Students, symphony to perform
Tuscaloosa News – March 24
At Tuscaloosa City Schools, it’s not uncommon for students to sit through musical performances. However, with a pilot program in place in partnership with the University of Alabama’s Huxford Symphony, the school system wants many of those students to be part of the show. “Typically, in an orchestral concert for students, students go to the concert hall, they sit down and they are passively listening,” said Jeff Schultz, fine arts coordinator for Tuscaloosa City Schools. “This is designed as a completely interactive program where the orchestra plays, but the students play along with them.” On Friday, more than 120 students from Southview Middle, Tuscaloosa Magnet Elementary, Verner Elementary and the Alberta School of Performing Arts will hold a concert at noon at Alberta where students will play recorders alongside Huxford Symphony instrumentalists.
Getting Tattooed Makes Your Immune System Stronger
Huffington Post – March 23
It’s easy to tell where the Game’s from. It’s tattooed on his face. The Los Angeles rapper has so many tattoos, his artist says he’s running out of room, and it all perpetuates the long-held belief by many that tattoos equal toughness. And those people might be right, at least scientifically speaking: The American Journal of Human Biology suggests that getting inked can actually toughen up your immune system. University of Alabama researchers have found that tattooing prepares the immune system to battle “stressors” associated with soft tissue damage. The act of tattooing seems to put the immune system on heightened alert, in turn making the body better at healing itself after getting inked.
Industry Tap – March 23
KAIT-ABC (Jonesboro, Arkansas) – March 23
KLTV-ABC (Tyler, Texas) – March 23
KVFS-CBS (Paducah, Kentucky) – March 23
Why watching comb jellies poop has stunned evolutionary biologists
Science Mag – March 23
No buts about it, the butthole is one of the finest innovations in the past
540 million years of animal evolution. The first animals that arose seem to have literally had potty mouths: Their modern-day descendants, such as sea sponges, sea anemones, and jellyfish, all lack an anus and must eat and excrete through the same hole. Once an independent exit evolved, however, animals diversified into the majority of species alive today, ranging from earthworms
to humans … Browne is currently exploring the latter theory by seeing whether comb jellies activate the same genes when developing their pores that other animals do when growing an anus. If he finds that the genes are different, the evolution of our most unspeakable body part will no longer be considered the singular event zoologists long supposed. “We have all these traditional notions of a ladderlike view of evolution, and it keeps getting shaken,” says Kevin Kocot, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.
University of Alabama students self-publish and sell comic books
Daily Orange (Syracuse, NY) – March 23
While most students spent their Thanksgiving breaks with family, two seniors at the University of Alabama worked tirelessly at finishing a comic. Kristofer Pearce and Ethan Jackson finished the comic, “Ghost Phase,” which was the first book for their new company, Dream Ink Comics, on Thanksgiving morning. Four months later, the book has taken off and is being sold in several stores across the United States. Pearce, a new college production media major, and Jackson, an aerospace engineering major, met as freshmen and quickly realized they shared an interest in comics. Jackson’s primary interest was in the writing aspect and Pearce focused on the art.
SCOTUS Upholds Use of Statistics in Class Overtime Fight
Bloomberg BNA – March 23
Workers at a Tyson Foods pork processing plant were properly allowed to pursue their overtime claims as a class, the U.S. Supreme Court overwhelmingly ruled in a significant win for plaintiffs. Courtwatchers speculated before oral argument that this case could shut down so-called trial-by-formula calculations of damages, thereby ending many class actions that rely on representative evidence. The court held, in a 6-2 opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, that this case, which raised both class claims under state law, and collective action claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act, didn’t present an occasion to adopt such a broad rule for all class actions … The opinion also “provides some important guidance” on the court’s opinion in Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011) , Adam Steinman, who teaches civil procedure at the University of Alabama Law School in Tuscaloosa, told Bloomberg BNA in a March 22 e-mail.