Multimedia Reporting (Broholm-Carroll)

University officials at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute took H1N1 prevention a step further than most universities when they asked students to avoid a college tradition as synonymous with college life as all-night study sessions: beer pong.

With the arrival of flu season and the continued threat of H1N1, more commonly known as the swine flu, KU health officials have encouraged students to take preventive measures such as regular hand washing and vaccination.

Drinking games such as beer pong, considered transmitters of H1N1 and the seasonal flu, have started to gain the attention of KU health officials as well.

"We do have concerns about drinking games," said Mia Hester, marketing coordinator for student health services. "Drinking games in general are not healthy."

Though KU health officials have refrained from sending an official statement warning students of the heightened risk of contracting H1N1 via beer pong, they have acknowledged the dangers associated with the popular college pastime. Despite their efforts, health officials said little could be done to prevent students from playing drinking games such as beer pong.

"They're going to find a way to do it no matter what," said Elizabeth Sawalich, a registered nurse at Watkins Memorial Health Center. "I would encourage better drinking habits, and that's what we try to encourage all over campus."

Better drinking habits include staying hydrated while drinking, Sawalich said. Alcohol causes dehydration, weakening the immune system. Drinking plenty of water after a night of drinking alcohol can decrease the risk of contracting H1N1 and the seasonal flu.

The close proximity many drinking games require also increases a student's chances of exposure to the flu. Sawalich said standing within 6 feet of someone with H1N1 or the seasonal flu could put students at increased risk.

Bridget Heine, St. Louis senior and a member of Peer Health Educators, said any type of contact with other people who already have the flu is likely to spread the virus.

"If there are certain things people can do that would make them safer while drinking, then maybe they'd think about changing their habits," Heine said.

Filling beer pong cups with water to avoid sharing cups is another step students can take to prevent the spread of the flu, Heine said. She said telling students not to drink is an unrealistic approach.

Peer Health Educators, a student-ran health organization, educates students about the seasonal flu as well as H1N1 through hand-washing clinics, informative brochures and information booths set up periodically on campus, Heine said.

Despite their efforts, University health officials said that it's up to students to make the right decisions when drinking to prevent the spread of the flu.

"People who are going to drink are going to drink," Heine said. "We can't force people to be aware of what they're doing."

Sarah Sweenie, Overland Park freshman, caught what University health officials told her was likely H1N1 in early September.  Since the University does not offer testing for H1N1, students with flu-like symptoms are encouraged to stay at home until the symptoms subside.

Signs of H1N1 include fever, coughing, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose and body aches, according to flu.gov, an official government Web site that provides information concerning H1N1 and the seasonal flu.

After spending a week at her parents' home in Overland Park, Sweenie returned to classes and occasional drinking. She said that although she realizes H1N1 is highly contagious, she has done little to change her drinking habits.

"I don't really think about it," Sweenie said. "I don't think students care that much."

Because of vaccine shortages, H1N1 clinics scheduled for Nov. 17 and Dec. 4 have been canceled, according to the student health services Web site.

A clinic is scheduled to take place Nov. 20 at Watkins Memorial Hospital Center from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

An estimated 3,900 people in the United States have died from H1NI, according to the Centers for Disease Control. There have been an estimated 22 million cases of the virus in the U.S. and 98,000 hospitalizations.

Chris Gifford shows off the unmaned robotic rover that reserached ice sheets in Antarctica in 2008.

Chris Gifford has been interested in robots ever since NASA began using them to traverse the planet of Mars.

"I was keeping tabs on what NASA was up to in terms of sending rovers to other planets,"  Said McPherson, Kan. Ph.D. candidate Gifford. "I thought it was really exciting as an engineering effort and for expanding our knowledge of the solar system."

Since then, Chris' interest led him to study robotics as an engineering student at the University of Kansas.  He has led a winning robotics team at an international competition, worked on autonomous polar mapping rovers and researched multi-agent robotic systems at the University of Kansas, which is the topic of the dissertation he will be giving next week.

Chris is a part of a growing number of engineering students studying the widening field of robotics. Students have created robots that do everything from helping to rehabilitate stroke victims, to mapping global warming's effect on the polar icecaps.  And yet Chris and many others at the University feel like like the program isn't what it could be.

"Their haven't been a lot of classes offered recently, in the past year, related to robotics," Mark Calnon, Greenville, South Carolina masters student, said.  

Calnon is currently working on evolutionary or learning robots at the University, and was also on Gifford's team at the robot competition.  When he arrived at the University another professor, Dr. Costas Tsatsoulis, taught robotics in the department, but he has since moved to another college.  Calnon believes University wide budget cuts have prevented a new robotics instructor from being hired, leaving only Dr.Arvin Agah to teach robotics classes.

"Dr. Agah's courses are offered maybe every, every year or two," Calnon said.  "Their not as frequent as I would like."

Because Dr. Agah is a computer science professor, he is responsible for teaching many computer science classes, making it hard to teach robotics classes with much frequency.  

"He has to teach a lot of classes and he can't always focus on robotics," Calnon said.

These advanced courses also mean students don't have the option of taking an introductory course in robotics.

"Their's not exactly a course that gets you into the robotics field," said Daniel Leung.

Leung has been working on location aware mapping robots that work in teams, a field called  Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM).  He too was a part of the winning robotics team that Chris Gifford led.

This is one of the robots that led Chris Gifford's team to victory at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation last year.

Instead of starting on a robotics specific track in the engineering school, students learn from a broad range of topics relating to robots, like Radar and artificial intelligence.  This has it's advantages, because of the complexity of robotics and it's multidisciplinary nature, but it also keeps students from starting on an accelerated track towards the field.

"The difficulty with students pursuing a specialized robotics degree is that it limits their options later," Dr.Agah said.  "They are more versatile at KU."

The robotics field has become a bigger part of engineering programs across the nation.  Universities including Carnegie Mellon and the University of Michigan have already created specialized robotics degrees, though the University of Kansas has yet to do so.  Dr.Agah said he believes that most engineering students benefit from having a general degree that allows them to pursue a wide range of careers.  He did say he wanted to teach robotics classes more frequently in the future.

"That's something we would like to change," Dr. Agah said.

Agah also said that the school gives students the ability to choose an area of study in robotics in research, though he added that getting funding for most projects can be an issue.  Some students feel that more should be done to get students working together.

"Their aren't any very well organized robotics groups, amongst students or among faculty besides CReSIS." Calnon said.

CReSIS is currently one of the largest projects in the engineering department and involves a wide range of fields, including robotics.  CReSIS stands for the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, which is a part of the National Science Foundation, and is currently monitoring ice sheets in the polar regions for the effects of global warming.  Students like Gifford have been involved with designing robots capable of driving and collecting data on the ice sheets. without a human driver.

"It's a first effort at doing autonomous science over the ice sheets" Gifford said.  "It's an incredibly challenging environment, an incredibly challenging problem."

Gifford thinks that the high profile project could attract new faculty, especially since the projects involves many different fields.

"The (robotics) program is good right now, but to really be at the level it needs to be, I think we need to have more projects going on, more courses, and more faculty.  Hopefully in the future we'll be able to hire some faculty members that bring some robotics experience." Gifford said.

Behind Professor Michael Murray is a green chalkboard covered in the scratchings of nuclear physics equations.  His sticking-up hair curls on the ends and is flecked with gray.  He speaks with a Welsh accent and a soft, honeyed tone as he explains what he likes about physics with childlike enthusiasm.  From what he says, one may not think he is speaking of colliding particles with energy so strong that some scientists fear it could destroy the world.

"Well, it's just great fun.  We're basically a bunch of kids who never grew up, playing with Legos," Murray said.

Scientists in the CERN control room cheer and toss their hats in celebration of the LHC's restart on Nov. 20. Photo: CERN

 

Sanders talks about the LHC experiment's main goal of finding the Higgs boson particle, which is thought to give all things their mass.

 

It isn't just the risks involved with the LHC that is getting it a lot of attention.  Beyond the hysteria of the LHC creating black holes or ripping the fabric of space-time, is its main goal: to discover the Higgs boson particle.  The Higgs boson--also known as the God particle--has eluded scientists for more than 30 years, Murray said. 

The LHC is located 330 feet underground near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France.  It uses a circular tunnel 17 miles in circumference to accelerate two beams of particles in opposite directions.  Sanders said six experiments are to be conducted at multiple regions where the beams of particles collide. Murray and Sanders are both working on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Experiment, "which is something of a misnomer if you actually look at the device," Sanders said.  "Because it is anything but compact.  It's huge." 

View of the cavern of the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment. Michael Murray and Stephen Sanders, both nuclear physics professors at KU, will be analyzing the data obtained from the experiment.  Photo: CERN

 

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, is conducting the experiment.  The experiment Murray and Sanders are participating in will investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, additional dimensions to the familiar three-dimensional world, and what makes up dark matter.  Sanders said they expect to discover the existence of the Higgs boson particle, which has never been observed and is thought to be responsible for the mass of particles. But if they are not correct, according to the CERN website, this could launch a revolution in physics, sending theorists back to the drawing board and challenging their ideas about the world at the most basic level.   

 

Drawing of the Compact Muon Solenoid that will be used to detect new particles.  Source: CERN

 

 

 

 

Once particles collide, the data from the collisions will be sent around the world, including to KU, where Murray, Sanders and a number of graduate and undergraduate students will analyze the data. According to CERN's website, more than 2,000 scientists collaborate in the CMS experiment, coming from 155 institutes in 37 countries.

Jeff Wood, a graduate student in physics and Murray's research assistant, is currently on-site in Geneva, working on the LHC experiment.  Wood uses his own metaphor to explain particle collision experiments.

"It's like a glorified crash test.  Over time, you smash enough cars and begin to believe that cars are made of aluminum, glass and tires because those are the pieces that come off.  Particle physicists are glorified crash testers, but instead of finding what cars are made of, we're finding the building blocks of the universe," Wood said in an interview over Skype.

However crashing particles together has more risks than crashing cars.  Sanders said people have speculated that the high-energy collisions could create black holes. 

"There have been a number of mechanisms that have played into catastrophe theories.  All I can say is people who I respect, who have looked into these things, have found them extraordinarily unlikely," Sanders said. 

Murray said the LHC is actually much weaker than the particle collisions that occur naturally in space.  With this in mind, Murray said, if the fabric of space-time could be ripped apart by high-energy collisions, it would have already been ripped apart. 

"I don't think it's unreasonable that people would worry about it.  I think it's our job to explain why space and time must be very strong," Murray said.

In addition to fears of apocalypse, discovering the building blocks of the universe carries religious implications.

Elena Morcelli, Catholic sister and spiritual director at St. Lawrence Center, said the task of those working on the LHC is discovering how God made the universe. 

"As long as they don't deny what God did, always keep themselves humble and try to remember that we are creatures and God is the creator, I don't see any problem," Morcelli said. 

Although Sanders himself doesn't see any religious implications, he speculates why some might call the Higgs boson the God particle.

"It's probably because if we don't find it, it's going to lead to all sorts of mystery as to why we didn't find it and what the mechanism is that accounts for the mass of all the particles," Sanders said.

Murray, on the other hand, said all science gives glory to God. 

"I like trying to understand the questions: How is the universe made? How did God put them all together?  I think we are only seeing a tiny fraction of creation, but I think every time we look at creation, it's just wonderful.  That's what drives me," Murray said.

The LHC will initiate the collisions at a lower energy.  If all goes well, Murray said, particles should be colliding eight times harder by January.  He hopes they will have their first report published in February.  The first collisions will mark the beginning of a series of experiments that will run for the next 15 to 20 years.

 

She wanted to be a doctor since she was in the fourth grade. She's been a straight A student for as long as she can remember. At Washburn, she's involved in student government and a sorority. She figured she had the skills and drive it takes to be a doctor, but somewhere along the way, Katie Hays decided to switch out of her science major.

Women continue to be involved in the biomedical science field, but
research has shown that it doesn't take long for them to want to
leave. Source: National Institutes of Health

"I love school and I knew it was a huge requirement," Hays said. "I thought I could do it, but I just didn't want to do it anymore."

Recently, Donna Ginther, a KU professor of economics, received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to research why this happens. She thinks it may be a multitude of reasons.

Ginther wrote a 20 page grant request to the NIH in a grant
competition it was holding.

"There are more women going in, and once they're in, you'd hate to lose that talent pool," Templeton said. "You'd hate to be training everyone and then just lose them."

Advancement in the medical field is harder for women as the
distribution in gender favors men significantly. This may be one of
the factors that discourages women in science. Source: Association
of American Medical Colleges 

            The University of Kansas is on the verge of something out of this world.  Three monarch butterflies from KU will be traveling to the International Space Station, as observers will monitor the life cycle of a monarch butterfly in space.

Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch, sits in his office.

            Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch at KU and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, started an outreach project 18 years ago when he noticed monarchs weren't coming north during the spring and he wanted to find out why.  Taylor has been working with butterflies ever since and received the call from NASA last April about sending the monarchs into outer space.

            Taylor said monarchs were chosen because they use and depend on gravity a lot when they make their chrysalis and when they become butterflies .  However, this isn't the first time an unusual species has traveled to outer space.  Taylor said they have taken fish up there before.  Other notable species that have traveled into outer space include various kinds of plants, moths, bees, rats and monkeys.

            "It's going to be challenging for this insect.  There's five different challenges in this life history that the caterpillar will go through; starting from the late larvae stage," Taylor said.

            The trio of monarch butterflies is the first of its species to travel to outer space.  The caterpillars are accompanied by an artificial diet, which Taylor has been working on for two years now.  If all goes according to plan, the insects will eat, grow and go through metamorphosis to emerge as butterflies.

            Roger Nightengale, KU student and biology major, said he has become very interested in this experiment since he first heard about it. 

            "It's not very often that your university is involved in something as big as this.  It will be interesting to find out if the butterflies can adjust to the new environment," Nightengale said.

            The University of Kansas is teaming up with over 400 schools across the eastern United States in monitoring the space expedition.  At the KU site, Monarch Watch is made up of volunteers and faculty.

           "We were looking for 20 volunteers, initially, and we had 870 responses right off the bat.  So we had to go to plan B, which is where we are right now with the 400 schools ranging from primary to secondary schools," Taylor said.

            Monarch Watch has shipped a similar collection of caterpillars and artificial diets to those primary and secondary schools throughout the eastern United States so the students can track development of the monarchs in space and compare their growth to monarchs in their classroom.

            The space shuttle is set to take off today, Monday, November 16, 2009 at 2:28 p.m., if all goes well.  The shuttle will then rendezvous with the International Space Station on Wednesday.  By the end of this week, the two observers on board will begin monitoring the butterflies as the try to adapt to their new surroundings.

            "I can see it going either way.  I can see this insect being adaptable enough to do everything and I can see where it might fail," Taylor said.  "We could learn that this species has a marvelous capacity to adjust."

            Steve Hawley, KU professor of physics and astronomy and former NASA astronaut, said he thinks the insects will do just fine in outer space.

            "Our experience suggests that insects and animals tolerate spaceflight pretty well," Hawley said.

            Sam Pippert, KU student and Monarch Watch volunteer, said he is very interested in seeing the results.  Pippert usually puts in about 10 hours a week working at the Foley Center on West Campus, which is the headquarters for Monarch Watch.

A monarch butterfly in one of the mating cages.

            Taylor said this type of project really does a lot for the University of Kansas. 

"The university is naturally popular with the work that is done here, but this will definitely help," Taylor said.

            Hawley said, "I think it's great that KU is using spaceflight to help investigate the role of gravity in the details of the development of monarchs.  Hopefully, the scientists and students will find involvement in a Shuttle mission to be a unique and exciting experience." 

           Students and faculty are encouraged to follow the experiment and development at www.monarchwatch.org.

Ceri Goulter has made this drive almost 100 times in the last two and a half months. This trip is different, this time Becca comes home. From the Overland Park Regional Medical Center to their new cozy house in Lawrence Ceri, with her husband Chris and son Perrin, cautiously drives Becca to her new home. This home is without nurses, Isolette incubators, white coats, feeding tubes, and the unmistakable odor of a hospital.

Becca was born prematurely and spent 98 days in the hospital racking up a colossal medical bill for the Goulters. Even with help from medical insurance, the bills amass a debt of over $750,000.

"The debt is kind of indescribable... large... excessive... she's our million dollar baby." Ceri said.

Ceri Goulter visited baby Becca everyday in the hospital during the summer.

Friends, co-workers and family eager to help soon organized a fundraiser for Ceri and Becca. Co-worker and friend, Kristi Willhite, had the idea during a wedding shower and came up with the name Band for Becca. During the wedding shower, Willhite and some of Ceri's high school friends devised the event that would feature karaoke and a musical performance by the band Land Rush whose lead-singer is Willhite's daughter Katy.

Another high school friend of Ceri would come forward to offer his services. Michael Coggins, a manager at Wild's Chateau 24, was able to provide his establishment as the location for the event. The food was provided by Willhite and other event organizers. Hollywood Theaters donated free popcorn for Band for Becca. 

Becca receives UV treatments for jaundice while Ceri comforts her.

"There are twice the amount of people I thought would show up." Willhite said, "so many people should take credit for this. All I did was bake like crazy and watch my grandkids."

            Ceri, a para-educator at Southwest Junior High, was able to catch up with a lot of her former class-mates from Lawrence High. However, the guest of honor, Becca, was not in attendance. She spent the evening at home with grandma, Robin Goulter.

The excepted due date for Becca was October 4th; she was born on June 30th. Weighing one pound and 11 ounces, Becca needed intensive around-the-clock care before coming home one day after her original due date. When Becca left the hospital on October 5th she weighed over 7 pounds.

With the band pumping out melodies and the lights on the dance floor scattering across the room the mood was easily relaxed and upbeat. The kids danced and spun circles with a careless laughter to the music. The adults chatted and laughed barely matching the children's enjoyment. It was easy to forget about the complications of life beyond this moment. Able to chat with old friends, Ceri was able to relax and remain lighthearted without the stress of the last few months.

The Percentage of Births in the US that are premature. A premature birth occurs before the 37th week of a 42 week pregnancy term.

Every summer day Ceri and Chris would make their trip starting on K-10 east and ending on the third floor of the hospital. But this day was different, it was Ceri's birthday. There were monitors and machines surrounding Becca at all times checking her heart rate and respiratory rate.

"When the alarms went off the nurses would come in," Ceri said, "we had kind of gotten used to that happening. And then she would usually come back on her own..."

But on this day she did not come back on her own. The nurses took Becca from Ceri and more nurses came in to try and stimulate Becca's breathing. Ceri and Chris were ushered out to the hallway. A nurse pressed the code button, meaning she was not going to come back on her own.

"They needed more help which sent everyone and their mother running into the room." Ceri said.

Becca's throat had swollen shut. The nurses had to open it back up and reinsert the ventilator into Becca's airway. This was the second day since Becca was initially taken off the ventilator. The steroids Becca was on to help wean her off the ventilator had worn off causing her throat to completely close up. In all Becca spent a month on a ventilator.

            "I knew it was pretty serious," Ceri said. "It was scary"

            With the lights bouncing of the mirror ball and the music pouring into the bar over the fountain it was easy to forget the troubles from the summer. Becca is going strong at home with grandma and Ceri is cheerful, which is exactly what her friends wanted.

With over 200 people in attendance and many of them donating more than the cover charge, Bands for Becca has exceeded everyone's expectations.

"I was shocked by the turnout. I couldn't believe that they were able to organize something like that." Ceri said.

            With almost a million dollars of bills to pay it would be impossible to alleviate that burden with just one local fundraiser. The appreciation however was not lacking. The money and the gathering of support have been fully appreciated by the Goulters.

"The help was huge in comfort and knowing that we can pay some bills and just afford day to day stuff." Ceri said.

Ohle wouldn't publish another novel for 32 years, but has published four books since.  His most recent, Boons and the Camp, was released last month, and to no surprise is based around creatures that are part woman, part duck.

"My writing has often been criticized as being too far out there, but I'm OK with that," Ohle said. 

After Motorman was published in 1972, Ohle graduated the following year and was handed a job teaching creative writing at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Motorman would soon go out of print, but not be lost.  Until its reprinting in 2004, few copies existed and -- besides for photocopied versions and stolen originals -- the novel was hard to come by.

"You couldn't find it in any book stores in Lawrence for a long time.  I've been told all the copies from the libraries have been stolen, including the original thesis," Ohle said. 

Without publishing a second novel, Ohle was denied tenure at Austin and decided to move back to Lawrence.

"It's not like I wasn't writing anything." Ohle said.  "I was distracted by living in Austin for eight years and didn't get much done.  I had cowboy boots and a guitar.  You had to do something like that to survive back then; I didn't even play the guitar."

Ohle survived in Lawrence just fine.  He continued to write and publish his work in various magazines, while Motorman gained underground acclaim.

From the years of 1973 to 1985, Ohle and friend Roger Martin published a Lawrence newspaper called the City Moon.  Eighteen issues were distributed exclusively in Lawrence during that time. 

  

 

Ohle and Martin would also compile and publish Cows Are Freaky when They Look at You: An Oral History of the Kaw Valley Hemp Pickers in 1991. The book is mostly transcribed conversations recorded at parties and other events taking place in Lawrence during the turbulent late '60s and early '70s.

 

"We avoided most of the political stuff," Ohle said,  "it's really about sex, drugs and rock and roll, sort of."

 

In the mid 80s, Ohle befriended beat legend William S. Burroughs, who lived in Lawrence from 1981 until his death in 1997.

 

Ohle said he was first hired to type out some of Burroughs' later novels such as Queer and The Western Lands, but eventually become a regular at his east Lawrence home.

 

"I would go over and cook on Thursday nights and all sorts of neat people would roll through there: Allen Ginsburg, Patty Smith, her guitar player boyfriend, Timothy Leary, and a lot of other cool people coming through Lawrence to see Burroughs," Ohle said. 

Ohle sits (left) at Burroughs home in Lawrence with others. The video was made by Ohle's friend Wayne Propst and includes such individuals as Allen Ginsburg, Patty Smith (singing), Steve Buscemi (right) and various others.

 

Ohle also tried a hand in screen writing, once collaborating on a piece with Burroughs about his theory on dreams.

 

"Once a week I would go over and we would sit back in his room discussing his dreams," Ohle said.   "He would smoke a lot of pot, and talk about this idea he had for a screenplay."

 

In 2002 he took a part-time job teaching fiction and screenwriting for the University's English department.  The screenplay he wrote with Burroughs was never published, but is now available to students of Ohle's screenwriting class. 

Thomas Schmeltz, a junior from Dallas, said he had read Motorman while in high school, and wasn't aware the author now taught at Lawrence.

 

"I've been a big nerd of the beats my whole life, and heard about Motorman from a teacher.  Ohle is one of those guys who never did get enough credit for his innovation," Schmeltz said.  "I didn't even know he was still around, and still writing."

           

In 2004, 32 years after the publication of Motorman, Ohle released his second novel, The Age of Sinatra.  That same year, Motorman was republished with an introduction by literary bigwig and acclaimed surreal author Ben Marcus. 

 

Marcus said that he had heard about the book from his publisher and for a long time was scared to read it:

 

"It's existence bothered me," Marcus writes in the introduction,  "and I grew leery of being artistically paralyzed by its reported high oddity and invention, its completely unexampled decimation of fiction-as-we-have-come-to-know-it." 

 

Since 2004, Ohle has kept more than busy, compiling and editing a book about Burroughs' son, Cursed from birth: the short, unhappy life of William S. Burroughs, Jr, in 2006, and publishing his third novel, The Pisstown Chaos, in 2008. 

 

Motorman (top left) republished in 2004, Cursed from Birth (top right), The Pisstown Chaos (bottom left) and Ohle's new novella Boons (bottom right).

 

Ohle's first three novels have been called a trilogy by some, yet the author claims the only connection is the character Moldenke.  His new novel, Boons and the Camp, is entirely new material, co-authored with childhood friend and Kansas graduate Randall Hepburn, who is a Phd scientist who studies bees in Africa and Asia. 

 

Boons and the Camp is actually two short novellas, The Camp written entirely by Ohle, and Boons a collaboration.  Ohle said the main character for Boons is loosely based off Hepburn.

 

"It's sort of about his research, but totally fiction," Ohle said. "The boons are creatures that are part duck, part human female."