Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Students using Adderall to make A's
Across college campuses, students are taking Adderall, a stimulant drug, to help them study. In my story, some students reveal knowing classmates who acquire the drug illegally.
Monday, April 20, 2009
UGA Researchers Visit Brazil to Further Bionenergy Progress
Several University researchers, including David Lee, vice president for research, met with Brazilians to form mutually beneficial relationships to further both country's bioenergy progress, as explained in my story published in The Red & Black.
Upcoming Graduates Use Technology to Get Jobs
Monday, March 30, 2009
University receives $1.25 million in earmarks for BioEnergy Research
Honey Bee Decline Impacts U.S. Food Source
The demand for food crops pollinated by bees is on the rise, but a member of the bee family is in decline – the honey bee.
“Bee pollination is a quality of life issue, not a life or death issue,” said Keith Delaplane, an entomology professor at the University of Georgia. He gave a lecture on the honey bee decline and why it matters on Tuesday as part of the Wilson Center Science for Humanist Series.
To illustrate how much bees contribute to the variety of foods Americans eat, Delaplane examined the McDonald’s cheeseburger. Without bees, a customer would only be served the bread, he said. The meat, cheese, tomato, ketchup and pickle would not exist. Americans may be able to live off grain foods, such as bread, but such a restriction would be radically different from our current countless options of fruits, certain vegetables, nuts and soybeans, all of which are pollinated by bees.
“With improving diets, there must be pollination in the mix,” Delaplane said.
Delaplane studies the honey bee decline in Georgia. He contributes the decline to habitat loss and exotic parasites, such varroa mites.
Some people attended the lecture to learn more about the status of the decline and what can be done to improve the situation.
“I feel that the importance of the decline has been understated and will only become an issue when it is critical to our well being,” said Henry Parker, a University architect adjunct professor from Athens in an e-mail interview. Parker said he is interested in how bees are an integral part of our environment. He plans to become a beekeeper.
“It's one of many ways to be aware of your surroundings. An awareness of a different world that exists around us that is so fundamental to our food supply.”
In addition to pollinating food crops, honey bees are known for their production of honey. One bee hive produces about 100 pounds of honey, which can be sold for a profit, Delaplane said.
Although bees are at the top of insect pollinators, honey bees are generalists who do not faithfully return to the same flower to fertilize the female flower parts, and therefore are not great pollinators individually, Delaplane said. However, because they are social creatures, honey bees form colonies, which can provide hundreds of visits to flowers to get the job done.
The University received a grant of $4.1 million to investigate the sudden honey bee decline in Georgia in October 2008, according to a Red & Black article. Delaplane heads the research project. He said his research group is using the bee genome map to identify genes that give resistance to varroa mites. These pests, which rest on the abdomen of bees and on their larvae, first appeared in 1987. The bee industry never recovered, Delaplane said.
One way to help the honey bee population is to plant flowers that yield a lot of nectar and pollen, the two food sources of bees, Delaplane said. An example is the sunflower. Also, growing gardens with easy-to-access flowers and creating complicated hedges seem to attract honey bees.
A self proclaimed bee lover and gardener attended the lecture to learn how to stem the decline in bees.
“I love bees,” said Sharon Muczynski, a senior from Athens, in an e-mail interview. “I have a bee garden at home with plants that are popular with bees. I sit and watch them and their industriousness makes me happy. There are also certain plants on campus that I take breaks at and watch the bees.” She said she has noticed a precipitous decline in bee visitors to her garden during the last two years, which makes her sad.
“I would love to keep bees at some point when I am through with school and have the time to devote to doing it well. Right now I feed them with the flowering plants in my yard. I know my house has a big “x” on the bee map as a desirable location.”
“Bee pollination is a quality of life issue, not a life or death issue,” said Keith Delaplane, an entomology professor at the University of Georgia. He gave a lecture on the honey bee decline and why it matters on Tuesday as part of the Wilson Center Science for Humanist Series.
To illustrate how much bees contribute to the variety of foods Americans eat, Delaplane examined the McDonald’s cheeseburger. Without bees, a customer would only be served the bread, he said. The meat, cheese, tomato, ketchup and pickle would not exist. Americans may be able to live off grain foods, such as bread, but such a restriction would be radically different from our current countless options of fruits, certain vegetables, nuts and soybeans, all of which are pollinated by bees.
“With improving diets, there must be pollination in the mix,” Delaplane said.
Delaplane studies the honey bee decline in Georgia. He contributes the decline to habitat loss and exotic parasites, such varroa mites.
Some people attended the lecture to learn more about the status of the decline and what can be done to improve the situation.
“I feel that the importance of the decline has been understated and will only become an issue when it is critical to our well being,” said Henry Parker, a University architect adjunct professor from Athens in an e-mail interview. Parker said he is interested in how bees are an integral part of our environment. He plans to become a beekeeper.
“It's one of many ways to be aware of your surroundings. An awareness of a different world that exists around us that is so fundamental to our food supply.”
In addition to pollinating food crops, honey bees are known for their production of honey. One bee hive produces about 100 pounds of honey, which can be sold for a profit, Delaplane said.
Although bees are at the top of insect pollinators, honey bees are generalists who do not faithfully return to the same flower to fertilize the female flower parts, and therefore are not great pollinators individually, Delaplane said. However, because they are social creatures, honey bees form colonies, which can provide hundreds of visits to flowers to get the job done.
The University received a grant of $4.1 million to investigate the sudden honey bee decline in Georgia in October 2008, according to a Red & Black article. Delaplane heads the research project. He said his research group is using the bee genome map to identify genes that give resistance to varroa mites. These pests, which rest on the abdomen of bees and on their larvae, first appeared in 1987. The bee industry never recovered, Delaplane said.
One way to help the honey bee population is to plant flowers that yield a lot of nectar and pollen, the two food sources of bees, Delaplane said. An example is the sunflower. Also, growing gardens with easy-to-access flowers and creating complicated hedges seem to attract honey bees.
A self proclaimed bee lover and gardener attended the lecture to learn how to stem the decline in bees.
“I love bees,” said Sharon Muczynski, a senior from Athens, in an e-mail interview. “I have a bee garden at home with plants that are popular with bees. I sit and watch them and their industriousness makes me happy. There are also certain plants on campus that I take breaks at and watch the bees.” She said she has noticed a precipitous decline in bee visitors to her garden during the last two years, which makes her sad.
“I would love to keep bees at some point when I am through with school and have the time to devote to doing it well. Right now I feed them with the flowering plants in my yard. I know my house has a big “x” on the bee map as a desirable location.”
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
TB Research at the University
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Hank Klibanoff's experiences lead him to Journalism
The last thing Pulitzer Prize winner Hank Klibanoff told my public affairs reporting class during his professional-in-residence visit to the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications was that everyone has their own reasons for getting into this business. Some of us want to be story-tellers. Others want to take on the role of watch dog for our fellow citizens. The motivations for becoming a reporter are many and varied, but after looking at Klibanoff’s past, it is not a mystery why he chose this business.
Klibanoff grew up in Florence, Alabama, a northern city he described as being enriched by cultural influences that leaked in from Huntsville, a city about 70 miles east of it. Klibanoff explained that Tennessee Valley Authority brought a lot of industry to the area due to its cheap electric power. In addition, German scientists resided in Huntsville to work on projects for NASA. The Germans brought culture to the area, Klibanoff said. They wanted a symphony, and they got one. Klibanoff’s mom started two theaters in their home town.
“This artistic environment brought about progressive influences on issues of race,” Klibanoff said.
Although Klibanoff heard progressive ideas from his parents, he recognized the restrictive and prejudiced views of his town.
“We were living in a fairly rigid atmosphere of Jim Crowe.”
So rigid, in fact, that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, allowing segregation in schools, did not affect Klibanoff’s school until 12 years later, during his junior year in high school.
Klibanoff credits this to the “massive resistance” the South was engaged in against integration.
While working as a paper boy in 1963, Klibanoff noticed the lack of coverage of the violence against black demonstrators in nearby Birmingham, according to an article in the Washington University of St. Louis magazine, Klibanoff’s alma mater.
In college, protests against the Vietnam War caught Klibanoff’s attention. He woke up and saw that people were deeply disturbed by what was going on, he said. He read the newspapers and began to work as a reporter for his hometown newspaper in Alabama. He attended the School of Journalism at Northwestern University, earning his master’s degree.
Klibanoff worked as a reporter for five years in Mississippi. He then decided to backpack throughout Europe and the Middle East for 11 months, sleeping on trains and in hospitals, Klibanoff recalled. He had never seen the world, and this was his opportunity.
Upon return to the United States, Klibanoff began to work at the Boston Globe as a reporter. Later, he went to the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he became a national correspondent over a 12-state region. He also was named deputy managing editor. In 2002, he joined the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a managing editor until the summer of 2007.
In 1994, Klibanoff was invited by fellow journalist, Gene Roberts, to co-write a book chronicling news coverage of the civil rights movement in the South from the 1930s to the 1960s. Their book, The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation earned Klibanoff the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2007.
Klibanoff grew up in Florence, Alabama, a northern city he described as being enriched by cultural influences that leaked in from Huntsville, a city about 70 miles east of it. Klibanoff explained that Tennessee Valley Authority brought a lot of industry to the area due to its cheap electric power. In addition, German scientists resided in Huntsville to work on projects for NASA. The Germans brought culture to the area, Klibanoff said. They wanted a symphony, and they got one. Klibanoff’s mom started two theaters in their home town.
“This artistic environment brought about progressive influences on issues of race,” Klibanoff said.
Although Klibanoff heard progressive ideas from his parents, he recognized the restrictive and prejudiced views of his town.
“We were living in a fairly rigid atmosphere of Jim Crowe.”
So rigid, in fact, that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, allowing segregation in schools, did not affect Klibanoff’s school until 12 years later, during his junior year in high school.
Klibanoff credits this to the “massive resistance” the South was engaged in against integration.
While working as a paper boy in 1963, Klibanoff noticed the lack of coverage of the violence against black demonstrators in nearby Birmingham, according to an article in the Washington University of St. Louis magazine, Klibanoff’s alma mater.
In college, protests against the Vietnam War caught Klibanoff’s attention. He woke up and saw that people were deeply disturbed by what was going on, he said. He read the newspapers and began to work as a reporter for his hometown newspaper in Alabama. He attended the School of Journalism at Northwestern University, earning his master’s degree.
Klibanoff worked as a reporter for five years in Mississippi. He then decided to backpack throughout Europe and the Middle East for 11 months, sleeping on trains and in hospitals, Klibanoff recalled. He had never seen the world, and this was his opportunity.
Upon return to the United States, Klibanoff began to work at the Boston Globe as a reporter. Later, he went to the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he became a national correspondent over a 12-state region. He also was named deputy managing editor. In 2002, he joined the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a managing editor until the summer of 2007.
In 1994, Klibanoff was invited by fellow journalist, Gene Roberts, to co-write a book chronicling news coverage of the civil rights movement in the South from the 1930s to the 1960s. Their book, The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation earned Klibanoff the Pulitzer Prize for history in 2007.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Introductions
Hello readers,
My name is Shanessa Fakour, and I'm a journalism major. For the new few months, I will be reporting on science at the University of Georgia. Stay tuned for interesting news concerning research, health and general science "stuff" going on at UGA.
Sincerely yours,
Shanessa
My name is Shanessa Fakour, and I'm a journalism major. For the new few months, I will be reporting on science at the University of Georgia. Stay tuned for interesting news concerning research, health and general science "stuff" going on at UGA.
Sincerely yours,
Shanessa
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