with large yellow rubber ducks and
posted this picture on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.</div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br />
This not only
allowed for this picture to be posted without being pulled by the great
firewall, it also mocked the Chinese government. So then China had to filter
out anything concerning ducks. See the problem?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vN3YgQFgBglakNGNPYbUCgN5WTRFoBHU0cPiaAob3zCMkVjD2Qj3V7dpu6kzAeka2TFyCcK_zCAm4l2S0X25lqvTJCPk2t1HCqCzx6A114wN__Tkm6IIebxsygQV0NL5BOIkhBqr9dc/s1600/tiananmen-square-1989.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vN3YgQFgBglakNGNPYbUCgN5WTRFoBHU0cPiaAob3zCMkVjD2Qj3V7dpu6kzAeka2TFyCcK_zCAm4l2S0X25lqvTJCPk2t1HCqCzx6A114wN__Tkm6IIebxsygQV0NL5BOIkhBqr9dc/s1600/tiananmen-square-1989.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim21kYC-iTKQjbrLJ2aCMuRBtitohn9X__u311hGFyge35HGpcXmCUGux8Ahcn5UwL6IK0VB38Dn2UapsNiRaNus1cswOaPigKzI5WT9_IB3okRvV6c9ZhEd79at-s64GHVZWnl176Sjo/s1600/Yellow-rubber-duck-0081.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim21kYC-iTKQjbrLJ2aCMuRBtitohn9X__u311hGFyge35HGpcXmCUGux8Ahcn5UwL6IK0VB38Dn2UapsNiRaNus1cswOaPigKzI5WT9_IB3okRvV6c9ZhEd79at-s64GHVZWnl176Sjo/s320/Yellow-rubber-duck-0081.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vN3YgQFgBglakNGNPYbUCgN5WTRFoBHU0cPiaAob3zCMkVjD2Qj3V7dpu6kzAeka2TFyCcK_zCAm4l2S0X25lqvTJCPk2t1HCqCzx6A114wN__Tkm6IIebxsygQV0NL5BOIkhBqr9dc/s1600/tiananmen-square-1989.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2vN3YgQFgBglakNGNPYbUCgN5WTRFoBHU0cPiaAob3zCMkVjD2Qj3V7dpu6kzAeka2TFyCcK_zCAm4l2S0X25lqvTJCPk2t1HCqCzx6A114wN__Tkm6IIebxsygQV0NL5BOIkhBqr9dc/s200/tiananmen-square-1989.jpg" height="145" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="Body">
<br />
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
Layer 3. Emergent Civic Spaces</h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
Control percentage, 50%</h4>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This is the
space that hosts most debate regarding things independent of the state and
market. Mostly civic organizations, including those involved in business,
environment, women’s issues, social services, health, and community development,
exist here, but some cultural and religious organizations hold a presence as
well. In this space these organizations discuss and coordinate ideas and
actions around collective interests. Mother’s Choice, a non-profit organization
that offers
support to small children, teens, and women who are in need of care,
counseling, or shelter as a result of unintentional pregnancies or other
domestic conflicts, is an organization that would fall into this
category.</div>
</div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
These spaces
sound useful, but if Congress has taught us anything, debate isn’t exactly
progressive. That, coupled with the fact that this space only makes up roughly
1 percent of the current domains, makes the practical application of these
spaces pretty unrealistic. However, these civic spaces are continuing to
expand. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
<h4 style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
Layer
4. International Deliberation Spaces</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Control
Percentage... China doesn’t want to talk about it.</div>
</h4>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
This space is
home to “bridge bloggers,” or bloggers who are bilingual or multilingual and
use this ability to bridge cultures and bring international interest to the
realities of the Chinese people. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
This space
includes social media sites such as Facebook and Wiebo and is dangerous for the
Chinese government because it brings forth problems that are usually filtered
by the great firewall and bring attention to the suppressive censorship of the
Chinese government.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
Now
imagine a room full of people, and then try to make sure none of those people
say the word “onion.” Now imagine some people start saying “<i><span class="msoIns"><ins cite="mailto:jbhathaw" datetime="2013-10-11T12:14">A</ins></span>llium cepa</i>”
instead of actually saying onion. Now turn that room into a country with the
highest population and then sit down, because it’s impossible. <br />
<br />
According to Dr. Jiang, this is the problem
China is facing today. With computers, mobile devices, and other technology
giving netizens the ability to access to the internet almost anywhere China
seems to be losing the once great grip over content that they used to have.</div>
<div class="Body">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="Body">
<br /></div>
<div class="Body">
China has
started to allow small amounts of public discussion on economic, social, and
political affairs, which seems to have put China somewhere in democratic
totalitarian limbo. However, without these controlled “freedoms,” netizens
wouldn’t have the ability to release negative thoughts towards the government
and would become even more of a political risk than they already are.<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08527199115052936568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-63990630040320825842013-10-28T16:34:00.001-04:002013-10-28T16:34:02.666-04:00Research: Through the Lens of a Student Blogger (Part Two) <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br />
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4865801037602351695" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Part
Two<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In part one, I introduced you to a student’s
perspective on research. I also provided a background in the research that I
had done with socioeconomic status, demographics, and enrollment within courses
that indicate academic achievement within Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The research I completed in conjunction with the
Urban Education Collaborative this summer analyzed the relationship between a
school’s percentage of free and reduced-price lunch and the percentage of students per demographic enrolled in 7<sup>th</sup> and 8<sup>th</sup> grade
Algebra I, Chemistry, Calculus, and Physics courses, and Gifted and Talented
programs. Free and reduced-price lunch (FRPL) is a common indicator of
socio-economic status, while the classes above are considered an indication of
academic achievement. Data was gathered from the Civil Rights Data Collection. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4865801037602351695" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4865801037602351695" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4865801037602351695" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4865801037602351695" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Below I provide graphs for Algebra I in 7<sup>th</sup>
and 8<sup>th</sup> grades and Calculus, as well as availability regardless of
demographic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Algebra
I in 7<sup>th</sup> and 8<sup>th</sup> Grades<o:p></o:p></span></u></i></b></div>
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<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhc05ILRwbHZzYq0Dhl2o2g1-Jjyxhrp5pN0iYzl6Ow76BzBanlN9KC_8kyDzhBETzysBtfJR8kOWJurfu2eugxB6mj7tGaWM7xK88WAAD1jHlYnBKaQoUWwfOzCF1KOAREIb2SV9Kgg9A/s1600/capart1image2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhc05ILRwbHZzYq0Dhl2o2g1-Jjyxhrp5pN0iYzl6Ow76BzBanlN9KC_8kyDzhBETzysBtfJR8kOWJurfu2eugxB6mj7tGaWM7xK88WAAD1jHlYnBKaQoUWwfOzCF1KOAREIb2SV9Kgg9A/s320/capart1image2.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Above, you see bar graphs that display the disparity
in enrollment per demographic between schools above and below fifty percent
FRPL. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The scatterplots below display a negative
relationship between the FRPL of a school and its student’s enrollment in
Algebra I 7<sup>th</sup> and 8<sup>th</sup> grade. You can see that the Black
demographic decreases at a lower rate than the White, Asian/Pacific Islander,
and Hispanic demographics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Calculus<o:p></o:p></span></u></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Calculus displayed a very large disparity in
enrollment, across all demographics, between schools above and below 50 percent
FRPL. <b><i><u><o:p></o:p></u></i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6VeftzMTq-yck2lrusUEzmX7eCB1KorA9SkdLptQGNVMZ6UUasYI9Q8oJB7iWicEnHpEOPw3oOC_I-LQwWHuUkUvPZsXGbkNG11ew0X7dXMOxBV636V7IPq3YLzlK44-QltPPiiSq3fYq/s1600/capart2image7.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6VeftzMTq-yck2lrusUEzmX7eCB1KorA9SkdLptQGNVMZ6UUasYI9Q8oJB7iWicEnHpEOPw3oOC_I-LQwWHuUkUvPZsXGbkNG11ew0X7dXMOxBV636V7IPq3YLzlK44-QltPPiiSq3fYq/s320/capart2image7.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As displayed above, the disparity with Calculus
enrollment is also clear. As you can see below, all demographics display a
negative trend when comparing the FRPL percentage of a school and enrollment.
Also displayed is the low enrollment that exists across all levels of FRPL for
the Black and Hispanic demographics, as opposed to the higher enrollment per
higher FRPL for the White and Asian/Pacific Islander demographics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Trends of Availability<o:p></o:p></span></u></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I studied also the availability of courses within a
school, regardless of demographic. Across all courses and programs, a negative
relationship existed between the percentage of FRPL of a school and the
availability of courses and programs. In many cases, schools did not offer such
courses as Calculus and Physics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4865801037602351695" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As stated in Part One, however, statistical tests
showed that while there is a relationship between a school’s FRPL and its
enrollment, whether or not a student qualifies for FRPL is not a direct
correlation to whether or not that student will or will not be enrolled in
these classes. To predict this, one would have to look at many more factors –
such as domestic environment – that also affect enrollment potential and
academic success. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you have any questions about my research or my thoughts, please feel free to contact me at kdrye2@uncc.edu. I would love to discuss it with you further! </span></div>
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Kristina Dryehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07590145032628866749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-35952954214080000132013-09-26T15:11:00.000-04:002013-09-26T15:11:16.424-04:00The "Glamour" of Research<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Is working with a shovel as intellectually cool as working with a laser?</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0_O7CYDwo2uiRHjsjzoh7vHi-7mROELn7leF7k-GEDwai2DluWsuyd0853OTJUBp_zrLSC2auXeqopGU1wE-Z_RBX36KXhOO0ArOBDI4C8vYoHaICET-A2qZUcIpWOz3Yhqtzt7BPWdc/s1600/research_hdr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0_O7CYDwo2uiRHjsjzoh7vHi-7mROELn7leF7k-GEDwai2DluWsuyd0853OTJUBp_zrLSC2auXeqopGU1wE-Z_RBX36KXhOO0ArOBDI4C8vYoHaICET-A2qZUcIpWOz3Yhqtzt7BPWdc/s1600/research_hdr.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: UNC Charlotte</td></tr>
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If you look at almost any university website, you will see a lot of pictures that look pretty much identical to the one on the left: lab-coated researcher looking in a microscope (or a researcher pipetting something -- the <i>truly</i> generic research photo), showing people hard at work doing some kind of technical lab thing. It makes perfect sense, because that is what we all identify as university research -- "some technical lab thing."<br />
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A friend actually asked me a while back "what <i>is</i> research?" I had to say, it's actually a whole lot more than just "some technical lab thing" that everybody can see is important but <a href="http://thedatamineatuncc.blogspot.com/2013/07/all-science-news-thats-hard-to-read.html">nobody understands</a>. Yes, it's work in a biology lab, a physics lab, a chemistry lab, an engineering lab, but it's also the theoretical physicist puzzling at a blackboard with equations, the mathematician writing a hundred-page-long proof, the bioinformatician developing algorithms to help make sense out of massive datasets (these examples are probably obviously still "research" to everyone) but yet then again it's <b>also</b> the historian reading reams of source documents in library archives to get further understanding of the past's context, a sociologist or anthropologist observing a group of people in a jungle somewhere (or perhaps right down the street), or someone running thought experiments concerning what people seem to be talking about on Twitter today and hypothesizing why.<br />
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To those of us who work at universities, <i>all</i> these things are obviously research. But to the rest of us, including my friend, the last items in the list above may be more puzzling. If these non-lab studies are indeed research, my friend would still wonder: why are people being paid to do them? Will work in a library lead to a cure for cancer or a better cell phone? Will observing groups of people help us avoid global warming or help us develop a more fuel-efficient car? I don't even <i>use </i>Twitter -- why should I care how it works?<br />
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I would argue (and did so with my friend) in the strongest possible terms that these activities are all fundamentally the same thing -- the search for new knowledge -- and that one should be really careful in assuming that one is more valuable than the other. I'm not sure my friend was convinced, and I guess I don't expect you to be either.<br />
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That is why this blog is focusing a bit this year on research that is being done outside of engineering and the physical/life sciences -- especially on work that is being done social sciences and the humanities. We hope that you may begin to see that these are all "sciences" (fields of knowing) and begin to get a feel for their value, though it may be a little less tangible than your cell phone.<br />
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The example that I would like to focus on in this post is an archaeological research project I recently wrote a <a href="http://publicrelations.uncc.edu/news-events/news-releases/mt-zion-dig-reveals-possible-second-temple-period-priestly-mansion-abandon">press release</a> about in my job as UNC Charlotte's public information officer for research. I've actually written about archaeology quite a lot in my career, and I enjoy writing about it, not because it's easier to explain than theoretical physics (sometimes it's not), but because the public is invariably quite interested in the topic. Though it won't help them stay healthy or save money on gas, people are hungry to understand the past -- particularly parts of it that are missing or mysterious -- and archaeology research leads to that.<br />
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The archaeological project I wrote about seems, on its surface, to not be particularly promising or valuable. The "dig" was at a barren section of Jerusalem's Mount Zion lying outside the current walls of the old city, under a stretch of desert and rubble where there were suspected to be ruins. The ruins in this area, however, were not expected to be ancient palaces or temples but houses or old city buildings, and there was no expectation of finding any treasure, lost religious artifacts or even works of ancient art. There doesn't seem to be any immediate items of "value" (in the common sense of the word) likely to be found at Mt. Zion. So why were they digging?<br />
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Well, first of all, because it's Jerusalem, which is a place US archaeologists don't often get to study -- the Mt. Zion site is actually the only place in the city the Israelis have authorized an American team to dig. Jerusalem has been inhabited for thousands of years, by the Jews, the Romans, the Byzantines, and by a string of different Muslim cultures (with Christian crusaders in the middle), so any site is likely to be rich in the city's complex history. The relative abandonment of the Mt. Zion site, particularly in more recent times, is actually an important factor here, because it means that some layers -- especially the early ones, had a chance to be buried by time before they could be completely dismantled in the process of later construction and use.<br />
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It is a place where forgotten parts of history can literally be dug up and re-discovered. For this reason, the university is also using the dig as a field school, allowing students to engage in the actually process of archaeological research, under the direction of a professional archaeologist. It's not quite as glamourous as it sounds, as you can see in this wonderful video that a group of our star students made while on site:<br />
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All student humor aside, this kind of research is obviously hot, dirty, demanding work -- a far cry from people in white lab coats wielding delicate, high-tech instruments. But the students (who I talked to later) saw a huge amount of value in the hard labor. Under expert guidance, they got to see first hand how history gets exposed, and discover some things that no one else had known before. They got to go back and understand history from the source.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Excavation at Mt. Zion, end of 2013 season.</td></tr>
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What did they "discover"? It might sound silly at first, but the most important thing they found this year was a bathroom -- a room with a bathtub in the well-preserved lower levels of a first-century Jewish-Roman house of the period. This find matters because a room with a bathtub was a real luxury feature in Jerusalem of the time, particularly when connected to a ritual cleansing pool (which this one was) and it's a strong indication that the past resident was one of the city's elite residents, perhaps one of the leading priests. Since the building has been relatively well preserved, the archaeologists are excited that further digging (they have two more seasons to complete the project) and analysis of artifacts may yield a lot of significant details about the domestic lives of Jerusalem's leaders at the time.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bathroom discovered in first century mansion </td></tr>
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But you still might ask: why it is important to know the day-to-day life details of some officials who lived 2,000 years ago? Well, consider that this house dates from the time of Jesus, and that the priests (and other elites) of the time were people that Jesus preaches against constantly and who were also the very people who had him crucified. Outside of the minimal details given in the bible, we don't actually know much at all about these people, so we don't really understand what the real life dynamic was between them and Jesus. He objected to how they lived as wealthy people, but we don't really know what that lifestyle was. An excavation being conducted by UNC archaeologists and scholars -- and some dusty, hard-digging students -- may provide some greater understanding in an historically important situation that people have wondered about for thousands of years.<br />
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Is it research when your tool is a pick and shovel rather than a pipette, and your subject is first century Jewish lifestyles rather than genes or molecules? I'd say -- <i>obviously</i>, yes. Is it valuable work? You decide.<br />
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James Hathawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11296720304198719066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-78987899491511029722013-09-05T11:15:00.000-04:002013-09-05T11:15:32.535-04:00Research: Through the Lens of a Student Blogger (Part One)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the course of writing posts for this blog, I have interviewed accredited professors who have performed significant research and have been able to see how their work has culminated into a tangible conclusion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I am not a professor, and I very much enjoy being given the opportunity to have conversations with those who have been through the research process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This summer, however, through the Charlotte Research Scholars program, I myself was given the opportunity to perform my own research, in conjunction with a professor on campus and his existing research goals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My name is Kristina Drye, and I am the author behind the past few posts on The Light in the Mine. I am a junior at UNC Charlotte. This post will focus upon my research, rather than the research of those much more accomplished than myself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Though I am a double major in international studies and political science with a minor in Russian, I was placed with Dr. Chance Lewis and Beth Etters; the former is a professor in the Education department, and the latter is a doctoral student who also teaches at the university. Though I am not majoring in education, it is something that I am passionate about and that I am proficient at- I was not at all nervous about performing research in education.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Below is my final research poster.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In order to perform research well, I learned, you must have an inclination for that which you are researching. The official title of my project was “Education Access and Equity in Urban Schools: A Focus on Course Enrollment Patterns in K-12 Settings.” Using the Civil Rights Database provided by the government, the goal was to map patterns between socioeconomic levels, demographics, and student enrollment in courses and programs that typically indicate some level of higher achievement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In public education, quite a lot is defined by the relative socioeconomic status of a school’s student population. Students that are poorer typically have lesser access to fewer opportunities; students that are from wealthier families typically have greater access to more opportunities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is a self-perpetuating cycle, and one that exists regardless of demographic affiliation. It was my job to delve deeper into this reality, to play a game of hide-and-seek of sorts, finding the hidden patterns and seeking solutions that could be implemented to affect some sense of real change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As an indicator of socioeconomic status, I used a school’s level of FRPL, or free-and-reduced-price lunch (these percentages were provided by the Civil Rights Data Collection, which was my primary source of data). </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I then looked at enrollment within courses such as Algebra I in 7</span><sup style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">th</sup><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> and 8</span><sup style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">th</sup><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> grade, Chemistry, Physics, and Calculus; I also looked at the Gifted and Talented Programs. For Algebra I in 7</span><sup style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">th</sup><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> and 8</span><sup style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;">th</sup><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> grade I used the 2009 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) data provided for all CMS middle schools; for the others, I used the 2009 CMS data provided for all CMS high schools.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I looked at the percentage of students in the school enrolled in these courses, and I then looked at the percentage of students per demographic enrolled in the courses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The final report is 30 pages long, and I am still continuing research on the subject.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">While a link did exist between demographics, socioeconomic status, and enrollment within courses, there was not a <i>statistically significant </i>link between a student’s qualification for FRPL and their potential enrollment within these courses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">More simply put: Whether or not a student qualifies for FRPL is not solely predicative of their enrollment, or lack thereof, into courses that indicate higher success.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is not to say, however, that a pattern was not indicated. It was. The Black demographic within CMS experienced lower enrollment across the board than other demographics; it also increased as FRPL decreased at a much lesser rate than other demographics. The Hispanic demographic displayed similar trends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What must be remembered is that a student’s ability to – or not to- pay for lunch is not directly indicative of their socioeconomic status. Many more things define that value. And what defines a student’s performance- or potential performance- within school is not their socioeconomic status alone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">More significantly, it is the environment that they experience at home. A student spends <span style="background: white;"> 30 hours a week at school, under the teacher’s influence, but they spend 138 hours a week in an outside, uncontrolled environment. A student spends the first five years of development in this environment; these first five years are, arguably, the most important in the process of their becoming. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background: white;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Last summer, I worked with the International House of Charlotte in conjunction with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to provide reading programs to English-as-a-second-language students. Below you can see this experience, one that directly related to the research I completed this summer.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My research will look at patterns that exist in urban education. But it is impossible, through any single program, single report, or single body of research, to find and solve the vast set of problems that are created through cultural values, environmental realities, and lack of proper nurturing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We have already begun to apply the research that I have done to plan and implement programs that will, hopefully, help to combat the problems that exist. In my next post, I will elaborate upon those programs, as well as provide further information on the research. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Researching as a student has been an invaluable experience, and one that I hope to have again. It brings one closer to an issue, allows for connections to be made because you are given time to give yourself a deeper understanding of the problem you are researching, how it affects the community, and, more importantly, how it affects yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Kristina Dryehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07590145032628866749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-4535484275957048102013-08-12T16:57:00.001-04:002013-08-12T16:57:46.211-04:00Resources and Rebels<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> In the past I have mostly penned posts about “stereotypical
science.” Massive sets of data processed by even more massive computer programs
that result in tangible results that look like what science is “supposed” to
look like; big words that describe impossibly small things that you know you
don’t really understand but of course you don’t want to admit it, because
pretending to understand makes people think you actually do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> And, of course, this need to masquerade as Einstein
after reading big words that could serve as a Big Bang Theory script can only
mean one thing: that what you read was, without a doubt, science! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This time, I will be introducing studies in a softer
realm of science, one that isn’t full of test tubes and laboratories and
colored smoke. This time, I will be talking about Political Science. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> (I’ll casually ignore the fact that if I replaced
the word “science” in the paragraphs above with the word “politics,” it would
not lose very much meaning at all). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> A team of professors from the University of North
Carolina at Charlotte have received a grant from the Department of Defense for
a proposal titled, “Natural Resources and Armed Conflict,” which translates
into our alliterative title, “Rebels and Resources.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Dr. James Walsh, the principal investigator and also
professor of Political Science at UNC Charlotte, seemed excited about the
project when describing its potential to me. Working in conjunction with
Pennsylvania State University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the
University at Albany, this team will comb existing data and research to
establish a comprehensive and interactive database combining armed conflict and
natural resources.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Starting in Africa and
proceeding methodically from country to country, they are painstakingly sifting
through available data and </span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">cataloguing</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> what they find. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> For example, diamonds
are a natural resource sometimes used to fund groups in unstable areas. For
these areas, if available, all information on numbers of diamonds, locations of
diamonds, transportation of diamonds, and money transfer related to the
diamonds, will all be catalogued. In addition, all information available on
groups in the same region, in addition to their activities, will be catalogued.
</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> After talking to Dr. Walsh and student researchers
assigned to the project through UNC Charlotte’s Graduate School’s Summer
Research Scholars program, I understood the daunting task. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Political
Science </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">is defined by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as, “<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">a social science concerne</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">d chiefly with
the description and analysis of political and especially governmental institutions
and processes.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> This means that
political scientists recognize and analyze problems and situations stemming
from facets of human civilization- natural resources, education, cultural
studies, global health; the issues are endless- and they subsequently draw
connections between these issues. Some political scientists seek to propose
solutions to these problems after the connections have been made. Other
political scientists seek to understand these problems in more depth, in order
to give the former a greater insight to what solutions might be proposed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Dr. Walsh’s team is
doing just that. Connections will drawn between the information they gather,
and those will be made available to the public, from which more connections can
be made. The proposal by Dr. Walsh and his team ask five primary questions,
which the database will try to answer: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Do “lootable” resources increase
the likelihood of ethnic rebellion? </span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></i><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">How do resources influence the type
of violence employed by non-state actors? </span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">3.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></i><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Do natural resources fuel
third-party interventions in civil wars?</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">4.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></i><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">How do natural resources influence
state failure and political violence? </span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">5.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></i><!--[endif]--><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">How do looting strategies and rebel
violence aid fragmentation? </span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> To someone who is not a political scientist, those
questions may not make a lot of sense. What must be understood, however, is
that “natural resource” can be loosely associated with “control.” Everything is a question of control. Do those
that have control of the resources have control of the trajectory of the state?
Do those that want control of the state need control of the resources? If
third-party and non-state actors (other countries, outside organizations, other
groups that are not directly associated with the country/conflict in question)
want control of those resources or that area, will they intervene in order to
acquire some measure of that control? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Dr. Walsh and his team must catalogue data that can
help others to answer these questions. Making available all existing data into
an easy-to-use digital platform, it is hoped that understanding, analyzing, and
predicting the outcomes of armed conflict in conjunction with natural resources
will be made easier- and therefore, perhaps a little more prolific. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> If this process is made easier for those political
scientists that search for a deeper understanding, it will be also easier for
those political scientists that search for solutions to the problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> There are many categories of science: the kind that
is confined to “stereotypical science”- for example, </span><a href="http://thedatamineatuncc.blogspot.com/2013/06/an-itsy-bitsy-teeny-weenie-quantum-dot.html"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">this
blog post about nano-particles</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">. There is science that
begins that way, as </span><a href="http://thedatamineatuncc.blogspot.com/2013/05/tracking-evolution-of-sustainable-energy.html"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">in
this blog post about energy optimization</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">, but has broader
implications in real-world application on a social scale. And there is science
that never sees any goggles or lab coats, that isn’t the cause of any rogue
smoke alarms or chemical spills or scrutinized under the purple glow of a UV light.
Rather, it starts and ends as a study of society, drawing patterns between
different aspects of human nature and how that nature has shaped and will shape
history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Kristina Dryehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07590145032628866749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-26284872729128670792013-07-25T09:01:00.002-04:002013-07-25T09:01:53.667-04:00All the Science News That's Hard to Read (part 2)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>[Moderator's Note: </b>This being my own post, I need to warn you that some of what follows in this long essay may contain some political or cultural bias and/or snark. I don't mean to offend anyone, but the posts on this blog are intended to exhibit the opinions of the bloggers as well as provide insights. This blog contains <i>my</i> opinions, so please understand that the views expressed below are mine alone and do not reflect the official views of the university.-JH]<br />
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In my last <a href="http://thedatamineatuncc.blogspot.com/2013/06/all-science-news-thats-hard-to-talk.html">post</a>, I talked about how some of the most exciting science of our time is virtually impossible to tell the public about (or to get the public to read about) because the discoveries are in really complex fields, where vital information is so specialized and detailed that ordinary people aren't likely to be interested in tackling the topic. In this post, I'm going to get more personal about this and talk about why, for me, this difficulty goes beyond being a "fact of life," a natural limit to communication, and slides emotionally into being a frustration, a dilema, and a disturbing problem.<br />
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A basic premise of science writing is that it is about meeting the audience halfway -- taking the complexities of contemporary scientific research, as performed by highly trained scientists working in highly specialized fields, and reducing the findings down to plain language, simplifying them somewhat, to the point where they are approachable by members of the general public with moderate educational backgrounds. The art of this kind of writing is to make the subject not just understandable, but also interesting or (perhaps) entertaining. However, even the most "fun" science writing assumes that the audience is <em>willing</em> to approach<em> </em>and be interested. What if they are not?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGmWDZyLcAn0KR65pVqHBx_nVHDyAOzfoEVFCJMsSUAmUtKB92PLGDykOAchHignDcjv2FHOgG51dphZAZ_GZPeDRN7P06IMvSvzDOL5IpEoRR4kAYHjvGMMV0jn9OsUBIlf3eFcJpNpE/s1600/broken-bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGmWDZyLcAn0KR65pVqHBx_nVHDyAOzfoEVFCJMsSUAmUtKB92PLGDykOAchHignDcjv2FHOgG51dphZAZ_GZPeDRN7P06IMvSvzDOL5IpEoRR4kAYHjvGMMV0jn9OsUBIlf3eFcJpNpE/s400/broken-bridge.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The road to understanding science has its difficulties. Meet me halfway?</td></tr>
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I read an article the other day in <em><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/07/virginia_heffernan_s_creationism_why_evolution_matters.html?fb_ref=sm_fb_share_chunky">Slate</a></em> that got me upset. It was about how Virginia Heffernan, the highly accomplished former <em>New York Times</em> feature writer, social media critic and occasional science writer, had just admitted that she is really a Creationist. While I object to "creation science" because it fails in its claims to "factually" refute mainstream science (the "facts" here don't stand up to serious scrutiny), I certainly don't object to people believing in Creationism, if that is part of their deep personal beliefs -- beliefs which they are certainly as entitled to as I am to mine. However, what was upsetting about Heffernan's "confession" was that she didn't claim that her creationism came out of any personal religious beliefs, but that the biblical story of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve was "a more compelling story" than all the world-changing findings modern science -- of modern physics, the evidence-supported theories of cosmology, the detailed and useful information supplied by modern geological science, and the insightful and powerful implications of evolutionary theory, which is the foundation of modern biology and medicine. My short take on what she means: it's <em>easier</em> to subscribe to the story of Genesis, because it's easy to understand. Modern science is hard, complicated and <em>bo-ring</em>. (To read other science writers take on this, go <a href="https://www.nasw.org/science-blogs-origins">here</a> .)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC5QpFgX7_3o1YJV8TpO3-WDQf1yQT-Ht19IX-ZW-u76Mj4K3xNYcSQYlEfmp-2DqbHpHUsHJ9l7bsfW7jODjXRydt8j2-zx2w0UNF9d-d7CkqipmYhGtwOJJzA4fPQwJMop5c0gIAmNg/s1600/boring.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC5QpFgX7_3o1YJV8TpO3-WDQf1yQT-Ht19IX-ZW-u76Mj4K3xNYcSQYlEfmp-2DqbHpHUsHJ9l7bsfW7jODjXRydt8j2-zx2w0UNF9d-d7CkqipmYhGtwOJJzA4fPQwJMop5c0gIAmNg/s400/boring.jpg" width="268" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, Virgina, we're all media critics.</td></tr>
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Heffernan is a bright, talented and well-educated (Ph.D in English from Harvard) writer, yet she rejects one of the main areas of modern learning because it is complicated, intellectually challenging and she is <em>just not that interested </em>in it. Again, the story is too difficult to be "compelling." I'm afraid that I agree with the <i>Slate </i>article in finding her stance "shameful," but I also think that Heffernan is far, far from being alone in contemporary America. Only a small minority in our country "like" science and are interested in learning more about it.<br />
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If you're still reading at this point, you are probably one of the few, and I thank you and commend you for that, but now let me get to why this gives me such personal angst.<br />
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As a science writer, my personal experience with the subjects I write on is one of wonder. I have no degree in any science discipline (I am a Cornell BA in English and MFA in Creative Writing) but I have been following the fundamental advances in fields from sociology to theoretical physics to bioengineering for over two decades. In that relatively short time, miraculous new things have been revealed to me (I was present for the the announcement of the first sequencing of the human genome, I have been the first human eyes to see some of the images sent back from Mars, I wrote one of the press announcements for the recent Human Microbiome Project announcement, etc., etc.), many paradigms have shifted (some radically, like in genetics and microbiology) and some fields that are now prominent didn't even exist when I first started doing this work (bioinformatics and metabolomics come to mind). I have been around universities all my life, and I will assert to anyone that contemporary university research is engaged in the most exciting intellectual adventure of our time... and probably of all time. I'm overly dramatic, I guess.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvvVTqH1DRJ5upaSyLSJTQIHaFaVL-jYr7Ra6jtZsr848NYf1waUVkX5DSLwuSWA1EHkeVF_eMTU7FkRqiGohBeOKdmBwhvzxLh3Mk5AbZ2keEaLbsfEXrFely3V0BtYR5y3pZCi5n0eM/s1600/wonder.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvvVTqH1DRJ5upaSyLSJTQIHaFaVL-jYr7Ra6jtZsr848NYf1waUVkX5DSLwuSWA1EHkeVF_eMTU7FkRqiGohBeOKdmBwhvzxLh3Mk5AbZ2keEaLbsfEXrFely3V0BtYR5y3pZCi5n0eM/s320/wonder.bmp" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can I interest you in some WONDER?</td></tr>
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But how to convey that wonder to the Heffernans of the world when they aren't willing to meet me halfway and find the same excitement that I find all around me in such abundance?<br />
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Here's a specific example: This week, I wrote a university <a href="http://publicrelations.uncc.edu/news-events/news-releases/study-analyzes-dynamical-properties-antibiotic-resistance-enzyme">press release</a> about an important piece of university research. Because it's an official university research release, it is necessarily somewhat technical, so I would expect most people (outside of science reporters, who are my main audience) to have some trouble understanding it. But here's the thing: even if I could write about this work in plainer language, the subject matter requires absorbing some background understanding that I suspect most people don't want to deal with.They would find that background information <i>bo-ring. </i>Perhaps they would prefer that I were giving them a <i>more compelling story</i>, say like "Keeping Up with the Kardashians." The story, you see, requires you to know a little bit about <i>proteins.</i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmVm3m5ELndnoy3GGnui9WblOjKfx3FfisZfhYEeIcPPXjgzvYP9GAe5Dl9g5iIZiWSJMPxFGNGBgqG089ipYFGUtYecgXT7Eqq6jZOCpyV-BKlA0YBQ0qTg3ug-UqsOGYdUjQ2djEjx0/s1600/shocked_face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmVm3m5ELndnoy3GGnui9WblOjKfx3FfisZfhYEeIcPPXjgzvYP9GAe5Dl9g5iIZiWSJMPxFGNGBgqG089ipYFGUtYecgXT7Eqq6jZOCpyV-BKlA0YBQ0qTg3ug-UqsOGYdUjQ2djEjx0/s1600/shocked_face.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, proteins. I hope you're not home alone.</td></tr>
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Like all stories, my research story actually does have a compelling point of interest (what some of us call a "hook"): the researchers have found what is perhaps the fundamental reason for why bacteria are able to rapidly evolve immunity against antibiotics. The what and the why of this story, however, are all wrapped up in the details of a specific group of proteins, known by the scary, technical name of "beta-lactamases."<br />
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What do most people know about proteins? I've never seen a survey on this, but here's my guess:<br />
1. They come in meat, eggs, beans and cheese<br />
2. They are good for you.<br />
3. They make you strong.<br />
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A few people might know:<br />
4. Most genes exist just to make proteins.<br />
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But you need to know a little more than this in order to understand my story. What you need to know you were likely taught in a high school biology classroom, but most people (even people with advanced degrees, say doctorates in English or political science) have long ago forgotten these details because the information was complicated, and they were never that interested. Here are the details I'm talking about:<br />
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1. Proteins are large, complex molecules, formed by very<b> long molecular chains</b> made up of hundreds or even thousands of amino acid links, chosen from 20 different amino acid molecules, strung in a precise sequence. The genes in our DNA are a code that our cells translate into those precise sequences.<br />
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2. Proteins not only have long, complicated and precise sequences, but they each also have <b>a precise structure, a shape</b> that is formed as these enormously long strands fold up, like a bead necklace wadded into a tangle, that takes on a very specific form, determined by the chemical interaction of the specific amino acids in the sequence with each other. This is what scientists call "conformation." The shapes these molecules form often contain a variety of sub-structures (like the rooms, doors, windows, floors and hallways of a house) known as "helices," "sheets," etc. Further, these complex protein structures can also sometimes snap together like puzzle pieces to form even more complicated protein structures, composed of several protein subunits.<br />
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3. Proteins do a variety of important things in our cells and bodies, but one of he most important things they do is act as <b>enzymes</b> -- molecules that help transform other molecules, break them apart, put them together, etc. They are really the control machinery for the chemistry of life. The enzyme usually does this by having a structure (think of it as a pocket or a keyhole) on its surface that is precisely configured both in shape and chemistry, to interact with other molecules -- usually very specific kinds of other molecules. This is called the <b>active site</b>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijAVXXx8SAV1l7kCPZCf8KDusvO8DUDmVMo44x3BfAfp7LRg0qj54WzX6COa3ZMSZG_BZetqcozbp9o0MV_qN_GEY66rGQcW9rdTpEESdnl5u7dsGC8HKX5KfszXMUTsTtHf_-bEBW5jw/s1600/beta-lactamasedynamics.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijAVXXx8SAV1l7kCPZCf8KDusvO8DUDmVMo44x3BfAfp7LRg0qj54WzX6COa3ZMSZG_BZetqcozbp9o0MV_qN_GEY66rGQcW9rdTpEESdnl5u7dsGC8HKX5KfszXMUTsTtHf_-bEBW5jw/s320/beta-lactamasedynamics.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A representation of the beta-lactamse molecule, showing the major sub-structures.</td></tr>
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Of course, the real background is even more complicated than this, but I'm telling you the basics I think you need to know here. I'm not kidding myself: unless you already happen to know/remember all these details, holding all this in your mind is not easy, and I fully under stand that it is probably not something you would want to research on your own and try to understand in order to understand my story. But really, I think you should. Why? Because this is fundamental to understanding the physical nature of life -- all life -- which is why they taught it to you in high school. You probably didn't know it then, but it really is fundamental, important knowledge. Convinced? Yeah, I know.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's why you need to know all this here: UNC Charlotte researchers <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Dennis R. Livesay, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Donald J. Jacobs</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"> and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Deeptak Verma have been studying the structure of the protein enzyme beta-lactamase </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">because it is well-know as the source of antibiotic resistance in many kinds of bacteria. The enzyme is a kind of molecular machine that is specifically tuned to chop up the anti-bacterial chemical compounds we call antibiotics. Beta-lactamase is especially disturbing because it has been evolving quickly to adapt to new antibiotics, but whether its </span></span><span style="line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222;">adaptability is due to the protein's structure or just to the fact that we have been throwing so many drugs at it that we have accelerated its evolution, no one knows. Perhaps both.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">This is the problem that Livesay et al set out to study, using tools that they have developed that allow them to rapidly analyze complex protein structures and their potential behaviors. It's not an easy problem, because, though they are only molecules that can't be seen in detail, even by our most powerful microscopes, proteins are actually very complicated machines, with thousands of different atoms in them, various larger structures (think gears, levers, girders, chambers) and a lot of subtly moving and chemically interactive parts. Analyzing how these work from a sequence of their chemical parts is a daunting problem, not to mention analyzing <i>a bunch</i> of similar but subtly different proteins to see why one works against one antibiotic, while one works against others. Understanding how and why these changes can evolve is an even larger problem. </span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">What Livesay was hoping to find were differences in the behavior of the physical structures and the chemistry in different variations of the molecule that might be related to why different bacteria were resistant to different antibiotics. By using their tools, they could see how versions found in different bacterial families had developed different behaviors -- for example, how different parts wiggle and different parts are stiff. In the molecules the dynamics of the molecule differed -- the subunits affected other subunits in new ways. They found that evolution kept changing how the rube-goldberg mechanisms inside the protein's blob-like structure worked. Their work provided a fascinating (to me, at least) look on how evolutionary changes to genes could result in changes in an organism through structural changes in a single molecule. (See why one would need to know about amino acids, conformation and enzymes to understand this research?)</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">What the team did not discover, however, was that the changes that different bacteria had evolved in the mechanics of the whole molecule had any effect on the way the active site (the place where antibiotics are chopped up) worked. In fact, they found that only very simple changes in the active site -- changes that had no effect on the rest of the molecule and thus were not complicated for the bacteria -- were able to make the site attack new antibiotics. The active site is effectively protected from changes in other parts of the enzyme's structure and vice versa.This finding thus explains why new bacteria are able to develop resistance to new antibiotics so rapidly. Though it is fascinating to think that we are seeing on the molecular level how this all works, Livesay found the result "terrifying" -- and I guess he's right.</span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV5RxtjU88sLxMRCWJmAd4poBNAKe5DIfJ2vUw1BXIgNfIw5dvkT-wJpZ2aUQtDiWDUkFZrywXyxgn0-gFSPuASoU8Zn7DBN4vlib7MRJGPvuuH1_aQncuoi0ycYR1hVby-wkk9l6R_B4/s1600/scary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV5RxtjU88sLxMRCWJmAd4poBNAKe5DIfJ2vUw1BXIgNfIw5dvkT-wJpZ2aUQtDiWDUkFZrywXyxgn0-gFSPuASoU8Zn7DBN4vlib7MRJGPvuuH1_aQncuoi0ycYR1hVby-wkk9l6R_B4/s400/scary.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scary: rapidly evolving antibiotic resistant bacteria, as far as most of us know.</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">Are you terrified? If you have read this far, perhaps you are, but the odds say that most people stopped reading when I asked them to try to remember and consider basic protein chemistry. What bothers (perhaps even terrifies) me is that this is really interesting science, and an important, useful finding about why the phenomenon of drug resistant bacteria is accelerating and plaguing us so severely. Most of us already know someone who has been sickened or killed by antibiotic resistant bacteria, and this research tells us that the bugs are likely to get much, much worse. Knowing something new about this crisis might be worth the public audience's effort -- if they were willing to meet the science writer half way. Perhaps more people will start retaining the basic lessons of high school chemistry and reading more about the new science here... "Dream on," reality is whispering to me, "dream on."</span></span></div>
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James Hathawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11296720304198719066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-86666305563537992182013-06-25T15:47:00.000-04:002013-06-25T15:47:39.729-04:00All the Science News That's Hard to Talk About (I)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As I think I've mentioned before, I have a job being a science writer for UNC Charlotte. What is a science writer? Most people I know describe it as being a science journalist -- a journalist who covers science. This is basically what I am, though I wouldn't really claim to be journalist, since I work for an institution, not a newspaper or a news outlet, and I don't cover all science news, just the science news that happens at UNC Charlotte. Some people would say that I am a science PR person, but that really isn't right either, since my job doesn't involve "shamelessly promoting" (as journalists, perhaps unfairly, sometimes describe PR) science and technology here -- there are professional ethics involved in this job that supersede any interest in simply promoting the research work going on at the university. Most of my colleagues at other universities, medical centers and labs call themselves Public Information Officers -- PIO's for short.<br />
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After that lengthy preamble, I'd like to get down to what I'm really writing about today, which is related to all of this. In the past couple of weeks, I've been working on covering a couple of research projects that are both important (ok, I think ALL research is important) and are about topics that I know people are already quite concerned about. This last point is important, because it is what makes a story "news" and makes people pay attention. Stories that no one is going to pay attention to are... well, not worth writing about. This is the way journalists think.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL-NyAuPt0VXnvzpQXISZipl7hcP2bJGnxsD_nEwAJdKb4em_d3xsFqCeDtplFPtww2ZHISPUUSbV97ovErU6_7qYaF5CZf1fllsoEN8pdQcqsJwTD5DVppF12Jc2eM2ox31QRiaRFx5Q/s1600/phd051809s.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" cya="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL-NyAuPt0VXnvzpQXISZipl7hcP2bJGnxsD_nEwAJdKb4em_d3xsFqCeDtplFPtww2ZHISPUUSbV97ovErU6_7qYaF5CZf1fllsoEN8pdQcqsJwTD5DVppF12Jc2eM2ox31QRiaRFx5Q/s400/phd051809s.gif" width="357" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jorge Cham's excellent description of how research information gets distributed to the public, from PhD Comics, 2009. (c) Jorge Cham</td></tr>
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And yet, other than here, I really doubt that you'll hear about either of these projects. Why? Well, there are barriers between the stories I will write about them and you. But these aren't unique barriers -- they are barriers that come up all the time in contemporary science and science communication. It doesn't matter -- I'm going to write about them anyway because they are important pieces of science and the public deserves to hear about them anyway. This is the way PIOs think.<br />
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<h4 style="text-align: left;">
Life is complicated. So is science.</h4>
Here's story #1: Dr. Shan Yan in our department of biology -- and several of his students -- has found a way (a completely unexpected way) that dangerous, highly reactive forms of oxygen trigger one of two complex DNA repair mechanisms in our cells.<br />
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Whoa, wait a minute! "DNA repair mechanisms"? Did you know that our cells repair their own damaged DNA? I didn't, and I've been writing about science (a lot of it biology) and reading about science for more than 20 years. (Ok, my knowledge is a mile wide and a millimeter deep, but still...). It turns out that the DNA in <i>each</i> of our cells is damaged maybe a million times a day, and a ten thousand times a day the molecular biology in our cells go to work repairing it so the cells can go on doing what they are supposed to do, including multiplying when they need to. The processes that are constantly remaking, reshaping our constantly degrading DNA are not simple, but involve complicated biochemical "pathways" -- chain reactions of a lot of complex molecules, with switches that make the process go one way or the other, with feedback loops that slow down or speed up or turn off or turn on various other processes -- kind of a molecular Rube Goldberg machine. A lot of the parts of these very important, very complicated processes are already known to contemporary biologists (but not to me, obviously) -- Dr. Yan and his research team "simply" found a new piece of the puzzle.<br />
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As you can see, it is an important finding -- if the process Dr. Yan has brought to our attention did not happen, all of our DNA would quickly stop working and we would die (along with most other creatures on the planet). But I promised you that this is something that many people "are already quite concerned about" -- how can that be true, if most people have never heard of DNA repair pathways? Well, it turns out that most DNA damage (though not all) is caused by dangerous forms of oxygen (what scientists call "radical oxygen species) that our cells constantly produce when they turn sugar into biological energy compounds. Radical oxygen species react chemically with DNA ("oxidation") and break down part of the molecule. Have you ever heard of this before? Have you ever read any food advertising that claims something is loaded with "antioxidants"? Those are chemical that people think might cancel out our cells' dangerous radical oxygen species, though, of course, most people pretty fuzzy on why that matters. But you know it is important! It's why you buy that fruit juice, or that anti-aging cream -- they have the magical "antioxidants" in them! Aren't you interested to learn that these may not be as important as we thought because cells are already designed to repair themselves? In fact, Dr. Yan found that hydrogen peroxide (one of those radical oxygen species) is part of what actually makes one of the repair pathways start.<br />
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So why won't this make the news? If I were a reporter at a paper, I might be personally interested in this story, but I would never agree to write it because I know it would be very hard to get <i>my audience </i>interested in reading even the most simplified, most clearly written version of it. Simply put, the details of the finding are just too complicated for the public to understand or for them to be willing to struggle with. The science is really cool and important, but the devil is in the details. Let's see -- how did the Yankees do last night? Lost by three runs -- now, that's a story I can get my head around while I drink my morning coffee! (Loaded with antioxidants!)<br />
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So <i>that</i> is why neither of us has heard of DNA repair pathways before, though all this research in puzzling out cell self-repair has been going on for years. All sorts of profound things are being discovered all the time in contemporary science, but you will never hear about it because the research context has simply become too complex to talk to ordinary people about. (If you want to read my own, somewhat simplified version of this story, the link is <a href="http://publicrelations.uncc.edu/news-events/news-releases/new-findings-regarding-dna-damage-checkpoint-mechanism-oxidative-stress">here</a>.) It's a problem in getting information that people should care about to... the people. But it's not the only one -- see my next post.<br />
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James Hathawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11296720304198719066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-63001909335491935002013-06-07T16:15:00.000-04:002013-06-07T16:15:27.010-04:00An Itsy-Bitsy, Teeny-Weenie Quantum Dot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Dr. Marcus Jones is an
assistant professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte. He has been researching, in conjunction with a team of collaborators,
on what are called quantum dots. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Quantum dots are
essentially nano-particles that take in energy from photons or electrons and
then re-emit that energy as a specific frequency photon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m sure you’re
wondering what in the world I just said. Let me explain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Imagine the smallest
particle you can think of. Now downsize that about a thousand times. And then a
hundred more, for good measure. That will be our nano-particle. For the
purposes of the explanation, pretend that your nano-particle is wearing a
bathing suit. An itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie, yellow, polka-dot bikini will do.
(The first part because your nano-particle is small. The second part because
who doesn’t love yellow polka dots?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Your
nano-particle is just sitting there, lounging, taking energy from photons or
electrons. In other words, your nano-particle is sunbathing. After your
nano-particle soaks this energy up, it is re-emitted in a specific frequency.
Your nano-particle has such a healthy glow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> Dr.
Jones has researched the potential of using certain particles to increase the
amount of energy absorbed or emitted. Gold, in particular, is effective. In
research with solar panels, by placing a particle of gold next to the already
existing particles, Dr. Jones says, the panels have the potential to be much
better than the average panel in use. Gold is not necessary; other materials
can be used to achieve the same effect. It is simply the most effective thus
far. You can see this effect in the image below. In a natural state, the
quantum dot absorbs a certain amount of energy and subsequently releases a
certain amount of energy. In the assisted state, when a particle (such as gold,
seen below and discussed above) is placed near the quantum dot, the dot has the
potential to emit a far greater amount of energy than in the natural state, a
phenomenon known as multiple emission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> An
interesting point, Jones notes, is that this research can be used in many
potential applications. As mentioned above, it can be used for <i>emittance</i> efficiency; for example, in
solar panels. It can also be used for <i>absorbance</i>
efficiency; for example, highly efficient LED screens. It interested me during
the interview to see that one solves a problem; one exacerbates it. One is
targeted toward an overarching global issue (the environment), and one targets
an overarching global appetite (technology and consumerism). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It reminds me of the Robert Frost poem, Nothing Gold
Can Stay. Through Dr. Marcus Jones’ research with quantum dots, it might be possible
to see gold and green exist in a symbiotic relationship, a give and take, a
means to an end, and an end to a means. It depends on the application of the
research, once it can indeed be applied.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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Kristina Dryehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07590145032628866749noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-62902935083269816052013-05-02T14:03:00.002-04:002013-05-02T14:42:32.600-04:00Tracking the Evolution of Sustainable Energy <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I never thought about the process of invention until
I met Deborah Strumsky. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One learns early in their childhood that the wheel
was invented and that it was a big thing. One learns later on that the car was
invented and that that was a big thing, too. One naturally makes the logical
connection that the invention of the car was enabled by the previous invention
of the wheel. But one never studies the relationships and linear association
between the two points of innovation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deborah Strumsky, a professor of Public Policy and
Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte,
is doing just that. She has received a grant of a million dollars from the
United States government’s Department of Energy in conjunction with professors
from Oxford University and Arizona State University to pursue studies in the construction
and implementation of a cost optimization computer model for solar energy innovation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKLtaQqsSBEAigpo02iBERGSMLYrM2vQ-frpfzmCweVWmD2gi0kNArvMuhMdv5Ql0MbemI_PJ1Vwxu1amhiZTR5yuD50ZbG8JTP3qADP8NdrnZ7k3Xtvcxvg4WCpatupViFefIC2wAQjA/s1600/Strumsky1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKLtaQqsSBEAigpo02iBERGSMLYrM2vQ-frpfzmCweVWmD2gi0kNArvMuhMdv5Ql0MbemI_PJ1Vwxu1amhiZTR5yuD50ZbG8JTP3qADP8NdrnZ7k3Xtvcxvg4WCpatupViFefIC2wAQjA/s320/Strumsky1.jpg" width="307" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Deborah Strumsky.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This sounds complicated, and it might be. But it
once understood, one realizes the potential of the project at hand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She describes it to me as a lightboard. Imagine a
board blanketed in rows upon rows of small lights. Imagine that each light
represents an invention and that upon this light board every invention in
history is represented by its own little light. She explains that most people
think that inventions happen randomly, without a logical progression. One light
here in the middle, one light in the top right corner, and one light nearer the
bottom of the board. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She explains that her research has proven this to be
incorrect. Inventions and patents follow each other logically. The wheel must
be invented- this is one light. Soon after, it is realized that the wheel can
be attached to an axle and that this makes things easier to move. This is
another light, right beside the initial invention of the wheel. As new
inventions are made that are predicated upon those previous inventions, the
corresponding lights are activated. Soon the lightboard is not an amalgamation
of inventions that seem to occur randomly. In contrast, after an initial
invention is established, innovations upon that initial invention follow suit
in a logical progression.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why is this significant, you might ask? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is important, Strumsky notes, because if there is
a logical progression in the pattern of invention, there is a pattern that can
be established. If a pattern can be established, then perhaps invention can be
predicted, within reason. She says that there are types of inventions that are
impossible to predict, inventions that are completely unprecedented and new-
things like internet, which revolutionized the twenty-first century. Strumsky
acknowledges that inventions like these cannot be predicted. She notes,
however, that most can be predicted- things like the evolution of phones to
smartphones, from smartphones to touchpads, from touchpads to Google Glass. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She then explains how this can be applied to the
cost optimization model of energy sectors, the research for which she has
received the grant.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If invention can be predicted, then new means of
energy production can be predicted as well, in both the clean energy sector and
the nonrenewable energy sector. If these can be predicted and the cost
predicted, the energy production potential of any given region can be applied
and compared to see which energy use would be the most optimal per cost over an
extended, pre-determined period of time. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For example, North Carolina is considering fracking,
a means of shale oil mining, as a new energy source. Ms. Strumsky would apply
this computer model to the state of North Carolina, comparing the long and
short-term costs of fracking to the long and short-term costs of other energy
sectors and their potential innovations- clean (solar, geothermal, wind, and
water), coal, oil, and off-shore drilling, for example. After comparing these
costs (and by extension, profits), the state of North Carolina would then be
able to determine the optimal course of energy sustainability per cost per
method, and subsequently implement the one that is best. The grant from the
U.S. Department of Energy, however, focuses primarily on the application </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">of solar energy, a sector they see potential in as the 21</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">st</sup><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;"> century marches forward and oil becomes costly, in many more ways than just the four dollars you now pay per gallon at the pump.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This holds potential in other areas, too. One could
apply it to developing states and sectors to develop sustainable infrastructure
in conjunction with economic development. One could apply it to a smaller area
or a larger one. One could apply it eventually to other sectors, not just those
that are environmentally-oriented.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="222" src="http://innovativesolarsystemsllc.com/wp-content/uploads/solar-power-generator.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Solar Panels.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The model is in the beginning stages right now and
is still developing in the massive computer systems that Ms. Strumsky has been
given access to in Arizona. She laughs as she tells me that her computer in
her office, an old PC with a simple standard hard drive, has crashed multiple
times because of the volume of information she has asked it to process. She
hopes that, once the model is completed, the public will be receptive to the
idea.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The public might or might not agree. To me, however,
the potential of this research seems to hold unlimited possibility and
application. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Kristina Dryehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07590145032628866749noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-9715261494069991922013-04-29T15:23:00.001-04:002013-04-29T15:23:24.447-04:00Dr. Delmelle is Using Engineering To Solve the World's Problems<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" id="internal-source-marker_0.2394451942295418" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
spread of disease has always plagued mankind. Great epidemics have
ended millions of lives in the past, making the study of such diseases
all the more important. But new problems also plague us as we grow and
expand in the world. Overpopulation in many regions of the world has led
to transportation challenges and complicated the optimal siting of
facilities or the delivery of services such as hospitals and police.
Then there are smaller problems in the world, such as how useful the new
bike-sharing system in Charlotte actually is. All of these seem so
unrelated, but </span><a href="http://clas-pages.uncc.edu/eric-delmelle/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: blue; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Dr. Eric Delmelle</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
sees the connection: geography. And, using engineering techniques, he
and his team plan to help solve all of these problems, one by one.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When
it comes to epidemiology, Delmelle's interests are in the modeling of
vector-based diseases, specifically dengue fever, which is spread by
mosquitos: "These diseases have a particular spatial and temporal
signature” ," Delmelle noted. "These diseases create geographical
patterns and clusters in specific areas, which is critical for
prevention purposes" says Delmelle. All of this mass of data comes from
the Health Ministry of Columbia, specifically for the city of Cali. "It
is a large, dynamicmetropolitan area that has seen a lot of migrants
moving in with poor sanitation infrastructure, which makes it a
particularly interesting environment," he noted.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Figure 1 displays dengue fever
cases in 2010, which was considered an outbreak in dengue fever. Spatial
and space-time smoothing techniques are used to extract meaningful
patterns of dengue intensity.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7UjXYS0jrDw_cwNGdXi12S5wgJU0Xlm4P_mCsxqokIQzrl8jzBwfYy4V2KTTBSnAcQMvzlcnqlllw-kii1UYguqsnTs4kn58H2gvbJVXj4WteXj9fyZQ8aZ1lr-PuzN4eke3iQhX9-MA/s1600/NIH_FIG1b.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7UjXYS0jrDw_cwNGdXi12S5wgJU0Xlm4P_mCsxqokIQzrl8jzBwfYy4V2KTTBSnAcQMvzlcnqlllw-kii1UYguqsnTs4kn58H2gvbJVXj4WteXj9fyZQ8aZ1lr-PuzN4eke3iQhX9-MA/s1600/NIH_FIG1b.tif" height="137" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">D</span>engue fever cases in the city of Cali, Colombia (a), spatial patterns in (b) and space-time patterns in (c).</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
purpose of this research is to better understand the spatial patterns
of infectious disease and predict where they will reemerge. Though we
may not see dengue fever as a critical problem in the United States,
other infectious diseases are at alarming levels, such as West Nile
Virus. With a changing climate, the risk of similar diseases only goes
up, especially in the southern states, such as Florida. Along those
lines, Delmelle also collaborates with Dr. Eastin, an associate
professor of meteorology in the Geography and Earth Sciences Department
in order to help predict dengue fever outbreaks in the city of Cali. For
instance, weather forecasts may help predict accurate counts of dengue
fever, helping to increase awareness among population of an imminent
risk. Using an autoregressive model, the team predicted a significantly
high number of dengue cases in 2013. By mid-February 2013, the city of
Cali had reported 1339 cases, with three individuals dying of the disease.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk8d2itziW2MlpdSTB0nFEQ0bvFhQCS3fyG39GWhOuJRNjettzwYvn0P1cVKR0EVNa12aVDm2LdswiGsQ0l7ibVR7cdAYzCbBPEj7vGXDJuT9zU4BoOf5dmoWJlc_R6RNY5iX2Gubgtb4/s1600/TIFF3_b.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk8d2itziW2MlpdSTB0nFEQ0bvFhQCS3fyG39GWhOuJRNjettzwYvn0P1cVKR0EVNa12aVDm2LdswiGsQ0l7ibVR7cdAYzCbBPEj7vGXDJuT9zU4BoOf5dmoWJlc_R6RNY5iX2Gubgtb4/s1600/TIFF3_b.tif" height="215" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another Diagram Explaining the Space-Time patterns of the dengue fever</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This
research stream is not just for research sake. Delmelle and his team
take all of their findings back to the individuals they have worked with
in Columbia. "We have the chance to visit numerous times on-site,
receive critical feedback from local authorities on the techniques we
use and to validate our results." Establishing a connection with local
decision makers is a very important part of the process to Delmelle. "We
do not tell people what they should do, but we do inform them on the
risks posed by infectious diseases. It's important to see that the
results of our models can be beneficial to the local communities for
prevention purposes. ”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Vector
born illnesses are not the only research problem Delmelle is interested
in. Using similar spatial modeling techniques, Delmelle also tackles
general problems in urban areas."Several problems we study are of
geographic nature" Delmelle tells me. By utilizing engineering
techniques –such as operations research -, Delmelle and his team look to
optimize particular problems. In the case of infectious diseases, the
optimal space-time allocation of spraying efforts may help reduce the
magnitude of the infection. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
<br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Yet,
the same techniques can be used for other, more basic problems. Delmelle brings his
research approaches to look at local issues, helping the
Charlotte-Mecklenburg region with multiple dilemmas. One such major issue
is the question of where to site schools in a city that is only growing in population,
but not evenly across the county. By attacking the problem as a
quantitative optimization problem -- a number problem -- Delmelle and his
team are able to utilize data to find the most optimal solution. "We
were able to analyze data up to 2008 and predict where schools should be
closed in the region and we've been fairly accurate," says Delmelle. By
assigning an optimization value to every school, the team was able to
predict, for the most part, which schools would be closing and where
new ones should be built. His team was also able to help recommend adding more modular classrooms to help meet the increasing school
demand, to keep classroom size stable while the new schools are built.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIE8z2BlNwJoXUEWWz5Lcx2oYSall3Xlc6QS9IURKyP6CCEJjczA2CLb3BeFe6u5hYZPzE4T4_Ir4b_86Fin1aslwIbz4nNUeBk3CqGDTaBT4488OK4TkSuIDdOl9G4aliE6gbhbTtaB8/s1600/scenarioB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIE8z2BlNwJoXUEWWz5Lcx2oYSall3Xlc6QS9IURKyP6CCEJjczA2CLb3BeFe6u5hYZPzE4T4_Ir4b_86Fin1aslwIbz4nNUeBk3CqGDTaBT4488OK4TkSuIDdOl9G4aliE6gbhbTtaB8/s1600/scenarioB.jpg" height="320" width="246" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Graphic Depicting the Work Delmelle Has Done to Help Place Schools in the Best Locations</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A
similar approach was conducted to identify bus stops redundancy in
Charlotte. Delmelle collaborated with the Charlotte Area Transit System
(CATS) helping to tackle where the best locations for each bus stop
would be, using the optimization of individual accessibility and low operating costs as their
main objectives. "The city took great care to listen to our research," Delmelle said. Currently, Delmelle and his students are also evaluating accessibility to
public parks with Mecklenburg County by different modes of
transportation (car, public transit, biking, walking). These results
will inform park decision makers on where to locate new parks and which
ones are in immediate need to upgrading its amenities. The next venture
into help the Queen City would be to help optimize the new bike racks
the city has placed. "We just received some of the data and it's all
fairly new, so now we can run simulations to see where the best new
places to expand would be," says Delmelle, rather excited by the problem. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: red; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-40282818917010395522013-03-20T10:18:00.000-04:002013-03-20T10:18:47.387-04:00A Look Back at Being A Student of Video Games<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ever since I was young, I was fascinated with video games. I hated playing them, but I would watch my brothers for hours as they journeyed to far away mystical lands or deep into space to fight aliens. It didn't matter, as long as I could just sit and watch as the hard bosses killed them over and over again, until they were so frustrated they quit. It was then, in fourth grade, that I decided I would pursue a career in video game design. I really just wanted to tell stories to people, but felt that writing a book would take way too long for my own patience. Looking back on the decision now, I laugh, because creating a game can take years for teams of up to 200 people to create.<br />
<br />
So I might not be the best at making decisions, but I have stuck to that decision since then. It's that decision that drew me to UNC Charlotte, which was local and actually had a <a href="http://cs.uncc.edu/academics/undergraduate-certificate-game-design" target="_blank">Video Game Design</a> certificate I could graduate with alongside my Computer Science Degree. For the first couple of years it was all about learning the basics, which in all honesty I had no interest in. I just wanted to start creating games.<br />
<br />
So once day one of Intro to Game Design (ITCS 4230 for those who are curious) I could barely hold in my excitement. It was finally time to make games and get going. And then <a href="http://cs.uncc.edu/node/1450" target="_blank">Dr. Micheal Youngblood</a> entered the room. Within a week people started to drop. We didn't create video games right away, but rather created board games. I was almost heart broken, but I persevered.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQk52GX7iSTAWU5JiAFYOb1lBMY2uyh8GpB99YkRbgENg5lMJfBH5plfovRPWRjnYFPdRNBlf4UoOOcad_9YOXjtbbxRPxlw24KM2QtHV-MutppO03TC53Gf2H0-fgBni1-cvwoW-MuGKP/s1600/One+Man%2527s+Trash+Card.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQk52GX7iSTAWU5JiAFYOb1lBMY2uyh8GpB99YkRbgENg5lMJfBH5plfovRPWRjnYFPdRNBlf4UoOOcad_9YOXjtbbxRPxlw24KM2QtHV-MutppO03TC53Gf2H0-fgBni1-cvwoW-MuGKP/s1600/One+Man%2527s+Trash+Card.bmp" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An Image of a card from the board game I made</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After one month, we were able to jump into code. And code we did. Every week a new assignment was due. Every week new techniques were learned. And every week someone else dropped the course. This sounds bad, but it is just the nature of game design. It's a lot of work. All of that ignorance and ambivalence to the basics came to bite me in the behind as we shifted from simple sprite animation to AI coding and collision detection. Some weeks I wanted to cry as I started aimlessly at two in the morning, coding as best as I could. I spent hours in his office learning new software and better ways of coding. It hurt, a lot. But it was a good hurt. The kind of burn you feel after a great work out. <br />
<br />
Then our final month came: one month, a team of four, one game. After hitting the ground running and working tirelessly for three weeks with plenty of stumbling blocks (including one group member refusing to participate), the final week came. The final hurdle. I went to class in the morning, to work in the afternoon, and to the Video Game Lab, located in Woodward Hall, at night, usually until 4 am, and started all over again the next day. The day our project was due, we had stayed up all night, polishing bugs and refining our paperwork and preparing our presentation. With class at 9:30 am, we slept for an hour and a half before downing a cup of coffee and walking into class. We presented our game live, showing a quick 2-player run through. After the presentations, we were to sit down with Dr. Youngblood as he played our game, one on one. The nerves were unbearable as he tore through the game. He then sat down each student in our group, one at a time, and had us display the code we worked on as well as explain what it does. After being under his keen eye for five more minutes, we were free. And we recieved an A for our <a href="http://playground.uncc.edu/%7ECephalapodVendetta/index.html" target="_blank">final project</a>. All of that hard work. All those nights awake and weary days. All the caffeine and junk food and upset stomachs and headaches. All of it was worth it.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY1ddY5U7mCj5tBjLd1MuYJvC1tCwpPsi5wGBNJfjPsHEiXVjNaK97aCv3l-SdmE0gMJ4MwP4AQSdHsUce6Vagh-zd_f014LoI1Ll9kBwrMgWahoBZbE8OH4TS-7lkGEdhXJNYlHzFEA9X/s1600/HowToPlay.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY1ddY5U7mCj5tBjLd1MuYJvC1tCwpPsi5wGBNJfjPsHEiXVjNaK97aCv3l-SdmE0gMJ4MwP4AQSdHsUce6Vagh-zd_f014LoI1Ll9kBwrMgWahoBZbE8OH4TS-7lkGEdhXJNYlHzFEA9X/s1600/HowToPlay.png" height="179" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A sample image from the Final Project, named Tower Trouble. Check out the link above to play.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I have moved on since that semester to Advanced Game Design and finally Game Lab, but that first semester pretty much sums up my thoughts on game design and working towards becoming a game designer. I will never forget anything I learned in that class, both the lessons taught intentionally (I'm pretty sure I can animate a sprite in any coding language given enough time) to the ones that were not so blatant. In order to get far it requires work, a lot of work. There will be sleepless nights. There will be pain. But it's all worth it. It's worth it to see people enjoy playing your games.<br />
<br />
So where to from here? After graduation I hope to gather a small group of close classmates and start creating games of our own to release. With the lift off of mobile gaming, the entire landscape has changed. Large triple-A companies are going bankrupt as the little guy makes small games for phones and computers and prospers. Larger corporations, such as Sony, are turning their large console lines over to the indie gamer as much as the triple-A. Now is the time, and I plan to take it. With a little bit of pain. And a little less sleep.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://thejesterscourt-jesterhead.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Brent Metcalfe</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-68307257846862532572013-02-27T13:22:00.000-05:002013-02-27T13:22:00.100-05:00The Intersection of Art, Life, Silly & Computer Science<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A lot of life goes on on a university campus. At UNC Charlotte, part of that life is avian. Goose, to be specific.<br />
<br />
They interrupt traffic, they eat the grass, they poop all over the sidewalks, they spy on you from the rooftops. They generally ignore the people who are interlopers on "their" campus, but occasionally they get annoyed, hiss like a big snake and chase you into a building. Voldemort would be proud.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLFs2jVrrBPzVO7G9LXXR7fW1Dfl6kRz3GLMILh9WsSqV21UtZXT7ddd5kjK07wSU1Hhsj3O_f_hUDmUgw7khdAL8n6XfdTNP50JO_t5LVFF-uzmp4OhYzsZovL4EbSCcHB-LFn3LHMds/s1600/hissinggoose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLFs2jVrrBPzVO7G9LXXR7fW1Dfl6kRz3GLMILh9WsSqV21UtZXT7ddd5kjK07wSU1Hhsj3O_f_hUDmUgw7khdAL8n6XfdTNP50JO_t5LVFF-uzmp4OhYzsZovL4EbSCcHB-LFn3LHMds/s320/hissinggoose.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">@UNCCGeese come with... attitude.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
They also have perfected the art of snark on Twitter. If you live in Charlotte and use this social media platform, no doubt you have already encountered the tweeting bite of <a href="https://twitter.com/UNCCGeese">@UNCCGeese</a>.<br />
<br />
Forgive me for saying that they seem almost human.<br />
<br />
Supporting the argument for their humanity is the evidence that they apparently find the time to take classes, apparently classes in software design. How do we know this? They now have their own app (read a nice story on this <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50964315/ns/local_news-charlotte_nc/#.US5FVkJN-fS">here</a>) that allows their human fan base to record their every movement on the internet.<br />
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In typical goose style, this <i>sounds</i> like a silly thing, but actually has some serious hiss and bite going on. As the NBC News story notes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">So, what’s the point of the app? It’s not really to learn about geese. It’s to learn about us.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">"We can leverage the mobile phones of people to collect data for a scientific or a civic purpose,” said Dr. Jamie Payton, a professor of computer science at UNC Charlotte ... “One thing we're interested in is: what motivates people to contribute data in these volunteer scenarios?”</span></blockquote>
Whoa, now the geese are doing social science research too -- the interdisciplinary kind -- using the power of the human flock... to study <i>us.</i> I am impressed -- and more than a little bit frightened.<br />
<br />
Yesterday they were out there biting our ankles. Tomorrow, they take over the world. Pay attention to the hiss.<br />
<br />
[Moderator's Note: all silliness aside, the very cool UNCC GooseSpotter app is, in fact, the creation of Osa Omokaro, a UNC Charlotte doctoral student in Computer Science.]</div>
James Hathawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11296720304198719066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-19172379034759802422013-02-07T16:30:00.000-05:002013-02-07T16:30:40.619-05:00Using Genetics and Google to Change How We See the Common Grunge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's that time of year again: flu season. Everyone hates it. Countless stores stock up on cough suppressant and cough drops as customers buy them out. So it's at this time of year that great research, like that of professor of bioinformatics <a href="http://bioinformatics.uncc.edu/janies-daniel" target="_blank">Dr. Daniel Janies</a> becomes necessary. Utilizing gene sequencing and algorithmic shortcuts, Before coming to UNC Charlotte Dr. Janies and his team at Ohio State University created a digital mapping of the flu around the world, known as <a href="http://supramap.osu.edu/" target="_blank">Supramap</a>.<br />
<br />
Tasked by DARPA, Dr. Janies' research group worked to create a mapping of pathogens to display evolutionary biology over time and space. The team utilized
homemade computers to create <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetic_tree" target="_blank">evolutionary trees</a> of the pathogens. These
trees are diagrams to explain the evolution and relationship or
organisms. Typically very large and hard to compute, Dr. Janies' complex trees required a significant amount of bioinformatic innovation: he and his
team worked with computer engineers to create custom computers as
well as to calculate shortcuts within the algorithms in order to speed up the process.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg48tnh7qTd_G6Oc8PSvey91pE9CevDWSIvI7q1qoFXFchoeSOi49T2tkg8zOa0oe_cvK7jCqhU1ZMfDVgdLzoqA04SSDysNetO0FAURnN_VxOFiw-PxlkVxuQ8VQEwcjK-jsgA_0W4Auw/s1600/Janies.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg48tnh7qTd_G6Oc8PSvey91pE9CevDWSIvI7q1qoFXFchoeSOi49T2tkg8zOa0oe_cvK7jCqhU1ZMfDVgdLzoqA04SSDysNetO0FAURnN_VxOFiw-PxlkVxuQ8VQEwcjK-jsgA_0W4Auw/s1600/Janies.png" height="319" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Janies and a colleague showing off Supramap</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So why the flu virus?<br />
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"We wanted to make it relevant to the public, so we chose a pathogen that is well known," he says. The research started a few years ago, when genetic data on pretty much every organism was not only hard to obtain, but expensive to create as well. "We chose influenza because there was a lot of good data for it already available. It's easy to sequence and easy to compare sequences and we can get a lot of strains from all over the world." This data includes the location and time of the virus' emergence and spread as well as the host data, whether it was in a human or animal (remember bird flu?).<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjPPPkXgXXn3BvNMzmETV23m9PawoBbtB6uSEKkiPXS14oAZEBWqC0XvvjNHfo3eCiPRhg-yyUMuNohyUh84lTjmEmZyukxIIVXwUqitOKA9v2HDhZqqAS4AnaotvWEbKbIsjGkMyOrKU/s1600/googleview.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjPPPkXgXXn3BvNMzmETV23m9PawoBbtB6uSEKkiPXS14oAZEBWqC0XvvjNHfo3eCiPRhg-yyUMuNohyUh84lTjmEmZyukxIIVXwUqitOKA9v2HDhZqqAS4AnaotvWEbKbIsjGkMyOrKU/s1600/googleview.png" height="207" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Screenshot of the Supramap software</td></tr>
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After obtaining all of this data, the team needed a framework to help display the time and space component in a logical, yet friendly interface, so as to bring the data out of academia and into everyone's hands.<br />
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"So we took these evolutionary trees and put the data into Google Earth. This helped us to create a weather map of the disease," says Dr. Janies. Using Google Earth visualization, the path of this virus could be mapped around the globe, showing how different strands move across space and time and allowing a user to see how it changes over time. Though originally starting with H5N1 -- the rarely documented bird flu strain, the team eventually tackled H1N1, one of the common human flu viruses. "Our diagrams looked like we had thrown spaghetti on the screen, so it became a challenge to rethink the visualization."<br />
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The Supramap framework is not only made for the flu. Dr. Janies hopes that the service-oriented framework will be utilized for other diseases as well. "We've put the software out there for people to download and run," he says. "We've also put it into a service-oriented architecture so that others can write to it. Or they can use our client. Supramap is now just a client to a web-service that runs these calculations." He adds, "our vision is that someone will use it for something we wouldn't have thought about."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglfDeOedijkpoi7LxvYhTRECidXbPL3XMjPwUTUxO7zCEGjGCtstJfYSncy6NG4QASn9E25eQNBW0uoSbwxpA4-0aL-_z70mv9nj2tNs_Ww5yQtxjM9Ea5PZ8usSdfnSyJTUPWymYyxfs/s1600/workflow.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglfDeOedijkpoi7LxvYhTRECidXbPL3XMjPwUTUxO7zCEGjGCtstJfYSncy6NG4QASn9E25eQNBW0uoSbwxpA4-0aL-_z70mv9nj2tNs_Ww5yQtxjM9Ea5PZ8usSdfnSyJTUPWymYyxfs/s1600/workflow.png" height="320" width="306" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Supramap Workflow</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Supramap is actually on display at the American Museum of Natural History.The link is <a href="http://www.amnh.org/explore/science-bulletins/%28watch%29/human/news/supramap-tracks-diseases-as-they-evolve" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
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So what's next for Dr. Janies now that he's here at UNC Charlotte? Well he hopes to add some more to Supramap, expanding it utilizing the wet labs of the university's Bioinformatics building. Though appreciative to all those who helped with his previous projects, Dr. Janies says "it's nice to be able to create your own samples where you are rather than asking around." Dr. Janies is also working on the <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5129" target="_blank">Tree of Life</a> project, a program that works to create evolutionary tree groups for all organisms. He's currently working on the part that deals with echinoderms -- starfish and their relatives. "Echinoderms are some of our closest relatives among the invertebrates, and they have some amazing abilities," Dr. Janies notes. "Some can regenerate. So by digging into these trees we might be able to help better ourselves." There's going to be a lot more to be seen as Dr. Janies continues his work here at UNC Charlotte. <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-75201446435249821042013-01-22T14:46:00.002-05:002013-01-24T06:54:00.755-05:00Why Outreach is So Important to UNC Charlotte Professors<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Teaching requires a strong passion for helping others and a patience rarely found in most people. For some, it's just a job, but for others, it's a life style. There are many professors at UNC Charlotte who have chosen teaching as their life style, working tirelessly in and out of the classroom to help better other people. With the Science Expo coming up later this year, it's time we talked with few professors and learn why it's so important to them that they continue to teach outside their classrooms.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDTRiNQpOt32tKjxOIyxH8jNJUFnrI2HuYu60c6db5e3yeSmHDP_92-LwAG1DSpWmYn8Jsh4JRJojmSM2KixcAwASuYzUUdeDIWuFEbme9khMXq7Dy9_DB8nKWFzu19ifaxXMb43lw7GM/s1600/People+Reacting+To+Noise.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDTRiNQpOt32tKjxOIyxH8jNJUFnrI2HuYu60c6db5e3yeSmHDP_92-LwAG1DSpWmYn8Jsh4JRJojmSM2KixcAwASuYzUUdeDIWuFEbme9khMXq7Dy9_DB8nKWFzu19ifaxXMb43lw7GM/s320/People+Reacting+To+Noise.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An eager crowd watching science at play.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://physics.uncc.edu/catherine-qualtrough" target="_blank">Catherine Qualtrough</a> is a faculty member in UNC Charlotte's Department of Physics and Optical Science. When not teaching class, Dr. Qualtrough works to ensure that the UNC Charlotte campus has what it needs to expand its astronomy program. As a matter of fact, this year she helped finalize the creation of the campus's new <a href="http://thedatamineatuncc.blogspot.com/2013/01/unc-charlotte-looks-to-stars-with-new.html">observatory</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> "I've always been very passionate about communicating science," says Qualtrough. She started doing outreach to people outside her classes as early as her graduate studies in Cambridge, UK. Qualtrough has volunteered for the Science Expo before, stating that she "really appreciate(s) the opportunity to be a part of the ScienceExpo at UNC Charlotte because it is an event that appeals to a wide age-group range." Though she enjoys her work thoroughly, she is not blind to the challenge of communicating science in a way that is interesting while also relevant to the people she is teaching. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">All of her hard work will be noticed at this years Science Expo, as she plans to utilize the observatory as much as possible. "The observatory offers a lot of opportunities to give people a first-hand experience of science, and astronomy is a field that is exciting to very young students through adults." With a star party planned, the visitors will get a chance to use equipment and learn more about astronomy and science education in general.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYSDTOqlkDubu6ba5yVVOfdbKJZe35DVkPPVopMuyxp2dYhwCTLSdklrI-Ff9KaPvpMm1YKlz-xMJigwY2czvkFiVR-ClTnvfFzQo5YJfqPW8qYxcFmhnlrp6MRMMztBSk_gjNIzAzEYI/s1600/Steam+Cannon+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYSDTOqlkDubu6ba5yVVOfdbKJZe35DVkPPVopMuyxp2dYhwCTLSdklrI-Ff9KaPvpMm1YKlz-xMJigwY2czvkFiVR-ClTnvfFzQo5YJfqPW8qYxcFmhnlrp6MRMMztBSk_gjNIzAzEYI/s320/Steam+Cannon+2.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A group trying out a steam cannon at last year's Science Expo</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Physics and Optics professor <a href="http://maxwell.uncc.edu/gjgbur/" target="_blank">Greg Gbur</a> shares Qualtrough's passion for outreach work. "Outreach to K-12 students and, indeed, to all levels of education and the public is highly important," he says. Gbur talks passionately about how our society is becoming more and more technological, and therefore science based, it is imperative that the stigma and fear of science and math be thrown aside. "Much of the time, this fear comes at a young age. I like to reach out to students at every age level as much as possible to show them that math and science is not only fun, but comprehensible."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gbur supports every form of outreach, from science fairs and science expos like the one UNC Charlotte holds every year, to simple demonstrations, public lectures or even blog posts to allow scientists to connect to the public and show them what science is and what they can learn. "Once you get past the terminology and get some practice in fundamentals, it is a wonderful activity that allows a better understanding of the world and the ability to do some truly amazing things." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://clas-pages.uncc.edu/schmedake-research/" target="_blank">Thomas Schmedake</a> Considers outreach opportunities as a challenge. <span style="font-size: small;">"Outreach opportunities such as the Science Expo are particularly fun and challenging, because they force me to express concepts and explanations differently than when speaking with a colleague or student<span style="color: #1f497d;">,<span style="color: black;">" says Schmedake. According to Schmedake, having to talk without technical jargon helps a teacher to get to the bottom of what they are teaching without being able to 'talk' around the subject. "</span></span></span></span><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="color: black;">I find my understanding of concepts often improves when I take the time to think about how I can express it to a general audience."</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBGZvVavEBPDSZt0W4hQld39Ozh25sXk7lpoUopDCF0P5N37d9VqkXY51LBarvSDCoqA0cslYmNHAFQnx0Q-HjJBaxuazMGmsPuI5FBbZIdXuEtUGdrCb6qDRt3W8sDdMvTBcukCLKNIs/s1600/Schmedake1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBGZvVavEBPDSZt0W4hQld39Ozh25sXk7lpoUopDCF0P5N37d9VqkXY51LBarvSDCoqA0cslYmNHAFQnx0Q-HjJBaxuazMGmsPuI5FBbZIdXuEtUGdrCb6qDRt3W8sDdMvTBcukCLKNIs/s320/Schmedake1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Schmedake showing mindful students how it's done.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: small;">Schmedake also enjoys the anticipation and excitement of the aud<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">i</span>ence to learn what he has to offer. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Luckily as a chemist, I have a lot of options for demos that combine intellectual and entertainment value,"<span style="font-size: small;"> he says. <span style="font-size: small;">The excitement of <span style="font-size: small;">the audience also helps tie into his feeling of <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">responsibility</span> as a<span style="font-size: small;">n <span style="font-size: small;">academic</span>. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Having ha<span style="color: #1f497d;"><span style="font-size: small;">d </span></span><span style="font-size: small;">a lifetime of dedicated teachers, museum staff, and civic leaders, to inspire him to his career, Schmedake <span style="font-size: small;">knows just how important it is for someone to get out there and just talk with the people. "</span>I find it very hard to say no whenever I am asked to return the favor."</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHnkKf8C9AuN3-7zgukbDgi5reXszhrediLq5-00_v45s4d-GFVlWYxu-xFmlj7ELiqVACKvivXnPAw5aoYZPFi5JpbTXcvuaZ_CAH4h8h0LJYcHc3NYRjSDt-kRNFSMKvnS9DG3796LQ/s1600/Michael%2520G.%2520Walter%2520picture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHnkKf8C9AuN3-7zgukbDgi5reXszhrediLq5-00_v45s4d-GFVlWYxu-xFmlj7ELiqVACKvivXnPAw5aoYZPFi5JpbTXcvuaZ_CAH4h8h0LJYcHc3NYRjSDt-kRNFSMKvnS9DG3796LQ/s320/Michael%2520G.%2520Walter%2520picture.jpg" width="218" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chemist Dr. Michael Walter</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Chemistry professor <a href="http://www.waltergroup.org/" target="_blank">Dr. Michael W</a><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.waltergroup.org/" target="_blank">alter</a> feels similarly to S<span style="font-size: small;">chm<span style="font-size: small;">edake. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">"</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">I wanted to participate in getting the word out to the Charlotte community about some of the awesome research and outreach happening at UNC Charlotte (especially in the chemistry department)." T<span style="font-size: small;">his includes introduc<span style="font-size: small;">ing projects to the crowd, such as the "Juice from Juice" project Walter<span style="font-size: small;"> exhibited <span style="font-size: small;">at last year<span style="font-size: small;">'s Science Expo. With a cir<span style="font-size: small;">icul<span style="font-size: small;">um aimed at high<span style="font-size: small;"> school students<span style="font-size: small;">, the project was a roaring <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">success</span> from last year, with participants creating solar energy using blackberry juice.<span style="font-size: small;">"</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>We hope to run a similar activity this spring for the 2013 Expo," Walter notes. Aside from outreach on UNC Charlotte's campus, Walter and his research team work to participate in outreach on other campuses as well, such as UNC Chapel Hill.<br />
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These are all just a few examples of professors working hard at teaching, even when they are off the university clock. It's amazing to see such high spirits for teaching outside the classroom. These professors are engaged because they know their outreach is important. The world is becoming increasingly connected and competitive, and as we start to compete with a global market in research and science we need to attract more people to these fields. Faculty outreach projects like these may seem small, but added up, they matter. They are perfect examples of what is necessary for the future. <br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4865801037602351695.post-49223803111577897422013-01-04T11:34:00.000-05:002013-01-04T11:34:06.742-05:00UNC Charlotte Looks to the Stars with New Observatory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The old UNC Charlotte observatory used to be located in front of Grigg Hall, behind the recreation fields. However, when the new football field came to fruition, the observatory was shut down along with the old recreation fields to make way for the new stadium.<br />
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To make up for this, a new modern observatory is being created on campus, next to the Police Building and the North Deck parking deck. With its sleek flat top roof, the new observatory is currently under construction, and having a brand new 14" reflecting telescope permanently installed. "We want to use it for our first year Astronomy course and our third year Astrophysics courses," says physics and optical sciences faculty member Catherine Qualtrough, who will direct the new facility.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl9Q3r9fJWNEJgSI9RFQUEXmpqE0eHX42iKNXS3Y4cuZ-T2-BtkCuASyVMBNBVOEqVWXQ9_iC2v4lufhyU4eTYaxSouVs6ZNanfqpBPYU2OJpQOD2-41xuYfyV6BiRnyVvU-FxKMW-vnc/s1600/Telescope3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl9Q3r9fJWNEJgSI9RFQUEXmpqE0eHX42iKNXS3Y4cuZ-T2-BtkCuASyVMBNBVOEqVWXQ9_iC2v4lufhyU4eTYaxSouVs6ZNanfqpBPYU2OJpQOD2-41xuYfyV6BiRnyVvU-FxKMW-vnc/s320/Telescope3.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Newly Installed Telescope</td></tr>
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Though academic usage is important, the new facility will also be utilized for community events and be open for the public to come visit. "We have had a lot of interest from [public high] schools, regional schools to come use the facility." Qualtrough also plans to have public events and parties, allowing people in the community to attend and look up into the Milky Way at meteor showers, comets, planets and more.<br />
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Qualtrough has many high hopes for the new facility. "Eventually I'd like to make it more of feature -- I'd like it to be huge, with like six domes," she jokes. The staff are working with the <a href="http://foundation.uncc.edu/" target="_blank">UNC Charlotte development office</a> to help get contributors and donors involved to better the facility even further. "With more money we can make a great facility and add to what we have with purchases such as cameras and spectrographs for the telescope."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXf_IC2CGkKdCLEZqYijRUXCLvduRJduzym8FegAhu3BzoERS6izxojTvpXhbL8O_tWEW78Djsw-wktxTKS6C9I_LWGtM-sD2ySnHrvd3li1RhncYYmnxtbeU6US9-XwlU26ddnrLok9k/s1600/Obs_roof_closed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXf_IC2CGkKdCLEZqYijRUXCLvduRJduzym8FegAhu3BzoERS6izxojTvpXhbL8O_tWEW78Djsw-wktxTKS6C9I_LWGtM-sD2ySnHrvd3li1RhncYYmnxtbeU6US9-XwlU26ddnrLok9k/s320/Obs_roof_closed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZn64ZDVQjDlDF3VhY18i8NXWVMafeeJ96xiJghfsJOVVb-8VxVGAHXAMD_03pBpkxzVS__DxrTecpOw91MMfM_K1DYBTS719cxmihUQ35RonsKNnX-2JFZ3IwqsGYUrTLtLJruavZHo/s1600/Obs_roof_open.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZn64ZDVQjDlDF3VhY18i8NXWVMafeeJ96xiJghfsJOVVb-8VxVGAHXAMD_03pBpkxzVS__DxrTecpOw91MMfM_K1DYBTS719cxmihUQ35RonsKNnX-2JFZ3IwqsGYUrTLtLJruavZHo/s320/Obs_roof_open.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghiuP3xhVCwhts0z0pxJSBgynOTKTq9gPX9u-Fbr-uBDXSfX8ypkuCYmnfv6hGX1SBe8u498VvRkPUdc2ePedg4V14pmSMdbuKctZPVtrxLwuOw-z0ciz_EXd6VgWZcmhm2wIHZptUjrE/s1600/Obs_sliding_roof.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghiuP3xhVCwhts0z0pxJSBgynOTKTq9gPX9u-Fbr-uBDXSfX8ypkuCYmnfv6hGX1SBe8u498VvRkPUdc2ePedg4V14pmSMdbuKctZPVtrxLwuOw-z0ciz_EXd6VgWZcmhm2wIHZptUjrE/s320/Obs_sliding_roof.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The New Flat Roof Observatory with the Roof Closed, Open and Sliding</td></tr>
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Though not at 100 percent completion, the facility is close to being complete, looking at an official open date some where between February and March of next term. "Our focus right now is to make sure that the telescope is secure," says Qualtrough. "The thing is massive and we don't want it to hurt anyone before we can actually do something." <br />
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Please stay tuned for further updates as the open date gets closer. Also, check out the UNC Charlotte Department of Physics Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/UNC-Charlotte-Department-of-Physics-and-Optical-Science/317435507172?sk=app_7146470109" target="_blank">page</a> for updates on the observatory.</div>
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