July 11, 2002
Peer Portfolio
RAISING THE DEAD: The dead rhino, that is. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin began unearthing a rare white rhinoceros last month and the truly amazing thing is they were at the University of Wisconsin — literally, on campus. The 3,200-pound rhino had been buried near Picnic Point on the Madison campus for almost 20 years after it died a natural death in the Milwaukee County Zoo in the early 1980s. The remains of the animal will be part of the UW Zoological Museum’s skeletal collection. Normally the animal’s dead body would be placed in a bug colony where flesh-eating beetles devour down to the bone, but the rhino was too big to fit in the facility. Researchers buried the animal’s remains and waited for nature to do the dirty work.
‘DEEP THROAT’ UNCLOAKED?: For six semesters an investigative journalism class at the University of Illinois has been working to nail down the anonymous source who helped two Washington Post reporters expose the Watergate scandal. Students in the class have plowed through files, tracked down former White House staffers, compiled a detailed database and have narrowed the field to seven candidates — four favorites. The class was recently featured on NBC’s Dateline in connection with the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. The class’s research, including a list of the seven thought most likely to be Deep Throat, can be found online at http://www.comm.uiuc.edu/spike/deepthroat/.
