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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 11, 1978)
THE BATTALION TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 1978 Page 9 ■ New hailstone study expected • kingd Battalion photo by Steve Mayer Clarence Parks, a Texas A&M student who has less than 5 percent normal vision, is shown with a special calculator which helps him to complete his statistics courses. A simulated human voice tells Parks the answers. ind Aggie using talking’ calculator Hail damage in the United States costs nearly $300 million annually. Hail can range from the size of a pea to as large as a brick. Because hail can severely damage young, tender vegetation some farmers have turned to cloud seed ing in hoping such hail suppression programs will take the sting out of passing storms. The suppression programs are controversial. Dryland farmers think the programs blow the water they need out of the sky. Other farmers want to protect the plants from pelting hail. Scientists at Texas A&M Univer- sity suggest that huge mass suppres sion programs may not be neces sary. What is needed is a basic under standing of what makes the hailstone form in the first place, says John Marrs, a meteorologist at Texas A&M. Marrs is formulating a new study into hailstone formation. We still feel there is just not enough information available about the growth of large hailstones,” says Marrs. So, we tend to be cautious in rushing into hail suppression project. It’s conceivable you could produce larger hailstones instead of smaller ones.” Most suppression work is done on the theory that there are not enough growth nuclei available to stop the formation of large stones. The basic idea is to produce large number of nuclei to make many smaller stones, instead of several large stones. More than 100,000 quarter-inch hailstones will usually not do as much damage as 1,000 one inch stones spread over the same area,” Marrs says. Marrs says cloud seeding may be appropriate someday, but more needs to be known about where to seed. Currently the seeding mate rial is spread indiscriminately. It would be better to know exactly where to seed, he says. We want to do an analysis of as many hailstones from as many dif ferent storms as possible,” Marrs says. “We need to analyze what type of stone is produced by different storms. To do that, we need hailstones from as many sources as possible. In a sense I am looking for any variety in the way a hailstone forms, such as the geographic area or meteorological conditions. Probably the most widespread idea is that hail is formed as it moves in large verti cal circles in the clouds. The stone is supposed to rise again and again in the cloud until it is too heavy to be supported by fast moving updrafts of air.” There has been a lot of research in the last decade indicating that this does not happen, at least in some storms on the Great Plains, Marrs says. He suggest most large stones are formed in one assent up the clouds, not in a repetition of circles. This does not mean they do not form in different ways in other areas of the country. Hail occurs in almost every state from Colorado to Florida. Undergrads to talk on research Result^ of year-long research by 51 T e xas A&M University seniors will be presented Satur day during the first University Undergraduate Fellows (UUF) Symposium, scheduled for 8:30 a. m. to 12:30 p.m. in Zachry En gineering Center. For th e first time, Texas A&M undergraduates who have done graduate.type research on topics ranging from biology to business will make formal presentations, said Dr. Mel Friedman, coor dinator of the UUF phase of the University Honors Program. Each 20-minute paper will ex amine findings compiled by the seniors during six credit hours of research conducted as part of the requirements of the UUF pro gram. They also have to write substantial papers similar to those of their graduate-level A “talking” pocket calculator is Iping a visually handicapped stu- Int complete course work at Texas ,&M University. ■For 32-year-old Clarence Parks, ig a ca; Kg h as i ess than 5 percent normal vision, the graduate statistics courses he needs for graduation 7 seemed impossible to take until CuO Texas A&M officials came to his aid. p Parks was taking about 10 times as as other students to complete issroom problems. He says he did . Busy” in his statistics course last fltwsemester. ■Now, with the calculator and ad vance copies of lecture notes, the situation has changed from “a nightmare into just another difficult - P S ' C *Burse,” says Parks, a doctoral stu- I dent in sociology from College Sta- 1 ■ t*. ti° n - Vt ^ar t •’^ ter discovery of the talking cal- T , yer mlator’s existence, it took Texas , f A&M authorities almost two months 1 ia< ‘ fo locate and obtain one. |“Bill Parker of the Purchasing department deserves special rec- iavl0r ’ ^nition and commendation for the stake is theii vners »1 > be stu| ; encoul nt of i time and effort he expended in locating this equipment,” said Dr. William Smith, Institute of Statistics director. It was purchased with operating funds and a special donation from the Association of Former Students. The talking calculator is a product of a California firm. It performs the usual operations, but is able through a simulated human voice to tell its operator what information he has just punched in and what the an swer is. It operates at a slower speed than other calculators in order to let the user keep the figures straight in his head, and it comes equipped with an earplug for classroom situations. No one would want to hear my answers, anyway,” Parks says. Smith said the talking calculator will be kept in the Institute of Statis tics and made available to any stu dent or faculty member who might need it. Parks is one of about a half-dozen blind or visually impaired students on the Texas A&M campus. Scientists at Texas A&M University are developing a study on how damaging hailstones like this one are formed. John Marrs, a meterologists says this hailstone probably grew to a three-inch spread in a single assent up a thunderhead at speeds of 90 miles an hour. t is at ho gels | ention. run awajj bored s ng tot li-S CLASSIFIED ADS! 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N.- COME SEE US AT OUR BRYAN LOCATION - TEXAS A VIII A MARIA 779-2031 SUPER WEEKEND STUDENT DISCOUNT The INDY CARS Foyt - Andretti - Sneva Johncock-Rutherford The Unsers at 200 MPH SATURDAY APRIL 15 THIS COUPON , WORTH discount on $15. reserved seat when presented at grandstand gate $2 discount on $7. infield admission when presented at infield gate (Limit one per person) Overnight Camping and Concert BATTLE OF THE BANDS continues Sunday, April 16 with Motorcycle Races ^ TEXAS WORLD SPEEDWAY on Hwy. 6 south of College Station, Texas 5