Jan - Feb 2005 Issue

Pitching hissy fits might give you some perverse satisfaction, but it also makes you more prone to a heart attack or stroke. While researchers have generally known of this danger for years, they are now discovering the molecular basis for anger's role in such attacks.

Felker Magazine Fellow Pat Adams, who reported the cover story from Tanzania, had a jarring introduction to his subject. He was finishing a bumpy eight-hour bus ride that began on the coast, at Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city. His destination was Moshi, at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the town in which Duke's Tanzania-based service and research programs are concentrated.

Duke inducted seven new members into its Sports Hall of Fame last fall. Joining the 107 existing members of the Hall of Fame are: men's basketball All-America and National Player of the Year Danny Ferry '89, former wrestling coach Bill Harvey, football All-America Cedric Jones '82, men's soccer National Player of the Year John J. Kerr '87, and women's tennis standouts Christine O'Reilly '90, Patricia O'Reilly '90, and Theresa O'Reilly '90.

With the publication of When Schools Compete: A Cautionary Tale in 2000, co-authors Helen Ladd and Edward Fiske brought to the debate over school choice in America a perspective infused with prescient observation.

 Washington Duke Building, top, and in ruins, below

Evil forces from another world are attacking Earth, intent on sucking the life force out of all humanity. The fate of the entire universe rests in the hands of a band of junior-high-school girls known as the Sailor Scouts.

Duke has signed an agreement with the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to place 1,220 acres of Duke Forest in the Registry of Natural Heritage Areas. The registry agreement states it is the intention of the university to maintain the 1,220 acres for the perpetuation of natural processes, natural communities, and populations of rare species.

Taped memories: sharing a family Christmas past Photo: Jim Wallace

President Richard H. Brodhead has appointed an eleven-member committee to begin the search for the next university minister. The committee is chaired by the Reverend Charles M. Smith '62, M.Div. '65, a member of the board of trustees and director of connectional ministries for the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church in Raleigh. Craig Kocher, assistant dean of Duke Chapel and director of religious life, is serving as acting dean until the search is complete.

Five alumni have been nominated to Duke's board of trustees by the executive committee of the board of directors of the Duke Alumni Association. Robin A. Ferracone '75, David Rubenstein '70, and Alan D. Schwartz '72 will serve six-year terms, beginning July 1. Kenneth W. Hubbard '75 is nominated to fill the remaining two years of the six-year term of Melinda French Gates '86, M.B.A. '87, who retired from the board last year, and current trustee John J.

 Nearly every movie, at some point, has been boiled down to a single sentence in order to impress a producer, entice a star, or grab a reviewer's attention.

"Gli Angeli dell'Empireo" 

The blossoming of flowers is more than an aesthetic delight. It's a critical part of a plant's life and a key ecological cog in the intricate machinery of nature. So, it's unsettling to discover that the pollutant nitric oxide, which spews out of every car's tailpipe, also acts as a plant hormone that delays flowering in plants.Duke biologist Zhen-Ming Pei made that discovery when he exposed the flowering plant known as Arabidopsis to nitric oxide.

 As a youngster, in the bedroom I shared with my sister, I came to know intimately the ceiling of the room where I was supposed to be napping.

I have seen the future, and it is heavily caffeinated. This warm fall night, the Wednesday after a stretched-out election, is looking like an endless evening for me--even as it's barely beginning for students.

San Francisco to Tokyo to Bangkok to Chennai to Madurai, then by SUV to Kanyakumari. After more than eighty hours of fitful travel since departing San Francisco on New Year’s Day, I finally reached the tsunami-affected shoreline at the southern tip of India--reminded once again, rarely is it a straight line to the disaster zone.

It is 7:53 a.m., and Peter Etnoyer '88, M.E.M '01 is just moments away from his first dive in the deep-sea submersible Alvin. The sun--long up but only partially piercing the thin morning fog--promises another brilliant day on the Gulf of Alaska. With only a light breeze and little swell, it is a peaceful morning.

On the May morning I visited the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center in Moshi, Tanzania, Na-than Thielman M.D. '90, an epidemiologist and associate professor of medicine at Duke, was on duty in the HIV Clinic. He had arrived the night before on the 9:00 flight from Nairobi and by 7:00 a.m. was already seeing patients in a room the size of a coat closet.

Oktoberfest on campus happily collided with Homecoming Weekend this fall. The Duke Alumni Association kicked off a round of various group gatherings Friday night with its annual Young Alumni Party.

 

In October, Duke's board of trustees approved a measure creating two committees to review concerns from the Duke community about the social responsibility of university investments.

 Portrait of a WomanAncient Rome, 40-30 B.C.Marble, 0.344 meters

The women: clockwise from low

Matthew D. Lynch '01, a first lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, was killed October 31 by a roadside bomb in Ramadi, a Sunni Muslim area west of Baghdad, Iraq.Lynch, who was with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton, California, was serving his third tour of duty in Iraq. He was one of the first Americans deployed to Iraq after President Bush sent troops there in March 2003.

Photo: Jon Gardiner

   Feinstein: sporting an opinion. Photo: Chris Hildreth

Ricardo Lagos, president of Chile, will deliver Duke's commencement address on Sunday, May 15. Lagos Ph.D. '66 was elected in 2000 to a six-year term as Chile's president. He is Chile's third president since the nation's return to democracy.

Faculty members in disciplines from art to zoology are puzzling over how best to use the burgeoning power of computers to advance their fields. Now, North Carolina will boast a new Renaissance Computing Institute to help artists, humanists, clinicians, and other scholars apply advanced computing to their problems.

Sure, Evan Marc Katz could claim that his online-dating business will find you a partner in only three short months (for a limited time only, while supplies last).

 Distinguished Alumnus: Nasher, le

Duke is one of three U.S. research universities spotlighted in "Internationalizing the Campus 2004: Profiles of Success at Colleges and Universities," a report from NAFSA: Association of International Educators (originally the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers). The report showcases colleges and universities that are making innovative, wide-ranging efforts to integrate global approaches to campus learning.

    Reagan and Gorbachev:How the Cold War Ended By Jack F. Matlock, Jr. '50 Random House, 2004. 384 pages. $27.95.

 In charge: Moniqu

 

With a dual major in economics and fine arts, Sandra Sheppard ventured into the working world in 1984 as a production intern at Manhattan's flagship public television station, Thirteen/WNET New York.

If I'm asked in a job interview to list my weaknesses, how should I respond without damaging my chances of getting the job?