KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 / NEWS
3A
MAYOR (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
also commented on the need for investments in city employees and partnerships with the University. He said money was tight, but that didn't hinder the city's ability to serve its citizens.
experience and leadership Amyx provides would be a great asset in setting these priorities.
"We're going to be talking a lot about priorities — priorities and choices about where we're going to spend the money we receive from taxpayers," Amyx said.
Commissioners agreed that the
Edited by Drew Anderson
"I can say confidently that our tax dollars are being well spent here," Chestnut said.
INTERNATIONAL
Earthquakes rock province in China
BEIJING — A series of strong earthquake struck China's western Qinghai province Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. There were no immediate reports of casualties in the remote rural area, though witnesses described houses quickly crumbling.
The USGS reported on its Website that a magnitude 6.9 temblor struck an area in southern Qinghai, near Tibet, on Wednesday morning and was followed by two quakes in the same region.
The quake hit the county of Yushu, a Tibetan area in Qinghai, the official Xinhua News Agency cited the China Earthquake Networks Center as saying. The Chinese center measured the
quake's magnitude at 7.1.A local government Website put the county's population in 2005 at 89,300,a community of mostly herders and farmers.
The quake sent residents fleeing as it toppled many houses made of mud and wood, said Gasong Nima, the Yushu county television station's deputy head of news, speaking by phone with state broadcaster CCTV.
Associated Press
"In a flash, the houses went down. It was a terrible earthquake," the witness said. "In a small park, there is a Buddhist tower and the top of the tower fell off."
LIZARD (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
and evolutionary biology, compared DNA sequencing of the specimen with its relatives to confirm it was a new species. The three coauthored and published a report on their findings this month in Biology Letters.
The adult male specimen revealed distinguishing shape morphology to its double-barreled reproductive organ, or hemipenis (a feature common in many reptiles), creating a lock and key effect in that it can only fit into females of the same species. This prevents any gene flow among different populations.
"Field work can only do so much," Welton said. "In order to validate this thing as being an actual scientific discovery, it required many more hours of lab work here back at the University than in the field."
Brown said he hoped the discovery would encourage ecologists to study the lizard's lifestyle and behaviors.
"We need them out there before we can really understand this animal," Brown said. "Now they should have a pretty good idea where to look."
Researchers aren't exactly sure how bitatawa came to the
from its closest relative,
Varanus olivaceus,
commonly known as
Gray's monitor lizard.
northern mountain forests of Luzon because open ocean and river valley barriers separate it
work on monitor lizards for his master's degree, thanks to the grant that funded last summer's expedition
"One of the hopes of my own personal research is to gain a better
"When I was a little kid, I had this dream that I would be able to name new species of animals."
understanding of the evolutionary history of the group," Welton said. "When I was a little kid, I had this dream that I would be able to name new species of animals, and being able to do that so early in my career makes so many things seem possible."
Welton said he became interested in herpetology, the study of reptiles and amphibians, while attending Free State High School and eventually managed Pet World's reptile breeding center while working on his undergraduate degree. He has published three species descriptions so far as a graduate student under Brown and will get more opportunities to conduct field-
expedition.
LUKE WELTON KU graduate student
Brown, who wrote the proposal for the grant from the National Science Foundation, said the studies in the Philippines were important to preserving the biodiversity of the region, which is under constant threat of deforestation.
The grant has set out to comprehensively survey the biodiversity of vertebrates in the Philippines and will fund five to six expeditions each year for another three years.
"Every trip I've been a part of we have found at least a half-dozen undescribed species," Welton said. "We're all eager with anticipation to see what else we can turn up."
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Edited by Megan Heacock
PULITZER (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
How has journalism changed in the last 15 years, since you were the editor of the Kansan?
We did not have an online edition when I was there. Being a journalist has changed so much since I was at the Kansan. We didn't have cell phones. When you were a reporter at the Kansan, you had to sit at the desk or you'd miss a source calling you. There was definitely an added degree of difficulty. There has been this amazing fast forward change since I've been at the Kansan.
It was something I had always wanted to do even when I was at KU. At the Kansan I begged to cover any elected official that came to campus. When I was at KU I thought I might actually go to law school, but I fell in love with covering it while I was at the Kansan.
Have you always had a passion for covering politics?
What are your future plans?
What are your future plans?
I want to stay in Dallas and I'm even more motivated to keep writing about these neighborhoods and the help they need. We feel like we're just about the beginning of the process.
— Edited by Kirsten Hudson
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