Columns:: Newsmakers

since 12/15/98

Columns::September 3, 2002

Three are named GUC undergraduate program directors
New NSF pilot project will produce ‘gene encyclopedias’
‘Bridges to the Doctorate’ NIH grant will support graduate education of minority students at UGA
Chick-fil-A hold grand opening at Tate Student Center
Mountain ecologist is appointed international education director
The burden of care: Study shows mothers’ depression affects children’s well-being
Managers complete training; Research Fellows announced
Newsmakers
Writing wrongs
Retirees
The Honduras Connection

Campus News

Newsmakers

Cotton that doesn’t soak up the water

UGA researchers have discovered a way to alter cotton genes so the plant requires less water to grow. Geneticist Andrew Paterson told the Associated Press, “Many of these genes were thought to have been lost in the process of domesticating cotton for high yields under well-watered conditions.” Plant pathologist Hugh Earl said an increase of 10 percent in the water efficiency of cotton would save 12 billion gallons of water in Georgia each year, and agricultural economist Don Shurley said cotton growers would save $2 million annually.

Looking at the past
In a Washington Post report on the exhibition of photographs of lynchings at Atlanta’s King National Historic Site, UGA sociologist E.M. Beck said that approximately 2,500 black men, women and children were hanged in the South between 1882 and 1932. Beck said that Georgia, where 432 lynchings took place, trailed only Mississippi.

Expect--and fear--the unexpected
According to UGA veterinary pathologist Corrie Brown, if the United States experiences an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, it could cost the nation $27 billion dollars. In a nationalpost.com article, Brown cited swine cholera, foot-and-mouth disease and avian influenza as being “great for agroterror” because they “don’t have to be weaponized, [and] they spread just fine on their own.” Terrorists can easily wreak havoc with these deadly microbes because humans are not susceptible and, if they are caught, the terrorists “can deny it and say it was an accident.” Although “the bad guys already know this stuff,” Brown said, North Americans “need to expect the unexpected.”

New SEC reporting rules overdue
When the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed new rules requiring that companies provide clear and prompt information about basic financial practices to investors, several media outlets interviewed Dennis Beresford of UGA’s Tull School of Accounting, former head of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, about the causes and efficacy of such changes. Beresford told thebostonglobe.com that the proposed modifications have been needed for some time. “These are all, frankly, pretty good ideas and pretty easy fixes that should have a pretty substantial payoff,” he said. The Los Angeles Times, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Blomberg News and several other papers also quoted Beresford.
Beresford was quoted in a New York Times analysis of the pre-Enron pressure on auditors to agree to questionable accounting practices. Audit firms came to worry, he said, that if they did not sign off on an aggressive accounting treatment, some competitor would.

Protecting U.S. food
UGA microbiologist Michael Doyle told the Associated Press that the nation must convince foreign countries to inspect produce more carefully, and that consumers must be alert to possible bacterial problems in imported foods. “Certainly, you can grow produce that is free of pathogens in developing countries,” Doyle said. “It’s just a matter of sanitary practices and the quality of water that is used for irrigation.”

Kim Carlyle 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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