monday, april 19, 2004
news
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the university daily kansan 3
3A
There's the love
Philander Wade, Tulsa, Okla., sophomore, posed for the crowd Friday night after being crowned "Mr. Black Love." Wade beat out two other contestants, Bobby Birhiray, Houston senior, and Antwan Winkfield, Kansas City, Mo., freshman, during the Black Student Union's first male pageant. The three competed in casual wear, formal wear, talent and question-and-answer.
Research questions theory
KU geology teacher challenges when animal life began
By Rupal Gor
rgor@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Recent research about the ancestors of spiders and scorpions challenges the idea of when animal life began on Earth.
animal the beginner, Bruce Lieberman, associate professor of geology at the University of Kansas, studies these ancient organisms called trilobites.
He has found that animal life began earlier than most people think.
Trilobites such as spiders horseshoe crabs and scorpions are part of the animal kingdom Animalia.
Animals These were the first multicellular animals to live in the world's oceans.
Lieberman, along with Joe Meert, an assistant professor of geology at the University of Florida, found that animal life existed at least 50 million years before the Cambrian Explosion.
Their research found that the supercontinent split over a longer period of time than was thought.
thought. "We started talking and kind of realized that we both saw the same problem from different avenues," Meert said.
Lieberman's research focuses on the animals, while Meert focuses on the magnetic properties of rocks.
By examining rocks, Meert looks at the geography of how continents moved more than 500 to 600 million years ago.
the break up of the supercontinent, Pangea, that assisted in rapid animal evolution.
They looked at trilobite fossils in rocks and traced the ancestors of trilobites back to present-day Siberia.
"Probably the earliest trilobites originated in Siberia." Lieberman said. "At that time, it was much closer to the equator and was under water."
Siberia, a country in northern Asia that now touches the Arctic Ocean, has ice-cold temperatures.
But it was much like the Bahamas about 543 million years ago, at the time of the Cambrian period, or Cambrian Explosion.
This period was when major groups of animal life first appeared in the fossil record and evolved in what was said to be a short amount of time.
Locations of the continents at the time causes controversy, Meert said.
He said one of the conclusions they found was that the Cambrian Explosion was more like a slow burn — not an explosion.
The world's continents move at a normal rate of 5 centimeters a year, Lieberman said.
At that time, the continents were moving at a slightly faster rate, but not so much as several feet a year. This is an idea that the current research disagrees with.
Meert and Lieberman wrote a paper together that covers their research, which was published in the London Journal of Geological Society.
They also submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation to fund geological work that they plan to do in Norway.
Kerry: Bush has 'stunningly ineffective' foreign policy
Edited by Collin LaJoie
The Associated Press
MIAMI — Democrat John Kerry yesterday accused President Bush of being "stunning ineffective" at foreign policy and stuck by his argument that the war against terrorism isn't primarily a military struggle.
Kerry, in a wide-ranging interview on NBC's Meet the Press, also stood by his promise to create 10 million jobs and halve the deficit in his first term if elected, though he conceded that soaring red ink could squeeze some proposals.
presidential nominee pressed his argument that Bush, the Republican incumbent, went about the Iraq war in a way that has left the
The Massachusetts senator and presumptive Democratic
United States and its troops shouldering too much of the burden. He said he would build an international alliance to share the responsibility for rebuilding Iraq.
Kerry
"I think this administration has proven, frankly, stunningly ineffective in diplomacy," Kerry said.
citing Bush's policy change on Israel last week. "There were Arab leaders that were taken by surprise by this announcement."
"I will immediately reach out to other nations in a very different way from this administration," he said. "Within weeks of being inaugurated I will return to the U.N. and I will rejoin the community of nations."
Kerry rejected the suggestion that he's been inconsistent on Iraq because he voted for the congressional resolution that authorized the use of force, and against $87 billion in additional funding for the war. A Bush campaign commercial currently on the air
criticizes Kerry's vote against the aid package last year.
Kerry noted that Bush himself had threatened to veto the $87 billion bill if it included money to pay for health care for reservists and required Iraq to pay back some of the money set aside for its reconstruction.
The Democrat and Vietnam War veteran said he supports the long-term goal of stability in Iraq, but warned that the public's patience may wear thin.
Asked whether he'd vote against another funding bill for U.S. troops in Iraq, Kerry said: "It depends entirely on what the situation is ... I'm not going to say that."
"If we are stuck for a long period of time in a quagmire where young Americans are dying without any sense of that (stability) being able to be achieved, I think most Americans will decide that's failure," Kerry said.
Kerry also defended his argument that the fight against terrorism is more than just a military operation.
"You need the best intelligence, the best law enforcement cooperation in the world," he said. "I will not hesitate to use those forces effectively. I think I could fight a far more effective war on terror."
Marc Racicot, chairman of Bush's re-election campaign, suggested that Kerry wasted an opportunity to explain why he voted for the use of force in Iraq but against money for the U.S. troops in harm's way.
"John Kerry went even further and instead of sending a message to the troops that we are behind them, when asked about his new support in the future, he said 'it depends upon the situation,'" Racicot said. "This conditional support for the troops that John Kerry voted to send to Iraq in the first place demonstrates a disturbing lack of judgment."
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