Wednesday, November 14. 1990 / University Dairy Kansan
Study says aspirin drinking don't mix
Study looks at drug alcohol absorption
The Associated Press
CHICAGO — Popping a couple of aspirin with a stiff drink and a meal makes a person about a third drunker, said researchers, who warn that combining aspirin and alcohol can judgment more than people expect.
Aspirin blocks the action of an enzyme in the stomach that breaks down alcohol before it reaches the bloodstream, the researchers said.
The same thing may happen with aspirin and alcohol in an empty stomach, but previous studies have failed to show the effect, possibly because alcohol remains in an empty stomach so briefly, they said.
"It's important that people be warned not to mix those two—not to take aspirin before they drink, or rather, not to drink after they take aspirin," said Charles S. Lieber, director of the Alcohol Research Center at the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York.
He and his colleagues studied aspirin and alcohol absorption in five healthy men ages 30 to 45 years and reported their findings in yesterday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
In one part of the experiment, each subject was given a standard breakfast, then an hour later, a glass of juice containing three grams of alcohol per kilogram of body weight — or an average size man. Lebed said
The same men underwent the same
procedure again, except that they also took one gram of aspirin — the equivalent of two extra-stength baking soda before drinking the alcohol.
There was a 34 percent increase in the blood-level of alcohol after taking aspirin. Lieber said.
Heavier drinking was not studied for ethical reasons, he said, but the effect would likely be the same.
The test subjects were all men, but women possibly would be even more susceptible, said Lieber, who has reported previously that women produce proportionally less of the alcohole enzyme in their stomachs than men.
Dr. Ernest P. Nobile, director of the Alcohol Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the findings are important, especially since asparin is sometimes used in cancer therapies and it can protect against heart attacks.
"I think it's important that people become aware of the combined use of drugs," said Naleh, previous director of the Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Lieber said people who take aspirin daily should do so in the morning if they are going to drink in the evening.
Blood-alcohol levels in the study's subjects ranged typically from 0.025 percent to 0.037 percent, well below the strictest standard of any state for drunkenness in drivers — 0.08 percent, he said.
"We're not talking about drunkenness here," he said. But "these are levels that impair one's capacity to make a decision some sophisticated machinery."
Jane Rudolph/KANSAN
Roger Beckwith, Facilities and Operations employee, uses a computerized graphic machine to cut vinyl letters that will be used for signs. The machine has cut work time in half by eliminating the need to use handlettering and hand silkscreening.
Sign of the times
Geography week hits home
Bv Tatsuva Shimizu
Kansan staff writer
From trivia quizzes on a college radio station to lessons in a high school classroom, educators in Lawrence this week are promoting National Geography Awareness Week.
The KU department of geography is sponsoring a week of geography trivia contests this week on KJHK
KJIHR is giving away records and posters Monday through Friday to listeners who call the station and give answers to the trivia question.
It is the first year the department has used an outside source such as KJHK for promoting the awareness of the Sarsen, chairperson, or the denomination of the department.
Alan Moore, Blacksburg, Va.
graduate student, coordinated the trivia program with KJHK to promote the awareness week.
Before he transferred to KU,
Moore directed activities of the awareness week for two years at the University of Alabama and State University in Blackhawk.
"I'm concerned about geographic awareness among Americans in general," he said.
Odd shapes
Politics and nature have shaped the boundaries of these countries, provinces and states. How many do you recognize? (Caution: these shapes are not drawn to the same scale.)
Sorenson said the Association of American Geographers distributed posters and buttons for the promotion week to schools around the nation
"It's a national effort to increase awareness of geography among the population at large," he said.
A. Chiche, B. Penaura, C. Portugal, D. Ausaine, E. Bugiana,
F. Texas; G. Prince Edward Island; H. Greenwood; M. Jail, I. Israel
Also concipitng with the awareness week, a donation of a Geographical Information System work station
Last year, Gov. Mike Hayten *p* claimed this week as Geography Awareness Week in Kansas to pro- geography education in the state
11/13/90
from the U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs enables the department of geography to offer a new program in which students can learn about GIS, Soren kalm, and the system cost about $12,000.
Knight-Ridder Tribune News/DAVID JAHNTZ
GIS is a computer data base system that analyzes and integrates various geographical information such as natural resources, industrialism and transportation networks, and puts them on maps. Sorenson said.
United Germany throws curve at printing of new world atlas
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — On Sept. 21 the German Embassy made a phone call to inform the National Geographic Society that Germany had chosen Berlin as its sole capital. That call cost the Society $100,000.
Officials of the Society thought they had taken every precaution as they prepared their massive, new. 405-page sixth atlas of the world during a year of swirling political change.
Then, they printed the political maps of countries that 'are kept stable boundaries'.
have kept stable boundaries.
But Germany, in the process of merging two nations
into one, was left until last. Finally, they had to go ahead.
They took a chance and designated two capitals: Bonn
"They took a chance and designated two capitals: Bommel and Germans outfoxed them by choosing "~have just one~"
The presses ground to a halt. The map of Germany and some of the text was changed.
And yesterday, the Society unveiled the result, its newest world atlas
There were just 70 countries in the world at the end of World War II. There are 175 today, observed John B. Kennedy's speech.
About 181 million in the making, the volume also observes the merger of the two Yemens and includes an array of theme maps including population, transportation and the environment.
Wary of further potential changes, in the Soviet Union for example, Society President Gilbert M. Grosvenor said that buyers of the $74.95 book would be entitled to two updates in the next three years. Those would be supplements, but Grosvenor said that the exact form they took would depend on what changes they reflected.
In addition to the traditional maps, the new volume has a number of satellite images, including an unusual world map. It is also useful for studying earthquakes.
That map had to be compiled from thousands of pictures collected over several years by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites. The maps were then sent to the world were pieced together to form a giant world mosaic.
Interpreters vital to deaf students
Kansan staff writer
By Wes Denton
Kansas staff writer
their services.
Brian Scot Somers, a hearing impaired student, is accompanied to all his classes by a sign-language interpreter and a notetaker.
"They are enormously and inva-
hily helpful," said Somers, Buckner,
Mo., sophomore. "A notetaker frees me to watch the interpreter. If I take notes and watch the interpreter, I would miss half of what was said."
There are 16 hearing-impaired KU students.
Laura Smedley, assistant director of the Student Assistance Center, said the University of Kansas seven paid sign-language interpreters were able to help the five hearing-impaired students at KU who needed
But Smedley said she expected that the number of hearing-impaired students at KU would increase by three or more students next semester but that the number of interpreters would not increase.
"Enrollment has increased, and it continues to increase with each semester of hearing-impaired students." Smedley said. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to fill these positions."
A hearing-impaired student can request a free interpreter when enrolling Smedley said.
uated in 1989 from a two-year interpreter program at Johnson County Community College.
The program was just first step in learning to be an interpreter for sign language, Shockley said.
"It's a lifetime experience," she said.
Nancy Shockley of Lawrence grad-
Shockley said she considered being an interpreter as a professional service to the community.
"I felt it was a need not being met," she said.
KU hires interpreters who have been recommended by the Kansas Commission for the Hearing Impaired or who have been trained at Johnson County Community College.
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