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WEALTH & SCIENCE
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Monday • August 1,
- ■ ■
AIDS research not conducted at A&M
By Elizabeth Preston
The Battalion
Texas A&M is not participating in any commu
nity or federally funded AIDS research projects in
Texas, though many other schools in Texas are, ac
cording to the national Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention’s AIDS Clearinghouse.
The University of Texas System is participating
in several of the 50 projects being conducted in
Texas. Texas Tech and Baylor also are participat
ing in one or more of these studies.
John Scroggs, a counselor at AIDS Services of
Brazos Valley, said one reason is the size of Bryan-
College Station.
“The population of identified HIV positives in
our area is not big enough to support large scale
HIV studies,” he said.
The center works in conjunction with re
searchers in Houston.
A study on
infected preg
nant women is
currently being
conducted with
several partici
pants from the
Bryan-College
Station area.
One certain
researcher at
A&M is study
ing the sociolog
ical impact of
"The population of identified HIV positives in
our area is not big enough to support large
scale HIV studies."
- John Scroggs, AIDS Services of Brazos Valley
this fatal disease, AIDS.
Dr. Pam Morales, a researcher in the Depart
ment of Educational Psychology at A&M, is focus
ing her work almost entirely on AIDS research.
Morales is in various stages of five separate
studies, at least one of which is funded by a mini
grant from A&M.
She has nearly completed one study on educa
tors’ perceptions of children with HIV.
“I’m interested in finding out how school system
teachers handle the changes in the classroom from
10 years ago to today,” Morales said.
She said she wants to encourage the beginning
of a course to teach instructors how to handle cl|
dren who are HIV positive.
Morales is also working on a study to detenni
whether HIV causes the eventual deterioratioi
the white matter of the brain, which is the nett
tissue around the brain and spinal cord.
She has applied for funding from A&M for
study dealing with doctors’ perceptions
with HIV.
Morales will study how doctors treat HIV pi
tients compared to cancer patients and how dtt
tors feel about an HIV patient’s right to die. Is
study will be done by a random survey of doctoi
in applicable fields in Texas.
Despite the lack of research at A&M, a mi
sub-committee of the A&M Faculty Senate ism
ommending a proposal that will implement
curriculum requirement designed to educate in
dergraduate students about AIDS and
health related issues.
Fiber optic cables:
Connecting the
~ World
Monday • August
SMU 6
Shut uj
sit dow
CONSTANCE
PARTEN
Sportswriter
CS!
Telephone calls are transmitted over land, under sea and
across the skies. An overseas call is likely to be handled by
an undersea fiber-optic cable made up of tiny, hair-thin glass
fibers. This modern fiber, also used for regular overland
service, has revolutionized the telephone
system because it has allowed
cables to carry more calls.
a
Indian Ocean
Victor Kotowitz / Los Angeles Times
Map shows AT&T’s existing and proposed fiber-optic undersea cable routes. Satellites are used to link sparsely populated areas and
to transmit video broadcasts and data services. Competing companies also have cable lines.
Undersea cable:
Through the years
UNDERSEA
CABLE
How calls are handled
These cables, peeled open to reveal their
inner components, have increased
dramatically in call-carrying capacity while
their size has shrunk. Modern fiber-optic
cable is at right.
0
©
International long-distance phone call originates
at a traditional telephone.
Digital signal is transmitted via telephone lines,
some along overhead cable, some underground.
Cellular phone path would skip this step and go
directly to computerized switching station.
If satellite is used, the signal is then transmitted
from a satellite dish on the ground up 22,000
miles to an orbiting satellite.
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Here’s a tip
1950s: Carried 36 calls simultaneously
Preparing a message
for transmission
At switching station, electronic "decisions” are
made. These switching stations decide which is
Satellite traveling in a geo-
acts as a repeater and
reroutes signal back
down to its destination
on the other side of the world
the most convenient and efficient route available.
1960s: 138 calls
1970s: 845 calls
Words begin as sound waves, called analog signals becaPSe
the wave shapes are analogous to the rising and falling tones
of a voice. But now, voices, as well as data and images, are
transmitted as digital signals, coded in binary 1s and 0s. To
travel in digital form through fiber-optic cable, an analog voice
signal is converted to energy pulses. A pulse stands for a
binary 1, a missing pulse for 0. When the message reaches
its destination, it is reconverted to analog and heard as the
human voice.
If the undersea cable route is selected, signal
travels along one of several fiber-optic cable
routes, depending
on the destination.
ANALOG
1970s: 4,200 calls
z
OPTICAL
FIBER
DIGITAL
Light
Today (fiber optic): 40,000 calls
Off
On
Off
On
Off
On
3/4"
Fall 1994 (fiber optic): 225,000 calls
Source: AT&T
Optical
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Matt Moody / Los Angeles Times vii 1
Dante II Environment threatens Texas lagoon
NASA robot begins
drop into volcano
Needed - fema
W/D, bus route
MOUNT SPURR, Alaska (AP) —
NASA’s Dante II robot began descend
ing into a volcano’s steamy crater on
Friday when the 1,700-pound machine
whined, lifted its Erector-set-like front
legs and walked.
Dante’s steps were guided by opera
tors 80 miles east in Anchorage, where
the robot’s moves appeared on comput
er screens.
NASA hopes the test could lead to
robotic explorations on other planets.
The robot stepped off the crater rim
on Mount Spurr and into snowpack es
timated more than 10 feet deep, the
first time the 1,700 pound, eight-legged
robot had walked on snow.
Rubber snowshoes were made spe
cially for the occasion.
Scott Boehmke, a Carnegie Mellon
research engineer, said the machine
will walk 12 hours a day on power from
a diesel generator parked up-slope from
the robot.
The test may run three to six days.
Destruction of Laguna
Madre endangers
wildlife, economy
ARROYO CITY, Texas (AP) — It’s a little past
sunrise. The shimmering waters of Laguna Madre
extend for mile after mile of golden ripples.
Laguna Madre. The Mother Lagoon.
The saltwater bay, stretching 130 miles down the
Gulf Coast, is a vast cradle of wildlife between the
South Texas mainland and the barrier sands of
Padre Island.
It’s a rare environment only a few feet deep,
where hundreds of marine and bird species breed,
feed and thrive. It’s also worth hundreds of millions
of dollars to the area economy.
But, increasingly, scientists say the Laguna
Madre is under threat.
• Underwater meadows of sea grasses — the core
habitat in the food chain — are disappearing at
alarming rates.
•The brown tide, a mysterious algal bloom, is
spreading persistently, clouding bay waters and per
haps threatening fisheries.
•The Arroyo Colorado, the largest source of fresh
water into the Lower Laguna Madre, is loaded with
pollution that may be feeding the brown tide.
•Large tracts of wetlands and tidal flats, which
provide fishing areas for migratory water birds and
shorebirds, have been lost to what is called “spoil,” a
dark silt dredged from the bay bottom.
The Army Corps of Engineers dredges in the La
guna Madre to keep the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway
open for barge traffic between Corpus Christi and
Brownsville.
“The Laguna Madre system has a series of insults
coming into it, and to me it’s at the crossroads right
now,” says Steve Thompson, manager of Laguna
Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, which shares 12
miles of the Lower Laguna Madre’s eastern shore.
“Are we going to continue the insults or slow them
down?”
The Laguna Madre is one of only three bays in the
world that are hypersaline — meaning saltier than
sea water — but still support abundant wildlife.
The other two productive hypersaline bays are the
Mexican Laguna Madre, just across the Rio Grande
from Texas, and the Sivash, adjacent to the Sea of
Azov on the Crimean Peninsula.
Even though the shallows of the Laguna Madre
comprise only one-fifth of the Texas coastal bay area,
the lagoon accounts for more than half the state’s
catch of commercial fin fish each year.
The warm waters are rich in sport fishermen fa
vorites such as redfish, black drum and spotted sea
trout.
Robert Ditton at Texas A&M’s Department of
Wildlife and Fisheries estimates that fishing and
other tourism activities that depend on a healthy La
guna Madre generate at least $400 million a year
the regional economy.
Protected from overdevelopment by Padre Islai
National Seashore, the Laguna Atascosa refuge &
the sprawling King and Kenedy ranches, the Lagui
Madre is the cleanest bay in Texas, and the only ot
that retains extensive seagrasses.
“In spite of all the abuse inflicted on the Lagui
Madre, it retains an amazing regenerative capacity
says Tony Reisinger, marine extension agent fc
Cameron County.
Biologists say the seagrasses provide oxygen and*
foundation for the food chain, from microorganisms
to the largest fish and birds of prey.
Laguna Madre contains the world’s largest con
centration of reddish egrets. It provides habitat for
endangered piping plovers, peregrine falcons, Kemps
ridley sea turtles and an amazing array of shorebirds
and neotropical migratory birds.
Most of the North American population of redhead
ducks winter in the Laguna, feeding almost exclu
sively on shoal grass, a species of seagrass.
The underwater meadows aren’t only important to
ducks. Seagrasses in Laguna Madre estuaries of
Texas and Mexico provide crucial nursing habitat for
Gulf of Mexico shrimp, a $600 million annual crop in
Texas alone.
“Our policy is to protect every blade of seagrass we
can,” says Deyaun Boudreaux, coastal environmental
director for the Texas Shrimp Association. “We are
sitting here guarding the last system that has sea
grass beds.”