Belleville freshman Erin Dusek continues her work as emergency medical technician. 2A
GREENHAWK
JACK WK
Kansas Relays director Tim Weaver resigned to take a new job with a commercial real estate company in Kansas City, Mo. Weaver has served as director since 2000. 10A
FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2006
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOL.117 ISSUE8
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
PAGE 1A
From the kansan.com editor: I had just arrived at my best friend's house to pick him up for school. The local rock DI came on the air and a plane had crashed into one of the buildings of the World Trade Center. My best friend asked, "Do you think we are under attack?" I told him that it had to be a pilot error. Little did I know how wrong I was about that. This is what is etched in my mind about Sept. 11, 2001. We here at The University Daily Kansan would like to know what you were doing when the planes hit the twin towers and what your reaction was. Visit kansan.com to fill out a submission form. All submissions are due Aug. 31. Submissions will be posted on kansan.com on Sept. 11. Select submissions will be printed in the Sept. 11 edition of the Kansan.
Binge drinking stirs up hidden costs
HEALTH
Chris Moore
Night of near-alcohol overdose lands student with hospital bills
BY DAVID LINHARDT
It was the first day of class and the first day of $4 beer pitchers at The Crossing.
At the popular bar just off Jayhawk Boulevard, a Wichita freshman named Hannah and her friends drank pitcher after pitcher of Boulevard Wheat and Budweiser.
Hannah, 18, won a quick chugging contest with a much larger man and felt elated. She was sure
she could drink much more.
What she didn't know was that alcohol could shut down a body's nervous system and that KU Public Safety officers would be patrolling Jayhawk Boulevard on $4 pitcher night.
She also didn't know that the cost of being treated for near-alcohol poisoning can climb as high as $10,000, officials at Lawrence Memorial Hospital said.
About 11 percent of women and 33 percent of men ages 18 to 44
participate in binge drinking at least once per month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2000, the CDC tracked 85,000 deaths related to excessive drinking.
Risk of liver and oral cancer increases 40 percent or more with excessive drinking. Excessive drinking is generally defined as having five or more drinks on a single occasion.
SEE DRINKING ON PAGE 4A
Facts about excessive drinking
> Ninety percent of alcohol consumed by underage drinkers comes during binge drinking sessions.
> Fifty-two percent of all 18- to 20 year-olds who consume alcohol drink excessively. That's the highest proportion of any age group.
> Twenty percent of males and 8 percent of females will meet qualifications for alcohol dependency in their lives.
> Excessive drinking is often a factor in sexual assaults during college. Rape is more likely to occur when both an attacker and a victim use alcohol before an attack.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
She's got the golden tickets
Heather Florez, Topeka senior, takes a moment to look at her football tickets after picking them up Thursday afternoon. Students can pick up their football tickets for the 2006 KU football season at Allen Fieldhouse.
Megan True/KANSAN
SAFETY
'Smart' alarms improve lab safety
BY COURTNEY HAGEN
Tim Welch spends an average of 40 hours per week in the Malott Hall labs. The Salina senior is majoring in chemistry and has a full workload that requires him to spend hours testing sometimes hazardous chemicals. Welch said he feels free to work with the potent chemicals thanks to safety precautions put into place by the University of Kansas.
Welch can work safely under the protection of the building's "smart" alarms. In late 1996, the University began a program to install new alarm systems in new and remodeled buildings on campus.
Bob Rombach, University fire marshal, said that 44 buildings on campus have the new alarm system. and Malott is one of them. Instead of horns or beeps, if the new alarms detect smoke or flames, the alarms set off flashing lights and loud voice alerts.
"Previously, parts of the building were not covered well," Rombach said. "At one point the building had two different fire alarm systems. Now the building has a "smart" fire
alarm system connected to KU 911 with graphic screens to alert dispatchers."
The new "smart" fire alarm system monitors all alarms in the building, unlike the old system that was connected through a series of wires, not to each other. Rombach reports that in the "smart" system every device has a specific location and will automatically alert dispatchers to where the emergency is.
Other laboratory buildings on campus, like Smissman Research Laboratories on West Campus, aren't so lucky. A fire in Smissman last year caused concern because the building contained only manual fire alarm pulls, Rombach said.
In contrast, Rombach said the alarms in Malott are so sensitive that they are sometimes even tripped by a settling of dust in the building.
Though the alarms provide for the quick and early detection of fires, other dangers might slip by if not monitored by students and employees.
SEE ALARMS ON PAGE 4A
ENROLLMENT
More students opt for summer studies
BY BEN SMITH
Summer enrollment at the University of Kansas increased this year after dropping in 2005.
The University Registrar's Office said Thursday that the number of students who attended summer classes at the University this year increased by 79 students. Total University enrollment, which includes all University-affiliated campuses, was up by 59 students.
However, overall enrollment was still less than it was in Summer 2004.
University spokesman Todd
In 2005, 10,616 students attended classes at all campuses during the summer. That was nearly 35 percent of the 29,624 students who enrolled for the subsequent fall semester. In the previous year, Summer 2004, the total University enrollment of 11,033 was about 37 percent of the student population in Fall 2004.
SEE SUMMER ON PAGE 4A
INDEX
Classifieds... 7A
Crossword... 6A
Horoscopes... 6A
Opinion... 5A
Sports... 10A
Sudoku... 6A
Cohen said summer enrollment peaked in 2004 with 11,033 students. Enrollment has steadily increased over the past 20 years, he said, from 9,400 students in Summer 1986.
All contents, unless stated otherwise © 2006
The University Daily Kansan
SCIENCE
Pluto now considered 'dwarf planet'
Julie Feldt lost her favorite planet Thursday when the International Astronomical Union removed Pluto's planetary status.
Feldt, St. Louis junior and astronomy and physics major, said she's disappointed with the decision.
76 years after Pluto's discovery by KU alumnus, it is stripped of its status as large planet
BY ANNA FALTERMEIER
The IAU decided early Thursday morning to remove Pluto from the list of nine planets that's existed since Pluto's discovery in 1930. Pluto was regarded a planet for more than 75 years. It will now be considered a "dwarf planet."
"Hopefully it doesn't hurt research on Pluto," Feldt said.
The decision prompted mixed reactions. Members of the facebook com group, "I love it that Pluto isn't a planet anymore," celebrated. Others, including Feldt, were dissappointed.
The news is especially upsetting for the University of Kansas. Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto, graduated from the University in 1936 with a Bachelor of Science degree in astronomy.
Barbara Anthony-Twarog, professor of physics and astronomy, said
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"I think it diminishes some of the pride that Kansans get at the recognition of Tombaugh as the discoverer of Pluto, but scientifically this doesn't mean anything," she said.
she was disappointed and surprised to hear Tulpe was no longer a planet.
Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930 while working at Lowell observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Anthony-Twarog said that a week ago it seemed likely the IAU would allow Pluto to retain its planetary status.
The former definition of a planet considered any object orbiting the sun that's large enough to make itself spherical to be a planet.
However, what now distinguishes Pluto as a "dwarf planet" is its oblong orbit that overlaps with Neptune's. For Pluto to be considered a planet, it would need to be able to clear all debris from its orbital neighborhood — which it cannot.
Kelley Liebst, Lawrence sophomore and physics and astronomy major, said she's not surprised about the decision.
V
SEE PLUTO ON PAGE 4A
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