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Show \ Page 3 StatesmanCamnus News Friday. Sept. 14,2007 Greeks: Recruitment week • (J continued from page 1 said. "Maybe they weren't against us, but they definitely weren't for us. "One thing that's different is the Student Involvement Center has been really helping us out. We've had more freshmen coming over than ever before." Another thing that has been blamed for Utah students shying away from joining fraternities or sororities is the image of Greek life perpetuated by movies like "Old School" or "Animal House" and TV shows like "Greek." Webb said he agrees the stereotype has something to do with the low numbers in Utah, but Greeks haven't publicized the good things they do, such as the charity work every house is required to be involved in, enough to counterbalance that image. "We as Greeks don't do a good job of PR," he said. "We do a lot of good things we don't tell people about." Lear said the Greeks are trying to expand their recruitment efforts to help their falling numbers. PROFESSOR MIKE TAYLOR and senior Dan Burton traveled up 47,000 feet to take video and pictures She said they are working on year-round of meteors from the comet Kiess.The two went as part of a NASA mission, photo courtesy of Dan Burton recruitment and new "We as Creeks they worked quickly and smoothly, Taylor said. ways to get registered ByRANAEBANGERTER Kiess only orbits the sun every 2,000 years, with a Greek organiza- don't do a good job staff writer when most meteors come every 10 to 50 years. tion and be involved. of PR. We do a lot The orbit of the comet is very long and elliptiDuring the recruitcal unlike most comets. It's also different because ment weeks, each house of good things we Two USU researchers were able to take part in don't tell people the only kinds of radiation received are x-ray and holds a service project a once-in-a-lifetime trip to study meteors from 9 cosmic radiation. the comet Kiess. for their organization's about. * "They call it a pristine comet because it hasn't sponsored charity, as During Labor Day weekend, physics professor Mike Taylor and senior Dan Burton traveled up to been affected by the sun as much as other comwell as house tours Kevin Webb, president of ets," Taylor said. 47,000 feet with a crew of 24 researchers from all and activities specific over the world. The last sighting of the comet was in A.D. to each organization. Pi Kappa Alpha Crew members on the Aurgirid Multi30, and the last sighting of the meteors from the Johnson said this week Instrument Aircraft Campaign Mission were comet was in 1911, Burton said. Delta Sigma Phi had a from Maryland, France, England, Germany and "It's a new meteor shower in that respect," sumo wrestling match with rented sumo suits, a root beer Denmark, some even working for NASA. Taylor said. kegger, goldfish races, and Friday night will have a Guitar Taylor and Burton's position in the flight was In previous sightings of Keiss, the comet was Hero and Dance Dance Revolution party. Thursday Sigma to take video and pictures of the meteors so the blue and green. Normal comets are reds and Nu invited students to "Beat a Beater," where they helped researchers could study them. whites, Taylor said. destroy a car headed for the junkyard. Pi Kappa Alpha "With these pictures we can analyze the actual "The colors tell us what the comet materials had activities like bowling, ultimate frisbee and minitrajectory of the original comet by tracing or just are: sodium, magnesium and various metal elegolf. putting all the pictures together and figuring out ments ... So by looking at the colors and making Though this year's house tours "were complete flops exactly where the dust is coming from and findspectral measurements, we can actually from a for some reason," according to Johnson, with only two ing what the meteors are made of," Burton said. distance tell what the comet's dust is made of, students showing up to see the houses for all the fraterwhat the meteors are made of," Taylor said. Taylor said he chose Burton to go with him nities, he said other activities put on by the fraternities because Burton has taken photographs for him in Taylor has been on several of these "missions" drew lots of students. The sororities' house tours, held Alaska and other places. to study how meteors burn up in the atmosphere, during Connections Week, had more than 90 students in Taylor uses the cameras often to study atmobut this one was special, he said. attendance. spheric waves, but he likes to use them for other "I've done it before, but every time it's a real Today the fraternities will be "running the hill," Webb research. thrill," Taylor said. "It's so exciting to be able to said. Running the hill is a tradition in which pledges, or "They kind of give us clues as to early makeup do these things." rushees, stand at the top of Old Main and run down to of the solar system and help us to kind of theorize The researchers saw about 50 to 100 meteors join the members of the fraternity of their choice. This ritand figure out what may have happened to get the in the sensitive cameras. ual used to be where fraternities learned who had decided solar system how it is today," Burton said. "I think we actually saw more meteors than I to join them. Now fraternities know earlier in the week Taylor was called by the lead investigator, Peter expected, and that's even nicer," Taylor said. who will be pledging with them. Jeniskens, two months before the mission was to The photos will be studied over the next few "It's just an old tradition," Webb said. "USU is big on be held. The crew has been on several missions months to determine the findings. traditions." together, so when they meet up on shprt notice, , -ranae. bang@aggiemail. usu.edu -eiizabeth.lawyer0aggiewail.usu.edu Speak U p Briefs Campus & Community Top of Utah Marathon and 5K Race Saturday The Top of Utah Marathon and 5K Race are tomorrow. The event begins at 7 a.m. The Top of Utah Marathon starts at Hardware Ranch and ends at Merlin Olsen in Logan. Registration for the Top of Utah Marathon is ongoing. Registration forms are available at Al's Sporting Goods and online at http://www.topofutahmarathon. com/. In conjunction with the Top of Utah Marathon, there will be a 5K along the final few miles of the course. The cost is $25. County Sheriffs office sponsoring demolition The Demolition Derby is tomorrow at the Logan-Cache County Fairgrounds, 400 S. 500 West. The Cache County Sheriffs office sponsors three Demolition Derbies. Each event will start at 7 p.m. Part of the proceeds from the events will go to the support non-profit auxiliary groups which aid the Sheriffs Office. It costs $8 for adults and $4 for children. Disability Resource Center recruiting The Disability Resource Center Peer Mentor program is taking applications for all of its various mentoring roles. Mentors work with students of varied backgrounds and goals in areas such as social, academic (time management and study skills), or transitional/vocational skills. Program functions primarily on a volunteer basis. The program also works with practicum student mentors and paid mentors as well. Mentors work with a student from 1-3 hours a week. Mentors are also responsible to follow through will some minor paperwork. In addition mentors are asked to attend monthly trainings to give support to the mentor with skills that have been valuable in the past. If interested please contact Rick Memmott at rickmemmott@cc.usu.edu. encourages Governors discuss incentives for cleaner coal Governor "Lights Off Utah" CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Four governors of coal-producing states say federal incentives are needed to entice power companies to develop cleaner energy from coal. The governors, meeting Thursday in Cheyenne, said they hoped to persuade Congress to keep coal power viable amid pressure to limit emissions of carbon dioxide, one of the gases blamed for global warming. Currently coal-fired power plants are among the nation's top emitters of carbon dioxide. "It is clearly our belief that the federal government's failure to move, and to move quickly, is going to impose a significant price on us as a nation going forward, both in terms of having clean energy and also in terms of energy security," Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal said. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin joined Freudenthal in a daylong meeting to talk about possible federal incentives, including tax breaks, to spur cleaner burning coal. The four said in a midafternoon press conference that they were also discussing incentives for wind and solar power. Ritter touted a couple such projects in his state. But coal was the main topic of the day. "We know energy efficiency and energy conservation are a big part of our clean energy future, renewable energy is certainly a part of it," Ritter said. "But most of the experts and even the people who understand the most about climate change, would agree as well that coal will be a part of it." Manchin said there has been a "movement away from coal," but it Internet: Network increases safety 0 continued from page 1 wrong thing on the Internet, said Miles Johnson, security specialist. When some computers are taken over, users can tell, but most of the time a bugging device is put on the computer that is invisible to the user. It will then track key strokes, watching for any type of password or number it could use, and it will report back to its master. The owner is then able to use the information to access or use credit cards or other personal information, Johnson said. If the IT team notices this, they are usually able to track the computer and its user within 10 minutes to let them know of the danger and help them take care of the problem. In the past when a compromised computer needed to be put back on the system, it was done for free. This provided no motivation for the user to keep their computer clean and updated, so the IT team now charges $25 for the first time and $50 each subsequent time. The number of compromised computers dropped from hundreds a month to three or four, Johnson said. "It made a profound change in the way people think of keeping computers at USU," he said. The team encouraged students to be careful about what they click on and giving out their credit card or other numbers online to a site that may not be secure. Darren Cluff, an IT employee and USU student, has been working with the new system for about two months and reviews the information collected daily to make sure that nothing was missed, as the computer isn't watched continually. He is now able to find patterns in the numbers and alert the team to any situations that need to be taken care of. The IT team gave suggestions for users on how to watch their own computers. Keeping machines updated and checking them early and often was Cluff and Johnson's advice. Bayn said users should be skeptical of things that are sent to them. It may take a few minutes to call and verify a bank sent an e-mail, but Cluff said this will save time in the long run and prevent someone from stealing someone's identity. An ongoing discussion for the IT team involves an Internet security port, Port 25. This is an attempt to verify which computers on campus are actual e-mail servers and block the others to help keep the security levels high, Johnson said. It is a campuswide issue, and Bayri said they are working with about 100 people who will be won't last. "It's going to be here. It's needed. It has to be part of the equation," he said. Federal incentives would encourage technologies like coal gasification, which involves turning coal into gas before burning it. The process is cleaner than burning coal directly. Incentives also could be used to get utilities to trap carbon dioxide from power plants and pump the gas underground, possibly as a way to recharge old, depleted oil fields. "There has to be some sort of bridge that connects the rhetoric and the reality of where we are in terms of clean energy and energy independence," Huntsman said. "That's something we, as governors, can do." Wyoming is the nation's top coalproducing state, generating more than 35 percent of the nations coal in 2005, according to the Energy Information Administration. West Virginia ranked second, at more than 13 percent. Colorado was seventh, while Utah ranked 14th. The governors said they did not finalize any recommendations during Thursday's meeting. They said specifics would come later, possibly after more meetings. "That kind of listing in detail awaits another day," Freudenthal said. The meeting came a day after Freudenthal severed ties with a Golden, Colo., group that promotes domestic energy production, Americans for American Energy. Freudenthal said in a letter to the group that it had made "highly inappropriate assertions" about him supporting some of its goals, such as encouraging drilling on western Colorado's Roan Plateau. Beat the Beater BRAD LOWDER, freshman majoring in law and consitutional studies, participated in Beat the Beater, an activity hosted by Sigma Nu Thursday night Lowder is a pledge in the fraternity. TYLER LARSON photo Salt Lake City - Governor Jon Huntsman is joining local businesses and governments in support of "Lights Off Utah" - a n energy demonstration focused on portraying the positive impact using less energy can have on all Utahns and the state. On September 19 from 9 pm to 10 pm all Utahns are encouraged to turn off all lights within their homes and businesses. "Each individual can make a difference and Lights Off Utah enables us to see the impact of all those individual actions," said Governor Huntsman. "Wise use of our energy resources is vital as our state continues to grow in terms of our economy and population. I encourage every Utahn to participate in this effort." "Lights Off Utah" is intended to demonstrate how much energy can be saved and how carbon emissions can be eliminated through the simple act of turning off all lights statewide for one hour. Utahns are being asked to turn-off non-essential lighting in their homes for one hour. State and local governments will also support the effort by turning ofTlights in office buildings and other structures. Essential lighting, including street lights, traffic lights and hospital lighting, will remain on during the initiative. Many State facilities have hard-wired safety lighting that will also be maintained. According to Rocky Mountain Power, if 750,000 residential or commercial unites turned off just five 60-watt bulbs for an hour, enough energy would be saved to run every appliance in 1,300 homes for a week. "The Lights Off Utah event will allow all of North America to see visually what can be done when each of us becomes consciously aware of energy waste and that Utah is leading the way," said Dan Furner, eCube Energy Vice President of Public Relations and Marketing. "Turning off non-essential lighting is the easiest, most effective first step." The initiative is being organized by eCube Energy and the Nightside Project on KSL NewsRadio. Other organizations supporting the event include the State of Utah, Utah League of Cities and Towns, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake Chamber/ Downtown Alliance, Rocky Mountain Power, Comcast and Utah Clean Energy. For more information about Lights Off Utah, please visit www.lightsoffamerica. com. [•Compiled from staff , and media reports |