Peace Corps
needs Americans with skills in
Environment Education
Business
Peace Corps needs 5,500 graduates
with skills in agriculture, business,
education, environment health and
information technology. All majors are
welcome. Benefits include medical,
dental and housing, as well as a
monthly stipend and 24 vacation days a
year. Graduates can defer student
loans while serving.
Visit the TAMU Career Center
209 Koldus Building to pick up
a Peace Corps Catalog.
Agriculture
www.peacecorps.gov • 800.424.8580
Second Annual
’OSK Run
5K R«jn/3K Walk
Who Anyono and R very one
When: February 21 <Q> ©am
Where. West Oempus 'Gazebo'
Registration $ 1 O
Mow Through the Oay of
T-Shirt Included in Cost
Various Door Rrizes
Download Registration Forms at
classof2005.tamu .edu
LEARN TO
FLY NOW
At United Flight Systems
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Private - Advance Training
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Take a 30 minute
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Saturday, February 21
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To register, call or visit us online today!
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kaptest.com/testdrive
Test Prep and Admissions
registered trademarks of their respective owners.
6B
Thursday, February 19, 2004
NEWS
THE BATTALIOS
Nice catch
Sophomore business major Shannon McLaughlin catches a Frisbee at practice
Tuesday afternoon at the polo fields. McLaughlin is a member of the Ultimate Frisbee
club team, which is playing in a tournament this weekend in Baton Rouge, La.
How low can
the St. Louis
murder rate go?
By Jim Suhr
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST. LOUIS — In a city that averaged 145 killings a yeai
over the past decade. Police Chief Joe Mokwa scribbled “99"
on a scrap of paper and gave it to the head of the homicide
unit, Hany Hegger. As Mowka recalls it, Hegger gulped.
Neither man really believed keeping slayings in 2003
below 100 was possible.
By year’s end, St. Louis had done better than that. Far bedei.
The death toll was 69, matching the city’s lowest total
since 1962, which was also the last time St. Louis had fewei
than 100 murders.
“We’re seeing tangible results, and it’s pleasing. Wert
sending a message that we’re not going to tolerate thatkindof
behavior anymore,” said Mayor Francis Slay.
How did St. Louis meet the goal set in 2002? Police, pros
ecutors and others say the chief explanation is that they put
the squeeze on the city’s most violent neighborhoods.
During the past couple of years, the city has added IDO
police officers. Stepped-up patrols concentrated on thedozei
neighborhoods that once accounted for half of the city’s
homicides. From there, police systematically zeroed in on
specific streets and troublemakers.
Police now keep tabs on people they consider troublemak
ers. Authorities have cracked down on outstanding warrantsto
get “the worst of the worst” off the streets. And prosecutors
have pressed for and gotten stiff sentences that put chronic
bad guys behind bars.
“I don't think it correlated to more or less arrests, just
smarter ones,” said Jennifer Joyce, the city’s prosecutor.
Some also credit state-of-the-art hospitals with savins
the lives of victims who years earlier might have diedof
their wounds.
St. Louis’ homicide toll has declined more than 60 percent
in the past two years. Last year’s total was a sharp drop-off
from 113 in 2002, 149 in 2001 and 123 the year before that
It was a'74 percent decline from St. Louis’ all-time high of
267 in 1993, when the city’s homicide rate was more than
eight times the national one.
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Scientists struggle for new test «
Chhsiiait
that doesn’t require killing cows £,
Viminto
By Nicholas K. Geranios
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPOKANE, Wash. — When the nation’s
first case of mad cow disease was discov
ered on a Washington farm, it took the
slaughter of more than 700 healthy cattle to
prove the disease had not spread.
That’s because there’s no test for mad
cow that can be done on live animals, and
there may not be one for some time.
“I don’t know how far away we are,”
said Don Knowles, who runs a U.S.
Department of Agriculture laboratory in
Pullman that is working jointly with
Washington State University scientists to
develop such a test.
“Data and announcements are coming
out all the time,” Knowles said. “At this
moment, none of these tests has enough val
idation data behind them.”
Being able to diagnose an infection
quickly could help keep contaminated beef
out of the food chain and also cut the eco
nomic loss that comes from slaughtering
healthy animals, according to a 2003 report
by the National Research Council. The ani
mals killed in Washington state, for exam
ple, would have been worth well over half a
million dollars at market.
Mad cow disease is a public health con
cern because scientists believe humans who
eat infected beef products can develop a
brain-wasting disease called variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which has killed
153 people worldwide.
Quick detection also could prevent con
taminated human blood from entering the
blood supply, the report said.
The misshapen proteins — called prions
— thought to cause mad cow disease con
centrate in the brain and central nervous sys
tem, and the best test for the disease
involves killing the animal and analyzing a
cross section of its brain.
Finding a test on living animals should
be a top priority, but it does not appear to be
imminent, according to the NRC report.
“Major breakthroughs are needed to
achieve the levels of sensitivity and speci
ficity required to test live animal and human
tissues,” the report said.
Scientists are following a theory that pri
ons may move through the blood supply and
are looking for a way to detect them there.
Knowles said. They are also looking fora
genetic marker that would reveal when pn-
ons are present, he said.
The Pullman researchers were thefirstto
develop a test to detect a similar disease in
sheep called scrapie, said Charlie Powell,a
spokesman for the university’s College of
Veterinary Medicine.
That was the first and only test that ci
detect the class of diseases known as trans
missible spongiform encephalopathies -
which includes mad cow disease — in living
animals, Knowles said. But that test does
not work on cattle, he said.
The lab also was heavily involved in cre
ating the most widely used test to deted
mad cow disease after an animal is killed
Knowles said.
Testing capabilities assumed great!!
urgency when the nation’s first case of mail
cow disease was announced shortly befoit
Christmas. An infected Holstein from
that was slaughtered Dec. 9 was diagm
with mad cow disease on Dec. 22. It is
only case ever found in the United States.
Theevei
Corps
•nut
RELIGION IN BRIEF
Baptists end chaplain endorsement
ALPHARETTA, Ga. (AP) — A Southern Baptist Convention’s
North American Mission Board decided to no longer endorse
women for military chaplain positions because the denomination
reserves such pastoral roles to men only.
Despite that interpretation of the Bible, the Rev. Terry Fox said the
Baptists “affirm women in other areas of chaplaincy.”
The ruling will not affect the 20 female military chaplains (among
about 400) already endorsed by the board, but women will not be
included in the future.
“You have to be able to do all of the things your faith group
requires of a clergy person,” said board spokesman Martin King. “To
our trustees, that means being a pastor.”
Join us for the Fifth Annual
Ecological Integration Symposium
Demonstrating Ecological Value:
Promoting Conservation and
Sustainability
Friday, Feb. 20, 2004: 8:00 am - 6:00 pm
George Bush Presidential Conference Center
College Station, Texas
Speakers include: Robert Costanza (U. of VT),
Brian Czech (steadystate.org), Claire Kremen
(Princeton U.), Peter Moyle (U. of CA - Davis),
Richard Rice (Conservation International),
Michael Rosenzweig (U. of AZ)
For more info and free registration:
http: //symposium. tamu. edu
Social to Follow
Presbyterians want minister reinstated
CINCINNATI (AP) — A religious court reinstated the Rev
Stephen Van Kuiken, who was ousted from ministry in the
Presbyterian Church (USA) for marrying same-sex couples.
Van Kuiken was removed as a clergyman and as pastor of Mouft
Auburn Presbyterian Church for defying an order from the regtf
Cincinnati Presbytery to stop participating in the ceremonies.
A synod judicial commission, which covers Ohio and Michigan,
overturned that decision on a technicality. The commission said Van
Kuiken was still appealing a lower court’s order to stop performing
gay marriages.
The case has to be resolved before the church can take furthei
action, it said.
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