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Show Monday, March 19, 2012 UtilhStat•SIII "Campus Voice Since 1902" • Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.utahsta Athlete paralyzed over Spring Break Today's Issue: Campus News BY CATHERINE BENNETT editor in chief Find out what impacts the WISE Program of the Space Dynamics Lab have on space technology. Page 1 Features Long distance relationships are intolerable for some while others make their relationships work. Page 3 Sp orts JUNIOR DISTANCE RUNNER BRITTANY FISHER was injured while rappelling in southern Utah. Fisher was taken to University Hospital in Las Vegas, where surgeons operated on her leg. Doctors are optimistic she will be able to walk again. Photo courtesy of Haley Evans Brittany Fisher and a group of her friends headed south for Spring Break outdoor adventures, but early Monday morning her plans were changed when she fell about 60 feet to the earth while rappelling down a rock face. A helicopter immediately transported her to University Hospital, in Las Vegas, where doctors confirmed she was paralyzed from the waist down. A member of USU's track team, Brittany Fisher was set to go to a track meet in Arizona later that week. "I woke up to my roommate saying Haley, don't freak out," said Haley Evans, a junior at USU who grew up with Fisher in Naperville, Ill. "When I found out, I honestly was just like mad. I wasn't mad at her, but I felt like she had been stolen away in the middle of the night. I felt like I just woke up and everything was different." Evans was sleeping in the condo where the group was staying, when Fisher and a male USU student decided to go rock climbing between 2 and 3 a.m., Evans said. It was dark when they started rappelling from the top of the 80-foot cliff. Fisher used a left-handed rappelling system, Evans said, and her hand got caught. When she started going too fast she reached up with her right hand to grab the rope and stop herself, but the friction gave her a second-degree burn on that hand. At that point, Fisher let go of the rope and she fell the rest of the way, landing on the ground at a diagonal — first landing on her feet and falling to her back, Evans said. "It's honestly a miracle that she didn't hit her head," Evans said. "Nothing happened with her brain, she was never out of it. She was conscious and talking all the way until the helicopter got there." The male who was with her at the time climbed back up the cliff to the car where they left their phones and called for help. He turned the hazard lights on so they would be found, Evans said. Fisher broke the tibia of her right leg and endured a 10-hour surgical procedure Monday to insert a rod into her leg. Her left foot was completely shattered and doctors are scheduled to do surgery Monday, Evans said. Fisher also broke her back in two places — at the T-5 and T-12 thoracic vertebrae. ► See ATHLETE, Page 2 Science Week celebrates milestones BY STEVE KENT news editor USU men's basketball team tallies a few wins after a disappointing loss at the Western Athletic Conference Tournament in Las Vegas. Page 6 Opinion "I don't fault anyone for their support of Invisible Children, but I think more careful scrutiny is warranted before we throw weight behind something as serious as military deployments into foreign countries." Page 10 Interact Now! Today: Check out all of your housing options in Logan: Added Value! Keep up with our new blogger as she tries to keep up with FunFitForever. Check out BLOGS, on our website. ,> Sustainability, the key for life-long fitness Online exlusives, blogs, a place to comment on stories, videos and more. Free Classfieds, too. www.utahstatesman.com Music and dancing will be as much a part of this year's Science Week as physics and chemistry demonstrations. A music competition, rock climbing and a dance will compliment lectures and exhibits throughout the week of March 19-23, according to event coordinators. Mitch Morgan, Science Week coordinator and member of the Science Council, said the week will be a chance to show the community what the college does. "I hope they can get a better understanding of what the College of Science is and what programs we have." Morgan said the event he looks forward to most is the Smarty Pants Laser Dance, beginning at 9 p.m., Friday in the atrium of the Eccles Science Learning Center. The dance falls on the anniversary of the invention of the laser, he said, and the setting and theme will be unique. "To our knowledge, there's never been a dance in that building before," Morgan said. Science Senator Joe Watson said coordinators will set up lasers in the atrium and give out 2,000 glow sticks. "The whole dance is free," Watson said. "We want everyone to come and have a good time." Students are encouraged to dress in nerdy outfits, and prizes will be given for the nerdiest costumes. Science Week events begin with the seventh annual String Theory Songwriting Competition. USU students compete with original music and lyrics performed on acoustic-only instruments. The competition will begin at noon in the TSC International Lounge, Watson said. Last year, the contest drew 10 musical acts and 50-75 spectators, he said. Prizes include a $50 gift card to KSM Music, a $50 gift card to the USU Bookstore and a free meal card from Dining Services. Monday at 7 p.m., Teaching Laboratory Supervisor James Coburn will provide a physics demonstration in ESLC 130. Coburn said the demonstrations include battery in a beaker, liquid nitrogen and a Ruben's Tube, a device that demonstrates standing waves with fire. Coburn said the comparison of helium and hydrogen balloons will be particularly exciting. "What the Science Council was advertising is explosions," See WEEK, Page 2 SCIENCE WEEK 2012 EVENTS include chemistry and physics demonstrations, a music competition and a dance in the Eccles Science Learning Center. Thinkstock photo Orbiting space telescope maps the cosmos BY JULIA STOCK staff writer A scientist who helped build a powerful space telescope at the Space Dynamics Lab remarked on the project's impact in a speech at the Logan Tabernacle on March 9. "Keep your chair backs in the upright position because we are ready to take off," said Doug Thompson, former mayor of Logan, as he introduced John D. Elwell, the project manager for the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope. Elwell explained the specifics of the WISE infrared telescope that he worked on at USU's SDL in Logan. Elwell said it was launched at 6 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2009, and scientists received the first light image from it 15 days later. Because of its wide-field capability, WISE covers more of the sky than any of its predecessors, including the Hubble telescope, he said, explaining that wide-field means the telescope takes broader pictures. WISE completed its mission 13 months after its launch, having covered the sky completely two times, Elwell said. The telescope took about six months to complete each survey of the sky. Elwell said WISE is basically a telescope with cameras, and it has four cameras and each is pointing at the same target in space but with four different colors." Those colors combined create the infrared effect, Elwell said, adding that the telescope is special because of those infrared capabilities. "WISE doesn't look at visible light like our eyes (do), WISE looks at infrared light, or heat," he said. "If you walk outside on a hot summer day and you feel the sunlight on your skin, your skin is actually protecting you from the infrared light." THE RHO OPHIUCHI CLOUD appears as a swirl of colors as photographed by the WISE telescope, built in part at the Space Dynamics Laboratory at USU. Photo courtesy NASA Elwell said also discussed some of the technical maintenance necessary to keep the telescope functional. "We kept WISE cool the same way you keep a thermos cool on a hot summer day," Elwell said. "Because infrared is heat, we have to keep the cameras cold. Otherwise, if the cameras were at say room temperature, the cameras would blind themselves with their own heat. It's like going outside on a dark night and turning on the flashlight and shining it in your own eye." Elwell said the Space Dynamics Lab has been a part of USU for the past 50 years. With more than 500 successful missions originating from the SDL, the lab has become more well known, he said. "We've had experiments that fly on satellites. We've had experiments on the space station and experiments on the International Space Station and a lot of work done on the space shuttle," Elwell said. "If you add up 50 years of experiments at Utah State University from the Space Dynamics Lab, we've actually put more research expeditions in space than any other university in the world. And that's not a bad record for a little university up in the mountains of northern Utah." The lab benefits students at USU who use it, he said. Successful projects like WISE improve researchers' abilities to bring future work of See SCIENTISTS, Page 2 |