Vol. 16, No. 38	Aug. 7, 1997

A selection of items in the national and local media about the University-its faculty, staff and students:

America, March 29/The Providence Journal-Bulletin, June 18. Book reviews: Herman Melville: A Biography, Vol. 1, 1819-1851. Excerpt from America. "Hershel Parker, H. Fletcher Brown Professor of Englis h at the University of Delaware, seems most at ease with Melville the writer and the (literary) man's man. The strongest section of Herman Melville, its last eight chapters, offers a spirited account of the intellectual and physical circumst ances under which Melville wrote Moby-Dick, his visits and excursions with the literati during that period and his friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne."

Enhanced Energy Recovery News, April. Software Improves Reaction Processes. "Boosting the octane number of gasoline just got easier, thanks to new software developed at the University of Delaware that lets engineers and scientists bui ld a model of the naphtha reforming process in hours, rather than months. Refineries depend on the complex process of catalytic reforming to increase the octane number of gasoline, which determines how well the fuel resists 'knocking' during combustion, e xplained Michael T. Klein, University of Delaware Elizabeth Inez Kelley Professor of Chemical Engineering, speaking at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers meeting (Houston).

USA Today, May. Earth's last gasp? Global warming, climate change. "The average rate of warming over the next century probably will be greater than any seen in the last 10,000 years.... A study of Dallas, TX, by researchers at the University of Delaware projects that the number of heat-related deaths would rise from an average of 20 per year currently to 620-1,360 per year in the middle of the next century. More outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as malaria and dengu e fever, are foreseen as well."

USA Today, May. Migration and security are interrelated. Editorial by Mark Miller, political science and international relations. "Violence against foreign-born or immigrant-origin populations threatens integration and security . Governments have major stakes in incorporating migrants or seeing that they safely are repatriated, and preventing violence. Hence, migrant integration is a worldwide priority if civil and international order are going to be sustained in the coming year ."

Delaware State News, May 19. Congressional measure would restore Underground Railroad. "Legislation pending in the U.S. House of Representatives aims to preserve the legacy of hundreds of stations on the Underground Railroad. Delaware was a major artery of the Underground Railroad. 'Harriet Tubman...led probably 300 or more people from the Eastern Shore of Maryland to freedom,' said Dr. William H. Williams, the author of Slavery and Freedom in Delaware and a Unive rsity of Delaware professor in Georgetown."

Newark Post, June 2. The laws of the seas. "When the remains of the Titanic were found in 1985, 73 years after the luxury liner sank, reporters from all over the globe called Newark resident Gerard Mangone, to verify ownership of its treasures. The University of Delaware research professor of international and maritime law in the College of Marine Studies has recently written his 13th book on the subject. 'I've long been an expert witness in court cases involving admiralty law, ' Mangone said."

Straits Times, Singapore, June 8. Turning back the tide of illegal immigrants: In search of jobs, or just a different lifestyle. "Grace Sung...examines the reasons for the unwelcoming mood as governments across the world seek t o push back the tide of immigrants. Said Professor Mark Miller of the University of Delaware and assistant editor of the International Migration Review: 'There is a growing polarization of the immigration. Centrist, moderate, consensu al perspectives are losing ground to more extreme views for and against immigrants.' "

The Baltimore Sun, June 8. Delaware anthropologist tracks culture of Peten Mayas. "Norman B. Schwartz, professor of anthropology at the University of Delaware, this summer is visiting the front lines of what he sees as a vast c ultural struggle playing out in the Peten region of Guatemala. Schwartz's concern is for the Itza Maya, a people who have made a living from the rain forest near Lake Peten Itza in northern Guatemala for centuries. 'The Itza have felt for some time that t he destruction of the forest is an attack on their culture,' Schwartz says. 'If the forest is lost, the culture may be lost, too,' he says."

Investor's Business Daily, June 13. Dumbing Down the Police Force. "Since the late 1980s, the department's Civil Rights Division has been pressuring police forces across the country to abandon 'cognitive' entrance exams, which test fo r basic reading, writing, memory and reasoning skills. 'Police jobs, like all middle- and high-complexity jobs, require cognitive skills,' said Linda Gottfredson of the University of Delaware education department, a critic of Justice's campaign. 'T he research shows that cognitive tests will to some extent predict performances in those jobs.' "

The News Journal, June 20. Teachers suspicious of planned standards. UD survey finds much uncertainty. "Public school teachers in Delaware don't want to be measured by the state's proposed list of teacher standards--at least not anyti me soon, according to a new survey released Thursday. The responses were examined by researchers at the University of Delaware's Education Research & Development Center with the state Board of Education at its monthly meeting."

The News Journal, June 30. From Del., their homeland's future is hard to see. "Hong Kong, like Newark resident David Pong and other natives of that colony, has thrived in an environment of independence. Pong, chairman of the Un iversity of Delaware history department, has had a fruitful career....'The people in Hong Kong have developed a way of life and a way of looking at things differently from people on the mainland,' Pong said in a telephone interview from Hong Kong, where h e is visiting for five weeks. "Most people here are concerned about how the two kinds of Chinese will get along with each other and understand each other.' S.B. Woo, a UD physics professor and former lieutenant governor of Delaware, sees the local Chinese community as split in its feelings over Hong Kong's move to Chinese rule. 'My conjecture is that half will be glad to see it and half will have some apprehension,' he said. 'But what's important is how Hong Kong residents see it.'

Chemical Engineering Progress, July. Immobilizing metal soil contaminants modeled. "New data, based on molecular-scale studies of different metals in soils, may help environmental engineers immobilize these contaminants more effective ly. University of Delaware researchers say. Dr. Donald A. Sparks, plant and soil sciences, notes that at the solid's surface, industrial metals including nickel, copper, chromium, cobalt, and zinc-but not lead-form mixed metal compounds whose mobil ity is severely diminished in the environment. 'We have been able to precisely identify the chemical.'"

UPI, July 2/The New York Times, July 8/Times, London, July 14. Lab studies why young fireflies glow. From UPI, "University of Delaware scientists say their lab tests have shed new light on the puzzle of why firefly youngsters glow in the dark. Adults flash each other in courtship, but scientists have long suspected that the larvae get a different benefit from glowing. Now Douglas Tallamy and colleagues have published what they believe is the f irst laboratory evidence that immature fireflies have warning lights. The researchers argue today in the Journal of Insect Behavior that would-be predators learn to associate the larval glow with the disgusting flavor of firefly. The glow becomes t he insect equivalent of a neon yuk symbol."

The News Journal, July 6. School's out-but not for the teacher. "It's summer-the time of year that makes teachers the envy of all others in the working world. But 21 elementary and middle-school teachers weren't at the beach, curled u p in a hammock in Maine or even sorting laundry at home on the recent Friday morning. They were winding up a two-week physics course at the University of Delaware's Summer Institute for Science Understanding. Hundreds of Delaware teachers have beco me students this summer, taking advantage of tuition-free privileges at the state's colleges, attending workshops offered by the Delaware Teacher Center, the Delaware State Education Association and numerous other education-related groups."

Cape Gazette, July 11. University drug/alcohol survey indicates varied trends in student population. "A preliminary report to the Delaware Prevention Coalition, prepared by the University of Delaware, reflects that Delaware teens appe ar to be increasing their use of inhalants, different types of tobacco and marijuana The study was prepared by UD's Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies and Center for Community Development."

The News Journal, July 10. Scraping Up the Past. Painstakingly, students explore old gardens for clues to antiquity. "In the trenches, That's where a dozen University of Delaware and eight high school students have volunteered to spen d part of their summer. This mission: unearth history at the Read House Gardens on the Strand in New Castle. The six-week excavation, Digging the Past, is an effort of the Historical Society of Delaware and the University of Delaware anthropology depar tment."