Tennessee Today » In The News

Knoxville News Sentinel: Bella Luna: New career, venture sparked by beloved instructor

Rebekah Winkler — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:22:41 +0000

The Knoxville News Sentinel spoke with the chefs and owners of Bella Luna Restaurant, Donna Parang and Christin Love, about the UT professor who inspired them to pursue their dreams, the late John Antun. Before his death in July 2011 Antun served as associate professor for the university’s Department of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management and was the creator of the University of Tennessee Culinary Institute. Love said it was Antun’s belief in his students’ abilities that made an impact on her.

Read the full story here.

News Sentinel: Bridging the gap: UT, donor believe new building will improve state of education

Whitney Heins — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:22:57 +0000

The Knoxville News Sentinel gives readers an inside look of UT’s John D. Tickle Engineering Building, now under construction. The $23.1 million, 110,000-square-foot building will be the second engineering building to go up on campus in as many years. The college, however, has seen such enrollment growth in the last five years — a 37 percent uptick among undergraduates — that it will be filled to capacity as soon as it moves into the new Tickle building. The Tickle building is named for its donor, John Tickle. The building and a bridge connecting it to the Hill will use fiberglass-reinforced plastic beams manufactured by Tickle’s company, Strongwell Corp.

WBIR-TV: Tree Rings + iPads = History Teaching Tools

Whitney Heins — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:03:29 +0000

A cross section of a tree owned by Henri Grissino-Mayer, professor of geography, was used in a class presentation at Talbott Elementary School in Jefferson County. Almost two years ago, tree fell on a church in Knoxville. Members saw a hole in their building but an elementary school teacher saw an opportunity for lessons in geography, history, math, and more. Students use the tree’s natural timeline and modern technology to track history. Kurt Butefish, program administrator and coordinator with the Tennessee Geographic Alliance said lessons like that spark an interest in geography.

The Wall Street Journal: They Turned the Lights On

Rebekah Winkler — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:56:23 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reviews the latest book from Ernest Freeberg, distinguished professor of humanities. The Age of Edison is about electric light and its enormous effect on American work, entertainment, family life, safety, medicine, social class, architecture, business, and industry. The Journal calls Freeberg’s book “a vivid social history with parallels for today’s technology innovators and for those who wish to increase their number.”

Read the full review here.

The book was also reviewed in the LA Times.

News Sentinel: UT expert: Meteorites not uncommon

Whitney Heins — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 14:35:12 +0000

The Knoxville News Sentinel interviewed Joshua Emery, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences, about the 10-ton meteor that broke into pieces over Russia. Emery said the astronomical event is not terribly uncommon. “Something like what happened in Russia happens once a decade or so somewhere on Earth, but most of the time it goes into the ocean or places where no one living and no one is really seeing it to cause any problems or have any effect,” Emery said. Emery, who studies asteroids, their composition and their orbit, said meteors of that size come into the Earth’s orbit roughly once every 10 years.

WBIR: UT trains next generation of nuclear security

Whitney Heins — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 14:25:54 +0000

WBIR-TV highlighted UT’s Institute for Nuclear Security in light of North Korea testing its third nuclear bomb. Governor’s Chair for Nuclear Security Howard Hall leads the institute and said the field desperately needs more young people to replace an aging generation of nuclear experts.”Engineers are important, ‘poli-sci’ people, political scientists are going to become diplomats,”said Hall. And North Korea once again brought the issue front and center.

News Sentinel: UT to invest millions in campus beautification

Whitney Heins — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:34:34 +0000

The Knoxville News Sentinel featured an effort by UT to add greenery and amenities to increase curb appeal. The project is part of an immediate face lift that will bring greenery to Volunteer Blvd., Presidential Court, landscape the engineering buildings behind Ayres Hall, add entrance pillars to Fraternity Park, and extend the existing pedestrian mall. “We don’t want to do a gradual improvement, although that would be great. What we really want to do is a quantum leap that transforms the view of this campus,” said Dave Irvin, associate vice chancellor for facilities. “That kind of quantum leap would set up a synergy of success that would begin to feed other projects, begin to help in terms of recruitment of students, recruitment of faculty, accelerated donations.”

WBIR-TV: Bill Bass, the forensic anthropologist behind The Body Farm talks about his life

Whitney Heins — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:25:56 +0000

WBIR-TV anchor Abby Ham conducts an in-depth interview with Professor Emeritus of Forensic Anthropology Bill Bass, best known for founding the Forensic Anthropology Center (also known as the “Body Farm”). Bass has written seven books and performed numerous breakthroughs in forensic anthropology. “What we have tried to do is to reconstruct the conditions that you find bodies in the state of Tennessee. So you find them on the ground, or you find them buried, or you find them in water, you find them in cars, trunks of cars,” said Bass, who assists authorities in solving crimes, in the interview. Watch the interview here.

Knoxville News Sentinel Video: Dave Irvin on converting UT’s power plant from coal to gas

Rebekah Winkler — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:11:25 +0000

In a video on the Knoxville News Sentinel website, Dave Irvin, associate vice chancellor for facilities services, discusses some of the savings the university will see as a result of converting the campus’s fifty-two-year-old coal-fired steam plant into a natural gas facility. Watch the video here, and read the full story here.

WSJ: Falling Down on the Job?

Whitney Heins — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 21:08:52 +0000

An article by the Wall Street Journal about the downside of active workstations cites a study by University of Tennessee researchers. The 2009 study found that treadmill walking resulted in an up to 11 percent deterioration in fine motor skills like mouse clicking, and dragging and dropping, as well in as cognitive functions like math-problem solving.

News Sentinel: Boyd Venture Fund winners target campus market

Lola Alapo — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:04:00 +0000

College campuses are prime target markets and hotbeds of potential innovation, according to student entrepreneurs selected as winners of grants from the Boyd Venture Fund at UT. The News Sentinel featured the two winners, InHouse GFX and Adams Innovation, in this story. Both companies were founded on the UT campus and initially found success targeting the student market.

News Sentinel: UT student hopes his play about mental illness starts conversations

Rebekah Winkler — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 16:07:38 +0000

Sophomore Brock Ward wrote the play Homebound: A Play for Nobody in part about his own struggles with mental illness. In an interview with the Knoxville News Sentinel, Ward says he wants people to feel hope and know they’re not the only ones who feel the way they’re feeling. A staged reading of Ward’s play will take place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, January 26, at the Clarence Brown Theatre’s Lab Theatre on the UT campus. Admission is free.

The New York Times: Deep Under Antarctica, Looking for Signs of Life

Whitney Heins — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:53:36 +0000

A project involving Jill Mikucki, assistant professor of microbiology, was featured in The New York Times. It seeks to find evidence of life in a lake deep under the Antarctic ice as well as understand the role subglacial lakes play in stabilizing or destabilizing the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Called Wissard, for Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling, the project is about to start drilling into a lake half a mile below a glacier called the Whillans Ice Stream and will analyze samples on the spot in a field laboratory. The research is aimed at understanding the flow of water beneath glaciers into the Southern Ocean and the rate of melting of Antarctic ice, which could provide important information for climate studies. For more information, read the article.

WUOT: UT Biomedical Engineering Researcher Yongzhong Wang: A Fungus That Could Fight Cancer

Whitney Heins — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:59:22 +0000

Biomedical engineering researcher Yongzhong Wang spoke to WUOT’s Chrissy Keuper about his research into a fungus that has cancer-fighting capabilities. Wang, along with Mingjun Zhang, an associate professor of biomedical engineering, discovered that nanoparticles produced by A. oligospora, a fungus that eats roundworm, hold promise for stimulating the immune system and killing tumors. To hear the full interview, visit the WUOT website.

WBIR-TV: Russia convicts man of 2002 Gatlinburg double-murder

Rebekah Winkler — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 08:04:45 +0000

For the first time ever, a Russian court has convicted one of its own citizens for a murder that occurred in the United States. The conviction came with help from UT’s Forensic Anthropology Center, also known as the “Body Farm.” The conviction came last month, more than ten years after the crime took place at a Gatlinburg apartment complex.

See the full story here.

Tennessean: Let skilled nurses ease health burdens

Whitney Heins — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 18:08:38 +0000

Carole Myers, associate professor of nursing, wrote an op-ed in the Tennessean entitled “Let skilled nurses ease health burdens.” In the piece, Myers addressed removing barriers to primary health care services by allowing advanced practice nurses to practice to the full extent of their education and training. One of these barriers is the requirement of restrictive physician supervision of advanced practice nurses. The overall health status of Tennesseans ranks 39th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia,” she wrote. “Despite these revealing numbers, our state is one of the most restrictive when it comes to APRNs…In the United States, health care is undergoing a much-needed transformation to serve more patients, better. Tennessee must be part of this transformation. APRNs are poised to meet the challenge of providing high-quality primary care to all Tennesseans. APRNs are part of the solution to being ready in 2014 when more demands are placed on our already overburdened primary care system.”

Knoxville News Sentinel: Zooming in: UT’s $3.5M microscopes boon for researchers, students

Whitney Heins — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:25:37 +0000

UT’s new electron microscopes were featured in an article in the Knoxville News Sentinel and Associated Press. The electron microscopes run the gamut in the discovery and improvement of advanced materials used in areas such as nuclear security, medicine, nanotechnology, and green power. They will be housed in the Joint Institute for Advanced Materials (JIAM). The $2.5 million Zeiss Libra 200 transmission electron microscope, with the magnification power of 1 to 10 million times, has few equals, according to JIAM Director George Pharr. “There are only four or five like it in the world,” he said. “It uses electrons to transmit through materials. We use the information gleaned in the process to learn the internal structures of materials to the atomic level.” The power of the Libra is staggering. It has the magnification capacity to read the mint date on the head of a nickel on the moon. To read the article, visit the Knoxville News Sentinel website.

The Today Show: Wildlife experts fight to save bats from deadly fungus

Whitney Heins — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:53:48 +0000

UT Institute of Agriculture researcher Marcy Jan Souza was featured in a story which aired on NBC’s the TODAY show to discuss efforts to save bats from the white nose syndrome. The syndrome is a fungus running unchecked through America’s caves, threatening the existence of bats from Canada to the Deep South. To see the story, visit NBC’s website.

TODAY: Wildlife experts fight to save bats from deadly fungus

Rebekah Winkler — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 15:15:42 +0000

Dr. Marcy Souza, assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, appeared on the TODAY show to discuss why finding a cure for White Nose syndrome in bats is so important. The fungus is currently spreading through America’s caves, threatening the existence of bats from Canada to the deep south. Watch the video here.

News Sentinel: UT prof says let children grieve

Rebekah Winkler — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 13:30:28 +0000

Bob Rider, dean of the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, spoke with the Knoxville News Sentinel about helping children through their grief in the wake of tragedies like that of the school shooting that took place in Newtown, Connecticut, last week. Rider told the newspaper that a parent’s support should include room for listening, catharsis, and grief, along with perspective. Read the full story here.