Vol. 16, No. 39Aug. 21, 1997

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

The Wilmington News Journal, Aug. 5. UPS strike puts Carey in the hot seat. "The disagreements driving the United Postal Service strike are typical ones-wages, hours and benefits. But they come at a critical time for Teams ters president Ron Carey, labor watchers said Monday. 'Carey has to act kind of tough right now... He's in a rather tenuous position,' said Arthur A. Sloane, professor of industrial relations at the University of Delaware."

Delaware State News, Aug. 3. Slave quarters dedicated in Seaford. "The slave quarters were discovered in 1992 on nearby land held in trust by the University of Delaware. The structure was researched by an eight-member team appo inted by University of Delaware president David Roselle and is documented as the only existing log slave dwelling remaining in the state."

The Wilmington News Journal, Aug. 1. When will the windfall end?: Delaware hunts for the source of its rising tax revenue. "'I was quite certain we were going to see a substantial personal income tax cut,' said Eleanor Craig, a ssociate chairwoman of the business department at the University of Delaware and a former DEFAC member. The problem for Delaware is what Craig said is 'a substantial and sharply progressive personal income tax,' so when times are good, the state makes ext ra money. 'It should go back to the people,' Craig said. Otherwise, she said, 'the minute that revenue gets in government hands, it will be spent.'"

Rehoboth Cape Gazette, Aug. 1-7. Rehoboth planners to collaborate with state, UD on Long Range Plan. Rehoboth enlists the aid of the University in developing a city site plan approval process. "Planning chairperson Mary Campbell wrote to Jerome Lewis, director of the University's Institute for Public Administration. Lewis replied, 'We feel the best approach is to explore a variety of resources that could be brought to bear in order to resolve the needs for site plan appr oval, as well as consider the overall vision for the future of the city of Rehoboth Beach.'"

Bethany Wave, July 30. Research shows media messages reinforce stereotypes; break others. "...according to a study conducted by Nancy Signorielli, professor of communication at the University of Delaware, these gender roles...d irect women and girls to be more concerned with romance and dating, while men are depicted as more concerned with their occupations. However, the media also presents a positive image, in the form of women and girls frequently using intelligence and exerti ng independence."

The Wilmington News Journal, July 28. Local scientists aid space research. Bartol probes will gather data about magnetic forces around Mars, sun. "While the eyes of the world have been focused on the Mars rover, physicists at the B artol Research Institute at the University of Delaware have been planning for two more space probes-one involving Mars, the other the sun. Launched last fall, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor is scheduled to enter orbit Sept. 11 after its 435-million-mile journey for a yearlong study of the red planet. And the space agency's Advanced Composition Explorer will be launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Aug. 25-headed for a position 1-1/2 million miles from the sun. The ACE launch is eagerly awaited by Norman F. Ness, 64, and others who worked on it: associate physicists Charles W. Smith, 41, and Jacques L'Heureux, 57; and master instrument maker Thomas K. Reed, 48."

Chronicle of Higher Education, July 25. 'Aversive' Racism and the Need for Affirmative Action. "My own research on whites' prejudice against blacks calls into question whether racism has really declined as much as surveys indicate. Ov er the past 20 years, I have conducted research with Samuel L. Gaertner, a professor of psychology at the University of Delaware, that explores how overt racism has evolved into more-subtle and perhaps more-insidious forms." (Point of view by John Dovidio, professor of psychology at Colgate University.)

The Wilmington News Journal, July 23. Danny key to dousing dry spell: Delaware must get rain now, or crops may die. "State officials hope the remnants of Hurricane Danny- expected to hit the area Thursday-will draw Delaware back from the brink of drought. 'You're talking about a million-dollar rainfall tonight,' said Derby Walker, the Sussex County agriculture agent for the University of Delaware Extension Service. 'We need a front to come through and everybody get an in ch or an inch and a half. That'll buy you three days to a week.'"

The Wilmington News Journal, July 21. A new 'skin' for big planes. "People flying in the advanced generation of airliners in the next century will benefit from an invention recently patented by four University of Delaware engineers. A n 'Adjustable Hot Gas Torch Nozzle,' is used by robots that fabricate high-temperature-resistant surfaces for supersonic aircraft, according to engineering professor John W. Gillespie of Hockessin. Sharing the patent are University engineer Rode ric Don and former undergraduate researchers Ian Howie and Scott Holmes, who earned graduate degrees and now work in private industry."

Oxnard, Calif., Star, July 21/Ventura County, Calif., Star, July 21/Galveston Daily News, July 20. From an Associated Press story. Modern quilting bees serve same purposes. "...the practice of quilti ng is alive and well in 1997 in communities all across the United States. 'Today's quilting groups represent continuity and shared experience between women's lives in the 19th century and our own,' said Patricia Keller, a curator in the History of American Civilization at the University of Delaware."

The Wilmington News Journal, July 20. UD scientist in quest of baseball's minutia. "David Smith, a University of Delaware microbiology professor, has embarked on a seemingly impossible mission.... His aim is to collect and comp uterize play-by-play accounts of every game in major-league baseball's modern era, which dawned in 1901."

The Baltimore Sun, July 19. 100 degree heat extends stay in city. "Temperatures hit 100 at the Custom House in Baltimore yesterday, making the seventh day of the heat wave that has claimed the life of a city woman. 'Brick rowhouses with tar roofs are particularly hot. They're literally like brick ovens,' said Laurence S. Kalkstein, professor at the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Delaware. Heat waves may be the most important weathe r-related cause of death in the United States, more than lightning, hurricane and tornadoes,' Kalkstein said."

The Baltimore Sun, July 17/The Wilmington News Journal, July 31/Newark Post, Aug. 1. Book examines black heritage of Delmarva. "University of Delaware professor Carole C. Marks discovered that few pe ople have heard of William 'Judy' Johnson, a Snow Hill native who played in the first Negro League World Series in 1924, or Louis L. Redding, Delaware's first black attorney, and his fight to end segregation at the University. Marks hopes that a new book she is compiling, A History of African Americans of Delaware & Maryland's Eastern Shore, will help boost awareness of the region's rich black heritage."

Organic Gardening, July 16. Complete guide to organic mulch. "A layer of straw in the potato patch helps control the number one 'tater pest, Colorado potato beetles. Two entomologists (G.W. Zehnder at the Eastern Shore Agricultural Ex periment Station in Painter, Virginia and J. Hough-Goldstein at the University of Delaware) found in their study that the number of potato beetle adults, larvae and eggs was significantly lower in plots mulched with 3 to 5 inches of straw than in u nmulched plots."

Baltimore Daily Record, Aug. 9/Cecil Whig, July 16. From an Associated Press story. Author looks at disappearing Delmarva careers. "The butler, the baker, the fishnet maker. They may not make for a good nur sery rhyme, but, according to author Ed Okonowicz, public relations, they will certainly be the stuff of myth on the Delmarva peninsula in the year to come. Okonowicz, who interviewed 70 people for his coffee-table book, Disappearing Delmarva; P ortraits of the Peninsula People, says it is just a matter of time before the oyster shuckers; the scrapple makers and the drive-in theater operators are part of the past." Excerpts from the book also appear in the August issue of Delaware Today.

New Mexico Ruidoso News, July 16. County's inhabited past shows in layers of earth near Lincoln. "Shovels and brooms rest at the lip of the largest excavation. Inside, spades, tape measures and small brushes rotate from hand to hand a s the members of an archaeological team from the University of Delaware dig one more time into the prehistory of the site. Off and on for the past 10 years, professor Tom Rocek [anthropology] has returned to the area to strip away more of the secre ts of the Jornada Mogollon people who inhabited a village there from as early as 550 A.D. to about 1,000 A.D."

Portland, Maine,Sunday Telegram, July 13/New Bedford, Mass., Sunday Standard-Times, July 13. Local pride on the rise. Members of the community have succeeded where big developers from away couldn't: They've restored g lory to the Mount Washington Hotel. "We were willing to say, we see 500 things that need to be done. We'll do 100 things this winter.... We developed a multi-year plan to do the restoration,' said Joel Bedor, the resort's president. He estimates the p artners have invested $500,000 to $1 million each year in renovations. That approach has made it possible to renovate the resort and keep it profitable at the same time said, Dr. Bryant Tolles, a University of Delaware history professor who has wri tten a book on the grand hotels of New Hampshire's White Mountains."

Corning, N.Y., Leader, July 13/Anniston, Ala., Star Patriot, Harrisburg, Pa., News. From a Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire story. Life's an itch? Here's help. "It's best, of cour se, if you can spare yourself the itch grief in the first place. In May, Pennisi's itch center introduced the Lanacane Summer Itch Index to give people fair warning of what to expect in their areas. Updated weekdays by the University of Delaware's [Cen ter for Climatic Research], it calculates the rating of three itch culprits-mosquito breeding; prevalence of poison ivy and poison oak; and ultraviolet rays that cause sunburn."

The Wilmington News Journal, July 13. Keeping guns from felons not easy. "The use of a firearm by a convicted felon is against state and federal law. But preventing Edwards and people like him from getting firearms is not easy. Offici als do not agree how to police the laws that are in place. Some people, including University of Delaware criminal justice professor Carl Klockars, think its impossible. 'The reason is that there's simply millions and millions of guns available,' he said. 'And if a person is willing to break the laws and become a felon, that same person is very likely willing to break the laws that prevent him from having access to a gun.'"

New Scientist, London, July 12/Durham Herald-Sun, July 13/ Atlantic City Press, July 14/Chronicle of Higher Education, July 18/Hazleton, Pa., Standard-Speaker, July 20. Warning Lights. "In the Journal of Insect Behavior (vol. 10, page 365), Douglas Tallamay, [entomology and applied ecology], and his colleagues report that mice are repelled by the taste of glow-worms. Tallamy told the Herald Sun, "Child ren may chase after adult fireflies because they make great night lights in a jar, but the same glow of a baby firefly may keep chomping carnivores away."

Science, July 4. Case for Neutrino Mass Gathers Weight. "Three new experimental results, announced last week at a meeting on the Italian island of Capri near Naples, add to hints that neutrinos might indeed have a very small mass. The Soudan and Super-Kamiokande claims rest on a single calculation: the relative numbers of electron and muon neutrinos created when cosmic rays collide with particles in the upper atmosphere. 'This ratio is simple to calculate and is quite robust,' says th eorist Tom Gaisser of the University of Delaware.

Delaware Business Journal, July. MBNA Supports U. of D. Plans for New Wilmington Facility. "The University of Delaware will open a new classroom building in downtown Wilmington, and plans are for continuing education and profes sional development classes to be offered there beginning in the fall of 1998."

--Compiled by Barbara Garrison