Meatspace
{ {Cowheads#56476}}Godzilla vs. Frankenstein
Researchers at the Tokyo University of Agriculture have drawn the ire of the
Japanese government for their aggressive cloning experiments. The team
transplanted the nuclei of human white blood cells into the egg cells of cows
and applied electric shocks to fuse them. The cells began segmenting but
stopped after three cycles. Had the cells continued segmenting, as normal cells
do, they could have (theoretically) been implanted into a human uterus and
potentially produced a human clone. The Japan Economic Newswire reports that
the experiment may have violated a government policy that forbids university
and ministry-related research institutions from creating human clones and
transplanting nuclei into human egg cells.
Meat Is
Murder
"Organ
Watch" has been formed to monitor what UC Berkeley anthropologist Nancy
Scheper-Hughes calls "modern cannibalism"--the theft of body parts from
corpses--which occurs predominantly in impoverished areas around the globe.
Researchers from Berkeley and Columbia University will investigate the global
distribution of human organs and look into urban legends, such as the one in
which a drugged party-goer wakes up in a bath of ice water with his kidneys
extracted. Next to them is a phone and a note that says, "Call 911 immediately
or you will die."
Anarchy in the
U.S.
Letters sent to the imprisoned Ted Kaczynski--from admirers and foes alike--are
bound for the anarchist papers collection at the University of Michigan.
Photocopies of letters and other writings by the Unabomber himself will also
join the archive (all slightly abridged for the protection of privacy, that
is). A university spokesperson told the Michigan Daily that
the library is also interested in acquiring evidence from Kaczynski's trial but
that it won't be available until after he "has exhausted his appeals
options."
First
Stone
Hillsdale College
President George Roche III, nationally known for decrying a moral crisis in
higher education, resigned from his $188,000 post. According to the
Chronicle of Higher Education , the precipitating event was the suicide
of Roche's daughter-in-law amid rumors of an affair between her and Roche.
After resigning, Roche only said, according to the Chronicle , "I am
nearly 65 years of age and have no wish to continue." Hillsdale, located about
100 miles from Detroit, held an all-school convocation to discuss the future
direction of the college.
Goddard Damn the
President
The
last time Goddard
College went shopping for a new president, its advertising copy quipped,
"We need someone who is prepared to lead us through a process that questions
the necessity of a president in the first place." Questioning the necessity of
the current president is the newly unionized faculty, which recently filed a
vote of "no confidence" in President Barbara C. Mossberg over her management
style. The chairman of Goddard's board of trustees dismissed the faculty wrath
as "labor negotiations tactics" and described the call for a new president
consistent with Goddard College tradition: The school has had six presidents in
the last decade.
Victorious Couch
Potatoes
Ohio
University students cleaned off their porches last February when the Athens,
Ohio, city council outlawed the use of indoor furniture out-of-doors. But
today, the couches are back. Led by OU neurobiology professor Scott Hooper,
students beat back the law with a referendum that won by a 46-vote margin
(1,506 in favor, 1,460 against). OU senior Jennifer Ciganko saluted the return
of the Athens decorating tradition. "My mom went here 30 years ago and there
were couches on the porches," she said.
The Fittest for
Science
The
nation's top scientific journal is getting a new top editor. Donald Kennedy, a
biologist, former president of Stanford University, and once commissioner of
the Food and Drug Administration, will take the reins at Science in June. (Current
Editor Floyd S. Bloom will return to Scripps Research Institute.) Kennedy
resigned from Stanford in 1991 after reports circulated that he had acquired
extravagant personal items at the expense of the federal government.
A Bad Shot in the
Arm
The
government wants to bust the drug policy professor. The Department of Health
and Human Services awarded the John Jay College of Criminal Justice a $2.6
million grant in 1996 to support Professor Ansley Hamid's five-year study of
heroin use in New York City's toughest neighborhoods. But a federal complaint,
filed in late October, accused the much-celebrated Hamid of misappropriating
grant funds for personal use--to take trips, buy CDs, and work on an unrelated
book manuscript--and to buy heroin for his research subjects. Hamid faces 10
years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and losing his job, all over what he calls
"really trumped-up charges." Joy Settembrino, who refused Hamid's requests to
purchase items unrelated to the research, says of Hamid: "It almost seemed that
he acted as if the check for the full $2.6 million was written out to him to do
as he pleased."
Higher
Learning
The
100 best spiritual books of the last 100 years were
announced this month. Compiled for the new-agey publisher Harper San Francisco
by Smith College religion professor Philip Zaleski, the list includes books
from all major religious traditions as well as novels, essay collections,
letters, and confessions. Malcolm X, Mother Teresa, Franz Kafka, and Jack
Kerouac made the cut. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man
received the most votes from the nominating committee. Zaleski thought people
might be surprised that The Lord of the Rings made the list. "I do think
it's the quintessential tale of good and evil, a deeply moral tale. And that
seems to be a spiritual subject," he told the Dallas Morning News .
Why Johnny Can't
Do Differential Equations
College mathematicians are overhauling the undergraduate math curriculum now
recommended by the Mathematical
Association of America. Many professors complain that students don't
understand the concepts and theories underlying their number crunching. "I want
students to think--and that's not what we get out of our math programs today,"
says Ernst Breitenberger, an Ohio University physicist. The MAA's new
curriculum, which will be voluntary, is due in two years.
