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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 20, 2015)
mma NEWS The Battalion I 4.20.15 2 TWO LOCATIONS TO DONATE AT! 1979) 315-4101 I 1979) 314-3672 ) OfT 4223 Wellborn Rd 700 University Dr E., Ste 111 Bryan, IX 77801 | College Station, TX 77840 BATT The Independent Student Voice of Texas A&M since 1893 Mark Dore, Editor in Chief Aimee Breaux, Managing Editor Jennifer Reiley, Asst. Managing Editor Lindsey Gawlik, News Editor Samantha King, Asst. News Editor Katy Stapp, Asst. News Editor John Rangel, SciTech Editor Katie Canales, Life & Arts Editor Carter Karels, Sports Editor Shelby Knowles, Photo Editor Allison Bradshaw, Asst. Photo Editor Meredith Collier, Page Designer Claire Shepherd, Page Designer THE BATTALION is published daily, Monday through Friday during the fall and spring semesters and Tuesday and Thursday during the summer session (except University holidays and exam periods) at Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. Offices are in Suite L400 of the Memorial Student Center. News: The Battalion news department is managed by students at Texas A&M University in Student Media, a unit of the Division of Student Affairs. Newsroom phone: 979-845-33IS; E-maif: editor@thebatt.com; website: http://www.thebatt.com. Advertising: Publication of advertising does not imply sponsorship or endorsement by The Battalion. For campus, local, and national display advertising, call 979-845-2687. For classified advertising, call 979-845- 0569. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Email: battads@thebatt.com. Subscriptions: A part of the University Advancement Fee entitles each Texas A&M student to pick up a single copy of The Battalion. First copy free, additional copies $1. bn H Hi Gerard Cote, Melissa Grunlan and their teams are developing a rice-sized device to plant underneath the skin that will monitor blood glucose levels. Allison Bradshaw — THE BATTALION DIABETES CONTINUED a day to monitor sugar levels. They must always be i^vare of their blood sugar, because if i^ets too low they can be come light-Headed, shaky and may even risk a coma pr death. The finger-prick method has several disadvantage^ compared to the device Cote and hisM am are developing. “When yip prick your finger, you open it up for infection, and quite frank ly it’s embarrassing for some people to pull out their meter when they have to monitor their sugar, say out at a restau rant,” Cote said. ♦ The other way blood sugar is moni tored is called continuous glucose mon itoring, during which a patient will stick the needle of a device into his or her stomach area. This device sends data to a meter that provides constant glucose levels, but it has several downsides. “It is indwelling,” Cote said. “It is sticking out of the skin just like an insulin pump does and it is very un comfortable. Also it must be calibrated against the finger prick device once a day. These devices must be pulled out and switched every three to seven days.” Cote and his team aim to fix these problems by implementing a small de vice the size of a rice grain underneath the skin. Once it is implemented, doc tors allow the skin to heal over it and glucose can be easily and noninvasively monitored for at least three months to a year before it needs replacing. Users must simply shine a fluorescent light from a watch or other device to get a reading. Andrea Locke, a doctoral student in Cote’s lab, said the lab works with the chemistry that uses glucose to produce fluorescence while Grunlan’s lab works on the biocompatible membrane that will hold the assay, or the molecule that interacts with the glucose to determine what color the device will show. The device uses two fluorescent dyes — one is tied to a protein that binds to glucose, and the other is tied to a sugar that competes for the binding site on the protein. Although the process sounds compli cated, it is actually quite simple, Locke said. “When no glucose is in the blood, these dyes will be in close proxim ity to each other and the second dye will give off fluorescence,” Locke said. “But when there is more glucose in the bloodstream, the distance between the dyes increases and the first dye fluoresc es intensely while the second is mini mized.” The project is advancing, but it still has some obstacles to overcome. Locke said while the assay performs well in a free solution, it has trouble when placed in the capsule the team hopes will even tually hold it. Cote said another issue is determining how long the device can remain in the body before the chemistry on which it is based stops working. The biocompatibility, or how well the body accepts the device, is the final hurdle. “The body does one of three things when it is injected with something,” Cote said. “The first thing the body will try is to push the foreign object out, like a splinter. If the body can’t push it out it tries to eat it up, and dispose of it. If the body can’t do either of these, it tries to put a capsule around it to protect the rest of the body.” Any of these would render the device useless, so Grunlan’s lab is designing a material that shrinks and swells to com bat the encapsulation. The implants still need to go through several phases of human and animal testing'that will take several more years before it can start being used clinically. TENNIS CONTINUED Just when A&M felt it could start to get comfort able, freshman Jordi Arcon- ada fell 5-7, 5-7 to his op ponent on court six, making the score 3-2 in favor of the Aggies. After Jordi was elim inated, only courts one and two remained in play. A&M just had to win one of two while Georgia would need wins on both courts to secure the title. Shane Vinsant, playing at line two, won his first set, 6-4, and went on to drop his second, 6-7, which led to a lit. •yk'IXJnf yTc decisive third set. Jeremy Ef- ferding at line one also was forced into a third set as his first two finished, 6-7, 6-1 respectively. When things started to heat up in the third sets, both Aggies seemed to have the momentum slipping from their grasp. Right as Vinsant and Efferding were down 3-5 and 4-5 respectively in the third set, the match was postponed due to inclement weather. Upon returning from the break, neither player lost a single game on their way to closing out the match and capturing the team’s second straight SEC Championship. Efferding clinched the match for A&M on court one, 6-7, 6-1, 7-5. Vin- sant’s match remained un finished. However, he held the advantage 6-5 when the match was called. Efferding, in addition to clinching the championship for the Aggies, was named MVP of the SEC tournament. “It feels great, you know, just a lot of hard work paying off and it’s a real honor to be the MVP but I can’t take that away from the whole team,” Efferding said. “Anyone ; ,,i. . tiiirH no-)l(vl ^ tu could have been out there in that position and I know Arthur, AJ, Jordi, Harry and Shane have been rising up to the occasion and playing great tennis and everyone has had their opportunity to shine here and everyone has been doing great. I feel like everyone is an MVP on our team.” Moving forward, A&M will prepare for the NCAA tournament in which it proj ects as a top-four seed. The tournament will begin May 9. The NCAA bracket is set to be announced at 5:30 p.m. April 28. 2015 STUDENT EMPLOYEES OF THE YEAR PAID ADVERTISEMENT You deserve a factual look at... The 2015 Texas A&M Campus The 2015 Texas A&M Community Student Employee of the Year Student Employee of the Year Chelsa Thomas Jena Boyd Class of 1956 Endowed Scholarship Recipients Brittany Hagan & Caroline Peterson Student Employment Impact Award Recipient Dr. Amy Savarino The following students were nominated for their outstanding contributions as employees both on and off campus: Carissa Beamon Offices of the Dean of Student Life MaecyMannen Horticulture Dustin Blum Dept, of Soil and Crop Sciences-Turfgrass Science Maria Martinez Sterling C Evans Library/Shelving Unit Rachele Bonasera Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics Bonnie Mikula Hilton Garden Inn - College Station Jena Boyd Down Syndrome Association of Brazos Valley Neliris Millan Dept, of Residence Life Chesney Branson-Lofton International Student Services Jillian Moss Kakorp Enterprises, Inc. 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The middle East is in chaos: Islamists are waging bloody Jihad— and winning— and Palestinian society is collapsing. Is now the time for a Palestinian state? While the Middle East is being overrun by Islamic terror groups, and Palestinian political factions are verging On civil war, some world leaders now propose forced peace talks with Israel, guaranteeing the Palestinians a state. Can we really afford a Palestinian state ripe for takeover by terrorists? What are the facts? Bloodthirsty violence wreaked by Islamic terror groups in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Tunisia has created epic instability in the Middle East. This regional jihad is being waged by the Islamic State, al Qaeda affiliates, al Nusra Front, Hizbollah, Hamas, Houthi rebels and, most prominently, Iran. Indeed, the jihadis are capturing more Middle East territory daily. The Islamic State continues to seize ground in Syria and Iraq and threatens next to attack Israel’s neighbor Jordan. The Houthis today control three major cities in Yemen, and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is making gains in other parts of the country. The greatest threat, however, comes from Iran, which through its terrorist proxies now exerts effective control over four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Iraq; Damascus, Syria; Beirut, Lebanon; and Sana’a, Yemen. This leaves Israel, the Middle East’s only democracy and bastion of Western freedoms, almost encircled by forces of radical Islam—Hizbollah and Iran on its doorstep to the north in Lebanon and Syria; the Islamic State in Syria and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula; and Hamas to the south in Gaza. Iran, of course, threatens weekly to annihilate the Jewish state—and it is steadily, secretly building the nuclear capability to back its bluster. Adding to this regional volatility, the Palestinians’ two main political parties, Fatah in the W'est Bank and the Islamic terror group Hamas in Gaza, are locked in internecine strife. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s government has no control over Gaza’s 1.9 million Arabs. The internal Palestinian conflict has become so bitter that President Abbas recently called on Arab nations to launch military attacks against Hamas. But Palestinians’ problems run far deeper. Their economy is in shambles: Without nearly $1 billion annually in international aid, including $400 million from the U.S., it would collapse. Palestinian civil society in the W’est Bank is notoriously rife with corruption. Political order is also crumbling: No Palestinian elections have been held since 2006. The 80-year-old Abbas is serving his tenth year of a five-year term, and his Fatah party has no provisions for a successor. What’s more, security in the West Bank is critically dependent on support from Israeli Defense Forces. Without it, experts predict a takeover by Hamas, which did the same in Gaza in 2006. A Hamas coup would leave Israel a tiny island engulfed in a sea of Islamist terror. Why don’t the Palestinians already have a state? The Arabs were offered a state next to Israel by the United Nations in 1948, but turned it down. After Israel’s defeat of three invading Arab armies in 1967, the Jewish state offered to negotiate land for peace, but again the Arabs refused. As recently as 2001 and 2008, under the auspices of the United States, Israel offered the Palestinians up to 95 percent of the West Bank and Gaza, plus a capital in East Jerusalem, but again the Arabs walked away from statehood and have for more than 60 years stubbornly refused to recognize the Jewish state. Today the situation in the Middle East has changed dramatically in two ways. First, Israel and moderate Arab nations are threatened as never before by radical Islamists obsessed with conquest. Second, Palestinian institutions have reached new lows of dependence and disorganization, nearing total collapse. Iran-supported Hamas is well armed and could seize control of the W’est Bank at any time. While some world leaders have proposed a deadline for completion of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, leading to a Palestinian state within a few years, this idea does not account for today’s horrific new reality in the Middle East. Indeed, a Palestinian state that is forced upon Israel and the rest of the world would most certainly turn into a nightmare. A Palestinian state forced upon the world today would most certainly turn into a nightmare. While Israel, the United States and other nations have worked in good faith to create a Palestinian state, the Palestinians themselves have consistently rejected requirements that would ensure Israel’s security and survival. Today, explosive threats from radical Islamist terror groups in the Middle East, especially Iran, as well as the disintegration of social, economic and political order among the Palestinians, make a Palestinian state unrealistic. Rather, world leaders need to focus on stabilizing the region—especially Palestinian society—and put Palestinian statehood temporarily on hold. This message has been published and paid for by FtAME Facts and Logic About the Middle East P.O. Box 590359 ■ San Francisco, CA 94159 Gerardo Joffe, President James Sinkinson, Vice President FLAME is a lax-exempi, non-profit educational 501 (c)(3) organization. Its purpose is the research and publication of the facts regarding developments in the Middle East and exposing false propaganda that might harm the interests of the United States and its allies in that area of the world. Your tax-deductible contributions are welcome. They enable us to pursue these goals and to publish these messages in national newspapers and magazines. We have virtually no overhead. Almost all of our revenue pays for our educational work, for these clarifying messages, and for related direct mail. 148 To receive free FLAME updates, visit our website: www.factsandlogic.org