University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, March 30, 1988
Campus/Area
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KU Space Program takes off Students' experiments to go up on shuttle flight
By Julie Adam
Kansan staff writer
As early as next year, KU engineering students could be sowing their seeds in space.
KU Space Program plans to send up five experiments on one of the first four flights of the next NASA space shuttle. One of those experiments includes sending seeds into space.
The first space shuttle since the Challenger explosion is scheduled to launch Aug. 4 with a crew of five. The KU group hopes to finish its projects by the end of the year to go up on the fourth shuttle launch, which could be as early as next spring, said Paul Fieseler, Lenexa senior and the organization's president.
Mahayar Rahbairad, Olathe junior and vice president of the group, said
KII
KU Space Program plans to send five experiments on one of the next four space shuttle flights.
that the engineers had been working on the projects for about two years. The group has a guaranteed space on the shuttle. The guaranteeed space cost $3,000.
In February, Student Senate allocated $3,733 to the group to pay the final installments on the capsule and to buy materials needed to construct and finish the projects.
Fieseler said that one of the experiments dealt with sending cotton, wheat and guayule seeds in space to see how they would mutate or change
upon being exposed to radiation.
Rahbarrad said guayule, a desert plant, was a source of rubber and petroleum. Cotton would be examined because of its value in producing fiber for clothing, and wheat would be examined because of its food value.
"The reason we are sending those seeds up is that we believe they will have applications for space stations in the future," Fieseler said.
Another experiment is called vapor deposition. The purpose of the experiment would be to see how different metal-coated plastics would withstand being exposed to space.
Rahbarrad said, "Plastics don't last in space due to radiation, so what we do is try to coat them with metals to make them stronger and more durable."
David Dibble, a Lakeland, Fla., senior who is working on the vapor deposition experiment, said that the experiment would also determine the possibility of building space stations in space, rather than building them on earth and sending them to space.
Rahbarrad said that all of the projects were self-contained, which means they would work by them without interaction from the shuttle crew.
Rahbarrad said anyone could buy space on the shuttle, but Fiesler said he thought that the University of Kansas was the only university in the Midwest to participate.
Rahbarrad said the engineers would write reports on the outcome of the experiments and send them to NASA to evaluate and keep in its files.
Trauma unit helps head injuries
By James Buckman
Kansan staff writer
KANSAS CITY, KAN. — A special unit at the University of Kansas Medical Center might give victims of severe head injuries a better chance of recovery than ever before.
George Varghese, a physician at the Med Center, is the head of a neuro-trauma unit at the Med Center that has taken normal rehabilitation beyond past methods.
The unit works primarily with car-capident victims with severe head injuries but also has patients who have had gunshot wounds or severe blows to the head.
"Ten years ago, many of these patients probably never reached rehabilitation," Varghese said. "We didn't know what we could offer those patients. They either stayed in a coma or went to a nursing home.
"We feel that we can offer these patients something."
patients. One of the differences from many other rehabilitation services is that the Med Center unit begins working with a patient sooner than typically had been done in the past.
"KU is very unique in that we get involved in rehabilitation right from the intensive care phase," Varghese said. "Most places wait until the patient is out of ICU. Our neurosurgeons feel that rehabilitation begins soon after injury."
Each member of the neuro-traumat unit has a special interest in head injuries. The team includes three physical therapists, two occupational therapists, two nurses, a neuropsychologist and a rehabilitation psychologist.
"In the past, the patient could be treated by any physical therapist or any occupational therapist," he said. "When you have a special interest, it is likely they are going to be more proficient in the treatment."
"Rehabilitation is time-consuming, and burnout is high. But if you have selected people of special interest, they are likely to do more, research more and also learn more. And they always work together, always as a team."
Sonja Pittrich, a physical therapist for the team, said the team concept made the process more focused. "All we did was play for the game."
"We are all shooting for the same goal," she said.
She said part of the rehabilitation involved the patient's family.
Sonja Pittrich, physical therapist at the University of Kansas Medical Center, helps Eliot Brown, a 13 year-old head trauma patient, with some shoulder-strengthening exercises.
... the patient is in a comatose state, we start instructing the family," she said. "They help by bringing in items that are familiar to the patient like pictures, or even just their familiar voices.
Ruth Jacobson/KANSAN
familiar voice before he will respond to one of us."
Varghese said that stimulating the patient in the comatose state was an attempt to awaken undamaged brain
"A patient will often respond to a
cells and get them functioning upon
The undamaged cells might be able to teach dormant or unused brain cells to take over functions lost in the accident.
Methods of stimulation might involve almost anything, he said.
"We have even taped the barking of a pet dog and played it in the room," he said.
Basketball team honored by city
Bv Christine Martin
Kansan staff writer
The Lawrence City Commission last night awarded a basketball signed by the commissioners and a special proclamation to the Kansas men's basketball team for making it to the Final Four.
Commissioner Bob Schumm gave Kansas forward Chris Piper the basketball on behalf of the commissioners.
Mayor Mike Amyx congratulated Piper and wished the team luck for its game Saturday against Duke University.
I unintel I've known Chris since he was about my height," Amyx said. "The team strives for excellence in class, on the basketball court and in the community."
Brown said next week's activities would include a panel discussion on hunger. Commissioner Schumm and KU student body president Jason Krakow are among those on the panel. The group also plans a balloon launch, a benefit concert and a cleanup in
The commission also proclaimed April 4-9 "KU's War on Hunger Week." Steve Brown, president of KU Students Against Hunger, said the proclamation helped to make people aware of hunger in Lawrence and around the world.
Lawrence to raise money to fight hunger.
In other action, Bruce Beale, director of the Douglas County-City Committee on Alcohol Abuse, presented a report from the Mayor's Study Committee on drug abuse.
In the report, the committee recommended that the city endorse activities by civic groups, schools and the business community in Lawrence to fight drug abuse. Also, it recommended that the city endorse a youth treatment program that will be started as soon as it receives financing from the state.
The committee was formed in January 1887, and it reports annually to the City Commission.
Beale said that about 570 elementary and secondary students in Lawrence were involved in Project Star, a program aimed at fighting drug abuse. Two elementary schools also have formed "Just Say No" clubs.
Commissioner Sandra Praeger, who was mayor when the committee was formed, said the best way to approach the problem of drug abuse was to have a community working together.
Departments plan how to spend funds
Kansan staff writer
By Brenda Finnell
From planning for a groundwater studies program to deciding what new research equipment might be bought, officials in several University programs are considering possible uses of mission-related enhancements money.
The University of Kansas has targeted gerontology, geohydrology, pharmacology and toxicology, and biological sciences as areas to strengthen if the Legislature approves a Regents budget that includes money to enhance campus programs.
The Regents Margin of Excellence budget plan would allot $4.5 million to mission-related enhancements at the six Regents institutions. KU would receive about $1.9 million for fiscal 1899.
An additional $4.4 million would go to enhancements at the other Regents institutions such as the University of Kansas Medical Center, the Kansas State University Veterinary Medical Center and Kansas Technical Institute in Salina.
The state House of Representatives passed a Regents budget version earlier this month that did not include mission-related enhancements. Last week, the Senate Ways and Means Committee approved complete funding of those enhancements.
The bill is expected to reach the Senate floor sometime after April 4. If the full Senate passes the budget with the enhancements, the bill would go to a Senate-House conference committee before it returns to the House floor.
Although department officials don't know how much, if any, money to expect, they have outlined ways they might spend it.
The geology department would use
the money to establish a groundwater studies specialty within existing degree programs.
Tony Walton, chairman of geology, said Kansas gets about 85 percent of its water from groundwater sources, a higher proportion than any other state.
Inadequate water supply is a problem that many states face, Walton said. A groundwater studies program would help increase the number of people who are able to work in this field.
"It is an area that is a great economic development need of the state." Walton said.
Studies in geohydrology would deal with the origins of groundwater, its motion, chemical composition and optimum use.
Elias Michaelis, who will become chairman of pharmacology and toxicology July 1, said he was pleased his department might receive money through mission-related enhancements.
Michaelis, professor of human development and biochemistry, has outlined a five-year plan for the department that includes ways such money might be spent.
Money could be used for research facilities, new faculty, research personnel and research equipment.
Future research might include investigations in cellular and molecular biology and how these areas interact with pharmacology
James Crockett, director of the gerontology center, said money might go to new programs that will be developed when the gerontology center merges with the Bureau of Child Research. The two programs will form the Institute for Lifespan Studies, which will be located in a building planned for a site east of Haworth Hall.
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