Taking the pulse of a supermassive black hole
Phys.org – Dec. 5
Rare heartbeat-like pulsations detected from a supermassive black hole may grant scientists better insight into these exotic objects, according to two University of Alabama astronomers who co-authored a recent scientific article on the discovery. Drs. Dacheng Lin, a post-doctoral researcher, and Jimmy Irwin, an assistant professor in UA’s physics and astronomy department, co-wrote, along with three French scientists, an article about this black hole, with a mass about 100,000 times that of the sun, that published in a recent issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters. “Such signals from supermassive black holes are very important for understanding the link between black holes across mass scale, but they have proved very difficult to find,” Lin said.
University of Alabama students film pilot episode for TV show about zombie chasers
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 9
The Super Skate on McFarland Boulevard turned into a dispatch center for a ragtag team of zombie chasers last week as production students from the University of Alabama Telecommunication and Film Department shot a pilot for their television show titled “Zom-Com.” The show follows a team of people who go on various jobs chasing zombies to collect data about them. “In the pilot, they botch one of their jobs and bring back incomplete data, so they don’t get paid as much,” Adam Schwartz, assistant professor in the TCF department, said. “To try to make up for that, they accept what is known throughout the zombie-chaser community as a suicide mission. The pilot follows them on that mission.” Schwartz is teaching the advanced television production class this semester and is making the pilot in collaboration with the students in Matt Payne’s seminar class called “Zombies in Culture.”
Tuscaloosa author Kevin Waltman’s YA novel series chronicles Indianapolis hoops phenom’s journey (podcast)
Al.com – Dec. 6
Kevin Waltman knows basketball. Born in Indiana, he can’t help it. His father Royce Waltman served as an assistant at Indiana University under legendary head coach Bobby Knight and then as head coach for DePauw (Kevin’s alma mater, University of Indianapolis and Indiana State. Despite not playing much beyond high school and intramural basketball, Kevin Waltman remains an avid fan and student of the game. He opted to admire the sport as a spectator for many years and now as an author of several young adult novels depicting young players’ lives and attachment to it. His third and latest book, “Next,” was published by Cinco Puntos Press and is now available in book stores and via Amazon…Waltman, a full-time instructor in the English department at the University of Alabama, wrote the book in Tuscaloosa during 2012, in the midst of another national championship run for the Alabama football team. But Waltman says the football success in Tuscaloosa offers little distraction for the sport to which he’s remained steadily devoted his entire life.
Press Release Fun: The 2014 National Latino Children’s Literature Conference
School Library Journal – Dec. 5
The University of Alabama School of Library and Information Studies is pleased to announce the 2014 National Latino Children’s Literature Conference to be held in Tuscaloosa, AL on March 13-14, 2014. This exclusive conference was created for the purpose of promoting high-quality children’s and young adult books about the Latino cultures and to offer a forum for librarians, educators, researchers, and students to openly discuss strategies for meeting the informational, educational, and literacy needs of Latino youth (children and teens) and their families. Featuring nationally-acclaimed Latino literacy scholars and award-winning Latino authors and illustrators of children’s and young adult books, this exclusive conference is truly an unforgettable experience. Authors for 2014 include Margarita Engle, Meg Medina, Lila Quintero Weaver, Laura Lacamara, and Irania Patterson. Latino children’s literature publicist Adriana Dominguez will also present on the state of Latino children’s literature publishing.
Newtown 911 calls: Should media have released them? (+video)
Christian Science Monitor – Dec. 5
After Newtown, Conn., officials on Wednesday released recordings of the seven 911 calls placed from Sandy Hook Elementary School on the morning of Dec. 14, 2012, news organizations faced a classic ethical dilemma. On the one side are civic values seen as the essence of a free, self-governing people: The government must be transparent; a free press must be able to hold public officials accountable for their actions; and the greater good is served when those with governing power are not allowed to unilaterally control the flow of information…Yet when this information causes pain for victims and their families – especially in the case of the Newtown shootings, in which 20 first-grade children and six adults were gunned down – many ethicists take issue with the priority of these civic values… “It’s important for journalists to be able to listen to those tapes, to see if there was something that we can learn from the process, and not just leave it to the government to tell us what to think,” says Chris Roberts, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Alabama, and a member of the Ethics Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists. “Having said that, as a parent and as an ethicist, I really don’t want to hear them.”
Yahoo! News – Dec. 5
Conservative Kentucky accepts new health care law, makes it work
Anniston Star – Dec. 8
So far, Obamacare has worked out pretty well for the people who’ve met Cara Stewart. A lawyer for a Kentucky nonprofit group, Stewart has spent the last two months holding workshops in bars, churches and libraries, explaining the state’s health exchange and even helping people sign up. Some of them cried when they qualified for insurance. Most were skeptical that it would really work out. But no one left without some way to get covered. “In Kentucky, everybody has an option,” said Stewart, a fellow at the Kentucky Equal Justice Center. “Unless you’re undocumented or in jail, there’s something for you.”…Meanwhile, a growing number of studies are questioning the governor’s assertion that the state can’t afford to expand Medicaid. A study released last week by the Commonwealth Fund concluded that the state could gain $2 billion per year in federal money from the expansion by 2022, twice as much as Alabama would get annually in federal highway funding in the same period. A study funded by the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research projected that expansion could create more than 30,000 jobs. An earlier UAB study projected the state could generate as much as $1.7 billion in state and local tax revenue by 2020 if it expanded.
Car crashes are more likely during days before Christmas
NBC 13 (Birmingham) – Dec. 7
The last few days before Christmas is always filled with last minute gift-buying and shopping, and, as it turns out, it’s the time of the year you’re more likely be in a traffic accident. A new study from the University of Alabama says car crashes are most likely to occur between Dec. 21st and Dec. 26th. Tuscaloosa reporter Meredith Armstrong found out which areas you may want to avoid if you want to stay “accident-free” this holiday season.
Clamor for climate change legislation foolish with Chinese, Indian economies at full-throttle
Canada Free Press – Dec. 5
Congress should not waste time debating a comprehensive climate change legislation in the coming year. First, the combination of the natural gas revolution created by fracking and the economic doldrums we are stuck in have already cut our emissions of greenhouse gases dramatically without Congress doing anything at all. If they did jump in, they’d be as likely to screw that up as make things better. In addition, we should wait because the current proposals on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are all expensive and will be cheaper in the future as technologies improve. Consider the change in cell phone technology and prices over the past 20 years. When the director of Wall Street wanted to emphasize Gordon Gecko’s power and wealth, he portrayed him holding a brick-size cell phone. Today, even school children carry iPhones, which are orders of magnitude more powerful — and much cheaper. That same innovative process will make both emissions reduction technology and mitigation efforts cheaper and better in the future. The United States alone can do next to nothing about greenhouse gas emissions alone and we should not burden our economy to attempt to do so. (Andrew Morriss holds the D. Paul Jones, Jr. and Charlene A. Jones Chair in Law and professor of business at the University of Alabama…)
Madison Gazette (Wisc.) – Dec. 6
South Coast Today (New Bedford, Mass.) – Dec. 6
Island Packet (Hilton Head, SC) – Dec. 5
Duluth News Tribune – Dec. 7
Arizona Daily Star – Dec. 7
Gainesville Times – Dec. 6
THE PORT RAIL: Leaders were prepping before Pearl Harbor
Tuscaloosa News – Dec. 8
On April 18, 1942, a group of 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers, with Lt. Col. James Doolittle piloting the lead bomber, struck Tokyo and several other Japanese cities with 500-pound bombs. While the surprise Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor five and a half months earlier on Dec. 7, 1941, was not entirely unexpected, the Doolittle Raid marked the true beginning of America’s response to the Japanese attack, which brought the United States fully into World War II. Saturday was the 72nd anniversary of Pearl Harbor, which did indeed shock the U.S. and led to America’s entry into the war on Dec. 8, 1941. But was the United States as astonished and unprepared for that first year of war as popular history has described? (Larry Clayton is a retired University of Alabama history professor. Readers can email him at larryclayton7@gmail.com.)
Trailblazer Bingham now a major general
Las Cruces Bulletin (N.M.) – Dec. 9
In a ceremony Monday, Dec. 2, filled as much with personal recollections as military pomp and formality, White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) Commander Gwen Bingham was officially promoted to major general. After having her two-star insignias attached to her uniform, Bingham recalled how her father, Edward McMillion – “Ole Sarge” as he was called – affixed her secondlieutenant bars to her when she was a young woman beginning her military career at the University of Alabama ROTC program. Even though her father and mother, Louise, have passed on, Bingham said, they were with her in spirit. But she said she was happy to share the event with her family – including husband Patrick and children Tava and Phillip, who participated in the ceremony – as well as friends both old and new.