News Update 12-3-07

Campus News

A new, fire-retardant paint has been introduced into campus buildings, due to a partnership with a local company dealing with fire safety. The paint is called PyroTarp, and is made by the company Bradford Industries. Since many of the on-campus buildings are almost a hundred years old, and thus are constructed primarily of wood and other flammable materials, many believe that the use of Pyro Tarp will help reduce risk of fire on campus. The paint reflects the heat and absorbs it. It is designed to stop combustion of materials, preventing fire from spreading and limiting smoke, according to Bradford Industries.

Victor Piper, a former undergraduate student here at UMass Lowell's Electrical Engineering Department, helped design a special computer keyboard for a man living in the area that has cerebral palsy. The man, Yeth John Kong, is a resident in Tyngsboro who loves to write poetry, but found it difficult due to his condition. He conducted a survey of commercial solutions already on the market, but found them unsuitable for Kong’s specific need. “Yeth needed a way to enter text more rapidly,” he says. “I decided to seek an approach that would combine hardware and software.” He was assisted by ZiCorp, a Canadian company dealing with intelligent interface solutions, in its development. The project cost less than $100 dollars.

Many scientific disciplines and institutions, including biologists, taxonomists and research institutions have been working quietly on a massive and ambitious project: to identify and catalog every living biological species on planet Earth. Called the Consortium for the Barcode of Life, or CBOL, the project, which was launched in 2004 by the Smithsonian Institution with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is committed to applying molecular barcode technology as a means of identifying every organism. Rick Hochberg, an assistant professor of zoology in UMass Lowell’s Biological Sciences Department, is involved in CBOL as an associate researcher for the Smithsonian. “A molecular bar code is a short sequence of DNA, or nucleotides, from a mitochondrial gene called cytochrome c oxidase I,” says Hochberg. “This gene varies by about 1 to 2 percent per species, which means that in theory, each species will have a unique DNA barcode.”

The UMass Lowell hockey team, the Riverhawks, have been enjoying a huge growth of popularity and attendance lately. This is believed to be a result of a strong season ticket sales effort and creative promotional activities that are attracting new fans. Despite playing teams that historically don’t draw big audiences — in months when baseball is more on sports fans minds than hockey — the River Hawks are averaging about 3,500 fans per game, including a large student fan base. “The buzz I’m hearing is about the change in the environment at the arena,” says Athletic Director Dana Skinner. “Coach Blaise MacDonald told me the UMass Amherst game (on Nov. 10) was the first time he could remember when the fans cheering actually picked the team up in the third period. There’s really a buzz at home games this year.” It's interesting to note that two of the first home games of the season were wins against the University of Alabama-Huntsville, a team without a local fan base or a well-known national reputation.

National and World News

Thousands of customers with without power in the Midwest Sunday, as a huge winter storm made its way across it and is currently affecting New England right now. At least 10 traffic deaths have been blamed on weather-related traffic accidents. Winter storm warnings were in effect into Monday in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine and into Tuesday in parts of New York state. On the other side of the weather system, warnings were issued for parts of Michigan, where freezing rain and sleet was predicted to turn to all snow late Sunday. As of now, the snow is expected to continue until 11:00 AM this morning.

Lastly, a pardon is being discussed by Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir and two British lawmakers for a teacher who is being charged with insulting religion in the region. The announcement came shortly after the two British lawmakers -- in Khartoum since Saturday to secure the release of Gillian Gibbons -- announced they were delaying their planned departure from the capital. Nazir Ahmed and Sayeeda Warsi, Muslim members of the House of Lords, have been working to persuade the Sudanese government that releasing Gibbons would create international goodwill toward their country. Gibbons is currently under fire for allowing her classmates to name a teddy bear "Mohammed," the name shared by a prophet of the Muslim faith. Some protestors have even gone as far to call for her execution. The pardon will be discussed for most of the day today.

That just about does it for the news for this Monday, December 3rd.