UA hosts camp for kids with diabetes
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – July 13
Today in Tuscaloosa a day camp for kids with diabetes kicks off. The University of Alabama is holding the camp at the Student Recreation Center. Camp Seale Harris Tuscaloosa is for children with diabetes from 6 years-old to 15 years-old. Activities include swimming, rock climbing and arts and crafts. Campers will also get lessons in diabetes education from nutritionists, pharmacists and nurses.
Why the OPM hack is an ongoing cyber headache
Fox News – July 14
The shadowy hackers that stole more than 21 million Social Security numbers in a huge breach of federal personnel files have created an ongoing cyber headache, experts warn, citing the data’s value to both criminals and cyber spies. “It’s tremendously valuable from a criminal perspective. It could also be tremendously valuable from an intelligence perspective — if these people have security clearances,” Reginald Hyde, executive director of the Cyber Institute at the University of Alabama, told FoxNews.com. “[The hack] could be to use that information to target people for some sort of intelligence.” The Office of Personnel Management confirmed the scale of the data breach Thursday in a statement on the investigation into a pair of major hacks believed carried out by China. … Hyde warned that the hack, the latest in a string of high-profile cyberattacks, has left millions of people vulnerable to criminals. “If we assume that there was criminal motivation, all of the Social Security numbers are very useful in identity theft,” he told FoxNews.com. “If [criminals] don’t use them directly, they resell them on the data black market – a lot of data is stolen in the open, visible web, then used in the dark web.”
Bayou Buzz (La.) – July 13
First commercial-scale wind farm coming to North Carolina brought by Spanish firm
Fox News Latino – July 13
On a vast tract of old North Carolina farmland, crews are getting ready to build something the South has never seen: a commercial-scale wind energy farm. The $600 million project by Spanish developer Iberdrola Renewables LLC will put 102 turbines on 22,000 acres near the coastal community of Elizabeth City, with plans to add about 50 more. Once up and running, it could generate about 204 megawatts, or enough electricity to power about 60,000 homes. It would be the first large onshore wind farm in a region with light, fluctuating winds that has long been a dead zone for wind power. After a years-long regulatory process that once looked to have doomed the plan, Iberdrola spokesman Paul Copleman told The Associated Press that construction is to begin in about a month … Still, without state renewable energy mandates like North Carolina’s, the growth could be slow going, experts said. “Quite frankly, often this is driven by customer demand and I don’t really sense consumer demand in the Southeast, particularly in Alabama,” said Clark Midkiff, a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Alabama who studies energy issues in the region.
Daily Mail (U.K.) – July 12
790 Talk (Las Vegas, Nev.) – July 13
Florida Times-Union – July 13
Attleboro Sun Chronicle (Mass.) – July 12
Northwest Ga. News – July 12
Las Vegas Sun (Nev.) – July 12
Study reveals there’s “more than meets the eye” to how children see leadership
Net Nebraska – July 14
Is there a link between what kids watch on TV and the type of person they’ll grow up to be? NET News’ Ben Bohall talks with a former University of Nebraska-Lincoln and current University of Alabama assistant professor who is the author of a recent study taking a somewhat unorthodox approach to answer that question. NET NEWS: Why Transformers, in particular? PROFESSOR PETER HARMS, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA: The show itself is conveying lessons about how society should be, about how leaders should be, how we should act as followers; and what is good and what is bad. It’s very cartoonish – the good people do certain things and the bad people do certain things – but it conveys a larger messages to us. Leaders should be honest and they should be loyal. You think of Optimus Prime. They should be intelligent and willing to self-sacrifice. One of the interesting things we found when looking at the structure of these organizations was the Autobots were very egalitarian in terms of their rankings. Optimus Prime wasn’t really putting himself up above his followers; whereas Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, was absolutely doing that and trying to put distance between himself and the others by insulting them and berating them. What children are supposed to take away from that is this is what you would expect a good leader to do. And this is what a bad leader does, and you shouldn’t be like that. So it’s conveying societal values to you in very much the same way we’ve done with myths and folklore throughout time. (Peter Harms- an assistant professor of management at University of Alabama, and formerly of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has done his fair share of unique research. Ranging from the psychological effects of extended space travel on astronauts- to how brain parasites cause leadership.)
Silk Road: How one virtual ‘mob boss’ became the new face of organised crime
Courier Mail (Brisbane, Australia) – July 13
In May, Ulbricht – now 31 years old – was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted on multiple felony charges in connection with his operation of the Silk Road website, which had become an anonymous black market for drugs and other illegal items. US District Judge Katherine Forrest chose to impose the harshest sentence she could, essentially equating him with a mafia boss in hopes of sending a message to other would-be cyber criminals. As she said during sentencing: The stated purpose [of the Silk Road] was to be beyond the law. In the world you created over time, democracy didn’t exist. You were captain of the ship, the Dread Pirate Roberts. You made your own laws. What you did with Silk Road was terribly destructive to our social fabric. Ulbricht represents the changing face of organised crime. His sentence – considered unduly harsh by some – uncovers the reality that leaders of criminal organisations may no longer resemble a character from The Sopranos. Sophisticated criminal activity has migrated to virtual worlds in which one young man with a laptop and an internet connection can facilitate an illicit global enterprise, as my research into the sociocultural aspects of cybercrime shows. (By Diana Dolliver, University of Alabama criminal justice professor)
Rare endangered leatherback seen off the Golden Gate
Marinij.com – July 13
A rare endangered leatherback sea turtle was spotted off the Golden Gate this past weekend, an apparent early and rare arrival to the area. … Leatherback turtles, which feed on jellyfish off the coast of Marin in the summer through fall, typically arrive in August. Recognizing their shrinking numbers, in 2012 the federal government established the Pacific Leatherback Conservation Area, which prohibits drift gill net fishing between Aug. 15 and Nov. 15 along California from Point Sur north, some 16,000 square miles … If the trend continue, extinction may be inevitable in 20 years because the number of turtles will be so low, predicted the University of Alabama study. Pacific leatherbacks