Columns:: Newsmakers

since 12/15/98

Columns::February 25, 2002

Two Gates to Cambridge
New approach to campus parking regulations adopted
Spring Charter Lecture will deal with the relationship between man and nature
Grad School administrator says faculty key to recruitment success
Proposal for campus memorial goes before University Council Executive Committee
Watered down: Study paves way to water-efficient cotton
Professor focuses on teaching his students different ‘fields’ of law
Iowa prof will head pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences here
Merging services, expanding missions

Campus News

Newsmakers

All smell the queen
New York Newsday and the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the genetic detective work of UGA scientists Michael Krieger and Ken Ross. They are working on the genetic components of fire ants’ social structure. They found one gene that seems to work by influencing how worker ants perceive pheromones, the chemical odors announcing who is queen and who isn’t. In the fire ants they studied, Krieger and Ross found that the difference between single-queen and multiple-queen nests was controlled by which version of the gene called Gp-9 the workers inherit. The gene was found to make a special protein that the worker ants use in recognizing their queen’s odor.

Human cloning: a low probability

Scientists who cloned the first human embryo in November claimed they are creating embryos solely for treating diseases, but the six-cell embryo they developed is the kind that can be placed in a woman’s womb and potentially become a baby. According to UGA cloning expert Steven Stice, however, six-cell embryos of other mammals, such as cattle and sheep, produce births only one in 25 or 50 times. “We know a lot more about how to clone those animals than we do humans, so the odds are even less for humans, probably dramatically less,” he said in a story from the Associated Press.

Using the nose
To cover odors given off from food, especially those with long shelf-life, packaging companies are considering using flavor capsules that give off a pleasant aroma when packages are opened. UGA food microbiologist Michael Doyle, however, feels the product “could be a bit deceptive.” In an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Associated Press, he said that the capsules could inhibit “the natural defense mechanism that tips us off that [a product is] unsafe.”

Russian nuclear material
The Los Angeles Times reports that the former Soviet nuclear stockpile is seen as a likely source of weaponry for terrorists. American inspectors found stunningly lax security at the nuclear facilities they visited: perimeter fences with holes or gaps, hinges rusted off doors, nuclear material stored in lockers with flimsy padlocks. “Some [Russian] people find it humiliating,” said Igor Khripunov, who for 21 years was an official with the former Soviet Union’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is now associate director of the Center for International Trade and Security at UGA. “You shouldn’t underestimate this sense of national pride. We were this great superpower, and now we have to get money and assistance from the country we considered our adversary.”

Credible parenting
“If you warn your child that you’re going to discipline him but then don’t follow through, you’ll have no credibility,” says Rex Forehand, director of the Institute for Behavioral Research at UGA and author of Parenting the Strong-Willed Child, in an article in Parents Magazine. “You already know that once you make a rule you should stick to it to maintain your credibility. Children need to learn that they can cope with life’s little disappointments.”

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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