DAILY LOBO new mexico
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January 16, 2013
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
UNM upbeat about Legislative session
wednesday
SKATING IN SNEAKERS
New legislators may help pass bills resolving the Lottery Scholarship shortfall, tax credit for hiring grad students by John Tyczowski news@dailylobo.com
New members in the Legislature may mean this year’s session will end in UNM’s favor. This year’s Legislature has the largest freshman group in two decades, with nearly 35 new senators and representatives participating in this session, said Marc Saavedra, UNM’s director of government relations. It is possible some of them will be more sympathetic to UNM’s legislative requests, including to measures to ensure the future of the New Mexico Lottery Legislative Success Scholarship, he said. “We’re off to a good start this session,” he said. UNM is pushing for legislation that would keep the Lottery Scholarship fund from running out. If nothing changes, its funding will run dry by July of this year.
Saavedra said a bill to save the Lottery Scholarship has been in the works for the past four years. The amount of money the bill required to keep the scholarship afloat had stopped its passage, he said. But for this legislative session, which started Tuesday, he’s confident the bill will pass because they’re using different tactics and the pressure is on. “It’s like the recent fiscal cliff situation in Washington,” he said. “Sometimes a crisis deadline has a way of pulling things together.” UNM is also advocating for legislation that gives incentives for graduate and professional students to work in New Mexico after graduation, Saavedra said. Specifically, it’s pushing for tax credits to businesses that hire these in-state students. The same bill made it to the last day of the session in 2012, and was poised to pass but never went to a vote, he said.
Aaron Sweet / Daily Lobo Joshua Hinte, a UNM art studio major, and Fiona Featherston, a dance major, took a break between classes to tempt fate by strolling along the frozen surface of the Duck Pond, leaving behind a couple of snow angels and icy footprints. For the past five days, Albuquerque has experienced temperatures close to zero degrees Fahrenheit.
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UNM team finds water in Martian rock Illegal
downloads run risk of lawsuit
by Ardee Napolitano news@dailylobo.com
Alien life may not be just a filmmaker’s fantasy anymore, as UNM scientists have discovered rich water content in a Martian meteorite. UNM Institute of Meteoritics director Carl Agee said the meteorite, which he first received in August 2011, contained 10 times the normal amount of water in Martian meteorites. Although this does not prove the existence of life on the red planet, he said the amount of water in the rock makes it more feasible for Martian organisms to exist. “It doesn’t say anything directly about (life on Mars) because we haven’t found life directly from the meteorite,” he said. “But in order for life to exist, you have to have water.” Nonetheless, Agee said he is optimistic that life exists on Mars. “There’s a possibility that Martian life, if it did ever exist, has gone underground or is near a volcanic area,” he said. “But we’re still dealing with a lot of ignorance about it. We need to look at more. Ultimately, the human species is going to go out there and visit Mars.” Agee said the meteorite was first found by a Bedouin meteorite hunter in the Sahara Desert in 2011, who then sold it to a Moroccan meteorite dealer. An American meteorite collector then bought it from the dealer, but was uncertain
Inside the
Daily Lobo volume 117
issue 81
UNM warns users of campus Wi-Fi
by Ardee Napolitano news@dailylobo.com
Courtesy photo A Bedouin meteorite hunter found a water-rich Martian meteorite in the Sahara desert in 2011, and it is now in UNM’s possession. The 2.1 billion-year-old meteorite has 10 times the water content of a typical Martian meteorite, which may indicate life existed on Mars when the specimen formed. about the type of the meteorite, so he gave it to Agee to be examined. “It took me about a month to open the package and actually work on it because it was so unusual, and it was so different than anything that I’ve ever
seen,” Agee said. After spending a month doing preliminary research with the meteorite, Agee assembled a team of 16 researchers from the University of California at San Diego and the Carnegie Institute in Washing-
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ton, D.C. The team published their findings earlier this month. Although the meteorite resembles the Martian surface rocks the NASA rover Curiosity is studying, Agee said it has a
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Those using UNM Wi-Fi for illegal downloading may face legal action. In an email dated Dec. 7, 2012, UNM Student Affairs stated there has been a recent increase in illegal downloading cases on campus. According to the letter, UNM has received complaints from companies such as the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America that “individual users of the University’s Internet system are engaged in illegal file sharing.” Student Affairs Vice President Eliseo “Cheo” Torres said that this is the second consecutive year they have had to send the letter to the University community. This time, companies are threatening to sue particular individuals who partake in illegal
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