News 01-02-2001
Syllabus Spring2001 Conference Highlights Campus Communications
Syllabus is proud to announce its 2001 conference offering, including Syllabus
spring200, to be held at the Dr. Albert B. Sabin Convention Center in downtown
Cincinnati, April 5-8. Themed Campus Communications: From World Wide Web to
Wireless, Syllabus spring2001 will present a framework for successful integration
and implementation of new communications technologies on campus. A variety of
breakout sessions, case studies, workshops, seminars, and technology demonstrations
will provide exciting opportunities for attendees to absorb the fundamentals
of technology use and gain a practical understanding of how to implement information
technologies at the classroom, program, and institutional levels.
Visit SyllabusWeb at www.syllabus.com/cincinnati/index.asp for more information
about Syllabus spring2001, and look for the full conference brochure, available
in the January issue of Syllabus magazine.
$14.3 Million Grant Funds Cardiovascular Gene Therapy
The University of Pittsburgh has received a five-year, $14.3 million federal
grant to fund initiatives to treat cardiovascular diseases using gene therapy.
The grant, from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), establishes
the Cardiovascular Gene Therapy Center to focus on clinical and laboratory studies
and designates Pitt's Human Gene Therapy Applications Laboratory as the only
national facility for producing vectors, or gene transport systems, used in
all future NHLBI-funded clinical gene therapy studies. The grant, largest of
four awarded nationally by the NHLBI, also provides for training of future clinicians/scientists
in the latest gene therapy technologies and procedures.
The grant is a collaboration of many departments at the University of Pittsburgh
School of Medicine including the Department of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry,
the Department of Surgery, and the Cardiovascular Institute. It will fund two
clinical trials, three pre-clinical research studies, and a training program
in gene therapy.
For more information, visit www.upmc.edu/newsbureau/frank/cvgenetherapy.
Whose Congress?
In anticipation of the swearing in of the new Congress next week, YourCongress.com
has announced that its YourCongress.Watch e-mail service will continue to be
free for the duration of the 107th Congress. The service offers to e-mail registered
individuals any time their congressional representatives speak in Congress.
For more information, visit www.YourCongress.com.
Web Expedition to Track Jaguars
"Jaguar: Lord of the Mayan Jungle," a ten-day Webcast expedition beginning
January 15, will focus on the efforts of Mexico City-based conservation organization
Unidos para la Conservacion to track twelve jaguars tagged during the past five
years. OneWorldJourneys.com, a nature and wilderness exploration and photography
site will Webcast the expedition from the field with daily updates via satellite
phone of digital photography, dispatches, and audio and video feeds.
The expedition will take place in southeastern Mexico in the 1.8 million-acre
Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, which protects part of the largest surviving rain
forest in the Americas outside of the Amazon. The study is a cooperative effort
between Unidos para la Conservacion and the Institute of Ecology of the National
University of Mexico.
For more information, visit www.oneworldjourneys.com.
Internet2 Connection Supports Stanford School of Medicine
Internet2 member, Stanford University, is advancing medical and life sciences
education through the use of information technology. SUMMIT (Stanford University
Medical Media and Information Technologies), a research and development center
in the School of Medicine, is developing collaborative simulation and haptics-based
learning programs for anatomy and surgery that will operate using high bandwidth
over Abilene, the Internet2 advanced backbone network. The Stanford Visible
Female, Lucy 2.0, will serve as the virtual anatomical model for the Surgery
Workbench.
For more information, visit http://summit.stanford.edu/.
Millennium Meteors
One of the most intense annual meteor showers, the Quadrantids, will peak over
North America on January 3, 2001. Observers in western parts of Canada, the
USA, and Mexico could see an impressive outburst of shooting stars, numbering
as many as 100 per hour. Forecasters expect the shower to climax during a two-hour
interval around 1200 Universal Time on January 3rd (7AM Wednesday in the Eastern
Standard Time zone or 4AM PST).
To view the Quadrantids, go outside an hour or so before the expected maximum
and face north. The shower's radiant (a point in the sky from which meteors
appear to stream) will lie about 35 degrees above the northeastern horizon in
the constellation Bootes. Quadrantid meteors can appear anywhere in the heavens,
but their trails will point back toward the radiant. Experts advise viewers
to begin watch early to increase the likelihood of witnessing a Quadrantid fireball,
a meteor at least as bright as the planet Venus.
For more information, visit http://science.nasa.gov.
