SPORTS — 6
THE PRESSURE IS ON FOR ARIZONA’S D-LINE
ARE YOU “THAT GUY” IN CLASS? PERSPECTIVES — 4
DAILY WILDCAT
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SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA SINCE 1899
New frats strive to defy stereotypes ASUA officer leads the way for Alpha Sigma Phi to “better the man” By Eliza Molk DAILY WILDCAT
As a senior, ASUA Executive Vice President Bryan Ponton never thought he would be joining a fraternity, let alone become a founding father of one. “My friends laugh when I tell them I’m doing this, but it felt right,” he said. “I’m leaving the university in May. Now I have something to come back to.” Geoff McDonald, the coordinator of chapter and colony development
for Alpha Sigma Phi national fraternity, initially approached Ponton over the summer to ask if he could suggest viable recruits for the new fraternity. At the time, McDonald did not realize Ponton was a student, and once he did, he persuaded Ponton to join. Ponton explained that although he signed up for fraternity rush his freshman year, he didn’t end up going through the rush process because it was “not his scene.” McDonald explained to him that he wanted to recruit a group of gentlemen who wanted something different from Greek Life — “to better the man,” which is the fraternity’s motto. Ponton said that becoming a founding father of the fraternity, which left
the UA in 1967 and will come back this year, means he can “set the standard” for how the organization will run in years to come while changing the negative stereotype fraternities often have. “I want people to see how different we are going to be in the fraternity game, and that people will want to join that,” he added. For Theta Chi President Isaac Figueroa, a senior studying political science and philosophy, being a founding father of his fraternity last spring meant becoming a leader. “It allowed me to really prove who I am and show what kind of character
JUNI NELSON / DAILY WILDCAT
Journalism senior Bryan Ponton (left) and physiology sophmore Aaron Tatad (right) FRATERNITY, 3 are two of the 31 founding fathers for Alpha Sigma Phi.
3 West Nile virus cases confirmed
Q&A
By Michelle A. Weiss DAILY WILDCAT
IMAGE COURTESY OF FLOATINGSHEEP.ORG
UA graduate student Monica Stephens helped create this map, which shows the price of high-quality marijuana per ounce throughout the country.
Marijuana nationwide: UA student maps prices By Brenna Goth DAILY WILDCAT
Monica Stephens, a Ph.D. candidate in the UA School of Geography and Development, created a map showing the retail price of marijuana throughout the country. Stephens went to the University of Kentucky in January to research and work with the founder of FloatingSheep, an organization looking at digital space and data in every day life. Stephens and other FloatingSheep colleagues started the map in April and have continued to work on the graphic design and accompanying article. The map was featured in Wired magazine. Daily Wildcat: What conclusions can you draw from the map? Monica Stephens: We statistically proved that the strongest influence on marijuana pricing is based on the medical marijuana program in the state. Criminal penalties had very little effect. There seems to be some kind of public acceptance created through medical marijuana programs. We also had some joke conclusions, like the map kind of replicates it’s more expensive in more obese states. In areas where marijuana is normalized like Humbolt County and Appalachia where it’s a strong part of economy, it’s actually cheapest.
What was the methodology used to creHow did the idea for a marijuana map ate the map? originate? Last fall I was teaching a UA Geography 416a computer cartography course. I talk about crowd sourcing and I’ll show this map from a website called priceofweed.com where they crowd source all the data. My colleagues from FloatingSheep, Matt (Zook) and Mark (Graham) and I, were talking about site. At that time we realized the data was totally open, so we harvested all of the data. We sent an email telling them we wanted to map it all. They replied and said, “That sounds great,” and sent us all of their data. We had all of the records that were ever submitted. This is a way we can study underground economies which are unstudyable otherwise. In another study it’d be more localized and a small sample size. I thought this would be a blog post. I had no idea it’d be much bigger.
(Priceofweed.com users anonymously submit the location, the price paid, quantity they purchased and the quality of the marijuana). The site has existed about a year or less than a year. There were about 16,700 records. Through data cleaning we reduced it to 14,000 and cleaned further to 12,000. When running statistics we look at the state level. There are interesting dynamics at the local level and diverse topographies of this. There’s no price setting at a larger level. The price in California doesn’t influence price in Georgia necessarily. Statistics are all based on the level of high-quality weed. Are there any other underground economies you are looking to study?
We do a lot of economic geographies of What’s the benefit of studying undercyberspace. I’ve been doing a lot recently ground economies? on where busted meth labs are. It’s based They exist, and they aren’t studied. We on what data is out there, easy to collect make all of these assumptions about them. In some cases, they can be 12 to 40 percent and relevant to collect. Things like human of the economy and yet we know nothing trafficking and migration is much harder to study than marijuana pricing. about them.
Spray on your bug repellent. September and November are when mosquitoes are the most active in Tucson — and with that comes the possible threat of West Nile virus. Within the past couple of weeks, there have been three confirmed cases of West Nile virus in Pima County, according to a Pima County Health Department press release. Though the specifics of those cases cannot be revealed, symptoms of the individuals did vary and they were all adults, said Aaron Pacheco, a Pima County Health Department spokesman. “Most people that get West Nile virus don’t know that they ever got it,” Pacheco said. “They’ll have no symptoms at all.” Some people, however, may have symptoms such as a fever, headache, tiredness, and a skin rash or swelling of the lymph nodes, he said. The severity of the symptoms depends on the person. “It’s worse in AMY WEBB / DAILY WILDCAT cases of people that have weak- An Ades Egypt mosquito in the laboratoened immune ry of Michael Riehle, associate professor systems,”Pacheco of entomology. The native Tucson mosquito does not carry the West Nile virus. said. People who have diabetes, heart disease, cancer or other health concerns are more susceptible to experiencing severe symptoms, he said. One out of 150 people who have West Nile virus will develop more serious diseases and could end up in the hospital, according to the press release. A more serious case of the virus would be considered neuroinvasive. “Neuroinvasive is when the infection and the inflammatory immune reaction enter the central nervous system,” Pacheco said. In other words, the brain knows the infection has occurred. The damage can cause paralysis, confusion, poor motor skills or meningitis, which impairs the nerves of the brain tissue, he said. The virus is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes that have bitten birds infected with West Nile, Pacheco said. Entomologists at the UA have been working to
VIRUS, 3
Info If you see large populations of mosquitoes around campus, call UA Facilities Management, (520) 621-3000.