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Chancellor’s annual assessment focuses on anti-intellectualism
Football traffic management, tailgating and parking areas revised
Shedding light on buried treasures
Campus Closeup
Administrative Changes
Sharpening up his skills
African elephants are an endangered species put at further risk by overbreeding in parks and refuges. Now veterinarians have a way to control outsized herds: a contraceptive vaccine delivered via dart gun. Richard Fayrer-Hosken and colleagues at UGA developed the contraceptive that includes an initial shot followed by boosters at six weeks and six months. A report on the effectiveness of the vaccine in the journal Nature has received wide attention, including coverage by Reuters, the Associated Press and Fox News. “Our immunocontraceptive study shows that free-roaming African elephants vaccinated with pZP are protected against contraception,” said Fayrer-Hosken. The drugs reduced pregnancies about 70 percent among the elephants tested.
Drought devastates Texas, Georgia
This summer’s record stretch of days without rain--particularly in Texas and Georgia--has left crops wasted, dried up lakes and wells, and sparked fires. In Texas and adjacent states, 177 counties have been declared disaster areas for crop losses, according to a New York Times story, which reports that in Georgia the drought is ravaging thirsty cities and farms in the northern and central parts of the state. UGA’s David Stooksbury, the state’s climatologist, told the Times that he estimates it will take two winters of normal rainfall to replenish aquifers, rivers, creeks, ponds and rivers and to saturate the soil to depths needed to nurture crops and lawns.
Reptile decline worrisome
For several years, ecologists have been concerned about an apparent drop in the number of amphibians. UGA ecologist Whit Gibbons and colleagues say there’s an additional problem: the disappearance of reptiles, such as snakes and turtles. The Washington Post and other media have reported on Gibbons’s research, which appeared recently in the journal BioScience. “Despite the fact that reptiles and amphibians are often considered collectively, reptile declines deserve spotlighting and elucidating in their own right,” the researchers wrote.
Cotton crop studied
From July to December, special teams visit secret sites in cotton fields to gather information for the
Georgia Agricultural Statistics Abstract, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, which has been compiling statistics since 1863. Almost everything about their work is confidential, according to an Associated Press article on how the information is gathered and used. Without official information, the industry would have to rely on estimates from private companies and conglomerates, said Bill Givan, a UGA agricultural economist. “You wouldn’t know who to believe,” he said in the article. “Sometimes these government reports are off. They may not be exactly accurate, but they are unbiased. They do the best job they can.”
Cheney as speechmaker
A Los Angeles Times article on Dick Cheney says the Republican vice presidential nominee “gives new meaning to the term ‘low key.’” Among those asked to comment on Cheney’s rhetorical style was John Murphy, associate professor of speech communication at UGA. Murphy said the Bush-Cheney ticket “is not a nightmare, but I didn’t think this was a great choice.” Noting that both men have similar communications styles, Murphy said that campaigning for president “is not a Pentagon briefing. It’s a different world right now.”
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