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Show 3-D A SIGHT FOR SORE EYES New technology not worth the health risks » I of Utah's Independent Student Voice Since 1890 •in_ • in situation i - II . il I II ' 111 ... .___,.. . ... IL- Monday, April 19, 2010 TAH CHRONICLE www.dailyutahchronicle.com ,„„..t . 6 ... ,, _ 7.44 ■ Vol.119 I No.111 I ©2010 U's rankings in math and law increase IV IF 11 , 6 , Jake Hibbard STAFF WRITER - -I _ , , ■ II e ,4 & 4 , I., .. MIKE MANGUM/The Daily Utah Chronicle Brian Johnson pitches the ball during the alumni game Saturday. Johnson led the white team to a victory in that game and also coached his MUSS flag football team and the red Ute team to wins in the other games of the day. Red-White game highlights new Ute contributors RESEARCH AT THE U D 7 The U's annual report card is in, courtesy of U.S. News and World Report, and U President Michael Young will be pleased to know that many of his colleges and departments were given solid marks. Leading the list of U programs that improved their rankings in the 2011 edition of America's Best Graduate Schools are the S.J. Quinney College of Law, moving up three spots to 42, and the department of mathematics, which also jumped three spots to 3o. Aaron Bertram, professor and chairman of the department of mathematics, said the U's rankings were impressive, considering the recent budget cuts. "Especially in these difficult economic times, it is a major accomplishment for the College of Science and the University of Utah to enable us to move up in the national rankings," Bertram said in a U press release. See RANKING Page 5 Students host drag show to help 'break the silence' Veronica Pineda STAFF WRITER Findings could prevent disease The Queer Student Union presented "Silence is Such a Drag," an amateur drag show Friday, in commemoration of the National Day of Silence and as a way of bringing attention to anti-gay behavior. The event was held in a warehouse and featured Lady Gaga's music. No one knew what to expect from the performers, said Sy Maestas, co-president of the QSU, and anything from drag performance to slam poetry was shared. "I want to see who comes to break the silence," said Daniel Hill, a zo-year-old performer at the drag show. Later that night, Hill broke the silence and hit the floor when he jammed out to Lady Gaga's hit song "Bad Romance." "It's fun; it's just people who enjoy doing this in their spare time," Maestas said. DJ Darling, a techno disc jockey who has done shows in cities such as Las Vegas, Detroit and Orlando, Fla., provided the beats for the show. In between performances, raffle prizes were given to attendees, with all donations benefitting the QSU. Proceeds will help fund future events, the biggest being a float and booth for a parade during the annual Utah Pride Festival. The National Day of Silence began in 1996 at the University of Virginia as an effort to end harassment, bullying and discrimination against sexual minorities. Since then, the QSU—a presence on the U campus since 1974, Maestas said—has worked at Deborah Rafferty See QSU Page 3 COURTESY DAVE MEIKLE, UNIVERSITY OF UTAH This illustration shows three molecular motors that help move cells. The details of how such motors work are outlined in a new study by University of Utah biophysicist Michael Vershinin and colleagues in California and New York. Internal motors key to cells' resilience STAFF WRITER Diseases that occur because motors malfunction could become preventable, thanks to the work of U researchers who discovered how the motors operate. In a new study, U researchers focused on how cells move using protein motors, which act like the cells' delivery system, including moving nutrients. Alone, these motors give up quickly, but when working together, they are more resilient. Michael Vershinin, co-author and professor of physics and astronomy, and researchers at the University of California at Irvine and Columbia University, studied how the motors work together to move larger parts of the cell. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and was published Thursday in the online, peer-reviewed journal Cell. "This motor by itself, if it encounters significant opposition, it gives up kind of quickly," Vershinin said. "We found that these other proteins that interact with it make it more resilient from giving up. We showed that would be a big help in moving big objects." When the motors move the nucleus along "roads" in the cell, they attach to the nucleus and then bind to the road, Vershinin said. The motor will extend a piece forward, then bring the rest of it back, moving like a caterpillar, he said. However, when a motor performs a large task like that alone, it has the tendency to put forth a little effort before giving up, not moving the nucleus forward very much, Vershinin said. If a bunch of the motors work together, it makes a difference, as they each add a bit of their effort, becoming more resilient and persistent, he said. This research is practical, and could help give researchers information and insight into different diseases further down the line, he said. "If we understand it, we have a hope to understanding disease because a lot of the diseases that arise are traceable somehow to malfunction of the delivery of stuff or transportation not See RESEARCH Page 5 TANER PASAMEHMETOGLU/The Daily Utah Chronicle Kayla Malone performs a lip-synching routine Friday night at"Silence is Such a Drag." The Queer Student Union hosted the event as part of the National Day of Silence. Interactive monitors teach Chinese culture Michael McFall NEWS EDITOR New exhibits will be opening on campus as part of a planned Asian invasion. The Confucius Institute— a center within the College of Humanities meant to spread Chinese culture and language at the U—unveiled the first of potentially six interactive computer touch screens that will appear around campus in the corning year. The touch screens were first shown Thursday in the lobby of the Language and Communication Building. The monitor is programmed with eight different aspects of Chinese culture, including its cuisine, music and calligraphy, which students can learn more about by navigating through the various programs. "This is to put all Chinese culture in one place so that students can experience it," said Mike Wan, the associate director of the center. Fusheng Wu, director of the center, said he hopes students will make use of the new monitors during breaks between classes. Students can touch the screen to select a traditional Chinese musical instrument and not only learn what it is and how it works, but hear it also. The same applies to calligraphy. An animation video interprets the lines and dots of several Chinese characters, including fire and rain, by showing the viewer how the initial design of the character resembles the object it names and how the design evolved over time. Hanban, an educational organization in China, has given the center funding to install six of these monitors— each one costing about $3,000, according to the computer administrators of the college. The center's leaders plan to install the next one in the Union. "I met with (Union Director) Whit Hollis and he seemed eager," Wan said. The center also plans to install monitors in the Marriott Library and the Tanner Humanities Building. The fifth and sixth location have not yet been selected. It wasn't an easy task to get the monitors installed, though. When the programs and materials arrived at the U, the staff tasked with putting them together discovered it was all written in Chinese. It was a couple months before it had been all translated and finished, said Lonnie Norton, computer administrator for the college. Hanban has installed similar monitors at other universities around the country, including the University of Texas, Wan said. "This is just the first for the U," he said. The center, which has been on campus since October 2007, also hosts Chinese cultural events, including the annual Chinese Culture Week in the spring to spread awareness of the country's history. m.mcfall@chronicle.utah.edu |
