Making an Eco-Friendly Camaro
CBS 42 (Birmingham) – June 5
Engineering students from around the country have a daunting task. How to turn a 2016 Camaro into an eco-friendly, full efficient hybrid, while still maintaining the muscle and performance we’ve come to expect. Sixteen teams from across the U.S. and Canada were chosen for this mission. It’s all part of the ECO-3 Competition sponsored by General Motors and the U.S. Department of Energy. Brittany Galloway, a team member from The University of Alabama says it’s tough to redesign a classic American car.
Graduate students take part in National Flood Interoperability Experiment Summer Institute to develop new tools
Tuscaloosa News – June 7
Graduate students from across the nation will get the chance to explore the possibilities and applications of a high-tech hydrologic simulation and forecasting model similar to one being developed by the National Weather Service during a seven-week summer institute being hosted by the National Water Center and the University of Alabama. “The challenge to the grad students is to take this really high-tech model output and data we are producing and develop new tools,” said Andrew Ernest, a professor and director of UA’s Environmental Institute. Approximately 44 graduate students are participating in the National Flood Interoperability Experiment Summer Institute from June 1 to July 17 at the water center on the UA campus. “It is the first time we have done this,” said Ed Clark, National Flash Flood Services leader with the National Weather Service. “It is a way to bring in the best and the brightest.”
Mosasaurus Maximus rules ‘Jurassic’ but its cousins ruled Alabama
Tuscaloosa News – June 6
In trailers for the new “Jurassic World” movie, a beast that resembles a mutated crocodile leaps 50 or so yards into the air to snap a great white shark, whole, from a dangling cable. It splashes down, tremendously, in the round pool of a Sea World-like park, as spectactors ooh and ahh and snap photos. Flash back 66 or 70 million years ago, and that could be lower Alabama. Well, sort of. That jumping monster is based on Mosasaurus, or Mosasaurus Maximus, the largest of a genus of carnivorous aquatic lizards known as mosasaur. At that time, much of what is now Alabama was shallow marine environment, so the more than 10 different species of mosasaur fossils that have been found in the state were mostly smaller mosasaurine lizards, such as Clidates, which lived during the Late Cretaceous Period (99.6 million to 65.5 million years ago) and grew about 16 to 18 feet long, feeding closer to shore, on fish, cephalopods and other small vertebrates. “Mosasaurus Maximus was the largest, the one you see (in the movie trailer), and it was not as common here, because it was so much larger, there were fewer of them, and they lived in deeper water,” said Dana Ehret, curator of paleontology at the University of Alabama Museum of Natural History, the state repository for vertebrate, invertebrate, plant, and trace fossils in Alabama.
Harper Lee, Rick Bragg among Alabama Writer’s Hall of Fame inaugural class
Al.com – June 8
“To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee is among the inaugural inductees into the Alabama Writer’s Hall of Fame. The 89-year-old Lee and 11 other writers are being honored as members of the hall’s first class during an event Monday night in Tuscaloosa. Only five of the inductees are still living. Aside from Lee they include author Rick Bragg, poets Sonia Sanchez and Andrew Glaze, and novelist Sena Jeter Naslund. The seven posthumous inductees include Helen Keller and William March. The honor comes just weeks before the release of Lee’s second book, “Go Set a Watchman.” It’s described as a sequel to “Mockingbird” that was actually written before the beloved novel about racial injustice in the Deep South. “Mockingbird” won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961.
Alabama Public Radio – June 8
NOAA’s new National Water Center will bolster U.S. ability to manage threats to water security
Homeland Security Newswire – June 7
The National Water Center, a new facility located at the University of Alabama, aims to become an incubator for innovative breakthroughs in water prediction products and services. As the country becomes more vulnerable to water-related events, from drought to flooding, the predictive science and services developed by NOAA and its partners at the National Water Center will bolster the U.S. ability to manage threats to its finite water resources and mitigate impacts to communities. Bringing experts together in this new collaborative center provides an unprecedented opportunity to improve federal coordination in the water sector to address twenty-first century water resource challenges, such as water security, and analysis and prediction of hydrologic extremes, like droughts and floods. The National Water Center, a new facility located at the University of Alabama, aims to become an incubator for innovative breakthroughs in water prediction products and services. As the country becomes more vulnerable to water-related events, from drought to flooding, the predictive science and services developed by NOAA and its partners at the National Water Center will bolster the U.S. ability to manage threats to its finite water resources and mitigate impacts to communities.
Quake felt in Greene County
Tuscaloosa News – June 8
The U.S. Geological Survey reported an earthquake Saturday afternoon near Eutaw in Greene County. The 3.0 magnitude quake occurred at 1:09 p.m. Saturday, nine miles northwest of Eutaw and 31 miles southwest of Tuscaloosa. The quake’s epicenter appeared to be just off Alabama Highway 14. The quake occurred at a depth of 3.9 miles. Earthquakes of that size are considered minor. No injuries were reported, but media reports indicated the quake’s effects were felt by some people as far north as Northport. This was the fifth recent quake in Greene County. Other quakes were in November and December of 2014 and one in January and one in February. After the January quake, University of Alabama assistant professor Samantha Hansen said multiple earthquakes are often a sign of stress in a system. Though human activity can cause earthquakes, Hansen said she believes it is unlikely to be the cause in West Alabama, which is included in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.
LOCAL Q&A: William MacGavin, didgeridoo guru, University of Alabama student
Tuscaloosa News – June 6
This week, we are learning about didgeridoos from University of Alabama third-year student William MacGavin. MacGavin is from Temecula, Calif., and is an architectural engineering major pursuing a master’s degree in business administration through the STEM program. Not only is MacGavin an avid player of the didgeridoo, he is also a professional crafter of the instrument. Q: What exactly is a didgeridoo? A: The didgeridoo is a wooden horn that is played both percussively and melodically. From a drive to play a variety of different didgeridoos, I began crafting them. During high school, I made lifetime friendships with many people invested in the didgeridoo culture. I learned many great skills from a few widely respected crafters and talented players whom I was lucky enough to live in relative proximity to. I have sold many didgeridoos to others with a similar drive all across the country, and one instrument has traveled abroad. Coincidentally, the first instrument I ever sold actually went to a customer in Birmingham. I am currently working on instruments to put into the hands of the Tuscaloosa community; I see huge potential in the Druid City.
College News: June 6
Tuscaloosa News – June 6
Lincoln Memorial University – Bradley Jason Gaddis of Tuscaloosa received a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from Lincoln Memorial University-DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine in Harrogate, Tenn., on May 9. Gaddis received his undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama … University of Alabama – U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Tuscaloosa) announced that Taylor Hardy, daughter of Lyman Hardy of Tuscaloosa, completed an internship in the senator’s Washington office this summer.
DAVID MURDOCK: Hard-boiled detective fiction and film noir
Gadsden Times – June 6
There are certain types of books and movies that have fascinated me for so long that I have no idea when I first encountered them. It just seems like they’ve always been a part of my life. I have loved “film noir” crime films and “hard-boiled detective” books for at least 30 years now, but I have no idea at all what the first one I saw or read was. It’s a mystery. Even if the terms are unfamiliar, most people know the type of story I’m talking about. “Film noir” is the type of movie most associated with black-and-white crime classics of the 1940s like “The Maltese Falcon” or “The Big Sleep.” The term itself is French for “black movie” and refers to the heavy use of shadows in filming and the intensely brutal plots usually found in these types of film. For example, both of these classic movies feature Humphrey Bogart as a no-nonsense private detective trying to solve truly twisted mysteries … Starting on June 10 and continuing each Wednesday until July 8, I will be giving a series of talks on hard-boiled detective fiction and film noir at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Alabama’s Gadsden Center. To quote the brochure, OLLI “provides mature adults with opportunities for intellectual stimulation, cultural development and social interaction.” It’s quite a bit of fun, too.