Photo by Mike Radencich
Flea heart prompts study
Dale Pippitt, Twin Falls, Idaho senior, has developed a successful method for recording the electrocardiograms of fleas as a semester project for one of his engineering classes. He says the flea heart is similar to that of man.
Pro-Israelites heckle group
Two speakers talking in favor of the Palestinian commandos were heckled by comments and questions from pro-Israel students in a panel discussion and question period sponsored by the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) in McCollum Hall Thursday night.
Depository auctioned in Dallas
DALLAS (UPI) — The Texas school book depository, an obscure building until Lee Harvey Oswald chose a sixth floor window to assassinate President John F. Kennedy, was auctioned off for $650,000 Thursday night.
The current owner, Col. D. Harold Byrd, has until Friday night to decide whether to accept the bid. He had said before the auction he had been offered $1.5 million for the building.
The high bidder was Aubrey Mayhew, who said he was in the music business in Nashville, Tenn.
He declined to say what he would do with the musty red brick building from which Oswald fired a cheap mailorder rifle Nov. 22, 1963, but he did say he would not tear it down and would never sell it.
14 KANSAN Apr.17 1970
The speakers were Fuwwaz Ulaby, electrical engineering professor at the University of Kansas and Kem Allen from the YSA headquarters in Chicago.
Before the meeting Allan Blumenthal, managing editor of KU's Hillel newspaper, Sholom, got up in front of the group and expressed concern because no one representing the Israeli viewpoint was allowed to speak on the panel.
Throughout the speakers' talks, Blumenthal shouted comments to the speakers.
The panelists spoke about the Palestinian commandos who they said are separated from the Arab government. He said the commandos were fighting against the Zionists and not the people of Israel. The commandos are fighting for a socialist state, they said.
After the speeches, there was some discrepancy raised on which was a more socialist state, that of the Israelis or the Arabs.
After the speakers' presentation Ben Entine, vice-president of Hillel, Lexington, Missouri, freshman brought up several comments and questions to the speakers and audience.
One question brought up concerned why the commandos, if they are in favor of socialism in both the Israeli and Arab states are fighting the Israelites and not also the Arabs. The response by the speakers was that most of the imperialism in either of the states was represented by the Zionist armies and that is why the commandos are fighting in Israel.
Another question was brought up concerning the composition of the commando members. The speakers said although most of the commandos were ex-Palestinians they were now open even for Israelites wanting to free Palestine from Zionist oppression.
The panelists insisted that Israel was controlled by the few rich and that there was open discrimination against the Arabs.
After the panel discussion and questions, Blumenthal said Hillel would stage a protest to the McCollum Hall Senate in the way of a formal statement concerning the lack of panelists supporting the Israeli's viewpoint.
A pupil studies flea heartbeats as engineering class project
By MIKE RADENCICH Kansas Staff Writer
Today, the word electrocardiogram or EKG has become common to anyone who has ever had his heartbeat recorded on paper. But, have you ever heard of anyone taking an EKG of the heart of a flea?
By studying the EKG, he said, one could also learn about how the heart of an active animal is affected by oxygen consumption, temperature changes or acidity within the animal. This kind of information, he said, could be important in the control and design of artificial hearts and in helping man better understand how the living heart is controlled.
It is being done and successfully by Dale Pippitt, a Twin Falls, Idaho senior in electrical engineering at the University of Kansas.
Pippitt said that the daphnia or water flea has a two-chambered heart that is, in some ways, similar to that of higher animals, such as man's. He said that by studying the simple flea heart researchers might better understand the method by which any heart conducts an electrical charge that triggers contraction.
Pippitt said that this unusual experiment, which is his semester project in one of his engineering classes, has been undertaken before by other researchers but with unsatisfactory results whereas he was able to develop a more simple and yet more exact method of carrying out the project.
Next, he said, he had to consider and compensate for grave physiological problems that arise from using daphnia because of their relatively small size and fragility.
But one might ask. "Why would anyone want to take an EKG of a flea's heart and what could be the benefits of such information?"
In taking an EKG from a water flea's heart, Pippitt said, there were four important problems that had to be overcome.
First, an effective means of amplifying the extremely tiny electrical charge within the heart had to be devised.
Thirdly, he had to devise a means of effectively constructing miniature electrodes to be placed within the flea's body, he said.
Finally, Pippit said that he had to find a way to screen out other
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Pippitt said he then used a write mesh cage to enclose the tube to screen out unwanted electrical noise. A special amplifier was used to boost the signal so that the EKG could be observed on an oscilloscope or TV-like device that displayed the EKG on a special picture tube.
The actual apparatus used for the EKG, he said, basically consisted of a tube filled with distilled water in which a single flea was placed with a silver electrode at either end of the tube.
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at Westminister Center
electrical discharges caused by movement of the daphnia's limbs
Pippitt said his paper had won awards in project contests over the last few months: at KU where he took first place in an Institute of Electrical Engineers sponsored contest and first-place awards in Kansas City and in St. Louis.
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He said he would enter his paper in a regional contest in Dallas on April 23.
sponsored by Latin American & International Clubs
Lindsay urges officials to walk on 'Earth Day'
NEW YORK (UPI) — The office of Mayor John V. Lindsay Thursday urged city officials to leave their autos home and walk to work or use mass transit on "Earth Day" April 22 to dramatize the effect of auto exhaust on the atmosphere. As an added incentive to those officials with chauffeur-driven limousines, the mayor's office also announced that the City Hall parking area would be closed on Earth Day.
Capt. Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer, reached the South Pole Dec. 14, 1911.
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