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Jake Lane reviews video Hatcher tabbed preseason All-SEC
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Tuesday, August 10, 2010 Issue 20
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Vol. 114
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Injuries mar beginning of Vols’ fall camp Matt Dixon Staff Writer Just four days into fall camp, the Tennessee football team suffered a pair of setbacks on its defensive line. Projected starters Ben Martin and Marlon Walls each injured an Achilles tendon and will be out indefinitely, possibly the entire season. “Our Achilles heel so far has been our Achilles heel,” head coach Derek Dooley said after practice Sunday. “Marlon, it looks like he’s going to be out for awhile with the same injury as Ben. So that’s too bad.” Martin started 11 games last season at defensive end and recorded 38 tackles and 3.5 sacks. Walls appeared in seven games a year ago at defensive tackle, collecting two tackles against Memphis. Both Martin and Walls have a redshirt year available if either is unable to play this season. Defensive end was one of the Vols’ deepest positions entering fall camp with veterans Martin, Chris Walker, Gerald Williams and Willie Bohannan, freshmen Jacques Smith and Corey Miller and transfer Malik Jackson from USC. “I had to be an even more vocal leader when Ben Martin stepped out,” Williams said. “Chris Walker and I, as seniors, are going to lead the defense to the best of our ability along with (linebacker) Nick Reveiz and all the other seniors coming back.” Defensive tackle was one of the major question marks entering the year. Dooley said he only has confidence in sophomore Montori Hughes right now. “I don’t have a sense for what any of the (defensive) tackles can do other than Montori right now,” Dooley said. “Montori is a really good player. He plays with great reckless abandon out there. He’s got tremendous competitive fire. We need to get more guys like him.” On Sunday, senior Victor Thomas was moved to defensive tackle after working at center in the spring and early in fall
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Matt Simms, junior transfer from California, prepares for a play at the Orange and White game in April. The Vols kicks off the fall football season against UT-Martin on Sept. 4. camp. Thomas, along with Rae Sykes, Arthur Jeffrey and Steven Fowlkes, will be asked to step up with the absence of Walls and seize his opportunity. “But here’s the thing about football,” Dooley said. “You can’t sulk too long. Injuries are a part of it, and you just adjust and move on. It doesn’t mean you don’t hurt for the guys that are injured, but they’ll be fine. It’s opportunity. One man’s loss is another man’s opportunity.” One new Vol taking advantage of an opportunity is Brent Brewer. A 22-year-old freshman, Brewer spent the past four years playing minor league baseball in the Milwaukee Brewers organization. He was originally committed to Florida State but was drafted by the Brewers in the second round of the 2006 MLB Draft. He has already impressed Dooley enough for the first-year
head coach to use a baseball term to describe the safety. “I think (Brewer) is going to be a steal for us,” he said. “He’s a great athlete. He’s instinctive. The problem is he hasn’t played (football) in five years, and that’s a long time.” Being away from football for five years has meant Brewer has had to learn quickly, but he believes it is coming back to him naturally. “I’m still trying to work on my backpedal, reading the routes the wide receivers are running and getting that hitting instinct back,” Brewer said. “I’m doing pretty well. It’s coming slow, but I should be good by the end of camp. I’m out here working hard every day, trying to learn the playbook. It’s hard, (but) I didn’t come in here thinking it was going to be easy.” Fall camp continues this week with the team in full pads.
Investigation explains virus travel Turnaround evident in child welfare Staff Reports
Staff Reports
HIV-AIDS. SARS. Ebola. Bird Flu. Swine Flu. Rabies. These are emerging infectious diseases where the viruses have jumped from one animal species into another and now infect humans. This is a phenomenon known as cross-species transmission (CST) and scientists are working to determine what drives it. Gary McCracken, a UT professor and department head in ecology and evolutionary biology, is one of those scientists and has made a groundbreaking discovery into how viruses jump from host to host. His article, “Host Phylogeny Constrains Cross-Species Emergence and Establishments of Rabies Virus in Bats,” will appear in the Aug. 6 edition of Science and will be featured on the issue’s cover. It has been a long-held belief that rapid mutation is the main factor that allows viruses to overcome host-specific barriers in cellular, molecular or immunological defenses. Therefore, it has been argued that viruses emerge primarily between species with high contact rates. McCracken and his colleagues now report that CST may have less to do with virus mutation and contact rates and more to do with host similarity. “That innate similarity in the defenses of closely related species may favor virus exchange by making it easier for natural selection to favor a virus’ ability to infect new hosts,” McCracken explained. McCracken performed his research with former UT Ph.D. student Amy Turmelle who now works with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Maarten J. Vonhof, a former post-doctoral scholar at UT, who is now with Western Michigan University. Other colleagues include CDC Rabies Team Members Ivan Kuzmin, Charles Rupprecht and Daniel Streicker, who is also with the University of Georgia. The team made their discovery by analyzing hundreds of rabies viruses in 23 species of bats. In the United States, there are at least 45 different species of bats and many different strains of rabies. Not coincidentally, the CDC collects rabid bats after humans or their pets or livestock may have been exposed to the virus — adding nearly 2,000 bats annually to its database. McCracken and his colleagues used this database to document the cases in which a rabies virus jumped from one species of bat to another. They verified the cases by genotyping both the viruses and the bats. The researchers documented over 200 examples of CSTs and analyzed the best explanations for CSTs, such as geographic range, behavior, ecology and genetic relatedness. The study found that the majority of viruses from cross-species infections were tightly nested among genetically similar bat species. “It turns out, the most important factor in cross-species transmission is how closely related the bat species are,” McCracken said. “Our study demonstrates that rapid evolution can be insufficient to overcome phylogenetic barriers at two crucial stages of viral emergence: initial infection and sustained transmission.” This discovery may have significant implications for public health authorities as they try to track where the next infectious disease will emerge. The team’s research provides a model for how such diseases transfer from host to host. “Although CST events are the source of infectious diseases that kill millions of people each year, the natural reservoirs of viruses in wild animals and how they cross species barriers are poorly known and difficult to observe. In this study, rabies in bats serves as a model to understand events that are critical to public health concerns worldwide,” McCracken said. The team’s research was supported, in part, by a National Science FoundationNational Institutes of Health Ecology of Infectious Disease grant to UT.
Tennessee has reduced the number of children in its foster care system by 34 percent since 2000, while providing more effective help to families, according to a study released by Casey Family Programs. The study shows the number of children in state custody in Tennessee has fallen since 2000 from 10,144 to 6,702 in 2009. In addition, Tennessee has decreased the number of children in longterm foster care, and the rate of children in out-of-home placements is now below the national average. At the same time, recurrences of abuse and neglect in children have decreased, indicating the safety of reform efforts. The study was conducted to share the examples of states and counties that have been successful in child welfare reform. It outlines the way the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services has worked with Youth Villages, its largest private provider, to bring about reform. Casey Family Programs is the nation’s largest operating foundation focused entirely on foster care and improving the child welfare system. “Tennessee is a jurisdiction that has achieved a significant and safe reduction in the number of children in the child welfare system,” the study concluded. The complete study is available at www.youthvillages.org. “This is a tribute to the dedication and professionalism of our staff and our partners across the state,” said Viola Miller, DCS commissioner. “The hard work over the past few years required us to examine what we were doing well and where we needed to improve. We could not have achieved these gains without the diligence and vision of partners such as Youth Villages. Together, we are helping to ensure the safety and well-being of the children we all serve.” Nationwide, more than 500,000 chil-
dren are growing up in foster care or residential facilities in individual state child welfare and mental health systems. Many states are under federal court oversight that mandates they help children return to their families or find permanency quickly through adoption. In Tennessee, Children’s Rights, a national child advocacy group, brought the Brian A. lawsuit against the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services in 2000. A federal court settlement monitors reform efforts. When Gov. Phil Bredesen appointed Miller to lead DCS in 2003, the state was failing to make progress on compliance items involved in the Brian A. settlement. The report credits Miller with the leadership needed to develop and implement wide-ranging strategic plans that brought change to the department. “Tennessee deserves to be recognized as a leader in child welfare reform and receive acclaim for bringing the most effective help to its most vulnerable children and their families,” said Patrick W. Lawler, chief executive officer of Youth Villages. “Youth Villages has been honored to work with Commissioner Miller and her staff as DCS adopted innovative new treatment approaches and made difficult structural changes.” Utah, Illinois and counties in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida and Washington have been the subjects of previous reports. Youth Villages’ work in Tennessee has made it one of the country’s fastest-growing nonprofit organizations, now helping more than 16,000 children each year in 10 states and Washington, D.C. Named one of the Top 50 Nonprofits to Work For by Nonprofit Times, Youth Villages has been recognized by Harvard Business School and U.S. News & World Report, and was identified by The White House as one of the nation’s most promising results-oriented nonprofit organizations.
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