FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2012
PAGE 5
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
opinion
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Text your FFA submissions to 785-289-8351
To the guy playing with the puppy in the fountain by the sorority houses: well played sir, well played.
To the people who sit next to and in front of me; your Pinterest and Facebook habits are disturbing but intriguing.
You're seriously eating celery in the middle of class? Oh no, that's not distracting at all.
Why doesn't anyone vote for Student Senate, you ask? The biggest issue is where they can and can't chalk. Last time someone cared about that was in kindergarten.
There are not nearly enough letters in the Greek alphabet for all my engineering courses.
I'm a lefty when I write,but a righty when I vote!
There're nothing comforting on a cold, rainy day than a warm toilet seat in Watson.
It's that time of year again. The cops are out on Segways. I'm trying really hard not to laugh.
I had a dream that Jeff Withey told me he loved me, and I turned him down. What is wrong with my subconscious?
That frustrating moment when you check every stall and find a "present" in each one.
Ice cream truck on Daisy Hill?! My life is complete.
I love how it was totally necessary for my biology homework to zoom in on a guy's crouch to explain meiosis.
Click on someone's most recent picture on Facebook. Press the left arrow. Begin iol-ling.
You're not alone, there's a secret society of us folk who hate Dan. We meet on Thursdays at 8.
Hipster pirates would wear nonprescription eye patches and make philosophically sophisticated sounding complaints about the futility of sea life.
I wonder how much time ! lose waiting on the bus.
Everybody write in T-Rob for Student Senate! Then he will have to stay.
I saw a girl wearing nude-colored skinny jeans and thought she was naked.
They are frying bacon on the first floor of Murphy Hall. The smell just torture-punched me in the stomach.
I woke up with someone else's socks on, a handful of sand in my pocket, and I had someone's bike seat.
What does a nosy pepper do? Gets jalapeno business!
Afraid of the campaigners? Let's use the KU Buddy System!
Focus needed during April anxiety
The awkward moment when you ride the same bus as T-Rob, and you are trying to suppress your inner girl from squealing.
EDITORIAL
Everything outside has turned green. Spring break offered a nice break from the usual schedule. March Madness has come to a bittersweet end. Meanwhile, we've hit that groove in the semester where homework and class seem like an inconvenience. Let's face it, procrastination is setting in and we'd much rather sit outside than go to class and focus on the remaining month of classes before finals.
BE IN CLASS:
There's still time to motivate yourself and prepare for finals. It sounds like a daunting task, but it's easier than you may think.
This is obvious, right? It's typical advice that everyone's heard before.
But things happen. You don't
want to go to class or you have other things to do. Then, when you do go, you're half asleep and not participating.
In some classes that's enough. Learn from the book and take the tests. In classes that may use material not in the textbook, going to class could be your only hope of getting that information.
In others it's not so easy. Participation points can cost you at the end of the semester. Make sure you know each of your professors' attendance policies.
Aside from simply occupying a seat in class, participate. Take an active role in your learning experience. If a class is difficult or you're on the borderline of earning a higher letter grade, showing initiative and taking advantage of the time you're already spending in
class could make a difference.
If distractions like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are getting in your way, try to leave your laptop behind and keep your phone in your backpack.
Likewise, when it's someone else's laptop that's a distraction, try sitting closer to the front of the room.
Sometimes speaking up in a room full of people may be scary. When something confuses you, write down your question and make an appointment to talk to your professor graduate teaching assistant or teaching assistant.
Another way to get over your non-involvement is to start slow and build your way up. Next time you're in class, resolve to answer one question. The next day, try to answer two.
Regardless of your method of learning, find a way to succeed.
TALK TO PEOPLE:
how you're going to study. In some cases, dividing the work up and creating study guides may work best, but in other cases reviewing each section as a group may work better.
Ask around; see how other people study for tests in the class. Find out if any of your friends took the same class in the past and what tips they have about preparing for the final.
Yes, I said it; talk to people. Finals are coming up and chances are that you have one in a class that you aren't really sure about. I bet someone else in your class feels the same way.
The only way to find groups like this is to talk to people. Network. Get the word out there and find people who are interested in helping.
If you know that your study method isn't working, or even if it is, try starting a study group. Find a group of people who have similar goals for the class and work with them to figure out a method to plan
SUCCEED:
This semester will soon be over. I know we're all aware of that. But as summer inches closer, so do finals.
Finish out the semester strong. Work hard in class and create ways to insure your success. You can do it; it just takes a little motivation.
SCIENCE
Angela Hawkins for the Kansan editorial board
Regulating brain cells could treat human obesity
What if the future treatment of obesity took form as an X-ray beam to the head? After all, appetite control is regulated by the brain, specifically the hypothalamus. A new study published in Nature Neuroscience explored new nerve cell production stimulated by a high fat diet in mice.
This would not be as unexpected if cells were produced in other organs, but in the brain, it is remarkable. With a few exceptions, the adult brain does not make new nerve cells.
In the study, the mice were given a diet with a 60 percent fat content. Usually, mice are given a diet of 33 percent fat content to prevent them from weight gain. After consuming a fatty-rich diet for several weeks, the researchers noticed the neurons in the hypothalamus had quadrupled when no changes were seen in the mice that were given a normal diet. This was detected by a
c-fos molecular marker.
A high-fat diet changed the brain circuitry in controlling hunger as well as the addition of many neurons. The researchers found the new neurons were descendants of glial cells called tanycytes They were found on the mediian eminence which is located on the inferior boundary on the hypothalamus.
To test if the tanycotes were correlated to a high fat diet, the researchers targeted the newborn neurons for elimination by a beam of radiation to the hypothalamus. This is similar to using radiation therapy to kill cancer cells that are rapidly dividing. The radiation
cleaves the DNA of the cell while they are in the process of dividing, thus other neurons in the hypothalamus that are not dividing were secured while the tanycetes were obliterated. As a result, the adult mice gained less weight as well as had increased energy levels compared to the fat rich diet mice that did not have their neurons irradiated.
There is no evidence that an increased fat diet increases tanycyte production in humans or other animals, but this study shows insight of how the brain can remodel in the presence of more fat. Obesity is a serious health problem in America that will not go away anytime soon. A study like this offers possible new therapies to target fat in places other than the digestive system and stomach by targeting fat in the organ that controls our hunger.
Saha is a junior in neurobiology from Overland Park.
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@myimor
@UDOK_Opinion When the time comes, cut the green wire
@ThatHawkwardGuv
@UDK. Opinion I'd tell them to lighten up and laugh more. Seems like people often take life too seriously. #RealTalk
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
In response to the column "Republicans are portrayed badly from Wednesday, April 11
I don't know anything about Mr. Corrigan's family history, but judging from his picture, he looks like a white man. I'm guessing he's never been followed around a department store, or watched parents cross the street to avoid him, or stood by as his new neighbors built a fence within six weeks of his moving in. He can express his opinion freely without readers blowing it off as "playing the race card." But these are all things that have happened to me, a black woman, and frankly, I consider myself lucky. These people found me suspicious, but at least I wasn't shot.
It's true, we don't know exactly what happened with Trayron Martin. But Mr. Corrigan left out some convenient facts. Like how 911 correspondents told Zimmerman not to pursue Martin, but he did anyway. Or how Martin was unarmed and Zimmerman had a gun. Or how Zimmerman has a criminal record of domestic violence and battery. If the races were reversed (and I know Zimmerman is Latino, but with his pale complexion and German name, he no doubt "passed" for white at the scene of the crime), Zimmerman would have been arrested or
Read the original column here:
I find it sad that Mr. Corrigan would turn this tragedy into a question of politics. This is an issue of race. Because believe me, if "prominent conservative leaders" like Herman Cain or Clarence Thomas were wearing hoodies, they wouldn't be able to pick up a cab. Sharpton and Jackson are taking a stand against a criminal justice system that has, too often and for too long, wrongly condemned people of color. If Republicans want to improve their image, they need to start by helping them.
shot, and to deny that is to deny a pattern of discrimination that has existed in this country for centuries.
Charlotte Davis is a junior in secondary english education from Overland Park.
Website allows members to email 8.000 stranger
What would you send in an email to 10,000 people from all around the world if you could? Most of us don't ever think we will be put on this kind of worldly stage, and so we don't ever think about it, but now this may become a reality for some.
Thelistserve.com is a contagious idea thought up by a group of college GTAs.
Thelistserve.com will pick one person everyday to send one email to the entire list. You could write about anything, as long as it is not a virus or anything deemed as inappropriate. For most, signup will only be a chance to observe what other people say, but even that peaks my curiosity. In only three days time days 8,000 people have signed up and the emailing will begin when 10,000 people subscribe. Perhaps you will be the one chosen to share your thoughts and life with the world. What would you say?
— Jon Samp
@GilinRoom314
@UDK Opinion There's a reason why they put soap and a sink in the bathroom. WASH YOUR HANDS PEOPLE!!!
@Austin Graff
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THE EDITORIAL BOARD
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Members of the Kansan Editorial Board are Ian Cummings,
Lia Couran, Ion Samp, Angela Hawkins and Ryan Schlesinger.
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