Jul - Aug 2006 Issue

Four-year-olds show activity in the same brain region during numerical tasks as adults, according to Duke researchers, who used comparative brain-scan studies to explore the earliest glimmerings of numerical processing in preschool children.

Camera ready: journalist Harwood. Megan Morr

There are out-of-state alumni who fly to Durham for their class reunions, and there are those who opt to drive. But there is probably only one person who pedals in, at least from more than 1,000 miles away.

Last year Duke Magazine examined the effects of the university's revolutionary giveaway of iPods to first-year students the previous fall.

 Duke University Archives

Frank L. Borchardt

The Fuqua School of Business has made a commitment to purchase renewable energy certificates to offset 100 percent of its electricity use, making it one of the first business schools in the country to independently purchase 100 percent of its energy in this way.

Landscaping: From left, Tilley, Go

A team of British and American scientists has completed the detailed genetic mapping of human chromosome 1, the largest single unit of genetic material in the human genome and the final chromosome to be completely sequenced.Researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Duke Medical Center led the effort, which involved more than 150 scientists and took about ten years to complete. Their findings were published in the journal Nature.

Any good brawler knows that the power of a punch depends both on his muscle and the extra heft he attaches to his mitt.

Students in the Duke music department's graduate composition program are typically required to fulfill a teaching assistantship--presenting lectures in undergraduate classrooms, guiding discussions, and leading ear-training, sight-singing, and keyboard-skills labs.But for composer Carl Schimmel, a graduate student who plans to complete his dissertation next year, the experience of working with undergraduates has been a little more personal.

For better or for worse--largely for worse--the detainee camp at Guantánamo Bay has been a newsmaker. Over the last few months, European leaders sharpened their calls to shut down the detention center. Several prisoners committed suicide. And the Supreme Court ruled that detainees couldn't be subjected to military tribunals.

Les Todd

Darwin v. Intelligent DesignWith the recent "In Defense of Darwin" article [March-April 2006] in addition to the "Evidence of Evolution" article that appeared in September-October 1999, Duke Magazine has emphasized one side of the controversy.

The Untitled Pink Corset Book

Vivek Wadhwa

Oral historian and audio artist Judith Sloan, along with her husband and collaborator, Warren Lehrer, embarked on a documentary project in Queens, New York, in 1999, that spanned four years and several media. The award-winning project, Crossing the BLVD: Strangers, Neighbors, Aliens in a New America, explored the lives of immigrants and refugees living in Queens through storytelling workshops, extended interviews, and photographs.

 Earlier this spring, the movement to institutionalize the study of hip-hop in academe received a boost. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History announced that it would enshrine hip-hop culture with an extensive exhibit tracing its evolution from a Bronx pastime in the 1970s to today's global juggernaut.

 Over fall break of his junior year, Chris Davis '06 went whitewater kayaking on the Narrows of Western North Carolina's Green River. He had just finished negotiating several of the river's Class Five rapids, including the infamous "Gorilla," when he figured he was home free. That's exactly the moment that Davis got into trouble. He tried to coast through a "piddly" Class Three and flipped his craft.

A given: By most Americans' standards, Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al Bahlul is probably a bad guy. To believe that requires only a certain perspective--namely, one that does not favor the bloody imposition of an Islamist theocracy--and a very short leap of faith, barely more than a hop, to span the gap between what al Bahlul admits and what the U.S. Department of Defense alleges.

Any connoisseur of post-1950s American popular music would welcome the rare opportunity to sit at the feet of Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn, listening to them perform their classic songs and tell stories about their songwriting experiences.

On wings and pointe: The Paul Taylor Dance Company, which

Flags of hope: Bergman displays her work. Jon Gardiner

This year, all incoming first-year students will read My Sister's Keeper, the story of a teenager who was genetically engineered to be a bone-marrow donor for her older sister, who has leukemia.

Cloaking device: schematics for Star Trek's Romulan WarbirdIf the efforts of Duk

Josh Sommer. Jon Gardiner

The law school's Children's Education Law Clinic, together with the North Carolina Justice Center in Raleigh, successfully represented two of thirty high-school students suspended from school for ten days after they participated in a student protest of changes to immigration laws. As a result, all of the students who participated in the protest were permitted to return to school.

 Jon Gardiner

Mary Beath is drawn to places, both real and imagined, where predictability erodes: unexpected encounters with nature during her long, solo hikes through New Mexico's deserts and mountains; the artistic possibilities and philosophical implications found in ecological complexity and chaos theory; the wilderness of lo

Presidential pose: Clark, new DAA head. Les Todd

Home visits: While at Duke, Helen Chu M.D.

In his May 14 commencement address, John Hope Franklin Hon. '98 advised graduates to take time to improve society and, in particular, to assist the nation's schools and help combat racism. "The community and the nation need you to use your energies and talents to assist our government and the people as they work for the good of society," Franklin said.

Subject to revision: brave new braneworld. Deborah Betz Collection/Corbis

The Apparitioners By George Witte '82. Three Rail Press, 2005. 86 pages. $19.50.

Louis Armstrong's New Orleans By Thomas Brothers. W.W. Norton and Company, 2006. 386 pages. $26.95.

Duke's total economic impact on the city and county of Durham is estimated at $3.2 billion a year, according to a new study.

Steady hands: Janangelo goes for the green during ACC championship. Jon Gardiner

Star turn: Mulroney, left, with champion curler Jennifer Jones and Canadian Idol c

Engaged and engaging: historian of science Mauskopf. Les Todd

 I'm a recent grad who has not yet found work. I'm looking for an events-management position in New York. Employers seem interested, but I don't get called back after the interview. What am I doing wrong?

Monte D. Brown has been named vice president of administration for Duke Health System and associate dean of veterans' affairs for the medical school. Brown has served seven months as chief operating officer of Duke's Private Diagnostic Clinic and as the health-system and medical-school representative to the Durham VA Medical Center.Katharine T. Bartlett will step down as dean of the law school.