Sarah Whitmarsh

Like many doctoral students, Anne Trainor spends long days looking at data in close quarters. She shares a small office in an old campus building where exposed metal pipes clank loudly whenever the heat comes on.

But for three weeks during the summer, Trainor trades her cubicle for nearly 190,000 acres of wilderness, wetlands, and wide-open meadow. During those days, she's not just another graduate student. She's a butterfly tracker.

CHAPEL HILL - Robert Koch is standing outside Miriam Braunstein's research lab, which is strange because Koch died in 1910.

But rather than the actual German scientist, a photograph of Koch's face is pasted over a life-sized cardboard cutout of a Star Trek character that is draped with a white lab coat.

The cardboard Koch, which was decorated by one of Braunstein's graduate students, is homage to the man who - 125 years ago this spring - discovered the bacterium responsible for tuberculosis, the highly infectious lung disease.

CHAPEL HILL - The deterioration starts so slowly that the brain may not realize what is happening. Blind spots begin to shade out vision from the sides. Gradually, spots envelop vision until people sense they are looking through a dark tunnel.

This scary scenario is all too real for millions of Americans with glaucoma, an eye condition resulting from damage to the nerve that transmits images from the eye to the brain. If left untreated, glaucoma causes blindness.

Like stem cell research and evolution, global warming is as much about politics as science.

Global warming - the widely used term to describe the increase in average temperature of the earth's atmosphere - gained new attention when a NASA press aide, George C. Deutsch, resigned two weeks ago "amid claims that he had tried to keep the agency's top climate scientist from speaking publicly about global warming," according to a report by The New York Times.

Deutsch said in an interview to a Texas radio station that the scientist exaggerated the threat of global warming.

These claims are raising questions about the political influence over scientific information.

Taking a picture at the University's most notable landmark now only takes a phone call.

After calling the automated system at 706-425-3107, the ArchCam takes a picture, said Chris Martin, an alumnus from Atlanta, who helped develop the project last semester through the University's New Media Institute.

The wireless video camera is located in the top window of the building across the street from the Arch. It aims toward the Arch's center pillar and is connected to the Internet.

Rats used in test for HIV drugs
The Red & Black, January 27, 2006

Two professors are studying how drugs might prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS from mother to fetus during pregnancy and childbirth.

Michael Bartlett and Catherine White from the College of Pharmacy are looking at how anti-HIV/AIDS drug interaction occurs in the placenta and which drug or combination of drugs protects the fetus from infection.

The University has the facilities to study prevention and treatment of the avian flu, an infectious diseases professor said last week.

Within the Animal Health Research Center of the College of Veterinary Medicine lies Biosafety Level 2 (BSL2), BSL3 and BSL3 Ag+ containment levels that provide state of the art research in emerging infectious diseases such as influenza, said Ralph Tripp, a professor in the department of infectious diseases.

Under the shade of the trees next to the Ecology Building pond, four professors play old-time and bluegrass music.

Five years ago, Richard Daniels, Mike Conroy, Mike Wimberly and Tommy Jordan - three of them from the Warnell School of Forest Resources and one from the geology department - started meeting during lunch for jam sessions and to improve their playing skills.