Past Issues

May 3, 2002
April 18, 2002
April 4, 2002
March 21, 2002
March 7, 2002
Feb. 21, 2002
Feb. 7, 2002
Jan. 24, 2002
Jan. 11, 2002
Dec. 13, 2001
Nov. 29, 2001
Nov. 8, 2001
Oct. 26, 2001
Oct.11, 2001
Sept. 27, 2001

Current Issue

May 16, 2002

1. Superhero science
2. Teenage vegetarians have eating habits more in line with healthful recommendations than teenage nonvegetarians
3. Athletics roundup
4. Center for School Change leading small school effort
5. UMC plants a forest
6. Agriculture and medicine host national 'foods for health' conference
7. Wind has double impact at UMM
8. U of M Happenings
9. Links

U IN THE NEWS

Jim Kakalios enlists the aid of costumed crimefighters to teach critical thinking in an imaginative freshman seminar.
Superhero science
Spider-Man has smashed movie records by grossing more than $200 million in its first two weekends. Now journalists around the world are climbing the wall to get a word with a University of Minnesota superhero expert.

From London to L.A., cable-TV to the Internet, the media has transformed mild-mannered physics professor Jim Kakalios into "Physics-man." Since Spider-Man opened, Kakalios has been covered from the London Times to the Los Angeles Times. He's even creating a super-buzz on the Internet. When it appeared on On Yahoo! News last week, Kakalios' story was the fourth most popular to be e-mailed from the site.

Kakalios--an unabashed comic book enthusiast--teaches physics with the zest of a costumed crimefighter, illustrating his points with examples from the annals of superhero history. Last fall the superheroes moved to the head of his class. In an imaginative new freshman seminar called "Everything I Know I Learned from Comic Books," Kakalios uses comic book concepts and characters to explore basic principles of physics, chemistry, and biology.

"As a kid, comic books helped fuel my curiosity," he recalls. In one story, his favorite hero, the Flash, lost his ability to avoid air resistance and friction. "It made me aware that, aside from the silly notion of superpowers, there were all sorts of secondary issues associated with the ability to run super fast that I hadn't considered."

Convinced that comics could help make science more accessible and appealing to students of any age, Kakalios toyed for years with the notion of creating a class on the science of superheroes.

Comic books made their first foray into his classroom in 1993, when he posed a question about the death of Spider-Man's girlfriend, Gwen Stacey, on an introductory physics exam.

Stacey's death was a seminal event in comics, says Kakalios. Hurled from the top of the George Washington Bridge by the evil Green Goblin, she died in Spider-Man's web as he tried to save her. Although she appeared to have suffered a broken neck when she hit the web, the series' writers later attributed her death to the "shock of the fall," an explanation that left many readers--including Kakalios--unsatisfied.

Twenty years after the story first appeared, Kakalios and his physics course settled the matter once and for all. "Gwen Stacey's fall is basically a standard problem that we would ask on an exam: If you fall 90 meters with an initial velocity of zero, how fast are you going at the bottom?"

The answer he calculated removed any doubt about the cause of Stacey's death: She was falling at roughly 95 miles per hour when she hit the web; the impact on her body would have been 10 to 20 times the force of gravity. "That proved--mathematically at least--that Gwen Stacey died of a neck snap when Spider-Man caught her in his webbing."

In the new seminar, Kakalios and a dozen students tackled a variety of super-problems like shape-shifting and invisibility. Shrinking, for example, was fraught with difficulties. If the laws of physics applied, insect-sized Ant-Man would become deaf and speak with a hypersonic voice because his eardrums and vocal cords would shrink to submillimeter sizes. Typical air currents would easily blow him across the room, and a drop of water would double his weight, immobilizing him like a real ant.

In addition to identifying such scientific bloopers, the class examined cases in which comic creators got the science right.

"Take Superman," says Kakalios. "In his very first year, he could only leap, not fly. His skin was tough, he had great strength, all because his home planet of Krypton had more gravity than Earth." Using the hero's ability "to leap over tall buildings in a single bound" as a benchmark, the class calculated that Krypton's gravity would have to have been six to eight times that of Earth.

That means Krypton had to be either six times larger or six times denser than Earth. Assuming that normal matter on Krypton obeys the laws of physics, the planet could not be six times denser than Earth. "So Krypton had to be six times larger," explains Kakalios. "But any planet that much larger than Earth would have to be a gas giant like Jupiter. Because Krypton had a solid crust supporting buildings and cities, the only other explanation for its increased gravity would be a super-dense--and unstable--material like a neutron star in its core. And that would explain why Krypton exploded.

"Of course, Superman's creators didn't know it at the time. They got the science right by accident," says Kakalios.

Although contemporary comic books are more grounded in science than they used to be, "they still require a willful suspension of disbelief," says Kakalios. "The best ones require only one miracle--one thing you have to buy into to make the hero plausible--and the rest should follow."

One of Kakalios's favorite stories acknowledges this leap of faith. "There's a panel in which The Atom and another character have shrunk to submolecular size, and they're sitting on an electron," he recalls with a grin. "The Atom's companion says, 'We're smaller than an oxygen molecule. How are we breathing?' The Atom replies, 'I've never really figured that out.'"

But the course isn't about debunking various characters or storylines, Kakalios explains. The analysis is all part of the fun.

"The most important thing is getting the students to ask the right kinds of questions," he says. "If a character has wings on her back, what important physical forces and issues do we need to consider if she's going to use them to fly? What kind of wingspan and muscle structure would that require? Hopefully, pointing out issues like that will help them think critically in other situations."

But when superhero exploits sometimes defy explanation, even Kakalios the professor can set aside his scientific proclivities.

"It's escapist fiction, so I just turn off that part of my brain and enjoy the stories on their own terms," he says.

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Teenage vegetarians have eating habits more in line with healthful recommendations than teenage nonvegetarians
Adolescents who eat a vegetarian diet are more likely to meet the Healthy People 2010 objectives by, on average, consuming less total fat and saturated fat, and eat more servings of fruits and vegetables than their nonvegetarian counterparts, according to research from the University of Minnesota. The study is to be published in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a member of the JAMA/Archives family of journals.

Cheryl L. Perry, Ph.D. and colleagues from the Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, studied adolescents (mean age, 14.9 years) from 31 middle and high schools in the metro and surrounding communities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota in the 1998 through 1999 school year using questionnaires to identify vegetarians (divided into lacto-ovo vegans [eat eggs and dairy products but no meat at all], vegans [do not meat of any kind, eggs, or dairy products] and semi-vegetarians [eat chicken and fish but no other meat]) along with other overall eating habits.

The Healthy People 2010 was issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and lists several dietary objectives for leading a healthy live style (such as obtaining less than 30 percent of one's daily calories from fat and less than 10 percent from saturated fat, eating more than two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables daily).

The study analysis included data on 4,521 adolescents, including 262 (5.8 percent) who reported being vegetarians. Among the vegetarians, 73.7 percent were female and 47.8 percent were white and 26.8 percent were Asian.

"Overall, adolescent vegetarians were significantly more likely to meet the dietary recommendations of Healthy People 2010," the authors state. "Vegetarian adolescents were more than twice as likely to eat less than 30% percent of their calories from fat and nearly three times more likely to eat less than 10% of their calories from saturated fat. They were also 1.4 to two times more likely to eat two or more servings of fruit, three or more servings of vegetables, and five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

The authors found that adolescent vegetarians consumed less vitamin B12, cholesterol, regular soda, fruit drink and fast food. They consumed more iron, vitamin A, folate, caffeine, fiber and diet soda. Both vegetarian and nonvegetarian adolescents in the study groups did not meet the recommended daily intake for calcium, with only 30 percent ingesting the recommended amount. Most reported that their prime incentive for their vegetarian diet was to keep off weight.

According to the study, differences in the major targeted dietary behaviors for cardiovascular disease (fat intake) and cancer (fruit and vegetables) suggest that vegetarian adolescents, similar to their adult counterparts, have dietary patterns that, if maintained, could significantly lower their risk of the leading causes of death as adults.

"It seems that rather than viewing adolescent vegetarianism as a difficult phase or fad, the dietary pattern could be viewed as a healthy alternative to the traditional American meat-based diet. With careful planning, using the vegetarian food guide pyramid as a guide, vegetarian adolescents could learn proper nutritional patterns and practices that could lead to a life-long dietary practice that might be salutary for themselves and their families in the future," the authors conclude.

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Athletics roundup
Teams to be honored at White House
U awarded $815,000 in Haskins lawsuit
Morris names new basketball coach

Teams to be honored at White House
The NCAA national champion men's and women's hockey teams from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and the University of Minnesota, Duluth, will be honored by President George W. Bush on Tuesday, May 21, at the White House.

This spring, the Golden Gopher men's hockey team won its first NCAA championship in 23 years, and the Bulldog women's hockey team won its second consecutive national championship.

According to University president Mark Yudof, the student athletes earned this honor. "These men and women worked hard, competed fairly, and won. In a sense, their accomplishments represent the American dream," he said. "Being recognized by the U.S. president is a once- (or, in the case of the Bulldogs) a twice-in-a-lifetime honor."

At the White House ceremony, President Bush, Yudof, and UMD chancellor Kathryn Martin will speak.

"We are so pleased and proud to have the UMD women's hockey team honored at the White House for the second consecutive year," said Martin. "Indeed, all Minnesotans can be proud of this hard-working team and the only Division I women's championship ever won by a Minnesota school."

Following the White House ceremony, the teams will attend a reception with members of Minnesota's Congressional delegation and University of Minnesota alumni.

U awarded $815,000 in Haskins lawsuit
This week, the Hennepin County District Court has ordered former University of Minnesota men's basketball coach Clem Haskins to repay $815,000 to the University.

We are very pleased with this award. It is fair and just," said President Mark Yudof. "This award is significant, representing more than three-fourths of Haskins's buyout amount. It puts a painful chapter in the University's history behind us and allows us to focus on a bright future for intercollegiate athletics."

The order adopts an arbitration award issued by former state District Court Judge Richard Solum. The arbitration was the result of a lawsuit by the University against Haskins to recover money paid to him in a buyout agreement in 1999. That buyout was just under $1.1 million, in addition to his earned deferred compensation payment. The University's lawsuit was filed after Haskins admitted lying to the University in its investigation of academic fraud in the basketball program.

Solum's decision recognizes that the University's 1999 buyout of Haskins was the "best available" resolution, based on the information available at the time, the certainty of litigation by Haskins, and the "harmful consequences" that would follow. Solum further concluded that the University diligently pursued its claims against Haskins, and found that in this lawsuit "the University's interests were well-vindicated and the public could be assured that the University sought the most reasonable and legally obtainable result."

"The University takes its public accountability and stewardship responsibility very seriously," said General Counsel Mark Rotenberg. "This decision sends a very clear message that the University will not tolerate cheating, deception, and misconduct, especially when the public's resources are at stake."

The $815,000, which will be paid out over 11 years, will be reinvested in intercollegiate athletics.

Morris names new basketball coach
Paul Grove, the new men's basketball head coach at the University of Minnesota, Morris, hopes to bring his winning record to the Cougars.

"Coach Grove is our first major appointment in intercollegiate athletics since our decision to become a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III institution," said Chancellor Sam Schuman. "We are confident that this excellent addition to our athletics staff makes clear the very high level of our expectations and hopes in a new league and at a new divisional level."

Grove had been the men's basketball head coach at Mayville State University in North Dakota for the past six years. His record was 105-64 in the Dakota Athletic Conference, where he was named Coach of the Year three times. He led Mayville State to conference championships two years in a row and took the Comets to a National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) National Tournament appearance, advancing to the Elite Eight in the 1997-98 season.

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Center for School Change leading small school effort
A growing body of educational research on small high schools shows that in comparisons of students attending smaller high schools with similar students attending large high schools, those in small schools have consistently higher grades, better attendance, higher graduation rates, and overall more satisfaction with their education. Educators in smaller schools also find them more satisfying places to work.

With help from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Center for School Change at the University's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs is working to put that research into practice in St. Paul, Cincinnati, and West Clermont public high schools. The center recently received a $3.9 million grant from the Gates Foundation to support conversion of large schools in these cities into small schools of choice.

"We are encouraged and challenged by the generosity of the Gates Foundation," said Joe Nathan, the director of the Center for School Change. "Transforming high schools is complex, difficult work. But we hope that we can help use the research on the value of small schools to help make major improvements in large high schools, as well as to help create several new, high-quality, small high schools."

"In the St. Paul Public Schools, we are truly changing the high school experience and the delivery of educational services to ensure that all of our students are prepared for life after graduation," said Superintendent Pat Harvey. "The support being provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Center for School Change helps make this reform work possible."

This is the third grant Gates has made in the last 18 months to the Center for School Change, for a total of approximately $14.8 million. Of that, about $11.8 million is being used to transform 11 large public high schools into small public schools of choice. The remaining funds are helping to create five new small charter high schools in the St. Paul metro area and to help match other support the center has received for its work with Minnesota charter schools.

For information about St. Paul Public Schools Blueprint for Better High Schools, go to http://www.spps.org. For more information about the Center for School Change, go to www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/school-change.

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UMC plants a forest
How many trees does it take to make a forest? That's a question faculty, staff, and students in the Natural Resources Department at the University of Minnesota, Crookston, asked as they embarked on their 20th annual volunteer tree-planting trip last month.

Phil Baird, assistant professor of natural resources, and Tom Feiro, senior lab services coordinator, have led this effort to plant trees in the Chippewa National Forest east of Bemidji for the past 20 years. During that time they estimate that UMC volunteers have planted nearly 140,000 trees--that's roughly equivalent to a 220-acre forest. This year's group added about 4,000 new trees to that grand total.

Baird says the tree-planting trip has become a tradition with UMC Natural Resources students. "It's something our former students always talk about when they come back to campus," he says. "And it's a good volunteer experience with the U.S. Forest Service for a student's resume."

Through the tree planting, students learn about forest ecosystems in a real-life laboratory. They can see the various stages of growth of trees planted by UMC groups in previous years. This year, the volunteers visited the site at which UMC students planted the first saplings twenty years ago; they now average 24 feet high.

Audrey Gustufson, a forester with the U.S. Forest Service, joined in on the celebratory mood and presented Baird and Feiro with awards marking 20 years of tree planting and recognizing the two for their leadership in the project.

This is one of several volunteer projects coordinated by UMC's Natural Resources Department and its students. UMC students have also cleared trails in the Superior National Forest, collected prairie seeds, conducted a bird census at Rydell Wildlife Area near Crookston, and they recently helped post conservation easement boundary signs at the site of the proposed Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge.

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Agriculture and medicine host national 'foods for health' conference
National leaders in medicine, biotechnology, agriculture and business will explore the implications of integrating medicine and food production to benefit consumer health at a national "Foods for Health" conference taking place in Minneapolis next week (May 19-21).

"We have enormous opportunities to use foods to increase the health and well-being of the American public and the world's population," said Ralph Hardy, president of the National Agricultural Biotechnology Council. "Likewise, we must face the legal, ethical and scientific challenges related to pursuing or not pursuing new approaches and the applications of technology- and plant-derived enhancements," Hardy said.

The conference, sponsored by the National Agricultural Biotechnology Council and co-hosted by the University of Minnesota's Academic Health Center and College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, features nationally recognized experts in medicine, plant breeding, food science, agricultural research, nutrition, public health, ethics, consumer choice, and regulatory and policy issues. The conference will address topics such as the use of botanicals as therapeutics, the role of edible vaccines, the use of foods to reduce the risk of chronic disease, food allergies and other health issues.

"As a state with a history of leadership and innovation in agriculture, food and medicine, Minnesota recognizes the significant opportunities facing us as a society and as a research university--whether that means looking for ways to boost the anti-oxidants in broccoli or matching human and plant genomes to achieve potential health benefits," said Charles Muscoplat, University vice president for agricultural policy and dean of the College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences. "The strengths of the University of Minnesota's Academic Health Center and College of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences are combining to provide a neutral public forum for addressing these critical issues."

The conference will include speakers from the National Science Foundation, the American Dietetic Association, the National Consumer's League, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Mayo Clinic, as well as from food companies such as General Mills and Cargill, biotechnology companies, the University of Minnesota and other universities. George McGovern, former U.S. senator and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization, will deliver a keynote address on Tuesday, May 21. Conference session moderators include Lea Thompson, correspondent for NBC's Dateline, and Robert Bergland, University of Minnesota regent and former U.S. secretary of agriculture and congressman.

Registration details and more information on the conference are available at www.coafes.umn.edu/nabc2002 or by calling (612) 625-6710.

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This wind turbine near Hendricks powers Morris' student center.
Wind energy has double impact at UMM
The University of Minnesota, Morris, has become one of the first institutions in western Minnesota to purchase wind-generated electricity through Otter Tail Power Company's TailWinds program, which allows customers to choose wind power to supply at least a portion of their electricity.

UMM will purchase 614 blocks of wind power each month to fully cover the electric needs of the student center. According to the American Wind Energy Association, using this amount of wind energy reduces carbon dioxide emissions as much as would planting 200 acres of trees.

The project began in March when Otter Tail Power promoted wind power at a table in the student center and hundreds of students signed a petition to bring wind-generated electricity to the Morris campus.

"Students have been very consistent in helping make environmentally responsible purchasing decisions for the campus, so we are excited to be able to power our Student Center with renewable wind energy," says Anne Olson, a junior from Falcon Heights serving on the UMM energy task force.

UMM is no stranger to innovative conservation efforts. Prior to taking part in the TailWinds program, the campus implemented energy-efficient lighting and variable-speed drives on electric motors.

"Because we're a large consumer of electricity, our decision to use wind power is important to advancing renewable energy resources," says UMM Associate Vice Chancellor Lowell Rasmussen. "And the University of Minnesota, Morris, always has been on the cutting edge when it comes to pursuing conservation efforts."

Despite the fact that wind energy costs an additional $1,600 a month, Rasmussen says the University will not increase its spending on electricity. Instead, conservation efforts to reduce electricity usage across campus will begin, and students will be asked to come up with ways of cutting back on electricity across the campus.

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U OF M HAPPENINGS
James Banks, professor and director of the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington, Seattle, will give the lecture "Teaching for Unity and Diversity in a Time of National Crisis," Wednesday, May 29, 7 p.m. in the Shepherd Room at the Weisman Art Museum on the Twin Cities campus. A reception follows. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 612-626-8706 or see http://www.gen.umn.edu/research/crdeul.

Johns Hopkins University professor P.M. Forni will discuss his recent book Choosing Civility: The 25 Rules of Considerate Conduct Wednesday, May 29, 7 p.m. at the Assissi Community Center in Rochester. Forni is cofounder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project, which assesses the relevance of civility in society. The cost of the lecture is $5. To register or for more information, call 507-280-2180.

The men's and women's athletics seventh annual Gold Country Run and Gopher FanFest will be Saturday, June 1. The Gold Country Run, a 5k run/walk through the University of Minnesota campus, starts at 9:30 a.m. at the Gibson/Nagurski Football Facility. FanFest, to be held following the run/walk in the Bierman Track and Field Stadium, will feature coaches and student athletes. The fee for the 5K is $15 for early registration, $20 after May 18. Gopher FanFest is free, including pizza, pop, and snacks. For more information and to register, call 612-624-0800.

The annual University of Minnesota Alumni Association celebration "Rock Around the Block," will be Tuesday, June 4, 5:30 p.m. at Gateway Plaza. Tickets, which include dinner and entertainment, are $42 for alumni association members and $57 for non-members. For more details and ticket information, see www.umaa.umn.edu/event/elvis or call 612-624-2345.

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LINKS

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