Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Daily

Herald

the Brown

vol. cxlviii, no. 6

INSIDE

Page 5

Planting seeds Pembroke Center awards interdisciplinary grants

Expanding engineering school considers off-campus space The prospect of a site off College Hill sparks concern among students over accessibility

By Sarah perelman Senior staff writer

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Young ambition Moffat ’13 questions the age limit for elected office Page 8

Hazy days Marijuana use linked to energy, memory problems today

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tomorrow

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since 1891

wednesday, january 30, 2013

The School of Engineering is exploring options, including sites off College Hill, for a new building to accommodate the ongoing expansion in the size of its faculty and student body, said Dean of Engineering Lawrence Larson.

Some students expressed concern that a building in a different location could diminish the possibility of building close relationships with professors.

“Accessibility is a huge thing that Brown offers,” said engineering student Emily Toomey ’15. Barus and Holley’s proximity to the rest of campus has allowed her to pursue research opportunities and meet with her professors during the two-hour break between her classes, she said. A

commute to an off-campus site would diminish this fluidity, she said.

Larson said the department’s “number one priority” is maintaining the close relationships between students and faculty members. “If we built off the Hill, that would become a real challenge,” he added.

Some students said they felt the possible physical separation between engineering and the rest of campus might affect their academic experiences outside of the department.

If the building were moved off campus, “I would be less inclined to take liberal arts classes that are in the center of campus,” Toomey said.

Karina Alventosa ’13 added that a move downtown would seem to go against the philosophy of the New Curriculum, since it would be hard to attend classes in such different places.

But even if the school were to expand to a location off College Hill, important elements of the engineering program would remain on campus, faculty members said. / / School page 3 “Having

emily gilbert / herald

Though the School of Engineering may expand off-campus, key facets of the program will remain on College Hill, administrators said.

Taveras forecasts city’s economic recovery Funds The mayor stresses the importance of fiscal stall for responsibility as the city attempts to rebuild student activities By mariya bashkatova senior staff writer

Mayor Angel Taveras outlined Providence’s past fiscal struggles and indicated the beginning of an economic recovery at the annual State of the City address Tuesday night at City Hall.

Providence faced a $110 million structural deficit when Taveras assumed office in 2011. He embarked on a campaign to reduce the deficit last year and urged the city’s non-profit institutions — such as the University

city & state

and the city’s healthcare providers — to increase voluntary payments in lieu of property taxes. In 2012, Providence reduced its deficit from $22 million to the current $4 million.

“We expect to end this year with a balanced budget,” Taveras said.

Taveras partially attributed last year’s $18 million in cuts to the city’s pension reform agreement with retirees. The reform froze cost-of-living adjustments, placed a cap on pensions and put retirees over the age of 65 on Medicare — all efforts to make pension plans more sustainable for the city, he said. Taveras thanked the workers affected for the sacrifices they have made for the city.

He also thanked tax-exempt institutions for pledging to increase their contributions to the city by $48 million / / Taveras page 4 over the next

Funding for student groups tightens as UFB focuses on financial aid expansion

By Maxine Joselow Senior Staff writer Emily Gilbert/ Herald

In his State of the City speech, Mayor Angel Taveras discussed progress the city has made, including an $18 million deficit reduction in 2012.

Alums boost online education platform Three alums have used their Brown education to improve the educational online platform Coursera

By DORA CHU CONTRIBUTING WRITER

As the University’s relationship with online education progresses forward, three alumni are jumping on the movement to shift higher education from building bricks to online clicks.

Launched by two Stanford professors in April 2012, online education system Coursera’s self-described vision is of “a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions.” More than 30 universities, including Brown, are now participating in the online education movement through Coursera.

feature

Courtesy of coursera

Coursera, an online platform offering free open courses, could create “a fundamental shift,” said Anne Trumbore ’89, who works for the company.

Cruising to Coursera Jerry Charumilind ’00, Anne Trumbore ’89 and Norian CaporaleBerkowitz ’12 didn’t know each other until Charumilind and CaporaleBerkowitz arrived last fall at Coursera, based in Mountain View, Calif.

Before being hired, Charumilind took two classes via Coursera, one of which was taught by company cofounder Andrew Ng. “From his video lectures I had a very good sense of his character,” Charumilind said. Upon hearing about the company starting up, he applied for a position.

The opportunity to work at Coursera was “really exciting and motivating” compared to his previous job working for TiVo, he said.

Charumilind currently works as an engineer to make Coursera’s tools, such as video lectures, quizzes and computer assessments, more accessible / / Online page 2 to instructors.

The student activities endowment, a fund that has historically been a priority for the Undergraduate Finance Board and Undergraduate Council of Students, has recently been eclipsed by student interest in expanding financial aid.

“It’s been really hard because there’s been a big push for financial aid and that’s where a lot of the fundraising is going,” said Zak Fischer ’13, UFB chair.

“We’ve definitely tried to make (the endowment) a priority, but I don’t think I would want to push financial aid out of the way,” Fischer said. “We’re here to represent the student body, and that seems to be what they want first.”

The student activities endowment — a pool of money intended to fund student activities, groups and events — contained about $1.3 million at the end of the last fiscal year, but should ideally reach $21 million to be sustainable, said Daniel Pipkin ’14, UFB Vice Chair.

The endowment swelled in 2009, when then-President Ruth Simmons donated $100,000, and again in 2011 when Chancellor Emeritus Stephen / / Student page 2 Rob er t ’62

2 university news c alendar Wednesday

January 30

12 P.m.

/ / Online page 1

Thursday

january 31

4 p.m.

Luncheon with Nukhet Sandal

Leallyn Burr Clapp Lecture

Watson Institute

MacMillan Hall 117

7 p.m.

8 p.m.

Salon with Poet Lisa Starr

Comic Hypnotist Show

J. Walter Wilson 501

Kasper Multipurpose Room

menu SHARPE REFECTORY

VERNEy-WOOLLEY

LUNCH Sweet and Sour Tofu, Chicken Artichoke Pasta Medley, Hot Roast Beef on French Bread

Italian Beef Noodle Casserole, Broccoli Quiche, Meatballs with Sauce, Mediterranean Eggplant Saute

DINNER Vegan Chana Masala, Black Forbidden Rice, Curried Tofu with Coconut, Orange Teriyaki Salmon

Baked Chicken Parmesan, Tofu Parmesan, Butternut Squash and Leek Risotto

Sudoku

When she applied for a job with Coursera, Trumbore had been working in the online education field for almost a decade, beginning with Stanford’s online high school program through the Education Program for Gifted Youth. Like Charumilind, she reached out to Coursera looking for a position on the team after hearing about the company. Trumbore, who works in course operations, oversees relations with universities, writes a partner newsletter and manages communications for the company. Flexibility is a key characteristic of the organization, whose team members are all well-rounded and do “a little bit of everything,” she said.

Trumbore, who concentrated in semiotics at Brown, said she picked up skills at Coursera that she would not have learned otherwise, such as working with computer code.

Caporale-Berkowitz started his work with online education as a part of CourseWire, a series of short science video tutorials started at Brown.

He also works in course operations at Coursera to ensure they function efficiently. A self-described “middleman between professors and engineers,” Caporale-Berkowitz works with professors to help them master the technology and builds the tools professors need.

Caporale-Berkowitz expressed an ardent belief in Coursera’s mission.

“I’m right at the cutting edge of what’s happening in online education,” he said.

A custom education Though a majority of Brown students has embraced the adoption of

Crossword

/ / Student page 1 P’91 pledged an additional $1 million. But the endowment’s growth has stalled since then, The Herald previously reported. The endowment made only meager progress from investment gains last year, Fischer said.

The yearly budget for UFB, which funds student groups and activities, is determined based on funds received from the Student Activities Fee. Student Activities Chair Alexander Kaplan ’14 said he expects the University Resources Committee to recommend a $36 increase to the current $214 fee — which all undergraduates pay as part of tuition — in two weeks.

If it reached its goal, the endowment would eventually eliminate the activities fee, The Herald previously reported.

“It’s tough to take money out of one basket and put it in another,” Ka-

the brown daily herald wednesday, january 30, 2013

Coursera, a minority has expressed concerns about the effectiveness of online education and how teaching online courses might influence professors’ priorities, The Herald previously reported. But the Brown alums working at Coursera stand firmly behind online education.

“It’s not going away. The question is, ‘How do we make it better?’” Trumbore said.

Trumbore and Charumilind agreed that online education is not meant to replace the experience of being at a university.

“So much of your university experience is the environment,” Charumilind said. He noted that the experience of attending a school like Brown is not available for many people. “The clearest benefit (of online education) is the amount of access that people have,” he said.

Because Coursera does not charge tuition, it “serves everybody with an Internet connection,” Trumbore said.

A key feature is the “customizability” of Coursera. The online courses allow for students to take classes outside of their intended majors, a convenience not found at most universities, Trumbore said.

Coursera also offers the opportunity to interact more closely with instructors. Most students do not have the benefit of working closely with a professor who is a “leader in their field,” Trumbore said. Large lecture halls are common, especially in many underfunded public institutions where getting spaces in classes and graduating in four years can be difficult, she added.

With Coursera, professors can “flip” their classrooms by assigning a recorded lecture as homework, allow-

ing the instructors to concentrate on problem areas during class, CaporaleBerkowitz said. “It’s raising the level of education for everyone,” he added.

“The student has to bring a lot more agency to an online class in order to succeed and do well,” Trumbore said. “I think that this represents a fundamental shift in how people are going to start viewing their own education.”

plan said. “At the moment, financial aid is definitely a top priority. Hopefully moving forward, the student activities fund will become one in the coming years,” he said.

Kaplan said he thinks student activities should be a priority for student government because they “give color and vibrancy to student life” and create a heightened sense of community. For example, Brown Concert Agency’s planning of Spring Weekend energizes Brown’s entire campus, he said.

“BCA could do with a little more money,” said Emma Ramadan ’13, BCA booking chair. “We get adequate funding … but it’s never enough to give Brown students what they really want.”

BCA usually receives 25 percent of the student activities budget, “but it’s really not that much compared to how much artists cost,” Ramadan said.

BCA received $180,000 for Spring Weekend, but Brown students requested artists such as David Guetta and Taylor Swift, who cost upwards of $250,000 and $500,000 respectively, she said.

Leaders of student cultural groups said they suffer from scarce finances — in particular from a lack of funding for food.

The Latin American Student Association strained its budget in order to have Latino Senior Night catered last spring, said Kendra Cornejo ’15, president of LASO. “I would very much appreciate if UFB gave funding for food, because then we could provide the seniors with this nice send-off without having to make such a sacrifice,” Cornejo said.

The Vietnamese Students’ Association, which has struggled to promote a strong presence on campus, attracted two or three times as many members this year by advertising spring rolls at its first general body meeting, said Alexander Tran ’14, co-president of VSA. “It’s a common, ongoing complaint we don’t get funding for food,” Tran said.

Pipkin said while the student activities endowment is currently eclipsed by financial aid, looking forward, UFB will discuss funding food for cultural groups as a future initiative. “It is my sincerest hope that UFB will be able to fund food,” he said.

In the immediate future, increasing the student activities fee could be a means to pay for food at cultural events, Fischer said.

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‘Paying it forward’ Charumilind said he was very fortunate to attend Brown and to be able to give back through Coursera. All three alums expressed an appreciation for the access to top-tier education Coursera provides virtually anyone interested in pursuing it, adding that their Brown experiences inspired this shared sentiment.

“People are very, very driven by the mission of extending access to highquality education,” Charumilind said.

“That’s a very large undercurrent to all of our work.”

Trumbore and Caporale-Berkowitz said they bring the values instilled in them during their years on College Hill to their work.

“What I did at Brown had an enormous influence on which direction I think online education should go,” Caporale-Berkowitz said. Through serving as a teaching assistant for a Brown genetics course, he discovered the importance of teaching as a part of the learning process and is now working on building a teaching assistant program for Coursera.

“Teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin,” he said. “We’re trying to get students to be involved in teaching each other and giving back to the courses.”

university news 3

the brown daily herald wednesday, january 30, 2013

this week in Higher ed

by Eli Okun Universit y Ne ws Editor

Coal divestment may pose little risk A report from an investment management firm found that divesting from top fossil fuel companies would not pose a statistically significant risk to universities’ endowments, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported Tuesday.

As hundreds of student divestment movements around the country — including Brown’s Divest Coal Campaign — have urged, divesting from the “Filthy 15” fossil fuel companies would not change the value of universities’ investment portfolios, according to the report released by the Aperio Group.

The firm’s calculations determined that divesting from the publicly traded stocks of the 15 companies targeted by the divestment movement would burden universities with less than .001 percent additional risk, and excluding all fossil fuel companies would increase risk by about .01 percent, the Chronicle reported.

Hampshire College and Unity College took steps this year to diminish their investments in fossil fuel companies, but other universities have been more reluctant. The Herald reported last semester that Brown administrators said they were unsure whether the University has any holdings in the 15 companies.

Former admin alleges UNC underreported sexual assault cases The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s former assistant dean of students, Melinda Manning, filed a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education this month alleging that the university compelled her to underreport cases of sexual assault to the federal government, the Daily Tar Heel reported last week.

The complaint, filed by Manning along with several current and former students, claimed the University Counsel office pressured Manning to falsify the number of reported assaults in 2011 after the university reduced the 2010 number without her knowledge.

The complaint claimed that Manning was told she would not be promoted because she had a young child and that she faced a hostile work environment, the Tar Heel reported.

The complaint also alleged that the school violated assault victims’ rights by providing an unsupportive atmosphere and, in one case, called a victim “lazy” for applying for medical leave, the Huffington Post reported. The complaint claimed violation of federal laws by several high-level university administrators.

Under the Clery Act, which impels universities to report crime data to the federal government, the school reported six sexual assault incidents in 2009, 19 in 2010 and 12 in 2011, the Tar Heel reported.

Northwestern group examines founder’s connection to massacre Inspired in part by Brown’s Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, a Northwestern University student group has stirred controversy by alleging that one of the school’s founders had a “political and moral role” in a Native American massacre, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported Sunday.

The university’s Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance is circulating a petition to denounce the actions of John Evans, a Northwestern founder and territorial governor of Colorado. The group said Evans was involved in a cover-up of the Sand Creek Massacre, an 1864 attack in which the Colorado Territory Militia slaughtered over 130 people in an Arapaho and Cheyenne camp, the Chronicle reported.

Northwestern sociology professor Gary Alan Fine, who helped lead the group’s effort, told the Chronicle Brown’s experience in examining nefarious aspects of its history provided “a successful model.”

“People at Brown — the students, faculty, administrators — came to recognize, with the leadership of President Ruth Simmons, that they needed to confront their past,” Fine told the Chronicle.

Watson panel evaluates U.N. sanctions The consortium analyzed sanctions based on ability to effect policy outcomes

By Maggie livingstone staff writer

One-third of United Nations sanctions in the last 20 years have been successful in influencing their targets, according to research presented in a panel Tuesday at the Watson Institute for International Studies.

The panel of three members of the Targeted Sanctions Consortium spoke to a small audience in the Joukowsky Forum, discussing preliminary research on the effectiveness of targeted sanctions against specific countries or individuals.

Panelists Sue Eckert, senior fellow at the Watson Institute, and Thomas Biersteker, adjunct professor and former director of the Watson Institute, collaborated on the research project for nearly 15 years. They formed the Targeted Sanctions Consortium in 2009, bringing together approximately 50 other researchers, scholars and policy practitioners. Biersteker currently serves as director of the Programme for the Study of International Governance at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

Eckert began the discussion by defining a targeted sanction and outlining the goals of the research project. The consortium examined data beginning in 1992 — when the first targeted sanction was put

/ / School page 1 a new building doesn’t mean that engineering clears out of Barus and Holley,” said Iris Bahar, associate professor of engineering. “There will still be a presence of engineering on College Hill.”

The University’s strategic planning Committee on Reimagining the Brown Campus and Community is in

in place — and continuing through the present day. A targeted sanction is different from the better-known comprehensive sanction in that it “is not comprehensive in terms of all of a nation’s economy,” Eckert said. She added that targeted sanctions focus on specific individuals, political entities, sectors or commodities, and are instruments of collective security and global governance.

Data were collected by 16 research teams composed of members of the consortium, Biersteker said. The teams were placed in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, and data were collected in comprehensive quantitative and qualitative databases.

“Instead of looking at a country, we looked at changes and purposes in the types of sanctions imposed there,” Biersteker said. “We used these ‘episodes’ as our unit analysis.”

The research team identified 56 case episodes and analyzed each episode based on two levels of a coding system. The first level quantitatively measured policy outcomes and how sanctions contributed to them, utilizing three different criteria to measure whether the target was “coerced,” “constrained” or “signaled,” Biersteker said in the panel. Coercion, the rarest result in the research findings, meant the target changed its policy or behavior in response to the sanction. Constraining was an attempt to limit the target’s economic or natural resources. Signaling was a symbolic gesture used to stigmatize the target or present a clear stance the U.N. was taking. For each category, the

research team ranked how affected the target was on a scale of one to five, from situations when the target was unaffected completely to those when the target fully complied with the U.N. Security Council resolution, Biersteker said.

Through this methodology, the research team concluded that onethird of the targeted sanctions put in place in the last 20 years was effective, and constraining and signaling had the greatest success, Biersteker said. The team also found that arms embargoes, though common, were ineffective when applied in isolation, but commodity sanctions appeared highly effective.

The project is funded largely by the governments of Canada, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Eckert said she hoped the findings would eventually influence and provide insight to benefit policymakers and the public. The consortium is working on a scholarly book of its research and an app for U.N. officials and other members of the academic community to consult past sanctions.

Eckert said most people have misconceptions about the uses of targeted sanctions, and she hopes this research will debunk many of the myths.

“The scholarly public debate has been largely unchanged for 20 years,” Eckert told The Herald. “People believe (targeted sanctions) are largely ineffective when it comes to policy change, but in reality their broader purposes, to constrain or to signal something symbolic, are more successful.”

the process of working with planning firms to figure out how much additional space is needed and which option best fits those needs, Larson said.

The new space will allow for expansion of research in biomedical engineering, environmental engineering, nanoengineering and entrepreneurial studies, he added.

Engineering student Brett Stevens ’14 described Barus and Holley as an

unpleasant, cramped space. “I hope they would renovate Barus and Holley or build a new building on campus rather than relocate,” he added.

“People don’t want to walk far,” said engineering student Patrick Lynch ’16, who said he discussed the issue with his friends who are engineers. “That’s sort of been a unanimous response.”

4 city & state

the brown daily herald wednesday, january 30, 2013

Belafonte honors MLK’s legacy with keynote address The civil rights icon recounts his life and the ‘eloquence of King’ to audience at RISD event

By Phoebe Draper Senior Staff Writer

Harry Belafonte — ‘the King of Calypso’ — was greeted with a standing ovation upon taking the stage last night to deliver the Rhode Island School of Design’s annual the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. keynote address, part of a larger celebration of Dr. King’s work. The crowd’s enthusiasm for the 85-year-old Belafonte — singer, actor, humanitarian and civil rights activist — never let up as he spoke about the contemporary need for radical thought and nonviolent social change.

Belafonte became the first black producer in television history in 1960, the first black man to win an Emmy in 1959 and the first recording artist of any race to sell a million copies of an LP album in 1956.

“Belafonte represents the beauty he’s brought to our world through music, but also the justice and peace he’s brought to the world thanks to his advocacy,” said Rep. David Cicilline ’83, D-R.I., at the event.

While Belafonte briefly mentioned his significant artistic career — which, he joked, caused his mother to go “into a decline from which she never recovered” — the bulk of his talk focused on social activism today

and during the Civil Rights movement. Artists “are the gatekeepers of truth,” he said, adding that “art is a great social tool, a great weapon.”

Belafonte recounted his youth in Harlem, N.Y. and his experience in the U.S. Navy during World War II. When Belafonte returned from the war, he said, he and his fellow black veterans did not receive the gratitude they expected.

“We’d stopped Hitler,” Belafonte said. “We’d stopped the sense that there was a racial superiority, yet there was no place at the table of victory for us when we came back.”

Belafonte said that in reaction to the racial inequality still rife in America, he and his young black contemporaries were at the time “quite prepared to go into violence” and to do “what was necessary to avenge and extract from the society what we felt we were entitled to.”

But King’s “radical thought” of using nonviolence instead of physical force to address racial inequality disrupted Belafonte’s burgeoning militancy.

“He introduced the concept of nonviolence, which many of us viewed as a fool’s pursuit,” Belafonte said.

Belafonte said he was “not only caught up with the eloquence of King, but his sense of mission and purpose.”

After meeting in a church basement with a host of twenty-something civil rights leaders, King, then 24, and Belafonte, then 26, “met, and got on with

it,” Belafonte said.

“What struck me was the way in which King applied himself to radical thought and encouraged us to think outside the box,” Belafonte said. King told them to “find a way to become more radical,” he said. Belafonte described radical thought as something that should not be viewed as violent or threatening, but rather a necessary tool with which to “change the landscape.”

“I don’t find radical thought abounding in the campuses of America,” Belafonte said. “There are individuals who would like to think radically, but it’s not part of the greater exchange we had on campuses during the ’50s and ’60s,” he said.

He said the civil rights movement left current generations “ample instructions” for radical activism, but noted that each generation has to forge its own way.

Belafonte also urged everyone to ignore “hedonist” impulses and pay attention to the needs of people on all rungs of the economic ladder.

“Too many people have no sense of priority ... (and) no sense of what’s happening to fellow beings,” Belafonte said. “Everything’s a statistic.”

Belafonte related a conversation in which King said he was worried the black community was “integrating into a burning house.” This sentiment was “not the most inspiring thought for the rest of us,” Belafonte said, especially at a time when many civil rights leaders were preparing to

launch into one of the most integral phases of the movement. “When I asked him what he would have us do, he said we were just going to have to become firemen,” Belafonte said.

After reflecting on the past, Belafonte concluded his address with an examination of the present.

“What I find most upsetting in the American discourse is the rejection of radical thought,” Belafonte said. “Our political leaders do not speak with radical purpose,” he added. “They speak within the same dull space that they inherited from past oppressors.”

Critical of the Bush administration, a lack of gun restrictions and mass incarceration of black youth, Belafonte also lauded President Obama for “stepping into the space of politics and bringing America a promise that was filled with radical thought and radical possibilities.”

“We have found someone who could have been the best of all of our choices to be the leader of the fire brigade,” Belafonte said.

Belafonte praised Obama’s support for minority causes and healthcare reform.

When students asked him how to pursue the creation of social change, Belafonte said it was all about how much they were willing to sacrifice — a spirit and legacy left by King. “Look at Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Occupy Wall Street,” he said. “Take a look at this ebb and tide of young people who are probing the system.”

Though Belafonte maintained that nonviolence still offers the most opportunities, he stressed that activists must still be “radical” in their actions.

“What are you prepared to sacrifice to see it done?” he challenged the audience. “Tell me of the generosity of your soul, and I’ll tell you how far I think we can go.”

/ / Taveras page 1 11 years, $31.5 million of which the University pledged to the city last May. “Providence is recovering,” Taveras said several times throughout his speech, a statement that received vigorous applause from the crowd. He cited examples of recent development and recovery throughout the city, including construction projects at Johnson and Wales University, new retail spaces at the Biltmore Garage and the opening of small businesses in many neighborhoods.

Despite his hopeful outlook for the city’s economy, Taveras stressed that “Providence’s reserve funds have been depleted, and we must manage our city’s finances responsibly and transparently.” He added that the city must “work to replenish (its) reserves and restore (its) credit ratings in the coming months and years.”

Taveras’ address also emphasized sustainability measures. He said the city’s recycling initiative — launched last fall — has boosted the recycling rate, which rose from 15 to 25 percent since the program began, and is expected to save the city $250,000 this year. The initiative is accompanied by plans to turn some of the city’s empty lots into urban gardens, organize a volunteer cleanup of Providence in April and implement “a citywide biking plan and a pilot plan for composting,” he said.

To increase public safety, Providence plans to hire up to 18 additional police officers and 50 firefighters, Taveras said.

He added that he is “committed to passing reasonable, common-sense gun control legislation this year that puts Rhode Island in line with our neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut.”

“We expect to face challenges in the months ahead,” Taveras said, “but every day, I am reminded that Providence is truly the beating heart of our state.”

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science & research 5

Inaugural Pembroke seed grants fund collaborative research Professors collaborate on interdisciplinary research in varying topics of women’s studies

By Sophie Flynn Staff Writer

Research on cousin marriage, nongovernmental organizations, indigenous performance and the relationship between feminism and technology will receive the first round of new interdisciplinary seed grants funded by the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, the Center announced earlier this month.

The seed grant program — established last October — awards teams of researchers up to $10,000 and aims to encourage interdisciplinary faculty research, according to the center’s website. The grants require applicants to have at least one collaborator from another academic field.

The center has a history of supporting interdisciplinary research around questions of gender and difference, said Deborah Weinstein ’93, assistant director of the Pembroke Center. The types of projects funded by these grants “don’t fit neatly into disciplinary boxes,” she said. “The rigor of a discipline can be very important, but there are moments when (interdisciplinary work) can be even more productive.”

An interdisciplinary faculty selection committee intended to provide a range of expertise in evaluating applications chose the inaugural award recipients, Weinstein said. The depth of the application pool and the applicants’ clear visions impressed the committee, she added. The applicants asked “engaging questions that would push scholars to think in new ways,” Weinstein said.

Healthy conversations One of the grants was awarded to a team of researchers who will investigate the role of non-governmental organizations that address health inequalities. Ann Dill, associate professor of sociology, will lead the project along with Linda Cook, professor of political science. They knew of each other’s research before the grants were announced and decided to use the opportunity to collaborate, Dill said.

/ / Mars page 8 ground that’s safe and properly constrained. It takes a lot of care and patience to make sure it’s done properly.”

Research has revealed there was once water on Mars, Milliken said.

“But now what we want to understand is the interaction of that water on the surface and subsurface of the planet.

Were these rocks that we’re drilling into in contact with water? If so, for how long, and to what capacity, and how has this changed over time?”

The mission is grappling with such questions that seek to find traces of organic material that will answer the cosmic uncertainty of Martian life.

Knowledge of life on Earth provides a foundation to guide the space exploration, Milliken said. “From our terrestrial experience, we know which minerals and environments are in-

Dill and Cook plan to use their funding to hold eight seminars throughout the year, some of which will be modeled after the Janus Forum, Cook said. Most of the seminars will be open to the community and will feature various speakers from both within and outside of the University, from fields ranging from medicine to Slavic languages, Cook said. The speakers will represent different professions, and each will offer a unique perspective on NGOs, Dill said. The goal is to have conversations that incorporate viewpoints from different fields, she added.

While research on NGOs comes from a variety of fields, research within a specific field does not always take into account perspectives from other fields, Dill said. “The literature doesn’t cross-fertilize,” she said.

In addition to the seminars, Dill and Cook plan to start a website to post their findings and collaborate on scholarly papers, Dill said.

The opportunity to collaborate with people outside of her department was a welcome one, Dill said. “One of the hardest things to do is to connect with people outside your own department and outside your own specific focus, but whose work is very complementary to yours,” she said.

Girl tech Another seed grant will fund a component of a larger international project — an online course entitled “Dialogues in Feminism and Technology” — which will also be taught in person at select universities, said Alexandra Juhasz, professor of media studies at Pitzer College and a co-leader of the project. Professor of Modern Culture and Media Wendy Hui Kyong Chun will be leading the portion of the project that will take place at Brown.

The goal of the online course is to “connect feminists who are working on or with technology across disciplines,” Juhasz said. The Pembroke grant will fund the creation of three recordings of on-campus dialogues concerning feminism and technology, Juhasz said.

These dialogues will be featured within the online course, which will be taught in classrooms around the world, Juhasz said.

Juhasz is currently teaching a beta version of the course at Pitzer in which

dicative of water and what places to look in.”

Milliken said after Curiosity’s drilling in Yellowknife Bay, the mission will progress onto its ultimate goal — investigating Mount Sharp, a 5.5-kilometer mountain on Mars.

First, the team must focus on reaching the base of the mountain, he said.

“From there, we can uncover layers of Martian history.”

One of the major discoveries revealed by Curiosity’s probing is the diversity of geology on Mars’ surface. “One of the first big things we’ve found are conglomerates, which are rounded pebbles sort of cemented together,” Milliken said. These are indicative of flowing water, perhaps a shallow stream, which once existed in the crater and gave these rocks their appearance, he said. “Other rocks we’ve found look much different, with finer grain and light-toned fractures and veins filled with minerals, and

Alan Shan / Herald

The Pembroke Center awarded grants this month to a diverse group of interdisciplinary research programs that are in keeping with the center’s focus on questions of gender, difference and media. her students communicate through videos with students at Bowling Green State University who are also taking a version of the course. Brown will offer a similar course next fall, she said.

Though the course will be distributed online, in-person conversations are valuable to the project, Juhasz said.

“We don’t want to lose the power of individual places or the way that communities speak to each other.”

Kissing cousins The genetic risks and social stigma of cousin marriage in the Middle East will be the central focus of a seed grant project led by Sherine Hamdy, professor of social science and assistant professor of anthropology. Hamdy will focus on Egypt, where cousin marriages are neither wholly normalized nor completely stigmatized and make up about a quarter of marriages, she said.

The research will include interviews with patients at a genetics clinic in Cairo conducted by geneticists at Egypt’s National Research Center. Brown professors studying genetics or Middle Eastern culture will also contribute expertise, Hamdy said. Hamdy’s ultimate goal is to collaborate on journal articles or a book with the researchers here and in Egypt to “integrate genetics and anthropological perspectives,” she said. Hamdy said she hopes to discover why cousin marriage carries more so-

this points to a whole other interaction.” Even from the small sampling of rocks the rover has revealed, the mission is beginning to uncover a complex and diverse story, he added.

“What’s really exciting about the rover is that it’s by far the closest to putting a geologist on Mars,” said Timothy Herbert, professor and chair of the geological sciences department.

“This is a place with a great geological record where we can take samples in order to make more sense of the planet. Whatever the rover finds will really transform a lot of theories we have at this point.”

Milliken said the rover’s capabilities speak to the advanced technology of this age.

“The rover acts as our eyes, and through it, we can answer increasingly sophisticated questions about the geology of Mars and how it fits into the evolution of the solar system from billions of years ago.”

cial stigma in some groups than others despite only slightly increasing the risk of genetic disorders in the next generation.

Reforming performing Grant funding will also go toward a project that aims to examine issues having to do with indigenous performance in the Americas, said Paja Faudree, assistant professor of anthropology, who will lead the project with Joshua Tucker, assistant professor of music.

The project will bring together academics, activists and performers from North America and Latin America to conduct a symposium on campus, Faudree said. The conversations at the symposium will explore the expressive culture of indigenous performance as well as its effects within indigenous societies, like how performance is used for political ends, she said. Performance “has been a part of the new alliances that have formed across indigenous groups,” Faudree said.

One problem with indigenous studies lies in the divide between geographic regions, Faudree said. North American scholars, performers and activists are not well integrated with conversations happening among their Latin American counterparts, she said.

The symposium will address this divide by bringing together people from across the Western hemisphere.

The project will explore “what it means to be indigenous,” as the recording and distribution of indigenous music has globalized such cultures, Tucker said. But performance will not be confined to music — it will be examined in the broadest sense, Tucker said.

In addition to hosting the symposium, the researchers hope to compile a collection of essays from project contributors, Faudree said.

The Pembroke Center will continue to issue seed grants and fund interdisciplinary research in the coming years, Weinstein said. Applications for the next round of seed grants are due April 1.

6 editorial Editorial

2013: The new 1963

the brown daily herald wednesday, january 30, 2013

Editorial cartoon b y j a s o n co n n o r

In 1644, eight years after Roger Williams founded the colony of Providence Plantations, he composed an essay titled “A Plea for Religious Liberty” in his great opus The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience, Discussed in a Conference between Truth and Peace. “All civil states,” Williams wrote, “with their officers of justice in their respective constitutions and administrations are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship.”

Now, 369 years after the essay’s publication, we quote Rhode Island’s founder for the sake of the state’s future. Last week, the Rhode Island House of Representatives passed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage by an overwhelming margin of 51 to 19. But legalizing same-sex marriage now hinges upon a looming vote in the state Senate. We implore the Senate, and especially State Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed, D-R.I., to make Rhode Island the 10th state in the nation and the last state in New England to end marriage discrimination.

During the civil rights era, leaders such as Ella Baker and Bayard Rustin — the latter of whom was homosexual — forced a country accustomed to Jim Crow laws to speak openly about racism and its detrimental effects on American society. The mere fact that issues such as segregation of academic institutions and grandfather clauses became a part of public discourse made it impossible for future generations to grow up thinking de jure or de facto racism were the norm.

This should be the inevitable future of gay rights in the United States.

President Barack Obama, himself the product of an interracial marriage — an institution that was only fully legalized by the Supreme Court in 1967 — spoke candidly about equal rights in his second inaugural address, saying, “Our (nation’s) journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

Of course, the Supreme Court is taking on two landmark cases on federal and state laws this spring in Windsor v. United States and Hollingsworth v.

Perry, respectively. The former will debate the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, but the latter, which deals with California’s Proposition 8, may be more important. According to the Washington Post, should SCOTUS rule that Prop 8 is unconstitutional, it “will effectively enshrine the federal constitutional right to marry, meaning … all statutes banning gay marriage (would eventually be) ruled unconstitutional.”

Rhode Island, which like its founder has been historically progressive, does not need to wait for the Court’s prodding to act on gay marriage. The words of Williams and Obama echo a sentiment that embraces all people. This sentiment demands more than mere tolerance. It necessitates action.

Paiva-Weed, a devout Catholic, has been long opposed to gay marriage, a stance that reflects her deep personal faith. But it should be noted that not too long ago, Catholics, who also make up one of the state’s largest constituents, were mistrusted in politics for fear of loyalty. It is only because we have progressed as a nation that Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, raised in the Watchtower Society (now Jehovah’s Witness), and John F. Kennedy, a Catholic like Paiva-Weed, were accepted as fully American.

Must every race, religion or love controversial to its time undergo this arduous path to acceptance? If the Senate president and other legislators in this heavily Catholic state cannot reconcile faith with public service on the issue of gay marriage, it would betray the hard-won trail paved by other great American leaders once considered outsiders.

Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editor, Dan Jeon, and its members, Mintaka Angell, Samuel Choi, Nicholas Morley and Rachel Occhiogrosso. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.

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opinions 7

the brown daily herald wednesday, january 30, 2013

A call for ethical media gabriella corvese Opinions Columnist The tragedy of the Sandy Hook massacre not only opened American eyes to policy and social issues affecting our nation, but it also illuminated some of the shoddy inner workings of the mechanism that shared this information with us in the first place: the media.

Through news websites, Twitter, Facebook and other networks, the American public knew of the events occurring in Newtown, Conn. just minutes after they began. And as time passed and more interest was garnered, questions were raised. Why is this happening? Who is doing this? What is happening to these people? Ours is an easily intrigued and interested culture. It is in our nature to raise questions about events that shock and disturb us.

Thankfully, our media outlets are able to satiate our hunger for information. But sharing the news is not always an act of altruism — information sharing is a forprofit industry. And it is through the media’s overwhelming desire for page views that we, the intrigued public, bear witness to unethical measures. In the hours after the shooting, journalists and reporters flocked to the elementary school. While some interviewed police officers and respondents to the shooting, others sought the input of children.

Consulting kids, many of whom were traumatized by the events that occurred at Sandy Hook, is no display of journalistic integrity. It is a cruel and invasive act that only disrupts a community, and disruption is the last thing needed by the residents of Newtown. There is a fine line between reporting on an event and dealing more damage after tragedy strikes a community. If the success of your report depends on a statement from a child, perhaps your report needs some work.

cal to violate the privacy of children for a headline, it is wrong to intrude upon a community to obtain sensational, violent details. Likewise, the media should not attack consumers’ emotions with violent reports for the sake of profit.

Amidst tragedy in places like Newtown, it often becomes easy to forget the community itself. But despite the policy issues these horrific events bring to the table, it is wrong to define a thriving town by a political debate or the media’s fasci-

There is a fine line between reporting on an event and dealing more damage after tragedy strikes a community.

When it comes to modern journalism, it is often said that “if it bleeds, it leads.”

That is, tragic stories with extreme details attract the most viewers, regardless of whether or not those details were obtained ethically. As empathetic people, we tune in to certain stories just to see how much “bleeding” there really is. Stories like Newtown provoke ethical dilemmas for journalists. How can they maintain their duty to inform the public without manipulating the emotions of the affected and the consumers? Just like it is unethi-

nation. The phrase “school shooting” is not a pleasant one to have in my vernacular, but it is preferable to “pulling a Columbine” — an inconsiderate statement that disregards the people involved in this tragedy.

Shootings like that at Sandy Hook bring many important topics up for discussion — topics I believe are worth discussing. But among the significance of these issues remains the need for respect from the media. One way to help the problem is to shrink the already mas-

sive reporting force. The White House provides news to the public with smaller press pools that report back to a collective source, as opposed to sending hordes of eager journalists to an event. Perhaps this sort of organization is what the popular media needs. Not only would it reduce the amount of intrusion suffered by a grieving community, but also it would provide more condensed and concise, rather than sensationalized, reports.

Most importantly, the media must stop abusing the well-being of individuals. People should be treated as people, not commodities for reporters to snatch in hopes of getting an eye-catching headline. That especially includes children who have been affected by tragedy, individuals who should be left to heal after an event rather than continuously reminded of it. In journalism, sometimes less is more.

While it will take time for the entire system to change, I hope that the discourse of media ethics serves as a wakeup call to journalists, both successful and aspiring. Getting thousands of views on a news segment is gratifying, but the first priority should be the ethical and proper treatment of others, not profit. The media is an important part of a democratic society, and as such, it should work with and for the people, not against it.

Gabriella Corvese ’15 maintained ethical standards while writing this article and can be reached at gabriella_corvese@brown.edu

Fight for your right to part ... icipate jared Moffat Opinions Columnist There is an insidious form of institutionalized discrimination written into our Constitution, and it affects virtually every student at the University. Young people under the age of 35 — nearly half of the citizens in the United States — do not enjoy the full benefits of enfranchisement: We are denied the right to hold important offices in government. Twenty-five is the minimum legal age for a House representative — and it’s 30 for a senator and 35 for a president.

Underlying these age-based oppression laws is what some might first think an innocuous assumption: Young people are not fully equipped to make decisions about something as important as government.

One might suggest that our “brains are not fully developed” or that we “aren’t mature enough.” Give me a break.

Are these laws really protecting us from the great perils of inept leadership? Just look at how Congress handled the so-called “fiscal cliff ” crisis earlier this year. And now they’re having another ridiculous debate about whether we should pay back our creditors in the deceptively named “debt ceiling” debacle. Yet the 113th Congress is one of the oldest in U.S. history — the average House representative is 58 years old and the average senator is 61.

It turns out that the US is an outlier among constitutional democracies. Most of them, including Canada and Britain, allow

18-year-olds to run for public office. So why are we perpetuating a form of political discrimination that most other countries have long abandoned?

What many take for granted as a benign form of discrimination meant to protect against “inexperience” is actually a serious threat to the democratic integrity of our country. Restricting young people from public office creates pernicious consequences for the entire electorate.

First, the systematic disenfranchisement of millions of young adult citizens significantly discourages them from being polit-

ple from political races. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates all made their first billion dollars during their early 20s.

These young entrepreneurs succeeded in the marketplace despite their lack of “experience,” so why should we think that young people would not be able to similarly compete in the marketplace of policy ideas?

Young people often bring a fresh curiosity and open-mindedness to old problems, and we need that now more than ever. We need leaders who understand how to think globally and thrive within diversity. These are some of our generation’s greatest strengths,

Restricting young people from public office creates pernicious consequences for the entire electorate.

ically engaged. Year after year, many commentators lament the lack of voter turnout among 18 to 24 year-olds, but perhaps this is because our candidacy laws inadvertently signal to young people that their opinions don’t matter. Perhaps young people would pay more attention to elections if they and their peers were allowed to participate in them. Restricting young people from public office sends a terrible message about the value of civic participation.

Second, we miss out on a particular kind of creativity and innovativeness in federal policymaking when we exclude young peo-

and the halls of power could benefit from them if only we weren’t locked out.

Third, restricting young people from running for office means that the issues that young people care most about will be largely ignored. If we had had a younger candidate on the stage during the presidential debates, perhaps there would have been a more serious conversation about the war on drugs, Internet censorship, climate change or marriage equality.

Young people have a greater interest in the functioning of our political system than anyone else. US soldiers between the ages

of 18 and 24 make up 54 percent of those who died in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and 90 percent of those who sacrificed their lives were under 35. These brave men and women died for our country without ever having the rights of a full citizen. Decisions to go to war might be more rigorously debated if we allowed young people to have a stronger voice in government. Long-term environmental and fiscal issues might be given our full and focused attention. Instead, these problems tend to be ignored by people who won’t be around when the ultimate consequences become manifest.

According to a study by the Brookings Institute, the federal budget allocates seven times more money for the elderly than it does for children. Is this any surprise, since we systematically restrict the representation of young people in public office? Are we just counting on the generosity of the oldtimers to vote against their generational interests? Young people are more affected by governmental policies and economic vicissitudes than anyone else, so it is simply immoral that we are being denied access to the decision-making institutions of our nation.

It’s time we had a national debate about this issue. More enlightened countries have discarded the baseless stereotypes about young people and have embraced a more inclusive and diverse model for political participation. We should do the same.

Jared Moffat ’13 gets his chance to be a serious contender in the 2028 presidential election. Send your endorsements and campaign donations to jared_moffat@brown.edu

daily herald science & research the Brown

wednesday, january 30, 2013

Mars team ready to analyze planet’s surface The Curiosity rover prepares to take drill samples from rocks on the Red Planet Staff Writer

Courtesy of California Institute of Technology

After researchers confirmed that water once existed on Mars, they began to search for evidence of organic material on the planet’s surface. rocks. From the sample analysis, Milliken said he hopes to determine if the mineral composition is indicative of “interactions with water, volcanic processes and things of that nature.”

The research team faces unique technical challenges due to the complexity and distance of the mission, Milliken said. The Martian material should be soft enough to not break

the drill bit, but the surrounding area must provide Curiosity’s wheels with sufficiently solid footing for the job, as the process also requires extreme force.

“We don’t want to damage the drill, but we also don’t want it to move while it’s drilling,” Milliken said.

“The tricky aspect is trying to find some middle / / Mars page 5

Study investigates marijuana dependence Marijuana-related problems linked to existing impulsivity, memory problems

By Sarah Shrader Contributing Writer

Though only 9 percent of people who have ever used marijuana become dependent on it, frequent usage is often accompanied by problems such as the tendency to procrastinate and a decrease in energy and memory, according to a new study by researchers at the University’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies.

An individual’s likelihood of experiencing marijuana-related problems can be linked to one’s working memory and impulsivity, according to the study, which was published earlier this month in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

The researchers employed subjects who were using marijuana about two times per week but who did not experience withdrawal symptoms after refraining from using marijuana for 24 hours, the authors wrote in the study.

To collect baseline data, the study was performed with subjects when they were not under the influence of drugs, said Jane Metrik, assistant professor of behavioral and social sciences.

“If we understand the genetic factors, we can develop medications, take steps to advance the field of marijuana addiction and institute behavioral intervention,” she said.

Using questionnaires and cognitive tests, the study analyzed trait impulsivity, working memory and shortterm memory, Metrik said. The results showed users with working memory

by Sahil Luthra, SCience & Research editor

Intervention may prevent depression in young mothers

By EmmaJean Holley

The Curiosity rover may have landed on the Red Planet months ago, but the work of the researchers on the science team — including Ralph Milliken MS ’03 PhD ’06, assistant professor of geological sciences — is far from over.

The NASA Mars Science Laboratory Rover mission aims to probe at the mystery of whether the planet could have once supported microbial life. The rover was launched in November 2011 and landed on Mars last August.

Curiosity is currently located in Yellowknife Bay, an area of flat-lying bedrock within a wide, shallow depression, according to a NASA press release. There, the team is preparing to take the first drill sample of Martian rock, Milliken said.

“Basically what we’ll do is take the rock powder and measure the actual minerals that make it up,” he said. This will yield results that are significantly different from previous observations, which focused primarily on chemicals and elements in the

Science & Research roundup

An interpersonal intervention program called REACH might be an effective way to prevent postpartum depression in adolescent mothers, according to a Women and Infants Hospital study that included three Brown researchers as authors.

The study was published online in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology earlier this month and is currently in press.

The study evaluated the REACH — Relax, Encourage, Appreciate, Communicate, Help — method, which helps expectant mothers develop skills like stress management and conflict resolution, according to the study. Adolescent mothers in the REACH program developed postpartum depression in 12.5 percent of cases, compared to 25 percent of cases in the control group, the authors wrote.

Nationally, more than one-fourth of adolescent mothers develop postpartum depression, according to the study.

Despite its prevalence, most studies focus on curing postpartum depression and not on preventing it, the authors wrote in the study.

“Waiting until the postpartum period leaves adolescent mothers and their infants vulnerable,” lead author Maureen Phipps, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, said in a Women and Infants Hospital press release in 2011, shortly after the study began. “Many teens with (postpartum depression) may not seek care and, therefore, will be unrecognized, untreated or undertreated.”

Study connects skin response to UV, visual processing An ion channel involved in detecting the flavor of particularly pungent foods may also be involved in skin responses to ultraviolet light, according to a study by Brown researchers.

The study was published online last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers found that the ion channel TRPA1 responds to UV rays by allowing calcium into skin cells, prompting the production of skin pigment melanin, according to a University press release.

The TRPA1 process resembles the light transduction pathways found in the visual system, a parallel that senior author Elena Oancea called “exciting” in the release. Oancea is an assistant professor of medical science in molecular pharmacology, physiology and biotechnology.

In the future, scientists might be able to use drugs to manipulate skin pigmentation by affecting the TRPA1 ion channel, lead author Nicholas Bellono GS said in the press release.

Alzheimer’s protein may guide cell growth in culture

herald file phoTo

Frequent marijuana users tend to perceive their dependency on the drug as less severe than other observers, the study found. deficiencies were at increased risk of experiencing marijuana-related problems, but users with short-term memory deficits were not. Frequent users who reported higher impulsivity were also more at risk for problems.

The research was “a solid and focused study that shows that the extent of marijuana-related problems that someone perceives in themselves is a more complex matter than simply how frequently they use,” Nehal Vadhan, a clinical psychology professor at Columbia who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email to The Herald. Vadhan noted in his email that marijuana users may have a biased perception of the effects they experience and suggested a study that would ask people close to each subject for their evaluations of a user’s problems.

Though impulsivity and working

memory deficits both correlated with marijuana-related problems, it is unclear if there is a causal relationship between these factors, Metrik said.

As a follow-up to the study, the researchers hope to examine the dual effects of marijuana and alcohol in frequent marijuana users.

The study was part of a larger research project through the center examining genetic makeup and cannabis dependence. The larger project is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and was led by Metrik, Associate Professor of Psychiatry Valerie Knopik, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior John McGeary, Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences Christopher Kahler and Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences Damaris Rohsenow. The study’s lead author was post-doctoral fellow Anne Day.

The ability to effectively grow neurons in a lab setting could eventually have major clinical benefits for patients with nervous system diseases like Alzheimer’s. In a forthcoming study in the journal Biomaterials, researchers from the School of Engineering identified a protein that promotes neuron growth better than the previous standard.

When growing neurons in the lab, scientists try to mimic the scaffolding naturally found in the body that aids the growth of nerve cells. For years, scientists assumed laminin was the best protein to serve as that scaffolding when growing central nervous system cells, given the success of laminin in growing peripheral nervous system cells, lead author Kwang-Min Kim GS said in a University press release.

Counterintuitively, the researchers found that apoE4 — a protein associated with the buildup of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles seen in Alzheimer’s disease — was a much more effective scaffolding, according to the press release. In contrast, laminin did not promote neuron growth any better than bare glass did.

Neither the role of apoE4 in Alzheimer’s nor the pathway through which it promotes neuron growth in cell culture is well understood, according to the release.

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