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‘IT’S OUT OF LOVE’
Despite challenging major, junior Wes Kipley finds time to play the game he grew up on
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Infant black hole discovery
UA astronomers unlock mysteries of early universe By Luke Money ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
UA astronomers have discovered what appear to be the two most primitive supermassive black holes in the early universe. The black holes, uncovered with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, could help scientists understand how black holes form and evolve and how the process relates to the evolution of galaxies and the universe. “Black holes are one of the most fascinating predictions of Einstein’s theory of general relativity,” said Xiaohui Fan, a professor of astronomy at the Steward Observatory. “They are so massive and dense that light can’t escape. These objects provide us important tools to understand the laws of gravity and to probe the evolution of galaxies and evolution of the universe in general.” Linhua Jiang, a postdoctoral astronomy student and research associate at the Steward Observatory, worked with Fan on BLACK HOLE, page 3
Photo Illustration by Valentina Martinelli/Arizona Daily Wildcat
Nasser Peyghambarian, an optical sciences professor, is part of research on the future of 3-D technology which will allow the viewer to not wear glasses to see images jumping out at them.
UA researchers seek 3-D technology without 3-D glasses By Laura E. Donovan ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT Thanks to two UA professors and a number of other researchers, you may be able to watch“Avatar”and other 3-D films with your naked eye in the near future. Leading researcher and professor Nasser Peyghambarian, and assistant research scientist Pierre Blanche are in the process of trying to develop technology that will not require audiences to wear special glasses to watch 3-D films. “It’s a project to make a threedimensional display that wouldn’t require any eyeglasses,”Peyghambarian said. “So if you go, for example, to see
Avatar, you can see that it’s in 3-D, but you need to have eyeglasses. In this case, it would be eyeglass free, so we are working on that aspect of it and also hopefully a better quality with more perspectives than what you see in the movie.” The project uses a plastic material used to make the 3-D display and allows the researchers to do a holographic display. “We wanted to see if it could be done,” Blanche said of the endeavor. “It’s a fantastic project, I’ve loved working on it.” Peyghambarian and Blanche started this research because 3-D has become an important requirement in many applications in recent years,
Peyghambarian said. “There was no technology to allow one to have (3-D) without the eyeglasses, and also, the applications such as tele-presence and conferencing is growing with the Internet becoming more important with everyday life, and it looked like 3-D would be the way of the future, and I think it is,” Peyghambarian said. Peyghambarian believes this research could take a decade or less to reach people’s homes. “Ten years is a good number, but it may be faster. Technology is going so fast it wouldn’t surprise me if you had 3-D displays in your house sooner than that,”Peyghambarian said.
For experimentation, Blanche and Peyghambarian have developed a new photorefractive polymer material that allows them to record, erase and replace 3-D images. This process leads to a series of images that deliver threedimensional action, which can be observed without special eyewear. “We are trying to go faster to achieve a rate where you see the image moving,” Blanche said of the material. “In the first display, we can print an image and, every two hours, print another one,” he added. “Then we wondered how fast we could go with the images.” 3-D, page 3
Footprints challenge theory of evolution By Maura Shea ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT As technology continues to advance, so does our understanding of human evolution. Research by UA assistant anthropology professor David Raichlen and his colleagues provide evidence suggesting that 3.6 billion years ago, hominins walked with the same upright gait that humans do today. This challenge of human evolution was created when a trail of fossil footprints conserved in volcanic ash from 3.6 billion years ago was discovered in Tanzania more 30 years ago. In order to determine the significance of the footprints, Raichlen and
his team designed experiments specifically for these footprints. Among Raichlen’s team was Adam Foster, an anthropology graduate student at the UA. Foster explained that this experiment required the team to build a sand trackway resembling the one found in Tanzania. Human subjects were then asked to walk across this track-way with both an erect gait and a crouched gait, similar to one of a chimpanzee. Researchers found that the footprints made by the erect, modern-day gait was the most closely related to the footprint found in Tanzania. But what does this mean for the UA and the anthropology department? “Every faculty output improves the
stature of the university. My research will not do more than that. Everyone contributes to the university as a whole,” Raichlen said. “Everything happens in small steps. This project will lead to many more questions and research. My lab has contributed to research (on) how we came to be and how evolution occurred.” This experiment did not only benefit the UA but will also benefit undergraduate students by offering a rewarding experience. Stephanie Reyes, a biology and anthropology senior, said,“It was very rewarding to get hands-on experience in with this type of project in college.” Foster agrees: “Students can now see that there is exiting research being done
here at the UA and may be able to take part of as an honors student researching their thesis or for educational benefits.” UA student Cody Crocker thought these results might have an impact on his academic career. “As an undecided major here at the UA, I have yet to decide what interests me academically. The discovery that our human ancestors were also bipedal has me intrigued in anthropology. I now aspire to do similar research to discover more history about our ancestors,”Crocker said. The result from this research was published in last Monday’s addition of PLoS ONE, a journal from the Public Library of Science.
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UA alum publishes book on Iraq war By Alexandra Newman ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Luke Larson, a UA alumnus, released his first novel, “Senator’s Son: An Iraq War Novel” about his experiences as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps. Larson, 28, attended the UA on a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps Scholarship. He graduated with honors and was awarded the captain hardest Mameluke sword, which is given to the top Marine graduate in the UA’s NROTC program. He majored in journalism before heading into the Marine Corps for four years. He served two tours of duty in Iraq during his time in the Marines. His first tour, he said, was very kinetic and involved a lot of fighting. “I wanted to put it down on paper so other military officers could hopefully learn from those experiences and not make the same mistakes that we did,” Larson said. Larson spent four months writing the first draft of his historical fiction novel and spent two years revising and editing it before getting it published. “I really enjoy writing, I always wrote, and that’s what kind of led me to write the book,” he said. IRAQ, page 5
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