THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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OPINION
WWW.KANSAN.COM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2006
No se habla español; students need minor
OUR OPINION
The world becomes more interconnected every day. Businesses interact with overseas partners, scientists share research with colleagues halfway around the world and educators learn from the countless cultures of human civilization.
With such interaction becoming prevalent and necessary, students should do what they can to prepare for it. Unfortunately, one department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences could be doing a little bit more.
The Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University is one of the premier programs in Spanish and Portuguese in the nation. It was designated first in the nation in doctoral training, along with Brown University, by the National Research Council in 1995. The department is one of the largest at the University, employing more than 20 professors, dozens of graduate teaching assistants and lecturers, and more than 300 majors and 50 graduate students. It has nearly every resource necessary to an in-depth study of Spanish or Portuguese for the willing student.
But what about students who don't want to be versed in every aspect of the two languages but still want to be valuable to the global community? The department offers a major and graduate courses but no minor, unlike several other language departments at the University
What if a business student wants to to converse with business partners in the Spanish-speaking world or a social welfare student wants to know the languages when he or she goes to work for the Peace Corps or in a diverse community? Students in the arts and the sciences can also benefit from a minor in Spanish or Portuguese
Stance: Spanish and Portuguese are prevalent and students should be able to minor in them.
Issue: The lack of a Spanish or Portugese minor
Students can earn minors in German, Japanese, Hebrew and Russian, among others, but minors in Spanish and Portuguese would be especially valuable, given the languages' widespread use around the world. There is a minor in the department for those in the School of Education, but that is only one group of students who can benefit. Students could just take several classes and become fluent, but unless there is a form of certification to show employers, such education would be limited in its professional application
The department employs excellent faculty and staff and is nationally ranked for its role in education. It just needs to do more to aid students who can't dedicate their lives just to the intricacy of language and students who have other interests they wish to pursue as their future careers.
Ty Beaver for the editorial board
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Evolution can be fact and theory at once
In last Friday's letter to the editor entitled "Scientists should evolve attitudes about criticism," David Lucas praises the Kansan's editorial staff for presenting evolution as a "theory" in a recent column regarding a signed petition calling for increased skepticism in the scientific community. The author's view, however, exposes a broader misunderstanding of the concept of evolution among the KU student body and the inadequacy of the biological curriculum taught at high schools today in the state of Kansas.
The author is correct in describing evolution as a theory, but it is also a fact. To some this may appear to be paradoxical.
Biological evolution can be simply defined as a change in the traits of living organisms over time, which can lead to the emergence of new species. Have we observed evolutionary change? Yes, both in nature and in the laboratory. The multitude of evidence includes examples such as plant and insect speciation stemming from hybridizations, the rise of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, color change in 19th century British moth populations in response to industrial pollution, speciation of house mice that are geographically isolated, fruit
flies evolving under artificial selection in laboratory settings, etc.
There are thousands of different forms of life that lived in the past but are not around today, such as our African ancestors. Fossil specimens, as well as comparative biology of contemporary species, demonstrate the interconnection of all organisms - revealing an evolutionary tree of life. There is evidence for the transition of bony fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles to birds and mammals, etc.
Evolution is a fact.
With the advent of modern genetics and the understanding that DNA is the hereditary blueprint for the physical characteristics of all living organisms, evolution can be defined more specifically as a change in the frequency of gene variants in a population from one generation to the next. Genetic data has provided abundant evidence for evolutionary change within population gene pools. Molecular biology has also enabled scientists to reconstruct the evolutionary pathways and relationships of humans and other organisms from the genetic perspective.
Mark Zloljetro
Goderich, Ontario
Graduate Student
Patrick Rose, associate opinion editor 864-4924 or pross@kansan.com
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TALK TO US
Mcolom Gibson, general manager, news advisor
844-7867 or mibson@kansan.com
Name one chemical that's found in 70 percent of U.S. streams and rivers.
Caffeine has ups and downs
▼ COMMENTARY
Jason Shaad, opinion editor
864-4924 or jahaad@kansan.com
Jennifer Weaver, sales and marketing adviser 884-7686 or jweaver@kansan.com
Some hints: It comes from dark brown liquid that's been known to scald people's tongues. Its source is often an excuse to invite someone back to your place. You probably drank it this morning, you will drink it late tonight or, if you're like me, you've been drinking it all day and you have a cup of it next to you right now.
You got it! It's caffeine, found both in the environment, and in our bodies. Ninety percent of Americans ingest some form of it every day, and its most popular liquid source is coffee; more than half of Americans drink coffee every day.
To take a lethal dose of caffeine, you'd have to ingest about 10 grams – or 100 cups of coffee — but it's easier than you'd think to get close to this dose by taking caffeine pills. True caffeine poisoning can result in tremors, nausea, vomiting, confusion, delirium, seizures and high blood sugar.
So, can coffee be good for you? Definitely, if you ask the National Coffee Association. Coffee contains antioxidants, which are good for heart health and may have anti-cancer benefits. But it's not clear whether the benefits of coffee outweigh some of the negative side effects of drinking too much (like insomnia).
Caffeine may have environmental effects, too; aside from its presence in rivers, a group of Norwegian scientists found trace amounts of caffeine in the bodies of Arctic sea fish. Exactly how caffeine affects the environment isn't clear, but it's a definite footprint of human presence.
But being aware of coffee's effects on my body and the environment does spur me to think before I stumble toward my coffee pot in the morning, before I go for my mid-afternoon top-off or for one more cup late at night to keep studying.
Caffeine can affect all the body's systems: Nervous, cardiovascular, respiratory, etc. And, of course, it stimulates the nervous system. One or two cups will wake a person up, making him or her feel more alert and even better able to concentrate.
Here's some information on that molecule we all know well. In its pure form, caffeine is a white, crystalline powder that's incredibly bitter.
Given all this caffeine info,
have I, a coffee connoisseur,
put down my cup? Well ... no. I
think coffee is delicious; it's an
important part of culture on six
of the seven continents, includ-
ing my own, and it gives me
energy, at least for a short time.
On the other hand, some common negative effects are higher blood pressure, increased production of urine and stomach acid, anxiety, nervousness or grumpiness.
Caffeine works in the brain the same way that amphetamines, cocaine and heroin do although, obviously, caffeine is much milder. Caffeine works by mimicking a chemical in the brain called adenosine, which plays a part in sleepiness by slowing nerve cell
Evanhoe is a Derby senior in chemistry.
BECCA EVANHOE
opinion@kansan.com
activity in the brain. Caffeine is similar enough to adenosine to plug into the adenosine receptors in cells, but it's not similar enough to have the same effect; it doesn't slow the cells down.
So it blocks the adenosine, and the brain doesn't register sleepiness. Instead, the cells speed up and more neurons fire in the brain.
These effects are short-lived; they're gone as soon as caffeine leaves the body. The bad news is that once the adrenaline wears off, you can face depression and fatigue. In other words, you crash. It's this crash that keeps people going back for more coffee, and leads to addiction.
So how much caffeine is in coffee, anyway? It depends on how it's brewed and from which type of beans, but regular old coffee potfellow coffee usually has between 80 and 118 milligrams of caffeine per five-ounce cup. The average daily coffee drinker walks around with six to 50 milligrams of caffeine in his or her bloodstream.
Not only can caffeine be addictive, but people can overdose on caffeine; taking more than 250 mg at once (either by chugging a lot of coffee, or taking a caffeine pill) can lead to restlessness, nervousness, insomnia, flushed face, upset stomach, muscle twitching, rambling flow of speech and thought in irregular heartbeats.
Free All for Call 864-0500
PAGE 5A
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments, Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
To the guy who put the "do unto others" quote in the Free-for-All, yeah, God also said you're going to hell if you don't believe in
him. Hope you like fire!
GSP has great food and great people. Thanks a lot GSP We love you! Bye bye.
I see your Cryptoquote clue is wrong again in today's Kansan. You're well on your way to your average 2.4 mistakes per week. Thank you, Cryptoquote
Free-for-All, I have a hard decision between going to class and watching Star Trek: The Next Generation.
you, Cryptoc
The Next Generation.
Yeah, the guy who called in about the koala bear thing
got that off of a cartoon called Sealab 2020.
--tomorrow night around
9:30, so if you want to come,
come on over, bring some
Does the Crossing take Beak 'Em Bucks?
Jeans aren't very comfort able when you're fat.
--tomorrow night around
9:30, so if you want to come,
come on over, bring some
My Kiosk is 12 inches long.
19
Hey Free-for-All, I'm just calling like everybody in my phone book, but we're gonna play poker over here
friends. See yal
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COMMENTARY
Organic foods worth the expense
RYAN SCARROW opinion@kansan.com
One of the things that I have come to love about living in Lawrence is the incredible food that we have access to. Years ago, living in a small Kansas farm town, I thought organic food simply meant tofurkey and soy burgers. When I started browsing through the aisles at local grocery stores here, I realized that the organic movement has grown to be much more than that, and will continue to do so as our society realizes its benefits.
Simply put, it's the economy. As George Pyle, a long-time Kansas journalist and editor, makes the case in his new book "Raising Less Corn, More Hell," the long-term effects of modern, post-war industrial farming are a ticking time bomb for American agriculture. The methods, the business model, the slavish devotion to pesticides and aquifers that are hallmarks of such industrial farming are not sustainable and are potentially destabilizing for the domestic and global food markets.
I pay more now so that I can pay less later, and along the way help make American agriculture stronger in all respects. It certainly makes my whole wheat spaghetti with locally raised chicken and toasted organic sourdough taste that much better. And it tasted great already.
The amount of money that is distributed by the government to corporate farms seems like a large mountain to scale on the part of organic producers and it is. Which is why I purchase organic and natural foods when I go to the store. Yes they may cost more (which itself is a sign of the distortion in the markets, because without subsidies and pesticides, organic farming costs about the same as non-organic, and in the long-run is less costly), but that is all the more reason to buy them. Capitalism is based on incentives and demand, and the more demand created for the products and the process and benefits of organic farming (i.e. The sustainability of our resources and the health of our bodies), the more supply will come onto the market.
Scarrow is a Humboldt senior in history.
This system was not created in a vacuum, however, nor does it exist without an underlying structure. That structure takes the form of subsidies — massive subsidies from the government — a model that is duplicated across Europe in countries that can't bear to lose their local small farmers. Our subsidies typically don't go to the local small farmers, but to the large regional corporations that impose non-sustainable practices and poisons upon our farms.
General questions should be directed to the editor at editor@kansan.com.
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