inhood"
' 1st Floor
Weekend
Partly cloudy
Highs 75-78
Lows 57-63
Bryan’s future alcohol and
drug treatment center
provides a good example of
how a community and a
college can help each other
- Battalion Editorial Board
Page 7
Draft decisions
NFL evaluates
potential of A&M
football players
for next season
Page 5
What’s in a name?
The Department of
Engineering Technology’s
name change creates
dissent among some
engineering students
Page 2
The Battalion
Vol. 91 No. 138
College Station, Texas
‘Serving Texas A&M since 1893”
8 Pages Friday, April 24, 1992
of the universe
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LOS ANGELES (AP) - A
spacecraft has discovered the
largest and oldest structures in the
niverse, wispy clouds that show
ow creation's "big bang" led to
: ormation of stars and galaxies,
dentists said Thursday.
"If you're religious, it's like
ooking at God," said research
[earn leader George Smoot, an as-
rophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley
aboratory and the University of
alifomia, Berkeley.
The discovery was made by
NASA's Cosmic Background Ex-
)lorer (COBE) satellite during its
>400 million mission to study the
universe's origins.
Researchers say more than 300
million measurements by the
pacecraft answer a question that
possible origin
has long vexed scientists: How did
matter that was uniformly spread
out in the newborn universe start
clumping together to produce
stars, galaxies and clusters of
galaxies?
If the research is confirmed,
"it's one of the major discoveries
of the century. In fact, it's one of
the major discoveries of science,"
said physicist Joel Primack of the
University of California, Santa
Cruz.
Smoot and his team presented
the findings at an American Physi
cal Society meeting in Washing
ton, D.C. NASA also issued an an
nouncement.
"We have observed what we
believe are the largest and most
ancient structures in the uni-
of 'big bang'
verse," extremely thin clouds or
ripples that represent the earliest
stages of matter starting to clump
together in the newborn universe,
Smoot said during a Washington
news conference.
He said the clouds were formed
only about 300,000 years after the
big bang, the primordial blast sci
entists believe created the uni
verse 15 billion years ago.
The largest clouds stretch
across two-thirds of the known
universe, or 59 billion trillion
miles, Smoot said. That's roughly
120 million billion round trips be
tween Earth and the moon.
"If they are right, it is a very big
deal," said Joseph Silk, a professor
of astronomy and physics at UC-
Berkeley.
Perot expands efforts
for presidential bid
H. Ross Perot says he will seek
the presidency without being on
all 50 state ballots
DALLAS (AP) — H. Ross Per
ot is moving steadily toward a
full-fledged presidential bid, ex
panding his political staff and
laying on an increasing number
of appearances. At the same
time, the Texas billionaire is scal
ing back his 800-number because
it has fulfilled its main purpose.
"At this point, there is more
than an ample number of volun
teers to get petitions signed" to
get him on the ballot as an inde
pendent candidate nationwide,
Perot told reporters Thursday.
In an interview a day earlier
with The Associated Press, Perot
said he has dropped his insis
tence that his name be added to
ballots in all 50 states before he'll
run — although he still expects
to get on all the ballots.
He raised the possibility that
an active campaign to keep him
off the ballot in New York —
which has strict rules on inde
pendent candidacies — might
succeed.
"I'd probably go ahead and
run" even without New York,
Perot said. He conceded that
would present "an interesting
problem," given the state's large
number of electoral votes.
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centralizes
resources
A&M investments
earn larger returns
By Karen Praslicka
The Battalion
The Texas A&M University
System is increasing returns on its
investments through a centraliza
tion program adopted from the
corporate world.
The program allows individual
universities and agencies within
the system to benefit by pooling
all of their funds. The system can
now invest a large amount of
money and get a bigger return, in
stead of each entity investing sepa
rate smaller amounts.
Greg Anderson, interim system
comptroller and director of trea
sury services, said the program
has increased the money returns to
the A&M system by $11 million
since its implementation in 1990.
"There was a need to combine
returns to bring forth a big re
turn," he said.
Each university and agency
within the A&M system used to
handle its own funds and invest
ments, with 14 different accounts
used for daily operating expenses
and investments.
"We had lots of cash and secu
rities, which isn't as efficient as
when we combined the parts,"
Anderson said.
Now that the funds of all the
parts of the A&M system have
combined, the funds go through
one master concentration account.
Each university and agency has its
own disbursement account, which
is set to a zero balance each night.
Each morning, the system
See Creative/Page 4
Wrapped Roughneck
The Roughneck statue outside the Richardson afternoon sometime before 3:30 p.m. No one
Building was covered in toilet paper Thursday has claimed responsibility.
Earthquake
awakens anxiety
in Californians
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Hun
dreds of aftershocks sent ripples of
anxiety through Southern Califor
nia on Thursday, hours after a
strong desert earthquake caused
isolated damage and dozens of in
juries.
Earthquake experts cautioned
there was a slight chance Wednes
day night's magnitude 6.1 tremor
could be a precursor to the long-
dreaded "Big One."
"We're long overdue for one —
a 7.0 or greater ... so we're advis
ing communities ... to be on their
toes," said Lt. Ben Nottingham,
spokesman for the Los Angeles
County Office of Emergency Man
agement.
Authorities estimated damage
from the quake at about $1 million
in the Morongo Basin, which in
cludes the communities of Joshua
Tree and Yucca Valley about 100
miles east of Los Angeles.
Nevada
California
Earthquake rocks
S. California, and was
felt over 400 miles away
in Phoenix.
Arizona
Phoenix
RACHEL HYMEL/The Battalion
"There are no two-story build
ings out here and that could con
tribute to the low damage fig
ures," said Sgt. Ben Boswell, com
mander of San Bernardino Coun
ty's disaster preparedness divi
sion.
Mexican officials evacuate
residents from explosion site
GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP)
— Fearing more explosions, au
thorities Thursday evacuated a
neighborhood near a working-
class district wrecked a day earlier
by sewer-line blasts that killed as
many as 202 people and injured
over 1,300.
Moving quickly to control po
litical damage. President Carlos
Salinas de Gortari gave his attor
ney general 72 hours to determine
who was at fault for Mexico's
deadliest explosion since 1984.
The state governor blamed three
city officials for taking no action
on residents' complaints of leak
ing gas.
The national oil company Pe-
mex continued to deny blame for
the blasts, but suspended its natu
ral gas deliveries to industrial cus
tomers in the Reforma neighbor
hood and closed its gas stations
there as a "safety precaution,"
said Pemex's director-general.
Exxon official discusses
Valdez oil spill cleanup
"Of the 1,100 miles of coastline
By Jayme Blaschke
The Battalion
Oil-eating bacteria tested dur
ing the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill
in Alaska have greatly increased
oil spill cleanup capabilities
Worldwide, an Exxon researcher
said Thursday night at an Ameri
can Chemistry Society seminar in
College Station.
Dr. Edward Stiefel, a scientist
with Exxon Research and Engi
neering, said the cleanup of Prince
William Sound in Alaska was the
largest use of bioremediation (oil
consuming organisms) ever at
tempted and would not have been
possible without EPA cooperation.
The supertanker Exxon Valdez
ran aground on Bligh Reef March
24,1989, spilling about a quarter
of a million barrels of oil into
Prince William Sound.
contaminated, about 300 miles
were heavily hit with oil a couple
of inches to a couple of feet deep,"
Stiefel said. "Chemical oil disper
sants were not allowed at all, so
we got permission to try bioreme
diation.
"The bulk of the oil was taken
up manually and by washing it off
the beach so it could be collected
by skimmer ships, but that still left
a lot of oil on the beach," he said.
"Our studies however, showed
the oil on the beach was already
being degraded."
The oil on the beaches was be
ing degraded because the area al
ready was a haven for oil-consum
ing microbes, Stiefel said.
Around Prince William Sound
there are 28 natural petroleum
seeps, where oil deposits leak into
See Scientist/Page 8
Rape — 'a tragedy of youth'
62% of victims were minors when attacked
Parents’
Weekend
SUMMARY OF EVENTS FOR
FRIDAY:
• 3 p.m. - Who's Who Award
Ceremony (MSC 205-206)
• 7 p.m. - RHA Casino (MSC)
and MSC Variety Show (Rudder
Auditorium) begin
• Midnight - 01' Army Yell
Practice (Kyle Field)
Parents' Weekend schedules are
available in the MSC.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A gov
ernment-funded study released
Thursday found 683,000 American
women were raped in 1990 — a
far higher number than other gov
ernment reports have said — and
that 12.1 million women have
been rape victims at least once.
In addition, the National Wom
en's Study said almost 62 percent
of the rape victims said they were
attacked when they were minors,
with about 29 percent saying they
were younger than 11.
"Rape does seem to be a
tragedy of youth in America,"
said Dean Kilpatrick, who direct
ed the research and is co-author of
the report, "Rape in America."
The study, funded by the Na
tional Institute on Drug Abuse, in
volved female interviewers talk
ing to some 4,000 women by tele
phone about rapes in the previous
year and earlier.
The survey also found that:
— Of the estimated 12.1 million
women who have been raped,
about 6.8 million were raped once,
4.7 million more than once and
about 600,000 were unsure of the
number of times.
-Twenty-nine percent of per
petrators were non-relatives
known to the victim, such as
neighbors or friends. Twenty-two
percent were strangers; 16 percent
were relatives other than immedi
ate family; 11 percent father or
stepfather; 10 percent boyfriend or
ex-boyfriend and 9 percent hus
band or ex-husband. Three per
cent were not sure or refused to
answer.
— Seventy percent of rape vic
tims were unharmed, while 24
percent suffered minor injuries
and 4 percent were seriously hurt.
The survey did not account for
rape-murder victims.
— Rape victims' most impor
tant concerns after the assault
were the family finding out, being
blamed by others for the attack,
and others knowing about it.
Those worries declined slightly
among those raped in the last five
years. But there were increased
fears of having their name become
public, getting AIDS and other
sexually transmitted diseases and
becoming pregnant.
The study's estimate of 683,000
forcible rapes in 1990 — based on
an estimate of 0.7 percent of the
adult female population — was
more than five times larger than
the National Crime Survey figure
of 130,000 attempted and complet
ed rapes that year.