lifestyles
Man's best friends
John Hefferen, senior scientist at the University of Kansas, checks the teeth of one of his research dogs. "We've got to keep them happy," he said. "You have done say, 'You have done a good job!' or, 'Gee, you are looking good today!'"
Dogs, cats and rodents are some of the 3,500 animals used for research and teaching
f John Heffernan has his way, humans, like dogs, may not need Crest in the future.
Story by Luisa Flores. Photos by Sean Crosier
1501 as his way, num dogs, may not need Crest in the future. Hefferren, a senior scientist and research professor at the University of Kansas, is investigating the relationship
Kansas, is investigating the relationship between the hygiene of the mouth and the immune system.
To do this, Hefferren uses dogs and cats. The animals help Hefferren in his research for Hills Co. The goal of the company is to help keep pets healthy by creating food for dogs and cats that helps clean their teeth.
teeth. Hills modified food so it literally cleans the teeth." Hefferren said.
He said that the results of his research could be applied on human beings in the future.
"Kidney disease is treatable in dogs simply by diet, and that kind of result is possible on humans," he said.
"Dogs cannot brush their teeth, but there is a way of modifying food so the food cleans the
"I am convinced that if you have a healthy mouth, you are more likely to have a healthy body, and the immune system and the resistance to disease, in general, is dictated by what happens in the mouth. So simply brushing your teeth daily can be a major contribution to not only oral health but systemic health." Heffernen said.
In addition to housing animals that scientists use in their research, the Animal Care Unit provides care for more than 50 research areas, including physiology, zoo-biology, medicinal chemistry, pharmacology and toxicology.
Some animals are used in drug studies. The researchers give the drug orally or intravenously. Then the investigators take serial blood tests from the animals to look at the metabolism of that drug. Bresmahan said.
"What happens to a cricket in a month happens to a human in 80 years."
The costs of animals vary according to the age and the weight of the animals, Bresnahan said. According to the price list of Charles River Laboratories, Wilmington Mass., where
The 17 dogs and 24 cats in his study are just some of the thousands of animals that crawl, fly, swim and sometimes copulate and breed in several buildings at KU, such as Haworth Hall and Malot Hall.
"The Animal Care Unit houses about two-thirds of them. About 90 percent of those animals are mice and rats. There are also rabbits, dogs and cats," Bresman said.
There are about 3,500 animals on campus for research, exhibitions and teaching, said James Bresnahan, director of the Animal Care Unit in Mallot.
Rudolph Jander professor of entomology and biology
some animals are purchased, each rat costs from $5.10 to $12.35, and mice can cost from $1.25 to $9.90 each. The rabbits go from $15.00 to $150.00 each and come from Myrtle Rabbitry in Tennessee.
"Most of the rabbits that are housed here are here with the purpose of producing antibodies," said Bresnahan. "The rabbits are injected with a substance, usually proteins, and they produce antibiotics to that substance
And occasionally they bleed to collect the antibodies.
"The use of the antibodies depends on the research. Other animals in drug studies are given drugs orally and intravenously. Then the researchers take blood tests to see how the drug is metabolized." he said.
Animal research is regulated by the U.S. government. The Animal Care Committee at KU sees that everything is done within those regulations. Animal research at KU must be approved by a veterinarian, a scientist, a nonscientist and a person not affiliated with the University.
Public exhibits are another reason for animals on campus. The Natural History Museum, for example, has 80 animals. Exhibits of
John Hefferen works with research cats in a laboratory in Mallot Hall.
fish and snakes native to Kansas can be seen at the museum.
"Snakes are one of the easiest animals to keep alive," said Joseph Collins, herpetologist at the museum. "The snake exhibit is a project that started in 1969. It has been very successful. It attracts lots of children to the museum, as well as KU students."
Other animals are used for public education purposes. Turtles, toads and tiger salamanders live in the museum's vivarium.
Other animals serve as observation subjects for KU students. Rudolf Jander, professor of entomology and biology, and his students observe the behavior of several animals for Biology 654.
"Children from all over northeastern Kansas and Missouri make school trips to our museum," he said. "We use the animals from the vivarium to teach them. The only animals the children can touch are the reptiles and the amphibians."
Jander keeps the animals in a quiet environment at a lab in Haworth Hall to avoid stress that could affect the behavior of the animals. He and his students observe and take note of the behavior of fish, earthworms, crickets, cockroaches and small gray and orange Australian birds called finches.
"Finches are easy to keep in captivity," he said. "The birds are state property, so we have to find someone to adopt them at the end of the course and who is willing to give them back at the beginning of a new semester. Their cost is $10.00 per individual. It is curious that one of these birds costs as much ten cockroaches.
"Everybody benefits from knowing more of psychology of animals because much of the problems that the animals face are the same that humans face," Jander said. "What happens to a cricket in a month happens to a human in 80 years."
Downey Jr. gets new attitude,new show
The Associated Press
CHICAGO — Morton Downey Jr. tugs gently at his cheeks, stretches his skin tautly toward his ears, then unters an Oprah-style confession: Yes, he reveals, he would like cosmetic surgery.
"It would just make me feel good," Downey adds, then pauses. "As long it doesn't come out looking like poor Carol Burnet's did. It took her years to get back on television."
After a five-year hiatus, Downey, 62,
is back on television. He has a new
talk show, "Downey," which debuted
this month, and though there's no
new face, there is a new outlook. He
insists, Scouts honor, that he no
longer is a madman of the people.
"I just need a little touch, a little touch," he says, pressing his hands against his face, baring his trademark white picket-fence teeth.
"No meanness this time. Just as confrontational, just as tough, just as
He is, he says, more mellow. He's a suburban husband. His wife, Lori, is a former dancer and actress he met on stage in Atlantic City, N.J., who, by the way, doesn't think he needs a nip and tuck. And he is a doting father of 15-month-old Seanna.
opinionated, but everyone else has the right to have their opinion and be heard," Downey says of his new show.
Most Americans, though, remember Mort the Mouth, the emperor of trash TV talk during the late '80s. He mocked his sometimes bizarre guests, calling one "a slime" and another a "scumbucket," revealed in shouting matches with opponents in the audience, inviting one young man to "tuck my armpit," and trashed liberals with his favorite epithet: "babum puker."
If guests were the unarmed gladiators in his video coliseum, the audience was teeming with ravenous lions who heckled, stomped and
chanted, "Mort, Mort, Mort."
None more so, perhaps, than when he claimed neo-Nazi skinheads attacked him in San Francisco, cutting off his hair and painting a swastika on his head — a report authorities couldn't verify.
"It got out of control because the producers...wanted me to top myself every night," he said.
In retrospect, the star of "The Morton Downey Jr. Show" says he went too far.
The new Downey may be more subdued, but he's not always more tasteful. On a recent show devoted to the O.J. Simpson trial, he solemnly asked his audience for silence while he purportedly communicated with Nicole Brown Simpson through a self-professed, flannel-shirted revolcible.
"This is not 'Nightline," says Bob Woodruff, an executive producer of Downey's show, which hopes to have a national audience by fall. "We don't want to be mean-spirited, vicious and
In fact, Downey, whose national TV talk show stint ended in 1990, takes credit for pioneering the in-your-face antics and conservative spiel so popular on television and radio today.
He boasts he was "the first siren in America that alerted the people they weren't getting what they were paying for in Washington, D.C.
cruel. We want to do a show that entertains people. If they get information, terrific."
"It isn't the rich people who come up and say, 'Oh Mort, you're just great,'" Downey says, puffing on a cigarette. He's down from five packs to two packs a day. "It's the Blacks and the ethnics and the blue collars, those guys with too much hair on their shoulder blades. They want some answers."
But the madman says he's now a mild man.
تأكد من وجود العمليات المالية التي يجب عليها إجراء عملية قياس الأرباح والخسائر.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
"Someone said, 'If you had your life to live all over again what would you do?' Well, I am living it all over again."
Cultural Calendar
EXHIBITIONS AND LECTURES
Exhibition—Art Department Faculty Show, through Feb. 10 at the Art and Design Gallery, University of Kansas.
Exhibition-Printmaking and metalsmithing student show, through Feb. 18 at the Kansas Union Gallery, University of Kansas.
Exhibition -Ernst Haas in Black and White, through April 2 at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525 Oak St., Kansas City, Mo.
Lecture—Carol Keefe, on living well within one's income, 7 p.m. tomorrow at Borders Book Shop, 9108 Metcalf Ave., Overland Park.
Exhibition—Protect Our Planet, through May 7 at The Kansas City Museum, 3218 Gladstone Blvd., Kansas City, Mo.
Lecture—Lois Ruby, on her book Steal Away Home, 11 a.m. Saturday at Borders Book Shop, 9108 Metcalf Ave., Overland Park.
Lecture—Barbara Ribakove Gordon and David Whalen, on historical background of Ethiopian Jews, 7 p.m. Tuesday at Borders Book Shop, 9108 Metcalf Ave., Overland Park.
PERFORMANCES
Department of Music and Dance presents a Student Recital, 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Swarthout Recital Hall.
Kansas City Symphony presents Britten's *War Requiem*, 8.p.m. Friday and Saturday at Lyric Theatre, 11th and Central streets, Kansas City, Mo. Tickets $14-$32.
University of Kansas School of Fine Arts presents "Oliver!" 3 p.m. Sunday at the Lied Center.
Tickets $19-$30.
Missouri Repertory Theatre presents "Arms and Legs," 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 4949 Cherry St., Kansas City, Mo. Tickets $7.
Inge Theatre Series presents "Pot-Pourri Productions," 8 p.m. today, tomorrow, Friday and Saturday at the Inge Theatre. Tickets $3-$6.
Department of Music and Dance presents a Faculty Recital, 7:30 p.m. Monday at Swarthout Recital Hall.
Lawrence Community Theatre presents "Jack Be Quick," thru Sunday at 1501 New Hampshire St. Tickets $5-$10.
Greater Kansas City Chapter of Links, Inc., University of Missouri Kansas City Office of Student Affairs/ Minority Student Affairs and the Conservatory of Music presents Cabaret Concert at 2 p.m. Sunday at Pierson Auditorium, University Center, 50th and Holmes streets.
Topeka Performing Arts Center presents Della Reese at 2 p.m. Sunday at 214 S.E. Eighth Ave. Tickets $19-$30.
Missouri Repertory Theatre presents "If We Are Women," through Feb. 12 at Spencer Theatre at the center for the Performing Arts, 50th and Cherry Streets. Tickets $14-$30.