University of Alabama rocket team set to launch in NASA competition
Al.com – May 15
A group of University of Alabama students aim to launch a rocket named Hermes 20,000 feet in the air this weekend as they vie for bragging rights in the annual NASA Student Launch competition. The launchfest, held this year on Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats, will feature more than 20 college teams competing with rockets equipped with onboard science and engineering experiments. UA’s team, previously an all-female group known as the Rocket Girls, transitioned to the co-ed Yellowhammers and have been working on their Hermes rocket since last summer. (Check out a video of Hermes’ first flight here.) According to a UA press release, the 144-inch rocket is equipped with two parachutes — one to slow the rocket at its highest altitude, some 20,000 feet off the ground, and another to deploy during its descent at around 900 feet.
Author of book on Anniston PCB fight visits city
Anniston Star – May 16
Ellen Spears wanted to do more than just write a book. She wanted to tell Anniston’s story. Spears, an assistant professor in New College and the Department of American Studies at the University of Alabama, visited the Crowan Cottage in Anniston Thursday to promote her new book, Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution and Justice in an All-American Town. The book gives an outsider’s view, backed by research and stories from residents, of the history of Anniston and how racial and class inequalities led to 40 years of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls exposure in the city. It also catalogs the successful grassroots fight against the polluters. It’s an accurate account of a dark time in Anniston’s history that, some city leaders and community activists say, should always be remembered to avoid similar mistakes as the city ramps up efforts to recruit new industry and rebrand itself as a healthy, outdoors-oriented tourist destination.
Women in rural Alabama face lack of OB/GYN services
WSFA-NBC (Montgomery) – May 15
What would it be like if you needed immediate medical help and couldn’t get it? That’s the situation thousands of women living in rural Alabama counties deal with on a daily basis. It’s an obstacle that could be life threatening to some expectant mothers. The 12 News defenders have been investigating this problem for months … Daniel Avery, who chairs the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Alabama’s College of Community Health Sciences, says half of the counties in the U.S. have no obstetric services, leaving some 10 million reproduction age women short of any OB care. And women who live in rural areas, including Alabama, are hit the hardest by the shortage. “The big problem in Alabama is access to care. People having to travel farther and farther distances. Alabama is a poor state. The Black Belt, which is probably our poorest section, has difficulty with access to care.