Friday
February 7,2003
Vol.113. Issue No.92
Today's weather
25°
Tonight: 5*
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN Langford looks to lead the Jayhawks in tomorrow's Sunflower Showdown p. 10A
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Contact Kristi Henderson, Jenna Goepfert or Justin Henning at 864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
Health officials debate vaccine
By Nikki Overfelt
noverfelt@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
For the first time since the early 1970s, civilians in Kansas will receive the small-pox vaccine.
Today in Topeka, 11 Kansas Department of Health and Environment employees will be the first Kansans to be vaccinated.
On Tuesday, the federal government sent 3.000 doses of the smallpox vaccine to the state of Kansas to prepare against the possibility of smallpox as a biological weapon.
The University of Kansas Medical Center, in Kansas City, Kan., Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department and Lawrence Memorial Hospital have mixed feelings about giving the vaccine to their employees, however.
The Med Center has decided not to participate in phase one of the vaccination program. Phase one allows health care workers to be vaccinated on a voluntary basis.
"Our focus here has been on patient safety, to a degree, and, to a degree, employee safety, too," H. William Barkman, chief of staff of the Med Center, said.
The Med Center treats many patients
"Our focus here has been on patient safety, to a degree, and, to a degree, employee safety, too."
H. William Barkman Chief of staff of the Med Center
that have lowered immune systems, and the Med. Center is concerned for the patients' safety around employees who have received the vaccine.Barkman said.
The vaccine contains the live vaccinia virus, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Barkman said even though the risk of serious side effects was low with the vaccine, the Med Center was worried about who would financially cover employees if they did have a reaction because it is on a volunteer basis. Barkman said the Med Center wanted more answers to its concerns before it agreed to the program.
"There are more risks than benefits at this point," Barkman said.
Additionally, a person can be vaccinated after exposure to smallpox, so Barkman said he thought there was no need for urgency at this point.
SEE SMALLPOX ON PAGE 5A
Astronomy class becomes high-tech
Students keep hands down, use transmitters to interact in discussion
By Lauren Airey lairey@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
"The most important aspect is to provide interactivity within the class, so I can pose a question that the students can respond to," Shawl said. "After they respond, I can see what people answered and continue the class based on what they say instead of assuming they understand and moving on."
tem has been used in the physics and astronomy department. Shawl is the only professor using the system right now, but he said he thought more professors would use it once they were aware of it. Shawl said he thought he had worked out all the program's bugs, but he will ask students what they think of the system after the first exam.
Shawl gives his Contemporary Astronomy students a quiz in almost every class period. The students complete the quiz online before class and then do the quiz again in collaboration with permanently assigned groups. The groups give their answers through the transmitters. With this method, Shawl said he doesn't have to deal with scan-
SEE CLASS ON PAGE 5A
Kelley Weiss/Kansan
"At first, they were kind of hindering because he still didn't know how the program worked," Kerri Henderson, Topeka freshman, said. "That took up a lot of class and wasted a lot of time. I think once they work better, they're a pretty cool thing."
Students studying astronomy with Steve Shawl won't be raising their hands to answer questions anymore.
Shawl, professor of astronomy and physics, is using new infrared transmitters with lettered buttons to get immediate student feedback and answers to daily quizzes during his classroom lectures.
Buzzworthyteam
This semester is the first time the sys-
University renowned for study of bees
By Amy Potter apotter@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
In a room tucked away on the second floor of Snow Hall, 750,000 bees are sorted and labeled in wooden cases carefully stored in tall metal cabinets. The air lingers with the smell of naphthalene, a strong chemical used to protect the precious millimeter-sized occupants from museum pests.
Victor Gonzalez, Bogota, Columbia graduate student in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology, examines an orchid bee. The large orchid bees are from Central and South America and Gonzales said they are more rare than other types of bees because of their size and bright colors.
Next door, in room 256, a retired professor sits in his office. Surrounding him is a library of books that stack from floor to ceiling. This room contains something rare; a near complete collection of literature on bees.
The professor in the office is Charles Michener, a man known throughout the world as an authority on bees. Much of his work since he came to the University of Kansas in 1948, and the research of current faculty, has given the University a strong reputation in the study of bees.
"As far as bees, people claim, probably incorrectly, that we have the largest bee collection in the world," Michener said. "The reason we don't know is we don't know exactly how many species we have or how many species others have. It has become a very important bee collection."
One student came to the University solely on the reputation of the its bee research. Victor Gonzalez, Bogota, Colombia, doctoral student, read Michener's work, whom he refers to as "the father of the bees," when he was a student in Colombia.
"He attracted my attention," Gonzalez said. "Once I finished, I decided to come to Kansas."
Gonzalez's focus is studying bees in the tropics. He plans to return to Colombia once he completes his doctoral work.
"I want to go back to Colombia and study the species there," said Gonzalez. "We don't know what we have in our country."
Chip Taylor, professor of biological sciences, teaches a course on the biology of honeybees. Only about half the students are ever stung in his class, he said.
"It's amusing starting out the course and students don't realize the class is going to be a hands-on experience," Taylor said. "By the next class two or three students are missing. They never come back."
Taylor named four professors, including himself, who have continued the tradition of bee emphasis that Michener began almost half a century ago, Michael Engel, Rudolf Jander, and Deborah Smith, all in the division of biological sciences, bring a different
"It's amusing starting out the course and students don't realize the class is going to be a hands-on experience. By the next class two or three students are missing. They never come back."
Chip Taylor Professor of biological sciences
Jander studied under Karl Von Frisch in Germany. Von Frisch is the only person in the world to receive a Nobel Prize in medicine while working on insects. He is known for his discovery of the honeybee dance, which shows the bees where to go for food.
element of expertise on bee research to the University, he said.
Since he started teaching at the Uni.
venience in 1971, Jander focused on the behavioral patterns of honeybees.
The Natural History Museum houses a self-sufficient hive on the fourth floor, said Jason Wolvington. gallery coordinator.
Wolvington said they were a huge draw to the museum. "People will come in and say, 'I'm just running in to check out the bees. I'm not looking at anything else.'" he said.
Wolvington is working on updating the hive exhibit with an interactive computer screen where visitors can view bee dances, a Web page on bees and a program on pollen collection. He hopes to have the changes made by summer.
Since his retirement 13 years ago, Michener has written a book entitled The Bees of the World published in 2000. He still keeps an office in Snow Hall assisting students and professors with questions.
— Edited by Christy Dendurent
Brandon Baker/Kansar
Graffiti artists inspired by hip-hop culture
DJZ-Trip, Zach Sciacca, scratches records at Project Groove its first anniversary at The Pool Room, 925 Iowa St. Sciacca first entered hip-hop culture as a graffiti writer in Queens, N.Y.
By Cate Batchelder
cbatchelder@kansan.com
kansan staff writer
Each Saturday night at his home in Queens, N.Y., Zach Sciacca, then 14, would sit between two radios recording some of the rawest hip-hop he had ever heard.
"It got under my skin and made me want to draw more, be more creative," he said.
The pulse of the heavy hip-hop beats coming through both ears rushed through his veins.
During the competing radio shows' 9 p.m. to midnight slot, he'd perfect his
graffiti tag in his drawing book.
For Sciacca, it would have been a long week of withdrawal had he not recorded the master mix radio shows. He continued drawing until Saturday night came, and once again the creative juices would flow into his drawing book.
Eventually, he took to the streets writing graffiti but equally became hooked on the music.
"Once I realized that the music and
"Graf was my gateway drug," he said.
"That was the one that got me into it."
Hip-hop continues to be a big part of his life. He said that visually, it was graffiti that pulled him in, and audibly, it was the music.
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the art were connected, I was sunk," he said. "I was like, 'This is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.'"
sciacca came to Lawrence last Friday night to perform with DJ P, real name Danny Phillips, at Project Groove's one-
year anniversary at The Pool Room, 925 Iowa St. DJ P first entered hip-hop as a bboy, slang for break dancer.
Last Thursday at La Tasca, 943 Massachusetts St., he surprised others when he busted out an eight-rotation windmill, said Edwin Morales, Lawrence resident.
Morales coordinates La Tasca's Thursday night formatting of '80s music. Through his production company, DownPlay Productions, he also organizes Project Groove.
Morales compared graffiti to hip-hop music because of its expressive, spur-of-
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SEE GRAFFITI ON PAGE 5A
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