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Adderall: A college love story

Campus News

Campus Editor

November 29, 2010

Michael makes a living by pushing tiny blue pills – but he isn’t a doctor. At the age of 20, Michael is a UC Davis sophomore who sells Adderall, an amphetamine formulation prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), to other college students.

“Over the course of the quarter, I average around $200 a week, mostly from students taking midterms or writing papers,” Michael said, sliding a dozen or so pills across his desk and into a Ziploc bag. “But once finals week rolls around, I’m usually pulling in around $1,200 the last two weeks of the quarter.”

The growing demand for Adderall on college campuses has created a black-market for the drug, and as students continue to depend on it for scholastic success, the academic culture of universities has begun to shift in a new direction.

More and more, students are turning to Adderall to help solve their time management problems, said Aegis Medical Sacramento representative Karly Armbrecht, who deals specifically with substance abuse services.

“It seems that students are relying on the drug to stay focused and alert when they study, and many others are abusing it to stay up all night to cram before a test,” she said.

In the midst of this growing phenomenon, Michael has seized the opportunity to create a very lucrative business, supplying Adderall to non-prescribed college students.

A day in the life of a dealer

9 a.m. – The bell rings for class and Michael walks up the front steps of Wellman Hall to meet Brett, a 19-year-old sophomore, who sits nervously on a white bench set against the brick-clad building.

“I got an in-class essay to write in my next class,” said a swollen-eyed Brett, as he pops a 30 milligram orange pill into his mouth and chases it with the remainder of his Red Bull. “I need all the focus I can get.”

He quickly hands Michael a five-dollar bill and disappears through the door.

12:25 p.m. – Michael pulls into the ARC parking lot and grabs the Ziploc bag filled with tiny blue 20-milligram pills from the glove compartment, leaves the car, and begins approaching a girl casually sipping from a Starbucks coffee cup.

“She’s a regular,” Michael said minutes later as he quickly shuffles four crisp $20 bills into his wallet. “I guess she’s trying to lose some weight before houseboats – you take one of those pills and you won’t want to eat all day.”

The versatility of Adderall is one of the more appealing aspects of the drug. Often called the Las Vegas of pills, Adderall conforms gleefully to every pill cliché to such an extent that even taking it feels cinematic.

This alluring appeal has caused Adderall to be classified as a Schedule II drug because of its high potential for abuse and dependence.

Frank Weiss, a pharmacist at Kaiser Permanente, said that Adderall is a highly addictive drug that causes insomnia, nervousness and tolerance.

“The long-term effects are much more severe,” he said. “After a few years of regular use, patients may suffer from high blood pressure, increased heart rate, phonetic tics and hallucinations.”

With such side effects looming in the not so distant future, some wonder why this drug is even prescribed to individuals in the first place.

“With the correct dosage, ADHD medications such as Adderall and Ritalin can help children control their hyperactivity, inattention and other behaviors – allowing them to experience a more fulfilling life,” Weiss said.

On the fourth floor of the library, Justin, who has been prescribed Adderall since high school, sits at a lone desk facing a laptop. His feet consistently tap against the leg of the table like the tick of a grandfather clock, while his teeth grind back and forth.

“When I’m on Adderall the rest of the world disappears from me,” said Justin, as his feet continue their monotonous tap. “I’m only focused on my computer screen and what I have to get done. I lose all sense of time and place, so my only downtime is when I have to go to the bathroom.”

The university, however, has shown strong disapproval from this type of academic culture. While other departments face severe budget cuts, UC Davis continues to allocate resources to the Student Academic Success Center (SASC), a program that offers free classes on time management, critical reading strategies and annotating skills to all UC Davis students.

Nonetheless, many students continue to depend on the drug for academic success – a fact that Michael knows all too well by the end of each day.

“These days, people are always looking for something that will give them that extra advantage over the next guy,” Michael said, as he takes out a roll of cash that would choke a horse to death. “Whether it’s an iPad, a study guide from SparkNotes or an energy drink – it’s all the same. I’m in the same business as those other guys.”

EHSUN FORGHANY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

Vet school’s Bennie Osburn to call it a career at end of school year

Features

Features Editor

November 29, 2010

The UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine has had its ups and downs throughout its existence. From losing its accreditation to becoming one of the leading institutions in veterinary medicine, one man has been through it all – Dean Bennie Osburn. But like all good things, the dean’s 14-year tenure will be coming to an end as he will retire in the summer of 2011.

“It has been really an honor, a privilege and an exciting opportunity over the past 14 years as dean,” he said. “I have an incredible faculty that is creative and willing to step out and do things that are moving the profession ahead. In my eyes, we are the lead veterinary institution and are opening opportunities in the field,” Osburn said.

Due in large part to Osburn, UC Davis is consistently ranked as one of the best veterinary schools in the country. It is the only public veterinary school in California that is allowed to graduate students with a doctorate of veterinary medicine.

The dean’s interest in animals began long ago. Always intrigued by animals, Osburn did not decide to pursue veterinary medicine as a career until his first year at Kansas State University. He continued his education at Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, where he became interested in pathology and the basis of disease. In 1965, he received his doctorate in comparative pathology at UC Davis and served as a research fellow at Johns Hopkins University. It would not be until 1970 that Osburn would return to UC Davis, this time as a faculty member.

In his early years before taking his post as dean, Osburn made key discoveries in food safety and food-animal viruses, most notably research on the bluetongue virus in livestock. His research resulted in more than 280 peer-reviewed publications.

While handling his responsibilities as a professor and researcher, Osburn also served as the veterinary school’s associate dean for research and graduate education for 20 years, until becoming dean in 1996 during the veterinary school’s 50th anniversary.

“Becoming dean during the 50th anniversary is a memory I will cherish forever,” he said.

This decision ultimately resulted in the beginning of a golden era for the school, which rose from lower rankings to become one of the highest ranked veterinary medicine programs in the country.

In 1998, the American Veterinary Medical Association put the school’s status on limited accreditation due to deficiencies in its facilities. To combat this, Osburn and his team rallied the UC Davis community to raise funds for new buildings. But the dean did not want to just improve the facilities to regain accreditation. In a press release Osburn said he wanted to build facilities of a size unprecedented in the University of California’s history to promote advances in the field of veterinary medicine.

The school received its full accreditation in 2004, mostly due to the remodeling, which included the construction of seven new buildings. The seventh building will be completed by the summer of 2012, a year after Osburn’s retirement.

“Six new facilities are completed while the seventh is still under construction,” he said. “Hopefully, these new facilities will provide both educational and research opportunities that will be critical over the next couple of generations.”

As dean, Osburn is responsible for programs within and outside the veterinary school as well as the students and staff. In addition to nearly 700 students, there are 90 residents and 280 faculty and staff members. He is also in charge of various centers throughout California, including the Wildlife Care Network with its own 24 sites along the California coast, Osburn said.

When he first became dean, Osburn knew he wanted to leave the school better than he found it.

“I wanted to make sure that we had a solid core program in veterinary medicine but also expand the opportunity for it. I did this by kicking off a comparative medicine center, developed the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security, which protects food supplies and assures the safety and quality of foods,” he said.

Osburn also nurtured the Wildlife Health Center (WHC), a multidisciplinary program within the School of Veterinary Medicine that focuses on the health of free-ranging and captive terrestrial and aquatic wild animals.

“[The WHC] evolved into a major program that recently received a $75 million research grant to identify factors for diseases,” he said.

The development of various programs may be impressive, but Osburn’s career is full of various accomplishments. He more than doubled annual researchh funding from $46 million in 1996 to $109 million in 2010. He also recruited almost 90 new faculty members and more than 150 scientists, lecturers and adjunct faculty. The doctor of veterinary medicine degree class size also increased under his term, from 108 students to 131 per class every year. Doing so has helped alleviate California’s shortage for veterinarians, he said.

Aside from the veterinary school, Osburn has held numerous positions in other organizations, from acting chair of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Biotechnology Research Advisory Committee from 1988 to 1991 to the president of the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges from 2003 to 2005.

Osburn has also received various awards throughout his career. The Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges presented him with the Melcher Leadership in Public Policy Award for his advance in veterinarian medical education, to name just one.

While Osburn has been a tremendous influence on the UC Davis campus, he cannot stay forever. After this academic year, Osburn will be leaving the family and school he spent years building. He still plans to continue his veterinarian career as a consultant but looks forwards to working on his ranch with his son.

“As the next chapter unfolds, I look forward to new opportunities in my life,” he said.

NICK MARKWITH can be reached at features@theaggie.org.

Column: Futures

Opinion

Opinion

November 29, 2010

Thanksgiving puts one in a pensive mood, and I’m sitting here contemplating what lies ahead in the world of weed.

I’m reflective, and to reflect upon marijuana over the past few months – in the media, in politics, in my own life – is both a pleasant and hectic experience. Despite grandiose shortcomings, I’d say that the “marijuana movement” (or whatever you’d like to call it) is surely on the up and up.

It’s a controversial issue for sure, and it seems proponents of the movement have steadfastly collected critics and adversaries: in the form of law enforcement, the DEA, politicians, your mother and all her friends and perhaps some of your own friends as well.

I myself have my own collection of haters. Since writing on my somewhat extreme and exalted views of marijuana, I’ve been told to apologize, resign, grow up and more. Haters, I’ve come to realize, are going to hate, and so the old adage is true. But to stiffen my mouth on the subject would only restrict the volume on which I could release my marijuana smoke. And seeing as there are not many things in this world that could stop me from indulging in the pleasures of weed, including its discussion, I have continued with my daily shenanigans and commitments to inducing lung cancer and furthering drug use and the destruction of the world.

As you can imagine, this has all been stuffing to my vastly inflated ego. Can you hear my evil laughter from where you’re sitting, Reader? It goes something like this: muhahahaha!

All jokes aside, though, writing on marijuana – and for marijuana, I should say – has taught me how divisive the issue of legalization and cannabis use really is, even on a campus that is generally accepting and open-minded. But as the results of Prop. 19 have shown, one’s view on cannabis control is not simply a matter of one’s political standing, or whether the person is a cannabis user. Many dispensary owners and employees were against Prop. 19; some are against recreational legalization in its entirety. Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties (the so-called ‘Emerald Triangle’, which I call the “Land o’ Pot”) voted against it, though their economies have been greatly benefited by the illegal growth of weed. They can say what they want – that they fear falling prices for their crop or commercialization – but the truth is they are protecting their individual interests, and not the interests of the issue at large. Legalization would mean more competition and less profit. And there is a lot of profit involved – medical marijuana is a multi-billion dollar industry nationally.

Legalization would also mean that that dreaded drug would haunt you, from television commercials to more ballot initiatives to those annoying teenagers that breathe behind you at the movie theaters.

Yes, that will happen too, whether you like it or not.

People will never stop using marijuana, and the steps to legalization are happening now. Just accept it, and quit complaining.

Huffington Post writer Paul Jury wrote in July of his experience talking to a Venice Beach dispensary owner named Craig. Craig owned a lavish clinic and was against Prop. 19. In many ways, he became the face of stoners against legalization, when his idea of tobacco companies controlling the marijuana market began to circulate. But one line summarized his list of complaints against legalization simply: “I like the way things are now.”

Aren’t we all scared of change?

But a lack of change is just promotion of more of the same. That means $25 billion in debt for California, and 28,288 drug-related violent deaths in Mexico since 2007. That means continued prohibition of a drug that has limited harms to health and risk of destructive addiction, as compared to prescription drugs, of which nine million plus people in America currently abuse.

We’re Americans, right? We’re a society of complainers. We don’t want our balls groped at the airport, and we don’t the opportunity to purchase drunken stupor slash death in a can. We want regulations damn it, and we want the government to baby us – but apparently not when it comes to such an ill-fated issue as cannabis control. Of course not.

But what do I know? I’m just a lowly, lonely stoner.

Well, this lonely stoner is signing off this quarter, and I thank you all for reading, whether you have a snideful regard for me or the subject, or not.

I’ll be moving on to harder drugs now, but will be sure to lay off the crack, because as Whitney Houston once said, “Crack is cheap”, and even more poignantly, “Crack is whack”.

Yes, that is how MAY YANG just ended her last column, and she is probably joking about the first part of the last sentence. Tell her what a horrible person she is at mayyang@ucdavis.edu.

Column: Protecting dissent

Opinion

Opinion

November 29, 2010

We all know that fee hikes in the UC system are out of control. Last year’s 15 percent, plus another 15 percent on top of that, after multiplying, comes to a total percent increase of 32.25 percent. When the upcoming 8 percent increase takes effect, that will make a net increase of 42.83 percent since 2009, or nearly 43 percent.

Yes, it’s true that fee/tuition hikes are an important issue to address, by protesting and by whatever diplomatic means are still possible at this stage. But the issue of our broken shared-governance system should be of equal concern. If faculty members, or graduate student employees, are not allowed to be critical of the way the university is run, then we actually don’t have a real university. One of the critical, defining features of a university is the idea that it should be a place for free and open debate and exchange of views, whether the topic is how the university itself is managed or whatever other topic exists under the sun. Without open debate on all subjects we would just be an employment-training agency or a corporate research agency.

An article appeared in the Oct. 1 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle written by Michael Wilkes, a professor in the UC Davis School of Medicine. (See: http://tinyurl.com/ucdpsa) In the article, he offers insightful criticism of a “men’s health” workshop that is offered to the general public at UC Davis. I contacted Dr. Wilkes and he suggested that it would be better for me not to write about his situation.

When Dr. Wilkes taught as a faculty member at UCLA he came up with a new concept for the field of physician training which he calls “Doctoring.” In 2001 he accepted a position at UC Davis and adopted the program for use here. Specifically, the Doctoring curriculum trains new physicians to be culturally competent and ethical, subjects that are often not adequately covered in typical programs. But it teaches more than that. As Dr. Wilkes explained in one article: “Doctoring teaches content that is not specific to any one discipline, and which is typically missed in traditional medical education. Traditional courses are the bricks, while Doctoring is the mortar that creates the whole doctor.”

After reading about the topic in depth online, it is apparent to me that Dr. Wilkes has become a pivotal player in the world of medicine and could potentially become one of the most important doctors in the world. Dr. Wilkes promotes integrity, ethics and the practice of a type of medicine that is not driven by money, and he is now being threatened by an administrative supervisor with having his courses taken away from him as a result of the article he wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Student protesters, myself included, should feel especially compelled to support people of the caliber and integrity of Dr. Michael Wilkes, and should rally around such people and support them when they come under attack from intellectually corrupt sectors of the medical industry, including situations where the corrupt sector has tentacles that reach into the bowels of our medical schools. Such types of cases have the potential to make or break university chancellorships, and this would include the Katehi chancellorship as well.

An important policy-change proposal that would protect professors like Dr. Wilkes from arbitrary or incompetent administrative actions is now making its way through a system of review. The proposal would amend the existing Academic Personnel Manual (APM) sections 010 and 015 to allow UC professors to criticize the university administration and university policies. Currently they are not protected, unless their field of expertise includes the topic of university administration itself or program administration itself, which is not a common situation.

A change in existing policy has proven necessary due to recent court decisions which have determined that government employees are not protected by the First Amendment when they criticize the agency they work for while on the job, even if it’s a matter of public concern. This too is a very important matter to be addressed, but we can take care of the threat it poses to shared governance in the UC system by making the simple changes that have been proposed. The approval process could take until the end of the next year, and final approval, if it gets that far, will be in the hands of, (pause), the UC Regents.

Reach BRIAN RILEY at bkriley@ucdavis.edu.

Aggie Daily Calendar

Features

Features Editor

November 29, 2010

TODAY

Relay For Life Team Captains Meeting

7:15 p.m.

106 Wellman

Join them for one of their last meetings of fall quarter to find out how to be a team captain at this year’s Relay For Life event!

TUESDAY

Delta Epsilon Mu: Toys for Joy

6:30 to 10 p.m.

Freeborn

Enjoy live music and performances by UC Davis student organizations. All proceeds go to the UC Davis Children’s Hospital.

Relay For Life Team Captains Meeting

7:15 p.m.

106 Wellman

Join them for one of their last meetings of fall quarter to find out how to be a team captain at this year’s Relay For Life event!

WEDNESDAY

Poetry Night Reading Series: Sharon Doubiago

8 p.m.

Bistro 33, 226 F St.

Listen to this Joycean scholar share her work at Bistro 33.

THURSDAY

“Between Heaven and Earth” Mormon Temple Info Night

7 to 9 p.m.

158 Olson

Join this gathering to learn about the Mormon temple.

To receive placement in the AGGIE DAILY CALENDAR, e-mail dailycal@theaggie.org or stop by 25 Lower Freeborn by noon the day prior to your event. Due to space constraints, all event descriptions are subject to editing, and priority will be given to events that are free of charge and geared toward the campus community.

Column: Maintaining focus

Opinion

Opinion

November 24, 2010

I regret to say that, for the
first time in my brief college career, I’ve hit academic turbulence this
quarter (I’m a junior). Like Hindenburg that came before me, my combustive
nosedive is an indisputable tragedy and a source of great personal depression.
My image as an immaculate human being — that is, me being flawless in all
regards — will be forever tarnished hereafter.

Just
kidding. I’ll still be flawless, naturally. Because grades, in all their
sinister subjectivity, will hardly hinder me in the long run. Oh wait, yes they
will. They’ll only reflect on me … forever. Or at least as long as I want to
remain in academia. Of course, you’re probably not here to read about my life
issues (you can e-mail me for that, or subscribe to my twitter “JamesOIV” — I
cover broken fingernails to urinary tract infections … and more).

But
no, really, the point of today’s column is to discuss some of the distractions
students face in regards to academics. Which explains why I’ve opened with an
anecdote of my declining academic performance of late. It’s a prime example,
and the inspiration of this column on my loss of scholarly focus. So keep
reading, struggling students, because I have some vague, mostly unhelpful
insights as follows!

First
off, I am not mourning the loss of Four Loko. It was a terrible, terrible
drink. Every time I opened a can it was like selling a piece of my soul to
Satan, and every time I took a sip I probably lowered my IQ by one. I’m
probably loitering somewhere in the negatives at this point. George W. Bush is
also a big fan of the Four Loko (zing!). Take that, Bush, you asshole.

Anyway,
as some scientist or whatever probably said somewhere, or something, one of the
leading causes of declining performances in school is too much partying. Some
would say, perhaps, that I have been guilty of as much lately. But how is it my
fault when I, like so many other innocent students, have simply been caught up
in the party hype of the ground-breaking, revolutionary, inspiring alcoholic
beverage known as Four Loko? Students like myself are blatantly innocent, your
honor. The can has shiny colors, luring us children to its candied appearance!
All we wanted to do was take a sip of a nice energy drink, and before we knew
it a slew of brain cells were dead! (May they R.I.P.). If you’ve experienced
similar symptoms, I’d advise you to join me in my suit against Four Loko
(Phusion Projects) for tempting us so irresponsibly.

Another
cause of sudden declines in academic performances, so I’ve surmised with my
remaining brain cells, is the tacking on of new and unfamiliar workloads atop
your previous efforts. This certainly applies to me. Hopefully as some of you are aware,
I’ve recently taken it upon myself to write a column this quarter, which
naturally means I’m constantly swamped. No, not with the writing part of the
job. Pa-lease. Columns are the Wormtail to my Voldemort, the Gollum to my Ring
of Power, the gimp to my Tarantinian basement, the Myspace to my Facebook. A.k.a., I make columns my
bitch.

The
real work of
being a columnist is dealing with my newfound public persona. I mean sheesh
people, I’m a human being, too, and a student besides! Autographs and fan mail
aside, the paparazzi are just too much. I need room to breathe, at least. But
don’t get me wrong, the countless BJ offers are flattering. I just get
exhausted, and chaffed (zing! – part two). So people, leave me be. I need to
re-focus! Yes, I am blaming the fans.

Last,
but certainly not least, is the biggest academic distraction I’ve faced this
quarter, and what I imagine others face as well: Entering into a new
relationship (yes grandma, it’s true. Yes readers, my grandma does read my
column). What I mean to say is, being in a relationship (at least a new one) is
ridiculously distracting, at least for me. Why? Well, because I have a
ridiculously distracting significant other. I blame her entirely, as should you
for all your failings. You suck at Black Ops? Probably your girl’s fault. You
failed that O-chem test? Definitely your boyfriend’s fault. So do what I do:
Absolve yourself of all responsibility. It’s definitely the fault of external
factors outside your control.

Speaking
seriously (WARNING: Moral message incoming), I know what has gone wrong this
quarter. I lost focus. Sadly, that’s all there is to it. It isn’t the fault of
Four Loko, not this column, not my girlfriend, not Black Ops and not even “Jersey
Shore.” So the moral of the story: Slacking is for Slack State, not UCD.

JAMES
O’HARA is a hater by trade, and thus hates upon “Thanksgiving.” E-mail
jpohara@ucdavis.edu if you think giving thanks a fascist notion, or if you have
any interest in joining his conspiracy theory club.

Column: Davis cafés

Opinion

Opinion

November 24, 2010

As the winter season fast approaches in Davis, I set out in my imaginary car to find cafés and coffee shops that will take in a cold, miserable student such as myself. Of course, you already know of two popular coffee shops around town that many students go to – Starbucks, located in all four corners of Davis, and Peet’s Coffee & Tea, located downtown and in The Marketplace.

But come on, dear reader. There is more than one option out there. Besides, when else are you going to live in a small college town where everything is so conveniently accessible to you? That’s right, never. So get in my imaginary car, buckle up and listen to my rules before we embark on one of our last adventures together. Number one: my sedan isn’t a party bus. Number two: no complaining. And number three: you’re paying for my purchases since I’m paying for gas. Now let’s get started.

Cloud Forest Café, at 222 D St., offers great coffee and amazing paninis. Their staff is always friendly, and if you need a place that offers quick to-go service on your way to work in the morning, then this is the place for you. They also offer fresh juices that are a great way to start your morning. One of my dear readers started going here after the Cargo Coffee at King Hall burned down. Who ever said nothing good comes out of disasters?

Mishka’s Café is styled as an “Old World” café that serves coffee, pastries and other little treats. You’ll usually find Mishka’s full of students taking advantage of the WiFi, and it’s hard to find seating throughout the day. Right now, they are located at 514 Second St., but they plan to move next door to the Varsity Theater in January, where they’ll be housed in a two story building (more seating!).

Konditorei is an Austrian pastry café located on Fifth Street. The owner, born in Austria, comes from a long line of “master bakers” and decided to open shop in 1990. Their coffee and drinks are great, but it’s their pastries that keep people coming back. If you want a nice, relaxing place to eat breakfast or lunch, then you can just sit inside or outside on their patio if it’s a nice day.

Common Grounds is a coffee shop located in South Davis in the Safeway shopping center. They have comfy couches and armchairs you can sit in while relaxing or browsing on the Internet, or you can sit in one of their regular tables and chairs if you need to get down to business. They sell smoothies as well as your regular munch-able food like brownies, truffles, croissants, etc.

Our last stop will be Barista Brew Café, located on G Street. It’s a great place to pick up your coffee and breakfast munchies. They offer friendly service and a relaxed environment to study. It also has a flat-screen TV and a lot of seating for its customers.

Now for the food tip of the week! As winter approaches close behind you, so do all the people with their coughing and sneezing nonsense. Listen kids, we need to take better care of ourselves. Do you think it’s fun being sick when it’s cold and rainy outside while catching the G line in the morning and getting close with 100 other students, trying to stifle a cough when you can’t hold it in any longer? Well I’ve been there, I sounded phlegm-y and unattractive, and I probably passed my cold on to 10 other people. I don’t wish the same for you.

So during this horrible weather, be sure to include these big three into your meals: vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene. For vitamin C, drink your orange juice, eat some sweet potatoes, berries, cauliflower and grapefruit, and spritz your meals with limes or lemons. Vitamin E can be found in seeds, nuts, tomatoes, apples, kiwis, mangoes and other green veggies. Eat beta-carotene rich foods, such as red, orange and yellow fruits and veggies, such as carrots, peppers, pumpkins, mangos and papayas. Kale is also rich with both vitamin C and beta-carotene if you dare to eat it.

With these tips, I hope you get what you need for a cough-free winter! In other words, don’t let me catch you coughing or sniffling anywhere near me, or else I’ll shove your face in enough vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene that you won’t get sick for the next 10 years. I’ll do it with love, obviously.

JENNIFER RICHWOOD hopes everyone has a safe and fun Thanksgiving! She can be reached at jcrichwood@ucdavis.edu.

Men’s Basketball Preview

Sports

Sports Editor

November 24, 2010

Teams: UC Davis vs. Seattle

Records: Aggies, 1-4; Redhawks, 3-5

Where: The Pavilion

When: Saturday at 1 p.m.

Who to watch: Senior Todd Lowenthal has been a defensive catalyst for the Aggies.

The Poway, Calif. native is second on the Aggies in rebounds per game at 5.6. The guard is also by far the team leader in steals with 13. The next highest is at five.

Did you know? Earlier in the season, senior Mark Payne scored his 1,000th career point. Fellow senior Joe Harden will look to do the same on Saturday.

Harden is just 22 points away from reaching the millennia mark in career points.

Preview: Coach Gary Stewart wants consistent improvement.

In each of the last three seasons, UC Davis has improved its win total.

In 2007-2008, the Aggies won just nine games. In 2008-2009, it increased to 13. Last year, UC Davis came out on top in 14 matches.

Stewart is looking to this squad to continue the trend.

“The theme is return and advance,” Stewart said. “The charge again is to continue to move the program forward, trying to build on some of the successes that we had last year. We feel like if we can remain healthy, we have a golden opportunity to do that.”

If the Aggies want to make a late season charge, they’ll need to find a way to put more points on the board.

UC Davis has averaged just 60 points a game while giving up 67 points a game.

Nearly half of the points the Aggies score come from two players – Payne and Harden. The duo each average 14 points a game, with the next highest scorer Ryan Sypkens at 7.8 points per game.

UC Davis will also have to improve its turnover ratio. The Aggies have given the ball away 86 times on the year while taking the ball away just 70 times.

UC Davis took on Sacramento State last night. Results were not available by the time The California Aggie went to press.

– Jason Alpert

Aggie runner races into history books

Sports

Sports Editor

November 24, 2010

The word “great” is most often used to describe something of excellence worthy of being remembered. In sports, it implies a whole new level of performance.

Junior Jonathan Peterson is rapidly earning the right to receive the title.

On Monday, the recently named All-American made Aggie sports history when he outlasted over 200 participants to finish 14th at the Division I NCAA Cross Country National Championships in Terre Haute, Ind. Peterson, who finished the 10K race in 30:09.1, was the only UC Davis runner to qualify for the meet.

“What I had done didn’t really settle in until I saw my family,” Peterson said. “Then the emotions were really strong.”

Coach Drew Wartenburg was proud of Peterson’s performance. Wartenburg believes this could be a building block for future UC Davis runners.

“On performance alone he serves as a model [for the rest of the team],” Wartenburg said. “We had hoped to find an individual that could serve as the cornerstone to build the team upon.”

Peterson did not have a smooth ride en route to the history books. In his sophomore year, Peterson was used his redshirt due to an ankle injury.

“It was definitely a setback, but nothing I couldn’t get over. You just do what you can to get better,” he said.

Peterson said he felt gratified that he had achieved so much after a season-long injury.

The NCAA Championships were the last event for cross country this fall. Peterson’s isn’t done running, however. The Clovis, Calif. native will be competing in distance events for the track and field team in the spring.

“One begets the other, so [the two sports] feed upon themselves. Jon will continue to get better as he works at both sports,” Wartenburg said. “Our goal for all of our athletes is to have the best run of their careers the last time they suit up for an event with [the Aggies].”

Peterson also said that he isn’t done quite yet even after the incredible performance.

“I have completed everything I wanted on my career goals list,” Peterson said. “So all I can do now is make a new list.”

RON HOOPER can be reached at sports@theaggie.org.

Women’s Basketball Preview

Sports

Sports Editor

November 24, 2010

Teams: UC Davis vs. Yale; vs. South Carolina

Records: Aggies, 3-1; Bulldogs, 1-2; Gamecocks 2-2

Where: The Pavilion

When: Friday at 5 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m.

Who to watch: The outside shooting of junior Kasey Riecks will be key for the Aggies in their upcoming games.

The Auburn, Calif. native shot 50 percent from beyond the arc against Pepperdine last Friday and will be looking for more this week.

Riecks is averaging eight points-per-game, and leads the team with 11 steals this season.

Did you know? Sunday’s game against South Carolina will mark just the second time in program history UC Davis have faced an SEC opponent.

The Aggies’ only other game against an SEC team came in 2005 when the Aggies lost to Auburn 69-54.

Preview: The Aggies will be looking to get back to their winning ways this week following the first loss of the season last Sunday.

UC Davis will get its first opportunity when it faces off against Yale on Friday.

The Aggies were able to top the Bulldogs on the road last season.

Despite having the home court advantage, coach Sandy Simpson knows disposing of Yale will be no easy task.

“They’re very aggressive and physical,” he said. “They’re well coached and they’ll be well prepared. It’s never easy when you play against them.”

From there, the Aggies will move on and welcome South Carolina into the Pavilion.

Simpson believes the Gamecocks will present a challenge comparable to what the Aggies saw against No. 15 UCLA Sunday.

“They’ll be similar to what we saw this past weekend,” he said. “They’ll be athletic and aggressive. In a way they’re a perfect opponent, because this game will be a measuring stick to see how we progressed this week.”

Despite the tough opposition, Simpson believes the key to being successful in these games is simple: create scoring chances by dealing defensive pressure.

“We need to handle pressure,” he said. “If we can do that we’ll get scoring opportunities, and we’ll convert. We know our defense will be good, we just can’t afford to give up opportunities in transition.”

– Trevor Cramer

Geneticist harvests secrets of corn

Science & Technology

Science Editor

November 24, 2010

The first thing to greet a visitor to Jeff Ross-Ibarra’s office is the corn. Ross-Ibarra, a plant geneticist at UC Davis, keeps 50 or so dried corncobs on a shelf by the door, arrayed in a neat grid that stretches from wall to wall. But what’s more impressive than the quantity is the variety: there are long cobs, short ones, red, pink, black, white, pointy, smooth, pinecone-shaped and log-shaped ones, a popcorn cob and even some grassy stalks that look like weeds with tiny kernels buried in hard shells. And these stunningly diverse ears all belong to a single species. All of them, even the round black ear and the popcorn, could interbreed.

“Corn is charismatic,” Ross-Ibarra said. “Corn has crazy amounts of diversity. You can see the huge change between the wild ancestor and the modern variety – the wild one looks like a weed, and the modern one has these huge, soft, open kernels on big ears. The dramatic amount of morphological change is very compelling, and I’m interested in figuring out why it’s all there and what it does.”

For some traits, like the big, soft kernels and heavy ears of modern maize, the value to farmers is obvious. But Ross-Ibarra’s lab, using a novel statistical method, has discovered a slew of genes that have clearly been selected for – but no one knows why. These genes seem to have tagged along with more obviously valuable traits.

This method involves comparing the genomes of modern corn to corn’s weed-like wild ancestor, teosinte. Wherever there is a clear drop in diversity over time, there has probably been selection for the trait produced by that gene. Farmers weed out the many types of less-desirable corn and keep planting the varieties that produce “ideal” corn.

Ross-Ibarra’s comparative method is groundbreaking because it tackles the question of selection from the DNA on up. Typically, researchers have first looked at physical traits – big ears, branching of stalks, kernel color – and then worked backwards to isolate the genes responsible. Ross-Ibarra’s approach ignores traits entirely when looking for evidence of selection. This “blind” statistical method has allowed the lab to uncover genes that have been unconsciously selected by farmers, but that no one has ever noticed.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded Ross-Ibarra’s project with a grant for $150,000 in annual support for three years, and as a part of the application, Ross-Ibarra was nominated for and won the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

Why do corn genes matter so much? If the lab’s innovative approach to population genetics isn’t enough, there’s also the fact that corn is a hugely important crop, subsidized by the government to the tune of $2 billion to $10 billion a year since 1995. Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, wrote that the modern supermarket is basically made of corn: from the feed that the cattle and turkeys eat, to the flour, dyes and sweeteners in packaged foods, to the glossy shine on the magazine covers and even the linoleum and wallboard a building is made of.

Besides being an important industry, corn is a geneticist’s dream. It only has 10 chromosome pairs (compared to the 24 pairs in tomatoes and the 42 in wheat), and its offspring line up in tidy rows to be counted. It’s easy to see at a glance how many kernels carry each parent’s genes.

“I don’t know why more geneticists don’t study corn,” Ross-Ibarra said.

EMILY GOYINS can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

Column: Wild blue yonder

Science & Technology

Science Editor

November 24, 2010

One of my favorite stories about scientific mystery involves a flock of pigeons. Pigeon poop, to be exact.

Back in 1964, two scientists named Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were working in a New Jersey lab with a radio wave receiver. The huge receiver was shaped like a flared “horn,” and Penzias and Wilson hoped to use it to learn about the radiation emitted from stars and galaxies.

There was one problem. They could never get a clear sound from the receiver – there was always a faint hiss that wasn’t supposed to be there. They’d point the antennae at different points in the sky, but there was always a hiss. They thought maybe it came from nearby New York City, but that wasn’t it.

Penzias and Wilson knew there were some pigeons roosting in the horn. Ah ha! Pigeon poop could emit tiny amounts of radiation! But it wasn’t the poop.

“Poor Bob Wilson went in there and cleaned it out,” said Anthony Tyson, a professor of physics at UC Davis.

Tyson was working in that New Jersey lab when Penzias and Wilson detected the “hiss” of radiation. He was there when the two astronomers agonized over the mysterious noise.

“They threw their hands up and couldn’t figure it out,” Tyson said.

Meanwhile, just 25 miles away, scientists at Princeton were working on a theory. They thought maybe there was radiation left over from the burst of energy we call the Big Bang. This “background” radiation could have been ricocheting around since the birth of the universe.

If only they had a receiver strong enough to pick it up.

It took just one phone call between the labs for the Princeton folks to figure out what was going on with the mysterious hiss. It was what we now call “cosmic microwave background radiation.”

What started as annoying background noise was really a breakthrough. Scientists today will tell you that the universe is expanding. One reason they know this is because the energy in this background radiation is constantly spreading out to fill the newly available space.

Wilson and Penzias won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978, and their pigeon trap is now owned by the Smithsonian.

I love this story because it shows how we can never know what we don’t know. It sounds obvious. It sounds stupid. But while scientists are often pictured with charts and facts and figures, they also have to leave room for mystery.

Put simply, science is about asking “what is that?”

For cosmologists who came after Penzias and Wilson, the big question is dark matter.

Dark matter screws with gravity. We can’t see it, but it’s probably there. When scientists look at galaxies, they can see stars and planets pulled toward unseen objects, causing what Tyson called a “tell-tale distortion.”

It doesn’t make sense. The universal law of gravity shows that smaller particles are pulled toward more massive particles. So how can this mysterious matter be massive but invisible? By mass, there is actually more dark matter in our galaxy than stars or planets.

“Our galaxy is being held together by this energy,” Tyson said.

Then again, Tyson said, there might be no dark matter at all. Galaxies could be held together by “some funny kind of gravity” we haven’t figured out yet.

Tyson is currently working on the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a telescope that will take a picture of the sky every 15 seconds for 10 years.

The great thing about the LSST is that the scientists are expecting to be surprised. Somewhere in the pictures, there might be something confusing – the equivalent of Penzias and Wilson’s mysterious hiss. We’ll have more questions, more experimentation and maybe more answers.

Dark matter and background radiation have been bouncing around the universe for at least 13 billion years – ever since the Big Bang. We don’t know what else is out there.

“This is a gift from nature – the fact that we can actually look back billions of years,” Tyson said.

The trick is figuring out what to look for.

MADELINE McCURRY-SCHMIDT once got pooped on by a bird during a first date, so she understands why Penzias and Wilson were frustrated by those pigeons. Stupid birds. E-mail her at memschmidt@ucdavis.edu.

The civil war inside you

Science & Technology

Science Editor

November 24, 2010

Most people understand, or at least loosely grasp the idea of our brains’ functions in everyday life. The brain regulates our heartbeat, our breathing, pain and emotional responses and contains the genetic blueprint for our personalities – the “nature” that determines how “nurture” is interpreted.

However, most people are completely unaware of our brains’ roles in shaping our society and culture. The brains’ left and right hemispheres are constantly interacting to shape our perceptions of, and interactions with, the world.

Scientists know that the left hemisphere controls the right half of the body, and the right hemisphere controls the left half. This cross wiring does not make understanding its functions any easier. Added to that is a bundle of neural fibers called the corpus callosum that bridges the gap between the two hemispheres.

Of course, the distinction between hemispheres is not as clear-cut as left vs. right. Clifford Saron is an associate research scientist at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain (CMB), and he believes that the media and popular science have drastically oversimplified the brain’s systems.

“Our culture is interested in pre-existing dichotomies,” said Saron. “Like the devil and angel on our shoulders … there exists an inappropriate romance with left vs. right hemisphere function.”

He explained that this emphasis is due to research conducted on split-brained patients – patients who either had no corpus callosum or had their corpus callosums cut in order to fix severe epilepsy.

It could be argued that what makes us human is not our biology and genetics, but the cultural trademarks that unify us: music and language in particular. These emblems of humanity are the result of a continuing struggle for dominance between our left and right cerebral hemispheres. So far, the left hemisphere seems to have the upper hand, as demonstrated by the 90 to 93 percent of the population who are right-handed with left-brain dominance.

We can see the manifestations of this conflict every day in many languages. The French word for left, gauche, is the same as the word for bad, awkward and crude. In Italian, the word for left, mancino, denotes deceitfulness. In Anglo-Saxon, lyft meant worthless. In English, we have the phrase, “in his right mind,” to indicate sanity, “right-hand man” to indicate a trusted friend and the etymological origin of the word ambidextrous means “two right hands.” As popular science writer Carl Sagan said, “we have no bill of lefts.”

For Tamara Swaab, an associate professor of psychology here at UC Davis, the multilingual preference toward the right makes sense. According to Swaab, the right hemisphere is responsible for seeing the “big picture,” but it is the left hemisphere that is responsible for converting the associations made in the right hemisphere into written and spoken words.

The separation of hemispheric function becomes unclear when music is involved, and is muddled even further depending on whether you are listening to, or creating music.

“People with more expertise in music use the left brain more than the right,” said Stephen Luck, a professor of psychology and director of the CMB here at UCD.

He said that this is because the left hemisphere is responsible for creating patterns.

However, it is the right hemisphere that has been generally accepted as the source for music appreciation, and both hemispheres are required to differentiate pitch, tone and tempo. Since no one’s brain operates the same way, appreciation for music is as individual as the person listening to it.

The brain is the most complicated biological system known to man. Not even the most advanced computer systems can emulate the brain’s capabilities. Since the brain’s functions are an amalgamation of genetic “nature” and socialized “nurture,” it is likely that we will never be able to wrap our minds around the concept of the brain with any degree of certainty.

For neuroscientists, the puzzle of the mind is exciting. In Saron’s words, the complexity of the brain is “a total miracle to think about.”

HUDSON LOFCHIE can be reached at science@theaggie.org. Follow him on Twitter @HudtacularSci.

UC Davis reentry students head back to school

Features

Features Editor

November 24, 2010

For the majority of us, life takes on a series of stages in which high school is followed by college and then (hopefully) a job and (maybe) marriage. However, for some, life throws a few unexpected curve balls and that order gets a little mixed up.

Reentry students at UC Davis are undergraduates and graduates who are representative of this latter group. They consist of undergraduates who are 25 years or older, graduate students who are 30 years or older and any student who is a parent.

Altogether, they represent 7 percent of the UC Davis student population or about 3,400 students, with an average age of 34.

Shirley Sperry, the reentry student advisor, said many reentry students are in some sort of transition and are all over the board from empty nesters and divorcees to those who just got laid off or are changing careers or those who just never got a chance to go to college.

“They have families, they have jobs, they were bartenders or waitresses and a lot of students think they’re the professor,” Sperry said.

Reentry students span three or four generations, from all socioeconomic levels, and represent all ethnicities and cultures, she said.

“All this is the little microcosm we call reentry,” Sperry said.

But what are some of the issues that reentry students face when going to a school where the majority of the students are not old enough to rent a car? Turns out reentry students face some of the same worries but also deal with issues that are reflective of their age cohorts and experiences out in the real world.

On most Wednesday evenings, a group of reentry students meet at the break room in the Transfer, Reentry and Veterans (TRV) center at Dutton Hall. It is an unofficial support group in which reentry students gather, network, talk and bond over their similar circumstances.

Deloris Matthews, 48, a psychology major and mother of two, always knew that she would go to UC Davis.

“Whenever my husband and I would drive on our way to Sacramento, I pointed to [UC Davis] and was like ‘Look, there’s my school,” Matthews said.

Matthews, whose children are older and feels that her relationship with her husband is strong, felt that this was the perfect time to go back to school where she eventually would like to get her Marriage and Family Therapist license.

Being a mother, wife and college student all at once, she finds that her interactions with younger students are a little different but overall positive.

“I have some students who will flock to me – maybe because they’re homesick. Others don’t want me involved because they might not want me intruding on their college experience,” Matthews said.

Others in the group agreed that most reentry students are not looking for the same experiences as most undergraduates at a college campus.

Ebony Creswell, a reentry and transfer student from Diablo Valley College (DVC), switched majors several times before transferring to UC Davis at 25, eventually deciding on an anthropology major. Creswell is also pursuing a career in medicine.

Creswell finds it hard to make friends because of the difference in expectations on the college experience.

“Their biggest worry is what am I going to do this weekend. Mine is ‘okay, homework and then maybe go get some wings and a movie,'” Creswell said.

Sheryl Sensenig, an agricultural and environmental education major, agreed and said reentry students are looking for a different type of college experience – one that is perhaps more focused on a goal.

“I remember going into my geology classroom and seeing all these cell phones, Facebook on during class and just feeling that’s my pet peeve,” she said.

Sperry, a reentry student herself who came to UC Davis as an undergraduate at 47, agreed that because reentry students are often the ones who are paying for their own education, the attitudes are different.

“If a class is canceled most students will be excited but a reentry student will feel like, ‘I’m paying for this class and the professor cancels it,'” Sperry said.

As an advisor of reentry students for 12 years, Sperry witnessed the many obstacles that reentry students face outside of school including the issue of having to worry about childcare.

With most childcare services either too expensive or too short in length, some student parents drop off their children at the TRV center for Sperry and others to watch. Some have even brought their kids into the classroom, Sperry said.

Dan Lloyd, a paramedic for eight years before attending UC Davis to major in nutrition science, is a student parent with a one-year-old.

“The challenges are endless and hard to explain. I think the biggest one for me is that I am less motivated to not be home with my family then I was when I didn’t have a child,” Lloyd said in an e-mail interview.

However, through all the challenges that come with being a reentry student, they are worth it.

Creswell remembers feeling worried whenever she saw reentry students in her class as a younger student at DVC.

“[Reentry students] would set the curve because [they] work so damn hard. I’d resent them,” Creswell said.

Sperry finds that many reentry students do rise to leadership positions during their time on campus even while carrying on a full workload in and out of school.

“They want to prove to their daughter, son, children and families that education is a good thing and that they can do it,” Sperry said.

In the end, most reentry students feel very positive about their college experiences and their interactions and friendships with their younger peers.

Angie Lopez, 31 and a double major in Chicano/a studies and community regional development, feels that while most students on campus are younger she can still relate to them.

“They’re probably not as concerned as keeping their roots colored as I am, but they’re my peers,” Lopez said.

JESSY WEI can be reached at features@theaggie.org.

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