ARIZONA SUMMER
WILDCAT
A look at the Tucson hipster culture - 9
MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 2014
Committee of running backs ready to work - 12
VOLUME 107 • ISSUE161
DAILYWILDCAT.COM
Printing the news, sounding the alarm, and raising hell since 1899
Doug Ducey visits Southern AZ - 2
AZ's first bitcoin ATM comes to Tucson - 20
FIJI loses house, charter on the rocks
WEARING WHITE
BY HANNAH PLOTKIN
Arizona Summer Wildcat
than nine billion by 2050. It also suggests that much of the population will live in areas of food scarcity. Wing and his team of researchers, along with other scientists, have pondered how to grow enough food to feed the world’s population and prevent the host of health and socioeconomic problems correlated with hunger and lack of proper nutrition. Wing and his team are no strangers to this field of research. His group previously developed physical maps for Asian rice that were donated to the Rice Genome Annotation Project. The research
The FIJI fraternity house, located on First Street, previously occupied by the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, is being converted into a residence hall that will be known as Rawls/Eller Lodge and will house 64 UA students beginning the upcoming fall semester. The UA FIJI chapter is being closed until international leaders have decided whether or not to officially revoke the fraternity’s charter, Bill Martin, executive director of Phi Gamma Delta, told local news outlets on Tuesday. Johanne Ives, director of Fraternity and Sorority Programs, said that FIJI’s interim suspension status has not changed with the UA. There has been no announcement yet from the international office of a final decision regarding FIJI’s status. The corporation that is financially responsible for the house most likely decided to partner with UA Residence Life, rather than the UA chapter of FIJI, to ensure the house would be occupied in the upcoming year, Ives said. “Even if the university chooses to change that interim action from suspension … [the corporation is] not interested in moving forward with this current group of collegiate members that was going to move into the house,” Ives said. Jennifer Hiatt, executive director of UA Residence Life, said that Residence Life has been in talks with FIJI for the past few weeks about converting the house into a residence hall after the fraternity was placed under interim suspension. Hiatt said the ongoing investigation is related to the fraternity’s choice to leave
GENOME, 7
FIJI, 4
Read this story inside: 6 SAVANNAH DOUGLAS/ARIZONA SUMMER WILDCAT
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA COLLEGE OF MEDICINE Tucson's 21st annual White Coat Ceremony was held in Centennial Hall on Friday. Following the recessional, the new students gathered outside to take a group photograph.
Rice genome project aims to feed BY EMILEE HOOPES
Arizona Summer Wildcat
An international team of researchers led by the UA has sequenced the complete genome of African rice. The genetic information produced will allow scientists to further understand the growing patterns of the species, as well as to create new rice varieties that will withstand environmental stressors and ultimately help eliminate global hunger challenges. Rod Wing, director of the Arizona Genomics Institute and member of the UA’s BIO5 Institute, helped lead the cause.
Wing’s research group specializes in developing “physical maps,” or tools that provide scientists and agriculturalists the knowledge to understand the structure of the genome. According to Wing, rice will play a key role in helping solve the “nine billion people question.” “Rice feeds half of the world, and it’s half of the world that is going to double in 20 or 30 years,” Wing said when asked about the inspiration behind his biology project. “The nine billion people question” consists of predictions suggesting the world’s population will increase to more