Untitled Document

Friday, August 25, 2006

Good morning! Here's today's summary of news coverage of Auburn University.
NOTE: Any errors in text are due to formatting by the publication.

Total Clips: 7

	Date	Outlet
Progressive politics	08/25/2006	Selma Times-Journal
Safety scan	08/25/2006	Tuscaloosa News, The
Food and fun in the Black Belt	08/25/2006	Tuscaloosa News
Life After Oils	08/25/2006	Discover Magazine, August 2006, Environment
Auburn Prepares for Post-Scandal Football Season	08/25/2006	NPR, All Things Considered
University Set for 3rd annual TEAM-Math Conference	08/25/2006	Tuskegee University
Clemson Univ. Slaying Raises Concerns	08/25/2006	Atlanta Journal Constitution


Progressive politics 08/25/2006 Selma Times-Journal Tammy Leytham, Editor		Return to Top
Mentions AU's Rural Studio in the context of developing innovative housing. I had a conversation this week with one of our elected officials and an issue we discussed was what it would take for someone to be elected to statewide office. The fact is, I believe the voters of Alabama are ready for someone who is progressive, even aggressive, about moving our state into the future. For as many years as I've been on the earth, Alabama has been considered last, or next to last, in just about every category. Even the areas where we have progressed often get overlooked. On a national scale, our state is often looked at as "backward" and "behind the times." In some ways that's a good thing. We certainly remain a friendly state - people still know their neighbors, take over a casserole or pie when a loved one dies and enjoy backyard barbecues together. Why not make a decision now that we want to be the most progressive state in the country when it comes to issues like environmentalism and innovative industry? Let's legalize marijuana and give farmers a new cash crop. Many people believe our government made marijuana illegal in an effort to protect us from something harmful, but let's rethink this. That being the case, fried chicken and bacon would probably be the first to go. And certainly alcohol would be illegal - if the government were truly trying to protect its citizenry. More than 16,000 people died alcohol-related deaths in 2005 nationwide, according to statistics from Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Maybe legalizing marijuana is a little out there. But, here's another idea. Our Department of Agriculture has done a good job with its Buy Local campaign. Why not expand that to encourage folks to buy organically-grown produce? Environmentally friendly public transportation is another direction our state should take. What about Disney-style monorails in a major metropolitan area like Birmingham? Okay, so if that isn't feasible, what about electric - or at least hybrid - bus service? (Some cities have already implemented fuel-efficient buses). A light rail system in some of the urban areas would be helpful in transporting residents, reducing vehicle emissions and in attracting tourism. And for smaller cities in the state - such as Selma - we should just work toward having public transportation. I visited Missoula, Mont., and they have an organization that gives away free bicycles - folks donate the parts and volunteers help you build your own bike. Just to keep down the amount of vehicle traffic in town. What about attracting innovative housing developments that are built to have a low-impact on the environment? If the city of Austin, Texas, can produce enough solar and wind power to keep the lights on in its public buildings, surely a builder can develop a subdivision that is completely self-sustaining. We already have the Rural Studio project working out of Auburn University. Why not expand that to plan entire communities and neighborhoods? We have a beautiful state and we should encourage residents - and visitors - to have a low-impact on our natural resources. We need to be pedestrian-friendly, have more open spaces in our cities, promote public art and reduce waste in our landfills. There are thousands of ideas out there about how to do things better - not just fall into the trap of "that's the way it's always been done." For Alabama to truly move forward, we've got to think about more than just our future. We have to think about the future of our children's children. And the ones who'll come after that. Tammy Leytham is editor of The Selma Times-Journal.
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Safety scan 08/25/2006 Tuscaloosa News, The Sarah Bruyn Jones		Return to Top
Story mentions the Auburn University Medication Error Detection System. For a decade, the Tuscaloosa Veterans Affairs Medical Center has used computerized medical records to try to curb medical errors. Other hospitals are trying to follow suit. Nationally, the VA is leading the way in terms of computerization of medical records and medicine distribution. The Tuscaloosa VA set the stage as the first VA in the country to use a computerized patient record system with real patients. Today, that system is being constantly tweaked and monitored to try to maximize the potential of computerized medicine. “I’ll tell you what I tell everyone I train. This is not designed for convenience; it’s designed for patient safety," said Allan Hinton, clinical application coordinator for the Tuscaloosa VA. In short, Hinton, a nurse by training, is one of four people responsible for coordinating the computer system with medical practices at the Tuscaloosa VA. The system keeps all files electronically and has safeguards to make sure care is administrated properly, especially when it comes to medications. An up-to-date file, for instance, has a list of all medications a patient is taking, along with any allergies and notes on past care including reminders of follow-ups. If a doctor prescribes a medication that interacts adversely with an allergy or another drug, the computer flashes a warning. Follow-ups include everything from lab results that are required with certain prescription drugs to reminders that a patient should get a flu shot. All exam rooms are equipped with computers, so the physician is taking notes electronically. Hinton said laptops and handheld devices are also used to input information from the bedside. There are other technology-based safeguards in place to prevent medication errors both for inpatients and outpatients. For outpatients, there is an automated dispensing machine that fills the approximately 800 prescriptions ordered daily at the Tuscaloosa VA pharmacy. Each prescription is then checked three times by humans. The newest device for outpatients is geared to the sight impaired. Those patients who are blind, or severely visually impaired, are given a small box that will read out loud the label of a prescription bottle to ensure the patient is taking the correct medication at the correct time with the correct dosage. For inpatient care, there is the same check for nurses dispensing medication. Just to get a patient’s medication, the nurse must use an entry code to access a storage device that will only dispense the medication the nurse needs for a specific patient. When the nurse goes to give the medication, the medicine must be scanned into the computer along with the wristband the patient is wearing. If anything doesn’t match up, the computer will let the nurse know. The latest upgrade to the system will place a photo identification on the patient’s wristband and in the computer. Photos on the wristbands should be in use within the next couple of weeks, Hinton said. For all the strides the VA has made in trying to eliminate errors, it’s been difficult to qualify the benefit from the technological checkpoints, said Jamie Sullivan, pharmacy director at the Tuscaloosa VA, citing a study by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices. The study estimates that electronic order entry for prescriptions reduces errors by 30 to 40 percent. “I don’t think you’ll ever totally eliminate medication errors, because you’re talking about thousands of drugs being administered," Sullivan said. “Nothing is fool-proof, because there still is the human component." But, he said, the electronic system has made it more difficult for an error to occur. The most common errors Sullivan said he sees are “near misses." Those are the things caught by the system and include allergies to a medication, incorrect dosages and medication that was about to be administered at the wrong time. Updating other hospitals The Tuscaloosa VA is ahead of the curve when it comes to incorporating technology into basic hospital tasks and others are taking note, said Rosemary Blackmon, spokeswoman for the Alabama Hospital Association. “Hospitals are really working on their own to develop tools like those [at the VA]," she said. “We haven’t surveyed our hospitals, but it’s safe to say in Alabama that the majority of hospitals are looking at it and assessing the possibility of incorporating physician order entry. They are also looking at it in conjunction with electronic medical records." Physician order entry, or similar electronic prescription software programs, is one direction Blackmon said the industry is rapidly moving. Computerized prescriptions not only would allow the doctor to check the medication against a patient’s medical history, including drug allergies, but also prevent the often joked-about, but serious problem of illegible doctor handwriting. Hospitals within the DCH Health System have begun to implement a few computerized programs said Tim Martin, director of pharmacy at DCH Regional Medical Center. But he cautioned that preventing medication errors is not simply about implementing technological safeguards. “What we’ve found is that nothing is more important than the relationship between the patient and health care provider," Martin said. “It really has to start there, and we strongly encourage people to ask questions." Before computerizing all medical records, DCH has focused on monitoring performance. Using a program called the Auburn University Medication Error Detection System, DCH tracks errors by having trained observers spot-check nurses. The data is then put into a program and used to try and prevent repeating the mistake. “We pick up on errors and particularly valuable information related to the source of the error," Martin said. DCH is also starting to follow the lead of other hospitals, like the VA, by using the barcode scanning system when giving inpatient medication. So far, that system has only been introduced in the neonatal intensive care unit. That’s been in place for the past four months, Martin said. “We’ll be using it with adult patients in the near future," Martin said. Technology in school too The University of Alabama’s nursing program is also implementing technological programming to train students to prevent medical errors. Angela Collins, an associate professor of nursing at UA’s Capstone College of Nursing, recently created a computer-based program to test her students on common medical mishaps. “If they make bad decisions in this program, they kill a virtual patient, not a real one," she said. “In the virtual world, you can do that. I’m humbling them before they go out to the real world." The program Collins created has been available since 2003, although she started developing it in 2001. Collins recently updated the program, adding more elements to make it more difficult and more similar to the real world of nursing. As a pharmacology teacher, her focus has always been on the proper distribution of medications in a hospital setting. Medical simulation is a growing movement, Collins said, that goes along with incorporating less talk and more practice in training professionals. The interactive program consists of two compact discs. Nursing students are faced with making decisions, and the program ensures the proper procedures are followed. “If you hurt the patient, you can’t finish the CD," Collins explained. “You see the consequences of what you did wrong. I’ve had [students] tear up on me, because they get so into it and they made a mistake."
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Food and fun in the Black Belt 08/25/2006 Tuscaloosa News Lucinda Coulter		Return to Top
Story cites AU's Rural Studio's role in renovation of the Alabama Rural Heritage Foundation Center. The Alabama Rural Heritage Foundation Center, 133 Sixth Ave., Thomaston, will hold its annual Fun Day 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free. From Tuscaloosa, take Alabama Highway 69 south through Moundville and Greensboro to Alabama Highway 25 south and take that highway to Thomaston. Turn right onto Sixth Avenue. Call 334-627-3388. A 1938 Model B John Deere tractor, primitive folk art and pork barbecue made from a 100-year-old recipe are only a sample of the sights at Fun Day in Thomaston, which marks its 20th year Saturday. The Alabama Rural Heritage Foundation has held the festival annually to showcase and preserve rural culture and lifestyle in the Black Belt. Gayle Etheridge, project director at the nonprofit foundation, said Fun Day has become increasingly popular in recent years while the project's volunteers, mostly Thomaston residents, have worked to preserve their heritage. Thomaston resident Claire Etheredge, 78, has volunteered in Fun Day preparations for 20 years. She has worked at the small town’s sole bank for 58 years. "It's my home, and I enjoy doing this for the town," she said. Etheridge said she is especially pleased that storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham will travel from Selma to tell stories at 1:30 p.m. on the festival’s red-oak stage. Outdoor activities include a fun run, with registration at 7 a.m., a bicycle race and a children's parade. More than 42 arts and crafts vendors will open their booths at 9 a.m., shortly before music from the Central Alabama Strummers and other groups begins. Festival-goers can attend a health fair and a dominoes tournament. There is an entry fee of $10 for the dominoes tournament. Quilters, weavers and spinners will demonstrate their crafts at the event. Children may take part in old-fashioned games such as hopscotch, marbles and sack races at no charge. Housed in the Alabama Rural Heritage Center, the foundation's gift shop supports a burgeoning cottage crafts industry. Primitive folk art and crafts made by about 75 artisans in the Black Belt include pine needle baskets, quilts made in the Freedom Quilting Bee, church music boxes, split oak boxes, felted purses and hand-loomed shawls, Etheridge said. The foundation and center, housed in the 1950s home economics building of the former high school, was renovated in April 2005 with funds from a HUD grant in a partnership with the Auburn University Rural Studio Project. "Everything here has a story," Etheridge said of the 100-year-old pecan trees on the grounds of the former Marengo County High School, where the celebration will be held. The foundation's signature pepper jelly, sold under the trademark Mama Nem's in the gift shop, is prepared in the center's commercial kitchen. Mama Nem's restaurant is also part of renovation at the center and will be open for the festival, Etheridge said. It caters private parties and will be open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays after it begins regular hours. Since its expansion, the Rural Heritage Center has been featured in architectural magazines and was mentioned in the travel section of The New York Times last December.
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Life After Oils 08/25/2006 Discover Magazine, August 2006, Environment Robb Mandelbaum		Return to Top
AU Professor of agronomy and soils David Bransby is quoted in this story. Everyone from GM to President Bush is suddenly infatuated with ethanol. Here's how Big Corn could really replace Big Oil. There are more than 160,000 gas stations in the United States--a daunting infrastructure for a new fuel to fill. On a brisk morning in early November, the semis are lined up four deep outside the front gate of the Corn Plus plant, waiting before a sign that warns, in big red letters, NO SMOKING. In this corner of sleepy Winnebago, a small town in southern Minnesota, smoke billows from stacks, and a hum from the plant shatters the silence of the countryside. A sour scent, redolent of a brewery, hangs overhead. The "plus" at Corn Plus is ethyl alcohol, better known as ethanol. In a day Corn Plus takes the kernels of corn hauled by 45 trucks and turns them into 122,000 gallons of fuel. Tank cars wait on railroad sidings behind the plant, ready to carry it to New England, to Chicago, to California. With the price of crude oil at record highs, times are good at Corn Plus, and the roll is likely to last. The expense of making ethanol has fallen steadily over the last decade, even as some energy analysts predict we might never see gasoline below $3 a gallon again. After a much-quoted warning that "America is addicted to oil" in this year's State of the Union address, President Bush called for "cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switchgrass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years." The ultimate objective: "to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025." It was a remarkable position to take. In Washington, D.C., ethanol is commonly viewed as little more than a sop to the farm lobby. The conventional wisdom has become so entrenched that even fictional politicians embrace it: The presidential candidates on TV's West Wing, campaigning in faux Iowa caucuses, all criticized ethanol. "It takes more oil to transport it and fertilize it than we save using it," griped Representative Russell. Senator Santos complained about the logistics: "Transportation is difficult; storage is a nightmare. . . . Supporting ethanol's a mistake." Still, the president's initiative was less an announcement of a new endeavor than an acknowledgment of work well under way. Nor is it as ambitious as it sounds; oil from the Persian Gulf accounts for just around 16 percent of U.S. consumption. Yet the researchers who know ethanol best believe that it represents an extraordinary opportunity. With a serious new push, they say, ethanol could displace 30 percent of domestic gasoline consumption within 25 years. Because ethanol is made from plants that pull carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, it could drastically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles, the second largest source here, behind power plants. Although President Bush did not say as much, the Department of Energy is also pursuing an even more ambitious outcome—a "biorefinery" that could make not only fuel but also plastics and other products currently derived from petroleum. Those claims sound less outrageous when you consider that they are being realized abroad right now. In Brazil—a country of 188 million people with the world's 14th largest economy—about 40 percent of the fuel burned in passenger vehicles is ethanol derived from sugarcane. The pump price for ethanol is roughly half that of gasoline. Seventy percent of new cars in Brazil are sold with "flex fuel" engines, which can run on pure gasoline or E85, a blend of up to 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, and the Brazilian government has announced that it will wean itself from foreign oil imports completely by the end of this year. All this is happening with a fundamentally American technology: The flex-fuel engine and its precursor—the Model T, which Henry Ford expected to run on ethanol—were invented in the United States. In fact, ethanol is already creeping into the mainstream. Last year about 1.6 billion bushels of corn were fermented in the United States to produce 4 billion gallons of ethanol, double the amount for 2001. Three percent of all gasoline pumped in this country is actually ethanol, which is often added as a component of low-emission "reformulated" gasoline. Some 5 million automobiles here can run on E85, even though most of their drivers probably don't know it. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires the use of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012, and the industry is ahead of the target. Thirty-five new plants, capable of producing another 2 billion gallons, are under construction. In small but significant ways, at various labs, factories, and filling stations around the country, an energy revolution is under way. Rick Lunz's family farm, one county over from Corn Plus, is one of the patches where the new ethanol economy has sprouted. I pull up to find him loading grain into silos. He had already spent about eight hours in the cab of his John Deere 9650 STS combine. We climb back inside, and Rick's brother Bob fires it up. Soon sturdy six-foot-tall corn falls before our advance, eight rows at a time. Pieces of stalk, leaves, and cobs dance as the kernels disappear underneath, but inside the sealed cab the noise of corn gnashed by steel teeth barely registers. It takes about three minutes to complete a single quarter-mile pass, then Bob swings the combine around again. A truck pulls up alongside, he flips a switch, and grain pours from the combine bin behind into the truck. This is not your father's farming operation. Perhaps that's why Lunz, who is 49, still has a boyish face. In 1979, when ethanol was called gasohol, Lunz saw an ad in a newspaper for an on-farm ethanol plant. The energy crisis of 1973 was still fresh in his mind. President Jimmy Carter had persuaded Congress to pass a law promoting synthetic fuels, which included tax credits to ethanol producers. Lunz ordered a kit that could produce 150,000 gallons a year: "It took me a long time to get it built. I ran it for three months." Lunz lets out a hearty laugh. Then President Reagan ended the incentives, and Lunz couldn't make the payments. "I turned around and ripped it down and sent it on to somebody in Nebraska. They had a state program, and we didn't." By the mid-1980s, Minnesota had a program too. A tax credit buoyed ethanol to about 4 percent of Minnesota's gasoline supply. When Lunz began meeting with a group of farmers near Winnebago in 1991, they could count on a state-sponsored cash payment of 20 cents per gallon, up to $3 million a year. Lunz and his associates eventually raised $13 million—about half the construction costs—to build an ethanol plant they named Corn Plus. The plant opened for business in November 1994, with the capacity to make 15 million gallons of ethanol a year. Production has since tripled. Legs, drags, and augers convey corn kernels into storage bins and then to a pair of hammer mills that crush them into a fine powder. In the mix tank, the milled grain takes on water and enzymes, which begin to convert the starch to simple sugars. Eventually, the slurry arrives at fermentation tanks, where yeast goes to work on the sugars. Over the next 54 hours, the corn slurry becomes a mash containing 15 percent alcohol. The alcohol is stripped away at the still; molecular sieves then pull out the last drops of water. Finally, the ethanol—2.7 gallons from a bushel of corn—is cooled into a liquid and denatured with gasoline. The mash at the bottom of the still is dried and sold as an animal feed called distillers' grains. Outwardly, the way ethanol is made has not changed much, but each step of the process has grown markedly more efficient, beginning with the farmers. Lunz, for instance, says his fields produce about 175 bushels per acre, 25 more than a decade ago, while using 25 to 30 percent less fuel. Corn Plus started out as a farmer's co-op. Now it is the third-largest ethanol supplier in Minnesota, the most ethanol-friendly state. Corn Plus has contributed significant advances of its own. Engineer Gregory Coil hands me a pair of earplugs and leads me into a room dominated by a giant stainless-steel cone that calls to mind an old steam locomotive's smokestack. This is a fluidized bed reactor, an energy-generation technology that has been used for decades to power paper mills and waste-treatment plants but that had never before been installed in an ethanol plant. Every minute, 80 gallons of the corn syrup left over from distillation are pumped into a bed of 1300-degree sand agitated by compressed air so that it behaves like a liquid. The sand ignites the syrup. "Syrup solids have a BTU content similar to lignite coal," Coil says over the roar of combustion. "When it burns, when it oxidizes, it produces heat." The heat generates steam for boilers and dryers. The fluidized bed reactor has cut the plant's natural gas use by more than half. A new heat-recovery system may further reduce natural-gas consumption to just a third of what it was two years ago. These improvements are crucial. From the start, the ethanol industry has been dogged by concerns about its net energy balance—whether ethanol requires more fossil fuel to make than it replaces. This is measured by adding up all the energy inputs at every stage of production, from growing corn seeds to cultivating and harvesting the grain, transporting it to the factory, and shipping the ethanol to a terminal. If ethanol runs a negative energy balance, as asserted by some critics (including those nattering West Wing characters), then the enterprise is doomed: What is the point of wasting fossil fuels that could be consumed directly somewhere else? Studies by researchers at the Department of Agriculture over the last decade give reason for optimism. They consistently show a positive and improving energy balance. By 2001 every BTU consumed in ethanol production generated 67 percent more energy, when coproducts like distillers' grains are taken into account. Other researchers have reported a similar trajectory; taken together, their findings show an unmistakable upward trend. Yet nagging doubts remain, stoked by two persistent skeptics: David Pimentel, a professor of ecology and agricultural sciences at Cornell University, and Tad Patzek, a professor of geoengineering from the University of California at Berkeley who started the UC Oil Consortium, an industry-sponsored research group. In their latest studies they conclude that ethanol's balance is negative. The researchers, who found that ethanol requires 29 percent more fossil energy than it provides, question the morality of using grain to fuel cars in the face of world hunger. "Expanding ethanol production," they write, "could entail diverting valuable cropland from producing corn needed to feed people to producing corn for ethanol factories." Most researchers agree, more or less, on the energy required in the conversion process, but unlike Patzek and Pimentel, they include an energy credit for the coproducts. Most of the discrepancy, though, comes from different measurements about the growing of corn. Patzek and Pimentel count many more inputs than the others, including labor energy expended by field hands and energy embedded in farm equipment and in the ethanol factory itself. Such external sources are not normally calculated when the fuel is gasoline. A more relevant issue is whether ethanol's energy balance is better or worse than gasoline's. After all, as energy economist Philip Verleger points out: "We don't keep our balances in BTUs; we keep them in dollars and cents. So if I can find an energy source that's cheap and easy to use, then it may make sense to use a lot more of that to produce a gallon of gasoline." By definition, petroleum's fossil energy balance is negative. Making a gallon requires 23 percent more energy than it contains. Even using Patzek's unreconstructed estimates, ethanol outperforms the incumbent. Corn Plus's fluidized bed reactor further tips the argument in ethanol's favor. Using Patzek's methodology for every aspect of ethanol production save the conversion process itself, a gallon of Corn Plus ethanol consumes less energy than it contains—even before factoring in credit for coproducts. Meanwhile, ethanol's efficiency is continuing to improve. New machinery developed by Biorefining Inc. in Minnesota precisely breaks kernels into their constituent elements, which may convert more of the starch into ethanol at a lower cost, while also freeing up more of the valuable coproducts like corn oil. The biotech companies Genencor and Novozymes have developed enzymes that convert starches into sugars and ferment the sugars into ethanol in a single step, streamlining the process. Seed companies are trying to engineer corn that is tailored to ethanol conversion. At some point, though, corn ethanol will hit a wall. Even if the United States decided to ferment its entire corn crop, that would displace less than 20 percent of our gasoline consumption. A more realistic, if still optimistic, scenario sketched by the National Corn Growers Association anticipates that corn ethanol production will quadruple to 16 billion gallons by 2015, not quite 7 percent of the likely demand. That's where President Bush picks up the story. It turns out that Rick Lunz left a lot of energy out in his field that night. Corn stover—the husks, stalks, and cobs chewed up and spit out by the combine—is, in a sense, about two-thirds sugar. The problem is that the sugar is accessible only after it is chemically converted from the tough molecules that make up the walls of plant cells: fibrous cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Lignocellulosic biomass, as it is called, represents a vast, untapped natural resource. If we could find an effective way to convert it, corn residue could provide another 20 billion gallons of ethanol by around 2040, according to a recent report from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Better yet, every plant contains cellulose, so there is no need to restrict the fermentation process to corn stover. Switchgrass, a tall prairie grass native to North America, is a much more promising raw material. It can reach nine feet high, and it grows easily from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian plains, from the Rockies to the Atlantic Coast. It can grow in poor soil as well as in dry climates, says agronomist David Bransby of Auburn University, so it requires little fertilizer and water and can grow in places that are not now useful cropland. An acre of switchgrass can produce more than twice as much ethanol as an acre of corn. By 2030 the Department of Energy envisions American farmers harvesting fields of switchgrass purely for their energy content. People have coveted that energy for a long time. "When I first looked into the ethanol industry, there was this promise that the cellulose technology was just a few years away," Lunz recalled. "Well, it's been 25 years now." Biomass research that began at the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden, Colorado, during the Carter years nearly came to a halt in the early 1980s and did not revive until George H. W. Bush became president. President Clinton expanded the facility, now called NREL, short for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Researchers there say they are tantalizingly close to fulfilling that early promise. They have managed to solve a problem that has long bedeviled ethanol researchers: how best to split cellulose into simple sugars that can be fermented into alcohol. One method bathes the cellulose in sulfuric acid at high temperatures and high pressure, an expensive technique developed by Germany during World War II. Instead NREL researchers sought an enzyme that would do the job more cleanly and cheaply. Coincidentally, research into such a cellulose splitter, or cellulase, also dates to World War II, when the U.S. Army investigated the "jungle rot" that dissolved uniforms in the South Pacific. The most profitable application of cellulase so far has been to set it loose on the fibers in blue jeans just long enough to make them look "stonewashed." In 2000, NREL made available a suite of patents for its protein research to Novozymes and Genencor, asking them to bring cellulase to the market while splitting the investment. Since 2004, each firm has announced that it has managed to cut the cost of a cellulase suitable for industrial production, although exactly how much is in dispute. The biotech companies claim a 30-fold reduction since 2000, from about $5.60 per gallon of ethanol to at most 18 cents; NREL puts the cost at 32 cents. Thomas Foust, the biotechnology manager at NREL, says the cost of making ethanol from cellulose has dropped to $2.26 a gallon or less. The goal, however, is $1.07—what NREL and the Energy Department figured was the cost to make a gallon of ethanol from corn kernels at the time NREL made the enzyme pact. Reaching that target will be a difficult, messy task. After handing me goggles and a hard hat, Foust and engineer Dan Schell usher me into the lab's pilot ethanol plant. It is clean and quiet, a collection of valves, tubes, and tanks unblemished by the grime of production because it is used mostly to test processes. We stand in front of a squat vessel. This is the pretreatment reactor, where hemicellulose is dissolved into a liquid of simple sugars, exposing the cellulose to enzymatic attack. Here, though, the lab still uses a variant of the old acid-bath technique, which is both expensive—this reactor is made of zirconium—and fussy. If the acid concentration isn't strong enough, some of the small polymers aren't broken up and don't get fermented. Too strong, and some degrade beyond use, inhibiting the fermentation of other sugars. Ultimately, NREL hopes to replace the acid bath with a more reliable cocktail of cellulase and hemicellulase enzymes. That hasn't happened yet because hemicellulose is a tough nut to crack. It is an amalgamation of xylose, glucose, and small amounts of three other sugars, and so far NREL has been unable to engineer a bacterium that can digest all of these at once. "Twenty years ago, it seemed it was going to be real simple—just get your genetic tweezers out and away you go," Foust says. "It's proved infinitely more difficult than that." As a result, today's technology can coax only about 65 gallons of ethanol out of every ton of corn stover, instead of the 90 NREL is counting on. A number of researchers think the solution is to abandon the whole idea of fermentation in favor of making ethanol through a technique called gasification. If a feedstock—grain, grass, husks, whatever—is burned in an environment where oxygen is limited, the reaction creates hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane. These can be burned in a turbine, but in the presence of the right catalyst, they will instead combine into ethanol. BioConversion Technology, a start-up in Denver, claims to have developed such a catalyst and says that it can make more ethanol from a ton of feedstock for less money than NREL can by fermentation. "NREL has been extremely biased," says David Bransby of Auburn. "I think they're betting on the wrong horse." Foust does not deny gasification's potential—he considers the two technologies complementary. NREL, he says, has spent 40 percent of its biomass research budget on gasification. Still, BioConversion Technology has received no funding from the Department of Energy. If the boosters of ethanol master cellulosic conversion, they will then have to find an effective way to deliver large quantities of the new fuel to the market. Like water, it is held together by the powerful bonds between hydrogen and oxygen atoms, so ethanol cannot travel through most petroleum pipelines. If ethanol encounters water in the pipes, it will absorb the water and become unusable. It also dissolves dirty petroleum gum residues on the walls of pipes and tanks. Robert Reynolds, a consultant who has studied ethanol infrastructure for the Department of Energy, says ethanol would have to make up at least 30 percent of the gasoline supply to justify the expense of making current oil pipelines fit for sharing. Right now ethanol is used mostly as a fuel additive; about one-third of the gasoline sold in the United States contains a shot of ethanol (about 10 percent, typically) to reduce automobile emissions. That has given energy companies a chance to explore the transportation difficulties. Ethanol from places like Corn Plus travels by barge or railroad to distribution terminals, then is combined with gasoline at the rack where tanker trucks load up. To receive ethanol, these tank farms may have to add new railroad spurs, storage tanks, and blending systems. It costs roughly three cents to send a gallon of gas from the Gulf Coast to New York. Transporting a gallon of ethanol by train from the Midwest costs at least 12 cents, and the shipments are vulnerable to delays on the tracks. But an interesting thing happened in recent years as many large markets phased out MTBE, a competing gasoline additive, in favor of ethanol: nothing. Adding new infrastructure at the terminals did not prove daunting; railroads delivered tank cars full of ethanol on time. When there were price swings, they were limited to the season of transition. In the long run, consumers did not appear to have been greatly punished at the pump for using ethanol. Reynolds even believes that if ethanol production hits 10 billion gallons and consumers embrace E85—the 85 percent ethanol mix—a dedicated pipeline from the Midwest to the East Coast could make economic sense, although the conventional wisdom remains against him. For now, E85 remains a distinctly boutique concern. The roster of places to buy it grows every day, but the numbers are small: just over 600 stations, about a third of them in Minnesota. Many states have no stations at all. Detroit is trumpeting its commitment to build E85-compatible flex-fuel cars and trucks—1.25 million of them this year—but those are scattered on dealers' lots around the country, so most of their owners will have no access to ethanol. Furthermore, these vehicles incorporate rudimentary conversions of gasoline engines and do not fully exploit ethanol's high octane. Even ethanol's fans concede that building up the ethanol infrastructure depends on government support, at least for now. A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that developing competitive ethanol technology will cost $1.1 billion; deploying it could cost just as much. "It's a long-term investment, and it requires a commitment," says Purdue University bioengineer Michael Ladisch. Besides research, the commitment includes a federal 51 cent per gallon tax credit, local credits, and incentives for building E85 pumps. The raw feedstock, corn, is subsidized, too, with cash payments to farmers. In 2004 that amounted to 16 cents a gallon. (Not all the taxes are stacked in ethanol's favor; a 54 cent per gallon tariff effectively bars cheap Brazilian ethanol from the American market.) Red Cavaney of the American Petroleum Institute cautions that "it is important that we not ask government to pick technology winners and losers before the science has caught up." Still, the Department of Energy's real problem may be not where it is placing its bets but how much it is wagering. For 2006, the Bush administration proposed just over $50 million for ethanol research, less than half what Clinton's budget requested in 2001. Originally NREL set its goal of $1.07 ethanol for 2010; by last year, the target had slipped to 2020. With the current renewed emphasis on biofuels, Foust's team is poised to get $27.5 million in 2007, a touch more than it spent in 2004. The Department of Energy would increase its total biomass spending to $150 million—a 65 percent bounce. In the end, this is up to Congress. Over the years, it has held a middle ground between the Clinton administration's enthusiasm for bioenergy and the Bush administration's indifference. Lately, legislative munificence has come with strings: directed spending projects, the lifeblood of pork-barrel politics. "It started about three years ago," says Bob Noun, NREL's executive director for external affairs, "but in the last year, they've doubled." In the 2006 budget, earmarks divert $61 million, two-thirds of the total biomass research budget. The earmarks are vaguely titled and have no descriptions; staffers in the Department of Energy have to confer with Congressional Appropriations Committee staffers to figure out who gets what. Although the Energy Department encourages recipients to work toward its research agenda, it can't force them—it is required by law to hand over the money. The grants are mostly death by a thousand cuts: a hundred thousand dollars here, a half million there. One notable exception is an $11 million grant to establish a "sustainable energy center" at Mississippi State University, secured by Representative Charles Pickering. The largesse appears to have taken the school by surprise. Although the legislation passed in November, the university's PR team only heard about it in April. "There are many questions to be answered that we can all work on," says engineering professor Glenn Steele, a codirector of the new center. "We're looking at wood chips and other feedstock sources that are not necessarily in the mainstream for ethanol but are in abundance in our region. And we will be working with the national laboratories to make sure we're not duplicating research." In an encouraging sign, the House recently voted to provide extra money to pay for its pork-barrel add-ons; the Energy Department's biomass request was fully funded. Tom Foust believes that if department scientists get all of their R&D dollars, cellulosic ethanol will be commercially competitive by 2012. "We know the tools, and we know the protein engineering," he says. "None of these breakthroughs that we're proposing are the skies parting and a tablet coming down from the heavens."
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Auburn Prepares for Post-Scandal Football Season 08/25/2006 NPR, All Things Considered Kathy Lohr		Return to Top
All Things Considered, August 24, 2006 · Being a whistle-blower at a top football university is tough. Fans don't want to hear about academic problems that could hurt the team or lead to NCAA sanctions. But professor James Gundlach, who teaches in the sociology department, decided to speak up after he noticed that several football players who were taking his major had never been to a class. "I discovered that Dr. Petee was essentially offering the entire sociology major in a directed-readings format to a variety of well over a hundred students," Gundlach says. Thomas Petee was the head of the sociology department, and Gundlach's boss. Gundlach says it was clear that the directed-readings format -- also known as independent study -- was a way for students to get around going to classes and doing the work. "It [was] just a mechanism by which people were getting very good grades for doing, in some cases, no discernable work," Gundlach says. He discovered that, starting in the fall of 2004, Petee was teaching 152 students -- both athletes and non-athletes -- in directed studies. And Petee was teaching 120 students the next semester, doing the work of more than three full-time professors. On top of that, Petee was handing out high grades. One student explained Petee's grading system to Gundlach. "He said the rule was if you turned in something, you got an A. If you turned in nothing, you got a B," Gundlach says. "[The student] was complaining about him having to work so hard in regular classes to get grades, when other people he knew, his friends, were able to get credit for the same class for essentially doing nothing." A New York Times story broke in July, and Auburn University responded with an internal investigation. Although it’s still ongoing, interim president Ed Richardson cleared the athletic department of all wrongdoing at a news conference earlier this month. "This is clearly an academic problem for Auburn University," Richardson says. "I believe that athletics was infused into this discussion to provide a sufficient traction to make it newsworthy." The problems were reported in the sociology and adult education departments. But Richardson emphasized that it's an academic problem because only 18 percent of the students enrolled in these courses were athletes, and only 7 1/2 percent of those were football players. On the field at an Auburn Tigers practice, defensive coach Don Dunn tries to persuade linemen to hit their target a little harder. The team is ranked number four in this year's AP college football poll. Many have high hopes for an SEC championship, perhaps even a national championship. Neither Coach Tommy Tuberville nor the team’s spokesman would comment on the investigation. Current football players have been shielded from reporter’s questions as well. Former Auburn running back Carnell "Cadillac" Williams, who now plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL, appeared on ESPN saying he did nothing wrong. On campus outside the Haley Center, in the shadow of the football stadium, some students say it's important that the football program be cleared. "Football is the one sport that generates pretty much all the pride for the university," says Joseph Simpson, a junior at Auburn University. "When you come and this is your school, it's God around here.... So it’s definitely something we hope doesn’t become a serious issue." Most of the students said they don't worry too much about athletes getting preferential treatment. After all, they say, football players do a lot for the school and bring in most of the money. "I don't think it's a good thing that it happened," says Mary Beth Allison, a junior from Montgomery. "...But I think it would be sad if people looked at Auburn worse that other schools because of it, because I’m sure that it happens at a lot of schools." Auburn was already on probation in 2003 for inappropriate management of its board. But because both athletes and non-athletes got the benefit of the directed reading courses, it's difficult to tell whether there was any violation. Thirty miles south of Auburn, whistle-blower James Gundlach sits in his ten–acre back yard and talks about the more than 100 hate e-mails he has received. "What they’re saying is, 'We know we're cheating. Anybody who points out that we’re cheating deserves to be trompled down, punished, hurt, die,'" Gundlach says. "Nobody has threatened to kill me, but people have said they wished I would die. There are people out there who will violently defend their team's right to cheat, and that's a very sad commentary." Auburn already announced changes to the directed-readings program in both the sociology and adult education departments, and both department heads have resigned. The school's internal investigation is expected to be finished by the end of the month, just in time for the Auburn Tigers to kick off their football season against Washington State on the first Saturday in September.
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University Set for 3rd annual TEAM-Math Conference 08/25/2006 Tuskegee University		Return to Top
This story references the NSF grant for the AU-TU partnership to work with area K-12 math students. University Set For 3rd Annual TEAM-Math Conference TUSKEGEE, Ala. - (August 24, 2006) - The third annual Transforming East Alabama Mathematics, or TEAM-Math Conference, will be presented on Aug. 25-26 at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center. The conference focuses on the mathematical preparation of K-12 teachers with special emphasis on building partnerships between educators and mathematicians. Other key issues will be addressed through guest speakers, round table discussions and other conference activities. "The partnership is important because of the nature of the population here. We need some diversity, and that's why Tuskegee's participation was really important," said Dr. Mohammed Qazi, a professor of mathematics at Tuskegee. Specific goals of the TEAM-Math Conference include the following: To provide participants with insights into instructional methods that may support the effective mathematical preparation for K-12 teachers. To encourage mathematicians and mathematics educators to work more collaboratively in the preparation of K-12 teachers of mathematics and in promoting improvements in K-12 education. To encourage collaboration on the recruitment and retention of prospective mathematics and mathematics education majors. To provide mathematicians and mathematics educators with access to information and resources needed to improve mathematics teaching and learning. TEAM-Math was awarded a $9 million grant from the National Science Foundation that partners Tuskegee University, Auburn University and 15 East Alabama school districts to improve mathematics in each district. The funding provides intensive professional development for all teachers in east Alabama, redefines the way universities prepare new teachers of mathematics and involves parents, community members and businesses in mathematics education. "Tuskegee is currently involved with enhancing mathematics courses through technology and hands-on activities," said Dr. Carolyn Gathright, Tuskegee's Department Head of Curriculum and Instruction. Tuskegee University currently ranks among the top 20 for producers of African Americans receiving baccalaureate degrees in mathematics and statistics. Three nationally known mathematicians will serve as keynote speakers during the conference. The University of Maryland's Dr. Patricia Campbell, whose research addresses the teaching and learning of elementary mathematics, professional development, instructional change and system reform; Princeton University's Dr. William A. Massey, whose research interests include dynamical queuing systems, applied probability and the operations of communication services and systems; and the University of Georgia's Dr. Pat Wilson, whose research relates to using practice to inform the teaching of mathematics. Three years ago east Alabama ranked the lowest among all areas of the state and in the country due to significant performance gaps between students of different race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status and ability levels. "We have made headway and some progress in achieving the mission of TEAM-Math. There has been a lot of positive outcome from the project, but there's still work to be done," said Dr. Qazi. "We want to improve professional development and mathematics literacy for all students."
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Clemson Univ. Slaying Raises Concerns 08/25/2006 Atlanta Journal Constitution Meg Kinnard, Associated Press		Return to Top
This AP story, with a quote from an AU spokesperson, continues to receive nationwide coverage. CLEMSON, S.C. — The rural community surrounding Clemson University was in a frenzy in late May as authorities searched for a killer who had raped and strangled a 20-year-old student. With a suspect in custody, life was returning to normal as classes resumed Wednesday. But the brutal slaying is a reminder to students, parents and administrators that just because a college is far from big-city crime doesn't mean it's safe from violence. Officials at Clemson, a 16,000-student university in the northwest corner of South Carolina, and other schools across the country say they think their campuses are relatively secure — but they don't take their location for granted. "It's very important that we realize that, even in Disney World, you have to be careful," said Jeanne Norberg, spokeswoman for Purdue University, which has about 38,000 students in West Lafayette, Ind. "It just takes a minute." Virginia Tech locked down its Blacksburg, Va., campus earlier this week as police searched for an escaped prisoner. School officials credited technology for their ability to act quickly. The campus was able to restrict keycard access to its dormitories to residents and used e-mail and phone messages to reach its 26,000 students, said Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations. "In towns like Clemson or Blacksburg, the statistics will tell us they are safer than the big cities," Hincker said. "But we're not immune." Most Clemson students had gone home for the summer when Tiffany Marie Souers' body was found in her off-campus apartment on May 26 but the case was fresh on their minds Wednesday. "I heard that people didn't really lock their doors before. Now, everyone around me is being more careful," said sophomore Laura Holladay, 19, who lives in the same apartment complex where Souers lived. A convicted sex offender, Jerry Inman, 35, was arrested in June at Dandridge, Tenn., and charged with Souers' murder, rape and kidnapping. Holladay's mother, Connie, who lives in Memphis, Tenn., said her worries have subsided some since Inman was arrested. "Every time your children are away, you worry. Things happen on every campus," said Connie Holladay. "You just have to trust your children." Josh Lee, a 22-year-old senior who knew Souers, said the school's quick response to the incident helped reassure students. "The university did a great job reacting, and they really have taken a proactive approach," he said. Students' security has become an even higher priority since Souers' death, Clemson spokeswoman Robin Denny said. "Increasing our safety presence on campus and also our safety education programs, and making students more aware of them, was something that we did immediately," she said. Officials at other institutions, whose populations, like Clemson's, often dominate the towns where they are located, say cooperation between campus and local authorities is key. David Granger, a spokesman at the 23,000-student Auburn University in Alabama, said his school even decided a few years ago to disband its campus police department and turn public safety issues over to the town. "To a large extent, it was a financial decision, but it was a decision that certainly wasn't made until we felt confident that the security of our students would not be compromised," Granger said. But there is still danger in complacency. At Texas A&M University, many of the 44,000 students come from large metropolitan areas, spokesman Dean Bresciani said, and "completely let their guard down." In July, three students died near the University of Wyoming campus in Laramie in what authorities said was a murder-suicide. Police have not yet determined a motive. Clemson officials are now concentrating on security efforts off campus, and the student government association has helped expand the area's transit service to around-the-clock availability, said senior Stephen Gosnell, president of the group. "The whole community is really built around the college, but you never really know who's here," he said. "You may feel safe at multiple spots in Clemson, but you really need to keep an eye out."
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