KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / FRIDAY, JANUARY 15.2010 / NEWS
3A
SCIENCE
KU glacier research educates about climate change
BY S. ROBERT ALTMAN
raltman@kansan.com
Four members of the KU Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, or CRESIS, will return this month after surveying glaciers in Antarctica since mid-November.
In ideal weather, the team would make two, four-hour flights each day to map the volume and depth of glaciers in the area from aboard a small Twin Otter aircraft using radar equipment developed by University of Kansas engineers.
Unlike maps made from satellite images, the team's radar is able to pinpoint how far beneath the ice the glacier's bedrock sits. This information is critical for researchers drilling for ice core samples, as well as those trying to model the effects that diminishing glaciers
may have on the planet.
Logan Smith, a graduate student from Lawrence and CReSIS member, is one of the four KU researchers working on the project. He said the team's main success was finding the depth of the bedrock in about 90 percent of the surveyed areas, which were mostly uncharted by previous researchers.
"We can now take this data and hand it off to the scientific community, specifically the ice sheet modelers, whose work can measure how ice sheets will react to climate change." Smith said.
When the data is brought back to the University, CReSIS will do a more advanced processing of the findings before publishing them in scientific journals.
William Blake, a doctoral student from Oathe, said scientists fear that a deteriorating glacier might cause a large chunk of the
ice sheet to slide off into the ocean, making sea levels rise dramatically and displacing tens to hundreds of millions along the world's coasts.
"We're not saying that it's going to happen tomorrow, but if we can't model it, then we can't predict it," Blake said. "Our goal is to collect as much new data as we can to feed into these models — we're only one piece of the puzzle."
The research done by CReSIS will eventually be used to educate policy makers around the world on the effects of climate change.
"It's always easier to ignore than to act," Blake said. "All we can do is present the data and then it's up to people's free will."
Along with the University researchers, the team included two scientists from the Indiana University, as well as Gary Wesche, a middle school science teacher at St. John Francis Regis Catholic
Living Conditions at Byrd Camp
Gary Wesche, a middle school science teacher at St. John Francis Regis Catholic School in Kansas City, Mo., who aided in CReSIS research, said about 50 people inhabited Byrd Camp. Camp members sleep in individual tents around a main hub where instruments
for research and a kitchen are located.
School in Kansas City, Mo.
Members of the camp worked in shifts depending on the weather, but because the sun never sets in Antarctic summers, there were always people working on something.
Wesche got onboard as a part of PolarTREC, an organization that sends K-12 teachers to work closely with polar researchers as part of an effort to improve science education.
Wesche said one of the biggest challenges of living on a remote camp was predicting and managing the weather, which regularly halted planned research trips.
Four meals a day were prepared by the camp's cooks, but the team hasn't seen fresh fruits or vegetables since they were flown in for a Christmas feast.
"Sometimes the clouds roll in and we aren't able to do much," Wesche said. "They call it living in a glass of milk because you can't tell the difference between the white sky and the snow on the ground."
Wesche kept an online journal and hosted live presentations over the Web to share his experiences with thousands of students across the country. His journals and talks allowed students to get a close look at the living conditions on Byrd
Camp.
"It's a great platform to get a lot of information out and get students interested in science in general," Wesche said.
Edited by Kirsten Hudson
HEALTH
Third wave of H1N1 likely in the near future
Vaccinations abound as students return from vacation.
BY ALISON CUMBOW alisonc@kansan.com
With students returning to Lawrence from winter break, it's time for another round of H1N1 vaccinations.
Patty Quinlan, nursing supervisor at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said students who went home during break might have carried a third wave of the H1N1 virus back with them.
"History has proven that there has always been a third wave," Quinlan said. "It would be prime time for it to start up after vacation, as we discovered in the fall semester."
Maggie Thompson, director of communications for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said she thought the third wave of H1N1 would start in February.
"Younger people have been more susceptible and getting the vaccination is the best defense," Thompson said.
Other facilities, such as First Med at 2323 Ridge Court, are also making the vaccine available.
Lawrence offers many options for students who still
"Last week we gave about three vaccines" said Tiffany Lau, medi-
"Younger people have been more susceptible and getting the vaccination is the best defense."
want to get vaccinated.
MAGGIE THOMPSON Kansas Department of Health and Environment
Watkins will have clinics for students to get vaccinated on Jan. 22 and Feb. 4 in the first floor conference room from 12-2 p.m. Students could also call 785-864-9507 to set up a vaccine appointment for free at any time.
cal assistant at First Med. "The week before that we gave about 14."
Not all students support the H1N1 vaccine.
Gretchen Wells, an emergency room nurse at
Lawrence Memorial Hospital and graduate student at the University, said she received the mist vaccine, which is administered through the nose.
She said that the vaccine made her sick for several days. As a result, she did not vaccinate her
three children.
"A lot of people who thought they had H1N1 might have just had the regular flu." Wells said. "We haven't seen many of those symptoms for a long time."
Wells said that people would be protected from the virus if they were vaccinated, but she added that some people might have felt pressured into getting the vaccine.
"A lot of people were really scared of H1N1," Wells said. "But, if you feel like getting vaccinated, it's not a bad thing to do."
Although some have expressed concerns about what was in the H1N1 vaccine, Quinlan said she thought the vaccine had been proven to be very safe.
"Of the six or seven million doses that have been given so far, only eight problems are being investigated, and that's not even one percent," Quinlan said.
Quinlan said that last semester Watkins had 100 vaccination appointments during its busy weeks.
VACCINE CLINICS
WHAT: H1N1 Vaccine
WHERE: Watkins Memorial Health Center, first floor conference room
WHEN: Friday, Jan. 22, and
WHEN: Friday, Jan. 22, and Friday, Feb. 4
12 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Call 785-864-9507 to make an appointment if you can't make these times.
"I'm hoping it will be the same this semester," Quinlan said. "We haven't hit that third wave yet."
- Edited by Taylor Bern
CRIME
Police officer Tasers two 12-year-olds
KANKAKEE, Ill. — Two federal lawsuits each seek more than $10 million on behalf of two Illinois 12-year-olds allegedly shocked during an unauthorized Taser demonstration by a school officer.
POLice say the officer is on administrative leave following the Tuesday incident at a junior high in Kankakee, about 60 miles south of Chicago.
The officer allegedly used the Taser on three students who volunteered for the demonstration. A parent later took one student to a hospital, where he was examined and released.
The lawsuits filed Thursday name the police officer, the city,the school district and two teachers.
EDUCATION
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
Associated Press
Yiddish faces new threat
BALTIMORE It survived Hitler, Stalin, the decision to make Hebrew the official language of the State of Israel and the adoption of English by immigrants to the United States.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Now Yiddish, for 1,000 years the everyday language of European Jews, is facing another threat: budget cuts.
At the University of Maryland, which has stood alongside Harvard and Columbia as one of the nation's few schools to consistently offer instruction in the Germanic tongue, the recent announcement that the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies would be dropping it in the fall shocked area enthusiasts.
"U-Maryland has had the biggest commitment to Yiddish as a language anywhere in a hundred-mile radius," said Harvey Spiro, president of Yiddish of Greater Washington, which organized a letter-writing campaign. "We're not a particularly political organization, but this kicked us in the gut."
Miriam isaacs is a visiting professor of Yiddish Language and Culture at the University of Maryland. The program has been taught at the university for three decades but is now having trouble finding funding.
academic year
But after that,
director Hayim
Lapin said, it is
unlikely to continue funding a full-time faculty member dedicated to the language.
The center now has cobbled together the money to pay its longtime instructor through the next
"This is not about Yiddish," Lapin said. "What this is
"It's not just at Maryland that I'm concerned," said Isaacs, born in postwar Germany, where Yiddish was her first language.
"U-Maryland has had the biggest commitment to Yiddish as a language anywhere in a hundredmile radius."
Professor Miriam Isaacs, who has taught elementary and intermediate Yiddish at Maryland for 15 years, worries about a future
about is responding to the budget crisis and actually cutting back on just about all of our visiting faculty and programming. So we have less Bible than we had. We have less history than we had. We have less or no Yiddish."
"We're at a critical point in that the generation of Holocaust survivors, my parents, they're not
without the language.
HARVEY SPIRO
Yiddish of Greater Washington
around any-
around anymore," she said. "Or if they are around, they can't do a lot of translating. So if nobody learns it, you know, the Holocaust Museum archive is full of Yiddish
materials. The University of Maryland has been acquiring Yiddish books galore. Who is going to read them? Who is going to be able to have access to them?"
Dating back to the 11th-century Jews who settled along the Rhine River, Yiddish employs the Hebrew alphabet but is essentially Germanic in grammar and structure.
BEAT THE BOOKSTORE Buy & Sell College Textbooks "The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill"
1741 Massachusetts (across from dillons) 785-856-2870
CALL ABOUT LEASING SPECIALS INCLUDING NO APPLICATION FEE AND NO DEPOSIT II ASK ABOUT IMMEDIATE MOVE IN SPECIALS
CAMPUS COURT AT NAISMITH
AT NAISMITH
1301 West 24th Street II (785) 842-5111