KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2010 / NEWS
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CAMPUS
Graduate students present research
Spencer Walsh/KANSAN
Graduate students display posters detailing hopeful research projects in the Kansas Union Ballroom on Wednesday. In all, 108 graduate students prepared research proposals to pitch to potential investors and one another.
Press
Spencer Walsh/KANSAN
BY ROBERT ALTMAN
raltman@kansan.com
More than 100 graduate students presented the findings of their research projects Wednesday for a chance to win cash prizes.
William Gilbert, a graduate student from Topeka, helps Woan Jing Teh set up her poster during the 2010 Graduate Research Competition Wednesday at the Kansas Union ballroom. Gilbert and Teh are both involved in the chemical and petroleum engineering graduate program.
The projects were split into the fields of science and engineering, social science and education and the humanities and fine arts. Each field will award a $500 first prize, a $200 second prize and two $150 third prizes to students at an award ceremony on April 27.
A group of faculty members judged the presentations, which were set up on post board or given through PowerPoint talks. Students presented on topics ranging from gasoline production with algae to how Victorian women used born to learn about sex.
"We want to showcase the fact that our graduate students are engaged in research and that their research is really important to our institution," said Sara Rosen, dean of graduate studies. "This is the next generation of researchers that will be out there."
She said that it was not only
an opportunity for students to practice presenting their work to the public but that it was also a chance to learn about the work others are doing.
Mathew Frank, a medical chemistry graduate student, said he enjoyed the input he got from
"This is the next generation of researchers that will be out there."
"A biochemist can come here and
talk to me about it, or a psychologist can bring his knowledge to the table," he said. "These can lead to collaborations with other labs.
so you never know what to expect, you just come to these things to speak and learn."
audience members from other fields. He presented his work on using Salvia divinorum, a hallucinogenic compound that is often used recreationally but is outlawed in Kansas, as a possible treatment for drug addiction.
SARA ROSEN Dean of graduate studies
Griffin Roberts, a chemical engineering graduate student, presented his plans to create a new non-biodiesel form of gasoline from algae oil. He said he planned to buy his
own $13,000 reactor to make the new gasoline while getting his doctorate in the next few years.
Although Roberts said the cash prize would be a big help to his research, he said the experience of presenting his work was more beneficial.
"It's just really good to talk with
people about things and have them understand what you're doing and why you're doing it," he said, "You can do the greatest work ever, but if
you can't explain it to someone, it's pretty useless."
Edited by Allyson Shaw
CAMPUS
Human-zombie game gets approval
BY ZACH GETZ
zgetz@kansan.com
The undead had to wait a week, but they will finally rise on West Campus.
A day after the Humans vs. Zombies KU Chapter received permission to host its test game, the event was postponed so administrators could address their concerns. The game, which is part of a national Humans vs. Zombies game that started in 2005, is rescheduled for this Friday.
Dozens of KU students will roam the grounds of West Campus in a giant game of tag. Each player will wear a bandana, either on the arm, signaling a human, or on the head, signaling a zombie.
Although the group got the goahead for a test game, there are still some limits.
First, the game, which was originally supposed to be campus-wide, will be played only on West Campus, and the buildings themselves will serve as safe zones — off limits for any attacks. And
rather than the Nerf guns used by human-zombie battlers on other campuses, participants of Friday's game must use rolled-up socks to attack. Finally, the game will only last 24 hours.
"They wanted us to be in a more controlled environment than letting us run around all over campus," said Douglas Hanson, co-founder of the KU chapter.
Hanson said he didn't know whether the game would ever be able to spread out to other parts of campus, but he said he expected the game to continue until next semester.
The Humans vs. Zombies group will table on the fourth floor of the Kansas Union from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. today, and the test game will be tomorrow at 3 p.m.
"Since we knew there was going to be some kind of compromise, this isn't the worst situation we could be in," Hanson said.
For more information, search "Humans vs. Zombies KU Chapter" on Facebook.
— Edited by Sarah Bluvas
BENICIA, Calif. — The federal government on Wednesday said it would remove a decaying armada of military vessels dating back to World War II from a San Francisco Bay waterway that has been polluted by the boats for decades.
'Ghost fleet' to be removed from Bay
NATIONAL
Reservoir ruling halts Everglade buy-back
NATIONAL
Most of the vessels, including some that chased submarines during World War II and others that delivered troops and supplies to battlefields in subsequent wars, are destined for the recycling yard, the U.S. Maritime Administration, or MARAD, said Wednesday.
The agency said it settled a lawsuit and agreed to remove
Studies by the administration have suggested the old warships have dumped more than 20 tons of copper, lead, zinc and other metals into the estuary, a critical habitat for a number of endangered species.
most of the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, known as the "ghost fleet"
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The gray and rust-red hulks, some stretching between two-and-three football fields long, are anchored in rows in Suisun Bay, a shallow estuary between San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquín Delta
Work on the 25-square-mile reservoir — the largest of its kind in the world — was halted in 2008 after water managers said a lawsuit from environmentalists could hinder their ability to complete the project.
"We are moving expeditiously to remove the worst polluting ships first and diligently moving to clean the rest," said David Matsuda, acting administrator of MARAD. In all, 52 ships eventually will be recycled.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Gov. Charlie Crist's grand plan to revive the dying Florida Everglades by buying back the land is in jeopardy after a federal judge Wednesday ordered the state to resume construction on a multimillion-dollar restoration project.
It the sugar land deal falls through, it could serve up another blow to Crist's campaign for U.S. Senate. He is locked in a close contest for the GOP nomination, and the U.S. Sugar purchase was set to be a cornerstone of his legacy.
Moreno granted a motion from the Miccosuskee Indians, who live in the Everglades, to force the South Florida Water Management District to resume construction of the massive reservoir with an estimated cost of up to $800 million.
The Everglades have been dying for decades from the intrusion of farms and development, dissected by dikes, dams and canals, effectively draining much of the swamp and polluting it with fertilizers and urban runoff. The state and federal governments' efforts to restore the wetlands have been stymied for years by funding shortfalls, legal challenges and political bickering.
The decision to stop work came just a month before Crist announced a plan to spend $1.75 billion to buy all of U.S. Sugar Corp's 180,000 acres and assets in the Everglades.
Associated Press
Crist's plan has since been scaled down, because of the economy, but U.S District Judge Federico Moreno's ruling on Wednesday
could now end it all.
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SEATTLE - Thousands of U.S. Census workers have fanned out to soup kitchens, city streets and homeless shelters this week in an attempt to count the nation's homeless; an operation that officials are hoping yields the most accurate count yet.
The Census Bureau mobilized a small army of enumerators — the people that count — for the three-day operation that wraps up Wednesday. In San Francisco alone, 800 people canvassed 1,700 streets, said Michael Burns, deputy regional director for the Seattle region. In the Puget Sound area of Washington state, 700 workers are being dispatched. Enumerators hit both city and rural streets.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CENSUS
American Red Cross Douglas County Chapter
But counting the nation's homeless population remains challenging for the Census, which uses home addresses to send its decennial questionnaire to U.S. residents.
There is also no agreed definition of homelessness among federal agencies, Burns said.
Moreover, the actual questionnaire doesn't have an option for people without a home.
Behind the count is money ... More than $20 billion will go to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Because of that, for the second census in a row, the bureau partnered with service providers — faith-based soup kitchens, advocacy groups, shelters and others — across the country to reach out and pinpoint areas where the homeless gather.
"That close alliance, working with people at the grass roots levels ... I think it's definitely going to make for a more accurate count. We're working with people who know where (the homeless) stay at night," Burns said.
In 1992, Baltimore and San Francisco and a group of homeless advocates sued, wanting the Census to recount. They charged that the bureau deliberately failed to count thousands of homeless people, when its tally spanned just one night, in order to reduce the federal aid available to the homeless.
Behind the count is money.
More than $440 billion will be distributed based on the Census
In Seattle, information booths have been set up in hygiene centers, for example. And even after the three-day operation ends, some more outreach will be conducted.
data. More than $20 billion will go to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institute. HUD often works with people with no permanent shelter.
The history between the Census and the homeless, though, is not without controversy. The last two censuses yielded complaints about how the government handled the count.
After the 2000 Census, law makers demanded that the Census say exactly how many homeless people it found, instead of grouping them into a large one.
citic category called "other non- institutionalized group quarters"
Undercounting remains a concern for Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. He said homeless advocates, HUD and others have estimated higher homeless populations than what the Census has tallied.
But in Los Angeles, Herbert L. Smith, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Mission in the city's Skid Row district, praised the Census Bureau's efforts to count members of the city's homeless population.
"They heard the criticisms from the last go-around and I think they're trying to address these as best they can," Smith said. "They have really touched all the bases in trying to make the count as accurate as possible."
Back in Seattle, one thing remained certain to Alison Eisinger, whose Seattle-King County Coalition on Homelessness has conducted an annual one-night count for the past three decades.
"We know by that experience you'll always have an under-count," she said.
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