NEWS
News editorS: Emily Albrent and Katie Bast
Scanning the past
Connecting coasts Tesla Supercharger stations allow long-distance electric car travel Glen Olson staff writer
UW-Eau Claire researchers talk about findings in Israel Katy Macek staff writer
On Thursday afternoon the UW-Eau Claire Alumni Association’s Let’s Do Lunch series, a monthly lunch at Fanny Hill Restaurant in Eau Claire, hosted professor Harry Jol and his colleague Martin Goettl, who both work in the Geology department in Eau Claire, as well as Tom Gugel, a sophomore nursing major at Eau Claire. Jol has been doing research at an excavation site in Bethsaida, Israel and Goettl has been aiding him in the geospatial data aspects of the research. “We use a system called Ground Penetrating Radar and that uses FM radio waves,”Jol said. “We put that into the ground and we can image the subsurface in a non-destructive, non-evasive way.” Basically, they use this technology to collect images below the surface and find the best areas to dig without actually interrupting the land. “We provide the background and the JOL archaeologists make the decisions,” Jol said. “We can help show them the places and they decide where to dig.” Though Goettl has not actually been to Israel himself, he uses the geospatial data and Unmanned Ariel System imagery to create one mosaic of the whole site. “Instead of just trying to explain where it is, these types of geospatial activities allow them to sit down and view an up-to-date image of where they might want to dig or where they have been digging or where they plan to,” Goettl said. One aspect of this technology is that with the use of a point cloud generation system, they could potentially create a 3D image of the site, making it more accessible to anyone who wants to be involved. “They can use that for promotion, for being able to have people walk through it in a visual sense,” Goettl said. “The people that can’t exactly go there can potentially have 3D visual tours of it.” With the use of this technology they have discovered older cities underground, Jol said, including a road, bodies and an Egyptian scarab, which furthers research questions about the area. This summer, Jol plans to hold a VIP tour, in which participants would get to see the sites they have done research at in addition to the major sites of Israel. While Gugel was not part of the research, he was born in Ukraine but moved to Israel in the 1990s. His portion of the presentation included what it is like to be from Israel, and he was available to answer questions about traveling to the country. “Every time we talk to someone about Israel, the first thing that comes up is like, ‘Is there war there?’” Gugel said. “No, there’s no war there. There is conflict, and there are security issues like in every other country in the world. We’re trying to work towards a more peaceful region.” In reality, Gugel said that Israel is the best of both worlds. “You can experience the ancient history on one side, and
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CULTURE COLLAGE: After combining all the images together, Martin Goettl created a mosaic of the Bethsaida excavation site, making it easier to see the area.
then on the other side you can experience the modern and the thriving life that every American youth can experience here,” Gugel said. He also said he hopes to return to his homeland this summer, and even if he isn’t a part of the tour Jol does, he can catch up with them while they are in Israel. As for other upcoming projects, Jol said he hopes for opportunities through other universities in Israel in doing follow-up work and some potential coastal work, which is his area of expertise. “There’s always potential, it is a matter of fitting those together in both their schedules and my own,” Jol said. “And funding. Funding is always the key to all of this.”
Macek can be reached at macekkn@uwec.edu or @KatherineMacek.
Read the interview online this week at spectatornews.com!
Tesla Motors, a California-based electric car company, just installed a new Supercharger station in Eau Claire. The station is located off I-94 behind Noodles and Co. and Panera Bread on Keystone Crossing. A charging time of 30 minutes can give a driver 170 miles worth of battery life. Using the station is free, but only works for Tesla Model S cars. The chargers deliver a higher wattage while charging, which makes them much more efficient for drivers than most public chargers, or high wattage outlets, which would give about 15 miles for the same 30 minutes of charging. Ashley Vaness, a sales representative at the Tesla dealership in Eden Prairie, Minn., said the emphasis for the company is allowing longer trips for their drivers. “They’re installed
on major routes for convenience,” Vaness said, “because that’s where people are already going.” According to Tesla’s website, the company has installed 71 Supercharger stations throughout North America so far, enabling cross-country travel in the United States along certain routes. The company has plans to increase the amount of stations to 80 percent of the populated areas in the U.S. in 2014, and 98 percent in 2015. The company says they position the charging stations near food and shopping for the benefit of their drivers. Emy Polodna, General Manager of Noodles and Co., said they were told about the station a few weeks after they had started building it and that they hadn’t seen anyone using it. She didn’t know if people would pull off the interstate that often to charge their cars, but if they did, it
would be nice for the businesses. “I hope they do come in to the businesses,” Polodna said, “since they have to wait there anyway.” There are currently Supercharger stations in La Crosse, Madison, and Mauston. According to consumerreports.org, the ability for Tesla drivers to travel longer distances sets the brand apart from other electric cars, which have about half or a quarter as long of the range of the Tesla Model S’s 240 miles. Vaness said that makes all the difference for their car owners, because they don’t have to choose between driving an electric car and traveling. “The Superchargers work with all Tesla Model S, so cross-country travel is possible,” Vaness said, “and it’s free.”
Olson can be reached at olsongp@uwec.edu or @ GlenPOlson.
WEBSITE/ Healclick.com helps create
communities of chronically ill people Tuan partnered with Cari Allshouse, and together they founded HealClick.com. The confidential website is designed for patients diagnosed with a chronic illness to turn to. It allows people to look for treatments that worked for others with their similar symptoms. “After I got better, I set two goals: to help patients share treatment experience in a smarter way and then turn all these experiences into medical research,” Tuan said. Users can make an account on the website and list what diseases they have and the symptoms they have experienced. From there, users can post on a treatment board, participate in group chats and talk to people who have the same diseases and symptoms.
“We take pride in offering a different patient experience,” Tuan said. “Warm, user-friendly and personalized are all experiences that we had trouble finding on other websites.” HealClick is a project the co-founders had been working on for a couple of years. The team went full force last year to finish the project. When the website launched on Jan. 14, it had about 900 users. This past week the site had more than 1,900 users with more than 1,400 treatment reviews. “It’s a website made by patients for patients,” Korinek said. Roszak can be reached at roszakcm@ uwec.edu or @CRoszak22.