Columns:: Newsmakers

since 12/15/98

Columns::October 15, 2001

Golden opportunity
Annual homecoming rituals celebrate ‘New Year--New Memories
Louise McBee Lecture examines ways to enrich college experience
Online and accessible
Moore College will be rededicated as new home of Honors Program
American art history photos will be digitized
‘A mediated version of horror’
Public relations professor bridges the gap between intent and action
School of Music names new director
Coach named for new equestrian program

Campus News

Newsmakers

Manufactured marvels
Today’s manufactured homes resemble houses in suburban neighborhoods, not abodes in trailer parks. Prefabricated homes now have 2,500 square feet of living space, 9-foot ceilings and walk-in closets.
“The upmarket changes in the homes and their neighborhoods are a response to long-time public disdain,” said UGA demographer Doug Bachtel in a Washington Post article. “Cities are pressing developers to get away from the trailer-park image [and] industry groups have risen to that demand.”

Food safety not declining
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 73,000 illnesses and 61 deaths from E. coli bacteria occur in the United States each year. Despite these statistics and a number of recent beef recalls, the Los Angeles Times reports that food microbiologists do not believe more bacteria are ending up in food.
Rather, more accurate bacterial tests enable computer systems to link isolated outbreaks into larger epidemics. UGA microbiologist Jeffrey Kornacki asserts that the “appearance is that things are getting worse, when scientists are actually getting better at finding problems that have always been there.”

Shocked into good health
Researchers are studying how exercise can help people with certain debilitating conditions regain physical abilities and improve their health.
The Los Angeles Times reports that UGA exercise scientist Gary Dudley is trying to determine if building muscles through electrical stimulation can improve the health of people with paralyzing spinal cord injuries and offset the diabetes and obesity from which they often suffer.

Love that lutein
Macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in people over age 65, but eating dark leafy greens can help prevent the onset of this disease. Vegetables such as kale, spinach and collard greens contain lutein, which protects the rods and cones of the eyes. “Lutein functions as internal sunglasses,” said UGA vision science expert and psychology professor Billy Hammond in Newsweek.

Global patriotism
As the world has become increasingly connected, the meaning of patriotism has changed. While the concept still represents loyal support of one’s country, patriotism now involves loving other nations as well, according to a post-Sept. 11 analysis in The Oregonian.
“The flag hasn’t changed,” said Betty Jean Craige, director of UGA’s Center for Humanities and Arts, in The Oregonian. “Love of our country hasn’t changed. . . . What is changing is the recognition that we are an interconnected global society.”
Author of American Patriotism in a Global Society, Craige sees us “evolving away from a tribal concept of patriotism to a concept of patriotism in which we have an obligation to make our country a good and just society. To be a good and just society, we have to be good neighbors in the community of nations.”

Kim Osborne of the UGA News Service monitors coverage of UGA in local, state and national media. Contact her for information about these or other stories in the news. Newsmakers appears in every other issue of Columns.

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