Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

Parallel universes?

“What It Means to be Human: Science, Consciousness and Our Place in the Universe” is the topic of the MTSU Science and Spirituality Symposium at 7 p.m. tomorrow, March 27, in the State Farm Lecture Hall of MTSU’s Business and Aerospace Building. The event is free and open to the public. The lecturers will be Dr. Joel R. Primack, a professor of physics and tone of the world’s leading cosmologists, and Nancy Ellen Abrams, attorney and former Fulbright Scholar. “At the heart of humanity’s problems on this planet is a terrible alienation from nature, both planetary and cosmic,” says Rami Shapiro, an adjunct religious studies professor at MTSU and an ordained rabbi. “The true hope that dialogue between science and spirituality holds out is this: to reawaken our capacity for wonder; to help us realize that we are the way the universe looks at itself and says ‘Wow!’”

For more information, contact R. Neil Scott, associate professor of the library, or Bill Black, administrative services librarian, at 615-898-2772.

Ship Tennessee products

Where do Tennessee’s exports go? According to data for the third quarter of 2007, Canada is far and away the top trade partner. Far behind are Mexico, China, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Australia and South Korea. The Volunteer State’s largest export sectors were transportation equipment with $995,571,823 in exports, followed by computer and electronic products, chemicals, miscellaneous manufactured goods, nonelectrical machinery, primary metal manufacturing and agricultural products. Miscellaneous manufactured goods saw the greatest growth over the previous year with 21.3%, while exports of agricultural products declined 38% over last year.

Contact Dr. Steven Livingston at 615-898-2720.
slivings@mtsu.edu

Better chemistry through marketing?

How does one put a human face on chemistry? Dr. Preston MacDougall, chemistry, notes, “In their new marketing icon, Dow lists Earth’s approximate population—7 billion—as the atomic mass of Hu, the human element. Not everybody in the world is a chemist, but we all use chemistry in one way or another. This is the message of another recent television commercial put out by the Public Education Campaign of the American Chemistry Council. In this one, Hollywood special effects make X-ray films disappear as a doctor tries to make a diagnosis, and a toy car loses key parts, spoiling its potential fun. This spot is far more ad than ed and can be seen as the ‘hard sell’ next to Dow’s ‘soft sell.’ Probably not on the playlist, but it effectively conveys the truth of how chemistry is ‘essential2’ much of daily life.”

Contact MacDougall at 615-898-5265.
pmacdoug@mtsu.edu

TR EXTRA

NO BONES ABOUT IT!--The MTSU Distinguished Lecture Committee and Forensic Institute for Research and Education will present Dr. Clyde C. Snow speaking on “Human Rights” at 6 p.m. tonight, March 25, in the State Farm Lecture Hall of the Business and Aerospace Building. This event is free and open to the public. Some of Snow’s better known skeletal confirmations include John F. Kennedy; the men who fought at Custer’s Last Stand; Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele; the victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy; King Tut; and the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. In the 1980s he went to Argentina to exhume mass graves filled with innocent civilians who had been killed by government death squads during the war. So far, his work has led to the conviction of five officers in Argentina. For more information, contact Becky Snow at 615-494-7713 or rsnow@mtsu.edu.

DUO PEGASUS IN FLIGHT--Duo Pegasus, a clarinet/piano duo from Wisconsin featuring Scott Wright (clarinet) and Linda Halloin (piano), will perform in a free and open concert at 3:30 p.m. today, March 26, in the T. Earl Hinton Music Hall of the Wright Music Building. Works to be performed include Pierre Sancan’s Sonatine, Leo Sowerby’s Sonata, Paquito D’Rivera’s Two Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, John Ireland’s Fantasy-Sonata and Mike Mower’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano. For more information, call 615-898-2493.

WIKI WORLD--“Accuracy, Privacy and the World Wide Web: The First Amendment and the Internet” is the title of a day-long event tomorrow, March 27, at MTSU’s Keathley University Center Theater. Nobel Peace Prize-winner Al Gore will be joined by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, author Cass Sunstein, Tennessean Publisher Emeritus John Seigenthaler, The New York Times’ Jonathan Landman, attorney Charles Sizemore, Poynter Institute President Karen Dunlap, and Media Bloggers Association President Robert Cox. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Beverly Keel at 615-898-5150 or bkeel@mtsu.edu.

RAD-ICAL!--A series of six Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) classes will be offered at no charge every Thursday beginning tomorrow, March 27, through May 1, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the MTSU police training room located at 1412 East Main Street. The class will be open to all female MTSU students, faculty and staff as well as to the general public. A workbook/training manual will be provided to each student. Enrollment is limited. For more information or to enroll, call MTSU RAD Instructor David Smith at 615-692-2424.

ART FOR ART’S SAKE--The Todd Gallery at MTSU will present “Domenic Cretara: The Large Drawings,” a 19-piece exhibit by the California-based artist, through Friday, March 28, in Todd Hall on the MTSU campus. The show, which is free and open to the public, will feature works by the contemporary realist that were created in some of his preferred media—charcoal, pastels (chalk and pencil) and chalk. The Todd Gallery is open 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays.