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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 26, 1989)
y, April 26, -eneur award lie company grow I operation, founder of Steak nt, is the chief ex- of Chili’s Restau- le sold his Steak & nt franchise to oration and be- largest individual 1976. He was ap- sident of the Res- i of Pillsbury, but 13 to buy a major Chili’s Restaurant acks idget /offs ntract, scheduled to d-1992. n is required to cut j plans by $10 billion al year under a bud- he Bush administra- ress reached earlier did not immediately e calls Tuesday from Press following Che- e on Capitol Hill, y posted notices and etters Monday to all ying them of "a ma- i-force” if Bell pro- ['he cuts also report- lude cancellation of Bell program, die helicopter, y of more than six s flew the V-22 pro- rst time on March 19 Research Center in ating limits n “special issues," or answers are used in ;est concessions nade was changing a said would bar re suit for people who tered or modified a erman, said he did 'ovision would have bar, but it was taken e there were no mis- Modification of a :he bill as amended >y the jury to decide e of fault was the ud. msumer Association ouse members said “the worst piece of ing consumers.” id the quake caused ires and panic. It a tremor so strong Ve lived here for 30 I thought the build- se.” ms reported in the of Oaxaca, Morelos, co and Mexico, ity, the earthquake .11 jolt and stopped aen buildings began d forth, with plaster idows breaking. >wn power and tele- id damaged water eas. Shattered glass •treets. out 30 was electro- en power line just / center, said Maria , a spokesman for rtment rescue sen- /omen who leaped ; suffered cuts and d. s subway stopped le officials checked i traffic lights went tersections, causing mental religious mi ld to impose its be- ty that don’t believe eople led by Fort ter W.N. Otwell h the crowd, chant- those gathered that udgment of God.” ht days in an Atlanta these things. Its rder,” said Otwell ne to Austin to cal j the homeless and attend the abortion rally, organizers peakers graphic de- nen of abortions be- voice said, “Women what it was like then ;n. We will do what Wednesday, April 26,1989 The Battalion Page? A&M physiologists transfer genes Development may lead to crops with greater disease resistance By Sherri Roberts STAFF WRITER Two Texas A&M plant physiolog ists have developed a technique of transferring genes to plants — a process that may be the key to devel oping crops with greater disease and insect resistance. Dr. Roberta Smith, a professor of soil and crop sciences, and Dr. Jean Gould, a Texas Agricultural Experi ment Station scientist, succeeded in transferring foreign genes into a corn plant which they developed from the shoot apex, or growing tip of the plant, in cell culture. The gene was inserted into the plant cell by the soil bacteria, agrobacterium. “This technique is a real break through because it opens up the pos sibility of putting genes into any plant,” Gould said. Smith said the technique could Deaf teenager awaits arrival of parents old deaf Vietnamese girl who also is going blind due to a nerve disease hoped for a dream to come true Tuesday with the anticipated arrival ofher parents to the United States. Thao Phan was placed on a boat by her parents, who hoped their then 7-year-old daughter could be treated in the United States for Ush er’s Syndrome, a congenital nerve disease that took away her hearing and is robbing her of her sight. It took two years for her to reach Houston, where two older brothers had settled. Thao now has a sight range of only 15 inches. Her dream has been to see her parents and three broth ers and sisters again before she goes completely blind. Geri Konigsberg, a public rela tions spokesman for Houston Light ing & Power Co., took a personal in terest in Thao’s plight after she was contacted by school officials two years ago to see if the utility could arrange for clothing donations for the girl. When Thao told of her wish to see the rest of her family, Konigsberg leaned on U.S. Rep. Mickey Leland, D-Houston, to use his influence to hopefully trim the red tape that usually stymies for years the issuing of exit visas that allow Vietnamese to come to the United States, which has no diplomatic relations with Viet nam. Leland, who visited Hanoi last fall, told the Vietnamese foreign minister about Thao’s family and mentioned the girl again when the minister later visited New York. cause a decrease in the use of pesti cides because insect- and disease-re sistant genes could be transferred into plants. Although gene transfer is not new because scientists have practiced the procedure on tobacco, tomato and petunia plants, the process has not successfully been performed in corn, wheat, rice and other monocot plants, Gould said. In addition, gene-transfer, which was effectively completed, has been limited to certain varieties of plants, she said. “Our technique of gene transfer (using the plant’s shoot apex) has worked on all plant varieties we’ve tried,” Gould said. Smith said the technique’s strength is its ability to generate plants from tissues in culture. Many scientists have been able to transfer foreign genes into cultured tissues, but the tissue has not generated into intact plants, she said. Smith emphasized that she and Gould did not develop genes, but rather the technology to transfer genes to certain plants. Universities and chemical companies such as Du Pont and Monsanto have isolated and own various genes, she said. Arrangements with those who own genes of agricultural impor tance would have to be made before the technique can be tested in plant breeding programs, Smith said. The technique would be available to farmers only after plant materials in the plant breeding programs had been evaluated, a process that could take years, she said. A&M officials have filed two pat ent applications on the technique, she said. Issue of grave robbing involves hobbyists, Indians, legislature AUSTIN (AP) — When he found her in the Piney Woods of East Texas, this ancient woman with the hole in her forehead and the sassaf ras root growing through her chest, the teen-ager turned to his parents with a simple request. “He wasn’t excited. There wasn’t any whooping and hollering. He said, ‘Mother, let’s get down and E ray about this thing. If it’s the ord’s will, we’ll keep going on,’ ” Estelle Jones Stanford says of the af ternoon more than 30 years ago when her son discovered the 700- year-old remains of an Indian woman. The answer to those long-ago prayers is now found lying quietly in a glass case inside a small private museum set up next to the family home in Longview. Although the teen-ager, Buddy Calvin Jones, has grown up and moved away, his mother faithfully cares not only for the skeleton with the hole in her head, but also for 2,000 pots, hun dreds of arrowheads, 20 human skulls and two other full skeletons found by her son in his 16 years of artifact collecting in and around Longview. Those relics of a childhood hobby may rest peacefully in the backyard museum, but they are playing a com manding role in an emotional and complex drama that has pitted Indi ans and scientists against Sunday-af- ternoon hobbyists and their com mercial counterparts, the pot hunters, those collectors who earn thousands of dollars selling not only Indian pottery and points, but also human remains. The controversy has spilled over into the Texas Legislature, where lawmakers are considering a bill that would outlaw “grave robbing” and seriously restrict the activities that filled Buddy Jones’ teen-age years. But that battle between the scien tists and the collectors is not utmost in Stanford’s mind when she opens her doors to schoolchildren and Boy 1989 marks 50th anniversary ofUT’s McDonald Observatory AUSTIN (AP) — The director of the McDonald Observatory says he hopes the famous observatory of the University of Texas someday will have extended facilities elsewhere in -and out of — this world. "I dream of the day when McDon ald instruments will be on the Moon,” said Harlan Smith, who will retire this summer after 26 years at the observatory. In a speech at the university on Monday, kicking off two weeks of events to honor the West Texas ob servatory’s 50th anniversary, Smith recounted its beginnings and re search history. It opened for research on Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains on May 5, 1939, after being built with a $500,000 bequest from an East Texas banker and amateur scientist named William Johnson McDonald. At that time, Smith said, most of the “facts” in astronomy textbooks were wrong. McDonald’s first telescope, the 82- inch reflector, was a wonder. “It was the first really big telescope built in this country,” Smith said. This year also marks the 20th an niversary of McDonald’s 107-inch reflector, the largest telescope at the observatory. That instrument was built six years after Smith left Yale University to take the McDonald directorship. When he was hired as director, Smith said, UT was considering clos ing the observatory. Instead, it was expanded, and to day McDonald is known not only to scientists but to radio listeners of the Star Date astronomy program around the nation. “McDonald, in fact, has contrib uted more to the understanding of stellar evolution than any other ob servatory in the world,” Smith said. $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 g ASTHMA STUDY $200 Wanted: Individuals ages 12-70 with asthma to partic- 5200 ipate in a research study to evaluate asthma medica- $200 tions ' $200 incentive for those chosen to participate. $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $200 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 fi'inn $300 HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE STUDY $300 $300 Individuals with high blood pressure medication daily to parti- $300 $300 ciapte in a high blood pressure study. $300 incentive for those $300 $300 ch °sen to participate. $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 $300 CALL PAULL RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL 776-0400 Scouts who tour her small Caddo In dian Museum. Stanford is extremely proud of her son’s collection, and she has a hard time understanding many In dian groups who are angry and up set that tneir ancestors have. been pulled from the ground and put in glass cases. Some of those groups want the remains reburied, but that stand is one Stanford, herself part Cherokee, can’t support. “I think that’s foolish,” she said of the re-burial proposal. “Buddy’s purpose was to preserve this (his tory) before it was destroyed.” But she’s even more offended by the commercial relic hunters who dig willy-nilly through the Texas countryside in search of valuable burial objects they then sell to collec tors. While those commercial hunters typically go for the fine pots and spe cial arrow points often buried with Indians, they also sometimes take the human remains to sell, archaeo logists say. “Hundreds and hun dreds of human remains are being traded here in Texas,” said Curtis Tunnell, executive director of the Texas Historical Commission. “I know of auction sales where human skulls have been sold. Those without teeth usually go for $50, and those with teeth go for $150.” Those remains can be found at gun and knife shows, at artifact auc tions and in advertisements such as the one found in a gun magazine that offered a mummified female, artifacts and a custom oak display case, all for $4,500. Still, Stanford, like many other collectors, is not totally comfortable with the legislation that would out law grave robbing. The proposed law, called the Human Burials Pro tection Act, would make it a felony to disturb, damage or destroy a burial or to remove human remains or burial objects from that site. The bill’s primary focus is protection of unmarked burial sites on private property, but it also establishes a committee to advise the state archae ologist on the proper disposition of human remains when they are dis covered. In those sites considered scientifi cally valuable, the Texas Historical Commission would be granted tem porary jurisdiction over the burial, although the landowner would have the final say on what happens to the discovery. The need for such legislation is critical, said state archaeologist Rob ert Mallouf, who estimates that be tween 5,000 and 8,000 archaeologi cal sites are damaged or destroyed each year in Texas by zealous relic collectors and commercial pot hunt ers. Many of those disturbed sites in clude burial grounds. “This is ram pant. We’re estimating that in another five years, all the cemeteries will be gone,” he said. “What this means is that science has lost a massive amount of critical information,” Mallouf said. “Every time they destroy one (archaeologi cal site), they rip out a page of the state’s history.” Even more important, however, is the fact that the law would extend the same protection to unmarked graves that currently is afforded burials in designated or marked ce meteries. Opposing the legislation are col lectors such as Stanford. The law protecting burial sites is merely the first step, many collectors say. Be fore long, they warn, it will be against the law to pick up an arrow head in “your own oack yard.” While the law would not affect existing collections or surface hunt ing, opponents are suspicious. Stan ford, like other collectors, indicates she is quite ready to do whatever is necessary to protect her son’s collec tion. Yet, it’s not the Estelle Jones Stan fords that cause the greatest worry to Indian groups and professional archaeologists. The commercial hunters, who have developed a pre cise, if indelicate, technique for find ing graves, are a much more menac ing source of destruction, some involved in this issue say. Often us ing something called a “pokey stick,” a steel rod about five feet long, the collector probes inside the suspected burial sites until he finds a sample of bone. Frequently the collectors will then move in with heavy equipment to strip the site of the upper layers of soil, Mallouf said. Although some East Texas collec tors contend it is impossible to make a living by pulling pots from graves and selling them, Mallouf says other wise. “We know of a number of such pot hunters who desecrate human burials on a full- time basis, and who make over $100,000 a year selling human skulls and burial artifacts,” Mallouf said. 120-mile chase ends in arrest of Texas man SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A Texas man who led state troopers on a 120-mile car chase was charged Monday with resisting arrest and possession and transportation of 75 pounds of marijuana. Robert Carrasco, 32, of El Paso, was jailed under $200,000 bond. A preliminary hearing was set for May 16 in Greene County Associate Circuit Court. Carrasco was stopped for speed ing shortly before 11 a.m. Sunday on Interstate 44 near the Spring- field city limits, the highway patrol said. He allegedly gave officers per mission to search his 1981 Chevrolet one-ton truck but sped away before the search. Speeds reached up to 100 mph as the chase continued on 1-44 to St. James, where the suspect turned east on Missouri 8. Carrasco was captured when he ran out of gas, the patrol said. CPA OUR PASSING RATE IS 70% In over 100 cities throughout the nation. 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