Jan - Feb 2010 Issue

All hands on deck: Alumni across the country tackled a range of service projects, including cleaning Durham’s Walltown neighborhood. Jared Lazarus

Although much remains unknown about the causes and possible treatments for autism, Duke genetics researchers believe they have found a clue to better understanding the disease.By observing a region of the genome that regulates the production of the hormone oxytocin in people with autism, they noted higher-than-usual numbers of gene-regulating molecules called methyl groups, a condition known as methylation.

Men who voted for John McCain or Bob Barr in the 2008 presidential election watched their candidates chances dwindle as the night wore on. At the same time, say Duke researchers, the voters' testosterone levels were declining as well.

 

A commemoration of playwright, novelist, essayist, human-rights activist, and Chilean exile Ariel Dorfman's twenty-five year association with Duke began this fall and will continue through the end of the academic year with film screenings, theatrical programs, and an academic conference on Dorfman's work.

Vann Bennett, James B. Duke Professor of cell biology, was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October. He studies the biochemistry of spectrin-based membrane skeletons and other membrane skeletal proteins.Dorothy Powell, associate dean for global and community health initiatives at the School of Nursing, was inducted into the National Black Nurses Association Institute of Excellence.

Administration plans to merge the International House and the Center for Multicultural Affairs have been put on hold following an outcry from students, faculty and staff members, and alumni.In November, the student-affairs office announced that the two campus entities would combine to form the Global Cultures Center. Administrators intended the merger to increase the interaction between American and international students, and cited dovetailing missions and an overlap in staff expertise as further justification.

The Suicide Run: Five Tales of the Marine Corps By William Styron. Random House, 2009. 194 pages. $24.  

Spencer Platt/ Getty Images

A record crowd of nearly 300 high school students traveled to Durham in late October to participate in the annual Duke Math Meet (DMM). Organized by the members of the Duke University Mathematics Union and sponsored by the mathematics department, the all-day DMM provides talented math students an opportunity to meet their peers from other schools and states.

The controversy over the publication of caricatures of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and the U.S. Supreme Court's recent review of Hillary: The Movie have generated renewed discussion about the limits of political free speech and the power of the image to provoke, incite, and anger. But the image—especially the cartoon—and controversy have long gone hand in hand.

Clean Steam: Coal plant gets makeover. Megan Morr

Adrianne Soo began running track in sixth grade to stay in shape for soccer. Thousands of miles and two knee surgeries later, she's still running, breaking records in cross country, and earning honors along the way. As a member of the Class of 2013, the Durham native will run varsity track while tackling a tough premed course load.

Fred Campbell Jr. may be living proof that when Mad Men retire, they don't necessarily become less so.A successful Duke athlete and a U.S. Marine, Campbell made his professional career on New York's Madison Avenue as an ad man. But he retired to the coast of Savannah, Georgia, where he can often be found trolling in his airboat—and occasionally chasing down suspected criminals.

For most people, a shark bite would be catastrophic. But Jim Toomey is one of the few who might profit from it."Actually, I lather myself up with chum whenever I go into the ocean," Toomey deadpans. "Because I've thought that if I ever did get bitten by a shark, it'd be great PR. But so far, no luck."

Jon Gardiner

 When Yale University Press published political scientist Jytte Klausen's book The Cartoons That Shook the World, about the impact of the 2005 publication of cartoon images of Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, they omitted one thing: the images themselves.

 Emil with Snow on His Eyelashes, Öskjuhlídarskóli, Reykjavik, Iceland 2007. Mary Ellen Mark/Courtesy Center for Documentary Studies

Recognizing veterans: Shinseki, top center, spoke of alumni courage and dedication. Chris Hildreth

At the center of Pressure Cooker—the feature-documentary directorial debut of Jennifer Grausman—is a captivating recipe. One that Wilma Stephenson, the longtime culinary-arts instructor at Northeast Philadelphia's Frankford High, knows by heart and whips up year in and year out. One that Stephenson has refined to a curious blend of edification and evisceration. One that has led her students to off-the-charts triumph in the scholarship competitions they dominate annually.

Kellylike, 1984,Felrath Hines, American, 1913–1993 Oil on linen. 50 x 56 inches

In The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age, Sven Birkerts writes about reading as "a dynamic condition." Readers look for plot and character, but what they really want, he argues, is to be transported to what he calls "the reading state."

Buffy is having a good day. Just four years old, she isn't shy around strangers. She shows the energy of a wind-up toy, bumping into chairs with abandon, and the inquisitiveness of an alien dropped into a strange environment, sniffing out the scene in one end of the room and then the other. Originally from sun-speckled Hawaii, she's more at home outdoors than here in the sub-basement of Duke's Biological Sciences Building. In fact, she's an avid walker. She is strong-willed and independent; as young as she is, she enjoys taking the leading role at home.

Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy under President George W. Bush, spoke on October 27 at Duke Law School. Feith, widely considered one of the chief architects of the Iraq war, discussed his time in the Pentagon, defending the Bush administration's conduct of the "war on terrorism."Vera Lengsfeld, a former leader of the East German opposition movement and a veteran politician, gave a talk at the Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences on November 2.

In late October, the Duke herbarium threw open the doors of its new digs for members of the university community to see. There, visitors mingled among 400,000 pressed angiosperms, or flowering plants, that now fit neatly into tall storage cabinets loaded into movable, library-like carriages.

The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition may be the most intensely difficult intellectual contest ever designed for undergraduate college students.

Millions of Internet users have been enjoying the fun—and free—services provided by advertiser-supported online social networks like Facebook. But Landon Cox '99, assistant professor of computer science, worries about their privacy.When people post pictures or political opinions to share with their friends, they're actually turning them over to the owners of the network as well, he says.

Waterworks: Roney fountain in the 1920s. Duke University Archives

To cap its twenty-fifth anniversary year, Duke Magazine organized a campus forum that explored what it means to create, transmit, and absorb the prime markers of civilization. The program, part of Homecoming Weekend in late September, grappled with ideas and controversies surrounding reading, including the central question of technology's impact on how, what, and why we read.

Credit: Jon Gardiner

Credit: Les ToddBruce Lawrence doesn't want his students simply to understand the Qur'an; he wants them to befriend it.

Muhammad Yunus. Levy Bruno/SIPAMuhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi banker, economist, champion of the poor, and Nobel Peace Prize winner, will deliver this year's commencement address.

The Duke Lemur Center is nearing the end of its first major expansion since opening in 1966. Two new buildings are being added to the center at a cost of $8.2 million, the last large construction project approved by the administration before current budget contraints set in. The buildings, winter quarters for the primates, were scheduled to be completed in January.

Stanislas Colodiet

Remains of the page: book conservators, front to back, Rachel Ingold, Mary Yordy, and Erin Hammeke. Duke University Libraries

The lotus leaf has long been studied for its water-repellant properties. Its surface is pockmarked, filled with tiny crevices and hairs that trap air inside, forcing any moisture, or even a pelting rain, to bead and roll right off the surface. Yet one mystery has stumped researchers for years: how the leaf removes naturally occurring condensation, or dew.

Mouse tumor cells stain red, showing penetration of anticancer drug after 24 hours. Ashutosh Chilikoti