UA Professor Finds Link Between Drinking Patterns, Alcohol ‘Cues’ (Live interview)
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – Feb. 6
You can feel drunk without actually drinking? It’s all in your brain, according to new research. Dr. Philip Gable is an assistant psychology professor … he joins me now to talk about a new study the University of Alabama is working on. What situations tend to relate to enhanced drinking in college students and to the narrowing you found? Does this attentional narrowing relate to drunk driving? Are your findings similar to the way a hungry person would look at a delicious dessert? What brain activity is related when you show people pictures of alcohol or desserts? Will this research lead to treatment?
University of Alabama celebrates Black History Month with art, lectures, music
Al.com – Feb. 6
The University of Alabama has nearly 30 events planned in the coming weeks to commemorate Black History Month on its Tuscaloosa campus. The calendar is coordinated by UA’s Crossroads Community Center, an intercultural initiative through the Division of Community Affairs. Events run through the beginning of March and range from specialized tours of campus, film screenings and lectures. Below are some highlights of the calendar, which can be viewed in full here. (Locations of the events are listed in bold print.)
UA hosts annual Fire Chiefs Conference
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – Feb. 5
Fire fighters from around Alabama are gathering in Tuscaloosa this week. The annual mid-winter Alabama Association of Fire Chiefs conference is happening at the University of Alabama. Protecting fire fighters and property owners during house fires is a big topic of discussion. As of today, there have been 30 fatal housefires in the state. The association’s president says educating people about fire safety is key in saving lives.
UA exhibit on campus slavery opening
WFTV-9 (Orlando, Fla.) – Feb. 6
The University of Alabama is opening an exhibit that looks into the history of slavery on the campus in Tuscaloosa. An opening event is scheduled on Thursday evening at Gorgas Library for “Unchaining Alabama.” The temporary display is based on work by a senior at Alabama, Benjamin Flax. Flax is researching the university’s ties to antebellum slavery as part of an independent research project. He is using 40 original documents, transcriptions and other research materials in his work. Alabama was founded in 1831, when slavery was the norm across the South. Previous research found that two university presidents and some faculty members owned slaves, and several of the oldest buildings on campus contain bricks made by slaves. The Faculty Senate apologized for the university’s role in slavery a decade ago.
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – Feb. 5
Undeterred after a stray bullet, the artist within is reborn
Fresno Bee (Calif.) – Feb. 4
In the past couple of years, about 20 paintings by Mariam Pare have been reproduced and sold internationally. In February, she’ll be a featured artist in two shows. And, any day now, she expects to take a job that will pay her a comfortable salary to paint. Those are intoxicating developments for any artist, especially Pare. She paints with a brush in her mouth … “I heard the popping of the gun, and I saw the glass flying and it all happened really fast,” she said. “It was just noise and then I couldn’t move. I didn’t know I’d been shot. I just felt a kind of bolt of electricity behind me and a flash of heat.” She was 20 years old … About two months later, an occupational therapist put a pen in Pare’s left hand to write her name. She failed. The therapist suggested she try with the pen in her mouth, and Pare was astonished to find that her writing looked nearly the same as when she could use her right hand … Forging that path, as arduous as it was for Pare, is a “fascinating” property of the brain, said Dr. Daniel Potts, neurologist and associate professor at the University of Alabama. Founder of Cognitive Dynamics, an organization focused on expressive arts therapy for cognitive disorders, Potts noted that the brain’s capacity to generate art remains after a paralyzing injury. The issue becomes how to bring out that art. “When the end point of the normal motor pathway is taken away and the drive to produce art is still present,” Potts said, “the brain and motor system work to create a new mechanism for artistic production.”
The Star (Malaysia) – Feb. 5
CVS calling it quits on tobacco by Oct. 1
Medill Reports – Feb. 6
CVS Caremark Corp., the nation’s largest drugstore chain, says it’s going cold turkey. The Woonsocket R.I.-based corporation announced Wednesday it will stop selling tobacco products in all 7,600 stores across the U.S. By Oct. 1, the pharmacy chain will become the first national drugstore to pull cigarettes from its shelves. “Now more than ever, pharmacies are on the front line of health care, becoming more involved in chronic disease management to help patients with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes,” said CVS spokesman Michael DeAngelis … The pressure on major chain drugstores to stop selling cigarettes is nothing new. Dr. Alan Blum, director of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, said anti-smoking groups have begged CVS and Walgreens to quit selling smokes for many years. “These companies should not be given any credit whatsoever,” he said, “It was something that could have been done and should have been done upwards of 20-30 years ago.”
UATD presents dynamic ‘Blood Wedding’
Crimson White – Feb. 6
The University of Alabama’s department of theatre and dance invites audiences to enjoy the illustration of some of life’s classic themes in its multifaceted production of “Blood Wedding,” written by Federico García Lorca in 1932. The play, originally written in Spanish and first performed in Madrid, unravels through a lens of Spanish culture while still expressing concepts in a universal manner. Director John Nara, a third-year master’s student, said he has long enjoyed the dramatic writings of Lorca and welcomed the opportunity to tackle the challenges the script posed. “There are numerous themes addressed by Lorca in this play. That’s what makes it such a rich experience, and it’s hard not to see the theme of fate versus choice in the cycle of life as one of the more prominent ones,” Nara said. “But it’s only one. As a director, it’s been a journey with the designers and the cast figuring out how to expose all of the themes and still tell a good story and hold the audience’s attention.”
Business competition funds winning startups
Crimson White – Feb. 6
The Edward K. Aldag Business Plan Competition will award three University of Alabama students $50,000 in startup funds and in-kind services to make their entrepreneurial dreams a reality. To apply, students must submit a three-minute video pitch, two-page executive summary and proposed budget by Friday at 11:59 p.m. The deadline was extended due to the recent snow. Lou Marino, professor of entrepreneurship and strategic management and coordinator for the Entrepreneurship Program in the Culverhouse College of Commerce, said the friendly competition allows students to network with local business leaders. “If you don’t enter, you can’t win. There is no danger in the process, and everyone gets positive feedback to take their ideas to the next level,” Marino said. “Try to talk to some people who might actually use your product and get their feedback.”
Author presents autobiographic graphic novel
Crimson White – Feb. 6
Author Lila Quintero Weaver will speak at Gorgas Library on Thursday as the second author in the current “Authors @ Gorgas” series. This lecture series, presented by the University of Alabama Press, hosts Alabama writers who have recently published work. The first author featured in the series was Robert Oliver Mellown, whose book highlighted architecture and lesser-known facts about the campus of The University of Alabama. Future authors include R. Scot Duncan, Philip D. Beidler and Nimrod Frazer. J.D. Wilson, an employee of the University of Alabama Press, said Weaver’s work, “Darkroom: a Memoir in Black and White,” offers a different take on Alabama’s usually dichotomous race relations. “[It is] the story of a little girl who didn’t fit neatly into ‘black’ or ‘white,’” Wilson said. “Lila cracks the rigid, two-sided, either-or framework that could really stunt both our understanding of what we were all taking part in, as well as perhaps the sorts of solutions open to us.” Wilson said the graphic novel format that Weaver chose to tell her story makes the complex subject of civil rights accessible to readers.