| Peterson says he was unaware wife, Savio contacted same divorce ...
Smith told WLS 890 radio host Roe Conn on Thursday that he had an ominous feeling about Savio's death because she "had reached out in writing and orally, not only to me but to others."
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mwalberg@tribune.com
eslife@tribune.com .
Airborne Bacteria Make It Rain, Researchers Find
The sky is not an ethereal, sterile realm. It's teeming with bacteria, and scientists say that the microbes play a powerful role in producing rain and snow. While the idea that bacteria could prompt precipitation was previously known, a paper published this week in Science shows that they're more important than anyone expected. Researchers led by Louisiana State University microbiologist Brent Christner analyzed snow samples from around the world, categorizing the content of their "nucleators" -- tiny particles that help water vapor coalesce and freeze. All snow and most rain begins as ice. Though water is widely thought to have a freezing point of zero degrees Celsius, it's not so simple in the clouds, where pristine vapors only bind to form ice crystals at exceedingly cold temperatures.
Rudy survives the Russert crucible
On paper, Rudy Giuliani is the candidate most likely to create major fireworks in a "Meet The Press" grilling. His public and private record is so checkered with personal and professional misdeeds that one could easily imagine NBC's Tim Russert tearing him apart. But Giuliani, a veteran of the New York press corps, also knows how to handle tough questions. He doesn't get flustered. He can takes control of the facts. And so on Sunday, with some help from a restrained Russert, Giuliani mostly skated through his big Sunday test. Mostly, he survived by frankly admitting some of his mistakes, and then arguing others. When asked why he had not been better briefed as New York mayor on the al-Qaida threat, he said bluntly, "I didn't see the enormity of it, neither did the administration at the time." When asked about abandoning the 9/11 commission to give speeches, he said he should never have joined the panel, since he had other concerns at the time, including his own possible presidential run.
Texans and Their Tests
That said, the pervasive climate of misguided fear that standardized testing has led to in our secondary schools has no place in "higher education" (which begins to sound suspiciously like "military intelligence" in terms of its descriptive powers). Worse, the childishly simplistic insistence on comparing graduation rates between lavishly funded institutions like the University of Texas at Austin or Dallas and border schools like the University of Texas at Brownsville or the University of Texas Pan American can only continue to exacerbate the neo-colonialist approach that our state continues to take to its southern border. No child left behind indeed! Tell that to our thousands of part-time students struggling to make ends meet while trying to get by on what financial aid they can find, simulutaneously working one or more jobs and trying to find classes in understaffed and underfunded institutions.
Data on PolyMedix Antimicrobial Polymers Presented at American Society ...
PYMX), an emerging biotech company developing acute care products for infectious diseases and acute cardiovascular disorders based on biomimetics, announced that Dr. Byron Brehm-Stecher presented data yesterday at the "American Society of Microbiology 6th Annual Biodefense and Emerging Diseases Research Meeting" in Baltimore relating to PolyMedix's proprietary antimicrobial compounds. Dr. Byron Brehm-Stecher of Iowa State University, whose work is supported in part by a grant from PolyMedix, presented a poster presentation relating to the activity of some of PolyMedix's antimicrobial polymer compounds against certain biowarfare pathogens, including S. typhimurium, L. onocytogenes, Y. enterocolitica and E. coli O157:H7, and the enhancement of the activity of the polymers by agents called sesquiterpenoids.
The Chronicle Local News Blog
Henry K. Lee is liveblogging the Hans Reiser murder trial. See all his Chronicle articles on the case here and all his blog entries here. 4 p.m. Hans Reiser has finished his third day on the stand. We won't be back in session until Monday, March 17 (St. Patrick's Day) because of Judge Larry Goodman's previously scheduled vacation. The judge wished the jurors well and gave his standard admonition for them to avoid all media accounts and to not conduct any independent investigations. Until then, check out the blog of former Alameda County Public Defender Jay Gaskill, with detailed legal analysis of the case, David Kravets' Wired reports on the trial and TruTV's (formerly CourtTV) "In Session" discussions about the case. 2:13 p.m. Judge Larry Goodman welcomed the jury back from lunch.
Obama defends ability to handle crisis
LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) -- Looking ahead to Saturday's caucus, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama had to cope with some pesky issues of the recent week, defending himself against an ad that ran in Texas and the fallout from a former adviser's remarks. His presidential rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, won the Ohio and Texas primaries Tuesday after questioning Obama's fitness to handle crises. On Wyoming's friendlier landscape, where he is expected to win Saturday, Obama seemed determined to ease voters' minds - and to take a few jabs at Clinton. Speaking in a crowded gym in Casper on Friday, Obama alluded to Clinton's Texas ad, which suggested that only she has the experience and mettle to handle a national crisis at 3 a.m. "That is designed to feed into your fears," Obama said.
LibDems send for Steel to examine powers for Holyrood
Former Liberal leader Lord Steel is being asked to reconvene his party's commission into how devolution can be extended, amid growing fears that Gordon Brown may undermine the current review on the issue. Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Nicol Stephen will today tell his conference in Aviemore that he is recalling the Steel Commission with the remit of producing a firm set of detailed proposals on what further powers should be devolved to Holyrood. This will then form the basis of the LibDem contribution to the new process invoked recently whereby the pro-Union parties at Holyrood and Westminster are to look at where devolution should go next. .
Reforming Selective College Admissions
So, rather than spending junior year searching for colleges, visiting colleges, testing for colleges and preparing to apply to colleges, and senior year applying to colleges, interviewing at colleges, nervously waiting to hear from colleges and recovering from applying to colleges, their child is postponing applying to college until she takes a gap year after high school. They are negotiating with the school to provide its usual level of college counseling during the gap year, so their child can concentrate on getting a fine high school education for four full years. So, what would I ask selective colleges and universities to change about the admissions process? A lot. (1) Adopt a policy that your institutions will not provide information to or cooperate in any way with the rankings done by U.S.
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