April 21, 2005
Newsmakers: Of Tourette’s, adoptions, glaciers and more
THE TIMES ON TOURETTE’S: A Jan. 18 story about Tourette’s syndrome in The New York Times referenced a two-part August 2004 article in the journal Contemporary Pediatrics by Samuel H. Zinner, assistant professor of pediatrics in the UW’s Center on Human Development and Disability.
In the Times article, writer Jane Brody recalled a neighbor who “periodically appeared at a window and shouted obscentiies into the street,” and her own feelings of sympathy for this person seemingly unable to control her antisocial behavior.
Saying that Zinner “eloquently described” Tourette’s and the misconceptions that surround the syndrome, Brody related several points from Zinner’s earlier piece. These included that misconceptions of Tourette’s abound, that the severity of Tourette’s symptoms varies greatly, and that only fairly few such patients are compelled to yell out obscenities. Many others have symptoms so small as to often escape notice by doctors, or the individuals themselves, Brody quoted Zinner as saying, and that the syndrome often goes undiagnosed, or is misdiagnosed. More information about Tourette’s is available online at www.tsa-usa.org or www.tourette.ca.
AIDING AILING ADOPTEES: A late December story syndicated by the Associated Press about the often unusual medical needs of foreign-born adopted children included comments by Julia Bledsoe, clinical associate professor of pediatrics and founder of UW Health Science’s Center for Adoption Medicine.
The article described how the medical concerns of foreign adoptions have caused a new medical specialty to develop over the last 15 years, and stated that Bledsoe had seen the importance of such an approach after she adopted a son from South Africa.
Bledsoe said the most common medical concerns among foreign-born adopted children include malnutrition, developmental delays, intestinal parasites, low blood counts, anemia and elevated lead levels. Cases of children with HIV have dropped in recent years, she said, due to greater attention to sterilized needles.
Bledsoe screens for neurological development in her exams, knowing that interaction with parents helps stimulate brain functions. “Lying on your back looking at the ceiling for days is not good for brain development,” Bledsoe said. “But I’ve seen kids come back from horrendous conditions.”
TECHTONIC VIOLENCE: The Dec. 26, 2004, earthquakes in the Indian Ocean caused catastrophic tsumanis and massive suffering and loss of life. But scientists quoted in a Jan. 11 New York Times story gently noted that while the tsunamis were a human tragedy of epic proportions, the actual geological event may have positive long-term effects for the global environment.
“They approach the topic gingerly, wary of sounding callous, aware that the geology they admire has just caused a staggering loss of life,” reporter William J. Broad’s article begins. “Even so, scientists argue that in the very long view, the global process behind the great earthquakes is quite advantageous for life on earth — especially human life.”
The UW’s Donald Brownlee, professor of astronomy, and Peter D. Ward, professor of Earth and space sciences, discussed plate techtonics in their 2000 book Rare Earth, saying that such recycling of the planet’s crust is rare in the cosmos but one of the necessary conditions for the evolution of complex life forms.
“It maintains not just habitability but high habitability,” The Times quoted Ward saying. Scientists, the article continued, believe the process of techtonic movement created the Earth’s first primordial ocean and atmosphere, spewing nitrogen, carbon dioxide and other gases into the air, to which the first plants added oxygen. It’s believed that life itself on Earth might not have originated and grown to its current complexity without this techtonic nudge.
GLACIER SCHOOL: Erin Pettit, research associate with the UW’s Earth and Space Sciences Department, was featured in a March 9 article by Margaret Werthem in The New York Times. The story described Pettit’s research work on glaciers in Antarctica as well as her “Girls on Ice” outreach program, where she takes high school girls on research trips to area glaciers to increase their interest in science.
The 16- to 18-year-old participants in “Girls on Ice” learn not only the scientific method but also mountaineering and wildnerness skills. “I wanted to bring these two things together,” Pettit told The Times, “the intellectual challenge of trying to do science in the field and the physical challenge of living outdoors.”
Unfortunately, The Times reported, insurance costs will prevent the North Cascades Institute, with whom Pettit had partnered for the “Girls on Ice” program, from continuing the program this summer. Pettit is looking for another group with whom to partner.
The Times also quoted Bernard Hallet, a professor in Pettit’s department who oversees her research work on glaciers. “Many of us are geologists by heart, but glaciologists by practice.”
CYBER SECURITY: Joseph Weiss is no ordinary graduate student, it seems. Weiss, currently enrolled in the UW Educational Outreach’s master’s program in strategic planning for critical infrastructures, already is a computer security specialist with Kena Inc., a consulting firm focused on the energy industry.
In fact, Weiss was quoted in a March 11 article in The Washington Post about warnings to U.S. utilities to beef up their security to fend off hacking by terrorists or others. Weiss said hackers have “caused an impact” already by hacking into U.S. utilities’ computer systems, and more blatant and severe attacks are almost certainly to come. Computer worms and viruses also have caused problems, he said.
The Post quoted Weiss saying, “Many utilities have not addressed control system cyber-security as comprehensively as physical security or cyber-security of business networks.” The article ended with a Wisconsin-based computer security expert warning that hackers could cause the sort of blackout that hit 50 million people in the Midwest in 2003, saying, “It’s just a matter of time before we have a serious event.”
GLOBAL WARNING?: When Wisconsin Public Radio called, glaciologist Eric Steig, an associate professor of Earth and Space Sciences, went on the air to discuss global climate change, particularly as it applies to chilly Antarctica. The show aired on Jan. 27, and you can listen at http://www.wpr.org/webcasting/ideas_audioarchives.cfm?Code=dun.
Speaking with host Kathleen Dunn, Steig described the conditions in Antarctica that cause ice masses to “calve,” or break off parts into the sea, the natural way for the land to slough off accumulated ice. The concern simply put, he told Dunn, was, “Could the rate at which those icebergs are being created actually be increasing to such an extent that the thing is out of balance and what was on land is now going to be in the ocean?”
He said temperatures in most of Antarctica were not warming at an alarming rate, but that in some areas they are. On the Antarctic Penninsula, summer meltwater is infiltrating crevasses in the ice, “and that seems to be the mechanism by which acceleration of calving of ice bergs is increasing.” He told Dunn there has been “remarkably little oceanography on Antarctica,” and that he hopes for more in the future, despite oceanography’s many global priorities.
PAIRING UP VS. HOOKING UP: Chicago Sun-Times reporters Lori Rackl and Andrew Hermann used quotes from UW sociologist Pepper Schwartz to close two articles in two days, on March 20 and 21.
The first was about the diminishing ranks of virgins on American college campuses in which Schwartz discussed the pressures on college girls to have sex. The second discussed young women boasting of sexual encounters as young men historically have done. Schwartz said she had seen more such banter among college women, but suspects it’s mostly talk.
“Are they really happy? Sometimes, I think not,” Schwartz told the Sun-Times. “In the end, they’re still looking for respect. They ultimately want to pair up, not hook up.”
COFFEE CLASSES: A feature story syndicated nationally by the Associated Press on Feb. 7, discussed the “academic epipheny” of universities starting to offer classes on the economics and culture of coffee.
The examples listed included “Coffee and Humanity,” a honors seminar offered by Joe Norman, UW professor of chemistry. Similar classes were noted at Centre College in Kentucky, the University of California at Irvine and Emory University.
“It’s fun, and I think education should be broad like this to some extent,” Norman told the AP. “Of course, Seattle is a good place to offer such a seminar. There’s enough coffee around here!”
LIGHTENING UP: The darkness and dreariness of a Northwest winter and the loss of Democrat John Kerry at the polls last November made a powerful one-two punch for many Northwesterners who are both Democrats and sufferers of Seasonal Affective Disorder, according to a November story syndicated by The Washington Post.
“Election results struck Seattle at the city’s most fragile time of year, psychologically speaking, according to David Avery, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at the (UW), where campus counseling centers offer free ‘light therapy’ to all students,” the article stated. Faculty, staff and students have access to a similar therapy at Hall Health, by the way.
Avery, who has researched SAD for 15 years and himself is a sufferer of the light-deprivation syndrome, was quoted as saying, “Had the election taken place in July and Kerry had lost, people in Seattle would have been unhappy, but it would not have impacted their energy or concentration or sleep or whatever.” He continued, “But for vulnerable people here who have a predisposition to winter depression, this kind of life stress, coming with the arrival of winter, is probably going to affect them a lot more.”
