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M O N DA Y, M A R C H 2 5 , 2 013
W W W.O U DA I LY.C O M
L&A: ‘Bates Motel’ is intense enough to make you psycho (Page 6)
2 011 S I LV E R C R O W N W I N N E R
sOONErs BOUNCED
sports: OU eliminated from tourney (page 8)
raCE aND EtHNiCitY
OUDaily.com: ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ will combat your sense of safety
HEaltH
spots open for may race forum Student recalls Long-held conference still seeing rise in attendance KORTEZA ADAMS
For the Oklahoma Daily
Sooners have until Friday to complete early bird registration for OU’s National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education this May. The conference has taken place for
26 years and will be held from May 28 to June 1 in New Orleans, La., said Justin Lincks, an OU program coordinator for the Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies, which launched the conference. “This conference excites me because we address a wide range of issues,” Lincks said. It’s different from other conferences because it is an open forum, Lincks said. Instead of the government
choosing the topics, the attendees pick what they want to hear. Anyone interested in race or ethnicity is encouraged to attend, Lincks said. “Students, faculty, advisors, anyone is welcome. We have a very dynamic group of people every year,” Lincks said. The conference is expected to see a rise in attendance and hasn’t seen a decline since a recession in 2008, Lincks said.
seizure, related mental states Chris Johnson: Every seizure is a chance to feel lucky, thankful to be alive NADIA J. ENCHASSI
“I’ve never been more scared in my life,” Johnson On the way to class, said. Chr is Johns on tasted A seizures is a sudden copper in his mouth. He surge of electrical activity in was sweating and breath- the brain that affects how a ing abnormally. He had person acts or behaves for felt a little off all day and an amount of time, accordstruggled to keep him- ing to the epilepsy website. self together. It had been In some cases, people pass a full 24 hours since he’d out. In other cases, they just run out of his feel abnormal. “My medication. Most seizures last Before he classmates, a few seconds to even had time a few minutes, professor to get conaccording to cerned, he the Centers for and the blacked out. Control paramedics Disease Johnson exand Prevention were all so website. perienced a seizure around This time, like responsive 5 p.m. on the last times, and We d n e s d ay , Jo h n s o n w o ke March 6 comforting.” up. His tongue during a social hurt and was ChrIs JOhnsOn, movements bleeding. He had c o u r s e i n GrADUAte stUDent sensitive spots Copeland Hall, all over his body room 244. Emergency ve- that would later bruise. He hicles arrived at the site couldn’t recall much of what within 10 to 15 minutes of happened before or after the incident, and he was the incident, yet countless carried out on a stretcher. thoughts raced through his “My classmates, profes- mind. sor and the paramedics “I couldn’t even rememwere all so responsive and ber what month it was,” comforting,” Johnson said. Johnson said. “I mostly just Johnson has a history of thought about all the things non-epileptic seizures, but I would have missed out on he was sure he wouldn’t – growing spiritually, getting make it out of this one alive, he said.
Campus reporter
EVOlUtiON OF a CUrE
Nervous/ vascular systems
Phylogenetic trees like this one are used to represent the rise of certain traits over the course of animal evolution. the lamprey is one of only two living vertebrates without jaws.
Vertebrate
see HEALTH PAGe 3
EmErGENCY maNaGEmENt
Jaws Lamprey may bear cure for cancer Creatures may be key in understanding disease MAN JANERKA
Campus reporter
Two OU researchers have sequenced the genome of some of the most primitive living vertebrates to understand how characteristics of more advanced species developed and to possibly help scientists understand cancer. The sea lamprey is an eel-like fish with a soft skeleton, very rudimentary jaws and two dorsal finfolds, according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute website. These characteristics are exactly what make this species so important to the researchers who sequenced its genome — Sandra Clifton, faculty research scientist for the department of chemistry/biochemistry, and biology professor David McCauley. McCaule y was charge d w ith gathering samples from the live r s o f 1 5 m a t u re l a m p re y s a t California Institute of Technology, he said. Those samples were sent to Washington University, where the sequencing was actually done. Lampreys and hagfish are the only living vertebrates that don’t have jaws, making them the most primitive, McCauley said. Scientists studying vertebrate development find it important to study lampreys to see how more advanced characteristics developed in vertebrates.
At A GLAnCe sea lamprey the sea lamprey, or Petromyzon marinus, is a primitive, jawless fish that lives in salt water but spawns in fresh water. in recent years, they have invaded the Great Lakes. they feed on large fish by latching onto their sides with their sucker-like mouths and feeding off of their bodily fluids. Source: Great Lakes Fishery Commission
Lampreys also lack a sympathetic nervous system and myelin on their nerves, despite having most of the proteins required for the creation of myelin, McCauley said. Sea lampreys are easier to study than other primitive species because they are very easy to find, McCauley said. They are an invasive species in the great lakes, so there is an economic and ecological reason to study them. Despite the abundance of samples, there were some difficulties with the project because of the highly repetitive nature of the lamprey genome, Clifton said. The more repeating sequences there are in a genome, the harder it is for the computer to process it. Thirty percent of the lamprey genome repeats, which is more than four times as much as a human’s, Clifton said.
Another problem was that in the beginning stages of its life, a lamprey has more DNA than it does as an adult, and the researchers didn’t know about this before beginning the project, Clifton said. “As the organism uses whatever genes it needs in that particular stage, then these two repeats come together, and they loop out unnecessary DNA,” Clifton said. The genome loses about 20 percent of its DNA from fertilization to maturity, Clifton said. This happens very early, at around three days of development, McCauley said. With the data McCauley and Clifton have now, they could create a fairly decent genome, Clifton said. “But there’s a lot more work that needs to be done,” Clifton said. However, the data they have now could help them draw conclusions about other issues, Clifton said. The chromosomal rearrangement that occurs in the early life stages of a lamprey is similar to the chromosomal rearrangement that happens in cancer cells, Clifton said. Future studies of lamprey DNA could help in the study and understanding of cancer. Lampreys are also rudimentary enough to be used for the study of the development of axes of symmetry, McCauley said. Man Janerka fifimaxi@mac.com
Program instructs OU officials about dangerous weather OK-FIRST courses include training for events like intense storms, flooding CARTER BAUM
For the Oklahoma Daily
As April approaches in Oklahoma, so do spring showers and thunderstorms, and one OU program is gearing up to help prepare emergency managers across Oklahoma for the severe weather outbreaks to come. The OK-FIRST program, an outreach program of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, teaches public safety officials how to detect severe weather and the potential for severe weather using weather radar information and data, said Christopher Fiebrich, associate director of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. OK-FIRST courses help train emergency managers from around Oklahoma on various weather hazards like severe storms, flooding, and winter weather so they can make better decisions for their communities, Fiebrich also stated. see STORM PAGe 2
UCO student’s blog post crosses line into bullying Opinion: online public posts about classmates should be given the same weight as comments in class. (Page 4)
Layer up, men — spring is coming L&A: early springtime in oklahoma necessitates dressing in layers for those sudden weather changes. (Page 6)
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