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Heading into the ‘Green Zone’ How different is the movie starring Matt Damon from the book that inspired it?
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WILDLIFE
Arizona Daily Wildcat
The independent student voice of the University of Arizona since 1899 friday, april , dailywildcat.com
tucson, arizona
Flandrau Center to reopen Helping
divided families
By Luke Money ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
On Saturday, after a nine-month hiatus, the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium will once again open its doors to the public full time. “Time-wise, I think it just worked,” said Hassan Hijazi, the director of external affairs for Biosphere 2. “We can use the remainder of the semester and the summer in order to develop programs and make sure the public know we’re open again.” The center was forced to close last June after 33 years of serving the Tucson and university community due to ongoing state budget cuts but will reopen in all capacities, including hosting regular planetarium shows, housing hands-on exhibits and demonstrations, as well as allowing visitors to use their 16inch public viewing telescope, the largest telescope open to the public in southern Arizona. “I think this is a very important place and our community understands how important it is,”said Joaquin Ruiz, dean of the UA College of Science.“At this university we’re lucky enough to have enormous assets to spread scientific knowledge and this place is one of those assets.” Earlier this year, the UA College of Science was charged with running the Flandrau Science Center and all of its subsidiaries on campus, including the planetarium. The College of Science was able to reopen Flandrau by leveraging funds from the Biosphere 2, which the College of Science also took control of this year. “Philanthropy is making this happen,”Ruiz said.“This is an example of what philanthropy can do.” The reorganization is partly for financial reasons, but, as Dean Ruiz says, there were equally numerous academic reasons for the reorganization. Flandrau’s new role will be to serve as an on-campus nerve center for the university’s off-campus scientific outreach programs, including both the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter and the Biosphere 2. “Flandrau will now be able to serve as a portal we can use to send people out to our off-campus assets,” Ruiz said.“But it can also serve as a magnet to draw people in and attract them to what we have to offer.” Ruiz stressed that, even though Flandrau is reopening, there are ongoing discussions for reorganizing and renovating the center. “Flandrau is certainly not as exquisite as it will be in the fall,”
DNA tests to bring those separated in Holocaust together By Luke Money ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Valentina Martinelli/Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA College of Science Dean Joaquin Ruiz stands inside the Flandrau Science Center, which will reopen on Saturday for the first time since it closed in June.
Ruiz said, “but we’re working on getting it ready.” Beginning Saturday, the planetarium will be open every day of the week, offering a variety of planetarium shows as well as access to its current mineral show, entitled “Treasures of
Threats limit creativity By Jennifer Koehmstedt ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT Early this semester, the UA Creative Writing program sent an e-mail to creative writing instructors stating that students who submit inappropriate work should be disciplined. The e-mail, sent out on Feb. 5 to all 200-level creative writing instructors, discussed information regarding the beginning of the semester, such as administrative drops. The second item in the e-mail pertained solely to student work. “If you receive any student work that seems inappropriate to you — graphic sex or violence, material that could be construed as representing others in the classroom — you should discuss this with me,” said Aurelie Sheehan, Director of the Creative Writing program, in the e-mail. “Inappropriate work should not be brought to workshop and the student should be disciplined appropriately, based on the severity of the problem.” Prior to this e-mail, a student was disciplined by the dean of the College of Humanities for submitting an English paper in a workshop class, which inappropriately referenced the WRITING, page 3
the Queen,” which features rare gems found in and around the Arizona town of Bisbee. “I hope there’s a mob there, I hope there’s excitement” Ruiz said. “Excitement from the community is what makes us do things like this.”
EVERYONE HAS A STORY
For more details on program offerings, please visit the Flandrau Web site at www.flandrau.org
Families separated by the Holocaust may soon be able to reunite, thanks to the unique services of the UA’s DNA Shoah Project. The project, whose name comes from a Hebrew word for “holocaust,” has been creating a database of genetic material collected from Holocaust survivors and their descendants with the hope of reuniting families divided by the Holocaust. “It’s something where time is of the essence,” said Matt Kaplan, project lead and a UA associate staff scientist in ecology and evolutionary biology at the Arizona Research Laboratories. “The closest we can get to the original generation of survivors, the more accuracy we can assure and the more useful it is.” The DNA Shoah Project has been mailing self-administered DNA tests to interested participants around the world since 2006. The test is in the form of a cheek swab, and can be safely and quickly administered at home. The project now boasts a database of more than 1,500 samples. Those involved with the project expect the database to grow significantly as the first wave of test results come in and word of the service spreads. “Primarily this is a personto-person contact process,” Kaplan said. “We don’t ask people for credentials or anything like that. If people have a family connection to the Holocaust, we will explain the process to them and determine if they are good candidates.” Sample testing began this year, with results to follow soon after for those who applied. “As far as we know, this is a unique service,” said Lynn Davis, an information specialist at the Arizona Research Laboratories. “For people who have exhausted the paper trail we offer something truly special.”
Jessica Hahn
Plans poker tournament for sister’s new kidney
By Laura E. Donovan ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT “Everyone has a story” is a weekly segment in the Arizona Daily Wildcat that aims to tell the story of an interesting person on the UA campus. This week, the Daily Wildcat interviewed Jessica Hahn, a journalism senior whose 23-year-old sister Kristin was diagnosed with kidney failure in August 2008. The family will be holding a fundraiser to raise money for Kristin ’s kidney transplant. Doctors have no idea how or why Kristin Hahn’s kidneys failed. “What was odd about my sister Kristin’s situation was that this sickness doesn’t run in our family at all,” Jessica Hahn said. While doctors were operating on her ankle, they noticed gout, a buildup of uric acid in the blood that crystallizes in the joints of the feet. Gout is also a sign of underlying kidney issues, so Kristin Hahn was tested for and subsequently diagnosed with kidney failure. Kristin Hahn has been waiting for a kidney transplant since August 2008 to no avail. “I’ve asked her what her kidney failure is like, and she says it hasn’t changed her very much,” said Jessica Hahn. “She’s fighting, working a fullAlan Walsh/Arizona Daily Wildcat time job at Walgreens.” Jessica Hahn, a journalism senior, relates the hardships her sister Kristin Hahn faced with kidney failure and Though Kristin Hahn’s kidneys are only about Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, and how she supports her sister through her illness. 13-percent functional, she tries to live as if she Kristin Hahn must maintain a diet low in high in iron, and one of the side effects it gave Kristin doesn’t have any health problems. “She should be bedbound, but she’s up, going potassium and dairy. She’s also on several was Stevens-Johnson Syndrome,”said Jessica Hahn. Stevens-Johnson Syndrome is a life-threatening to work every day, going to parties, playing with medications and takes shots every month. Life isn’t always easy for the Hahn family. my one-year-old son. She’s your average 23-yearKIDNEY, page 3 “One day, she was taking a medication that was old with a minor side effect,” said Jessica Hahn.
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