TIME TO EXPLORE | SPRING FUN IN ST. LOUIS | SEE SCENE, PAGE 6
STUDENT LIFE
THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS SINCE 1878 VOLUME 129, NO. 78
WWW.STUDLIFE.COM
MONDAY, APRIL 21, 2008
Earthquake hits Midwest BY PERRY STEIN NEWS EDITOR
USGS
This graph shows recent seismic activity. The epicenter of the 5.2 magnitude earthquake that shook the area last Friday morning is marked in blue.
As students slept Friday morning, a 5.2 magnitude earthquake rumbled through Washington University and the Midwest, shaking a community rarely affected by such occurrences. Despite the numerous construction sites on campus, Assistant to the Chancellor Rob Wild said that the University sustained no damage. “On Friday, following the earthquake and the aftershock, we began conducting an inspection of all of our buildings and still at this point have found no damages or reports of major damages,” Wild said. “We’ve done a pretty extensive inspection at
this point and will continue over the next week.” According to the University’s Facilities Planning Manager Bill Wiley, the buildings on campus are up to code and the University was prepared for the earthquake. “We are in the new magnitude area so there is quite a bit of consideration for this,” Wiley said. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the earthquake resulted from two tectonic plates along the New Madrid fault line moving apart. The New Madrid fault line is a seismic zone covering areas in Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee and Missouri. The earthquake and its subsequent aftershock, of 4.5 magni-
Students and faculty upset over business school tenure decision BY JEREMY ROGOFF STAFF REPORTER Students and faculty have come out to oppose the decision of the Olin Business School to terminate the contract of Tzachi Zach, assistant professor of accounting. “I think it would be very difficult WUSTL IMAGES for anyone to Tzachi Zach say that we are better off as a school without Professor Zach here,” Mark Soczek, lecturer
of accounting and the director of the center for experiential learning in the business school, said. “I would challenge anyone to make that statement.” Despite being widely regarded as an exceptional teacher, Zach, in his sixth year at the University, was denied the chance to pursue a tenured position due to an apparent underproduction of research. “I think collectively the school has made a mistake,” Soczek said. “This is sort of my call to the students that I basically agree with them.” Zach said that his body
of work warranted an extension of his contract and the chance to be considered for tenure in three years, regardless of his teaching record. “When you look at the details, it drives me nuts,” Zach said. While the business school’s policy on tenure stresses the equal consideration given to teaching, research and service to the University in tenure candidates, Zach said that the school’s main metric is a professor’s quantity and impact of publications in peerreviewed journals. Following an article in
Student Life [April 14, 2008] that announced Zach’s departure, a group of four former business school students submitted an article in protest of the decision, and addressed the role of research in the tenure process. “It is the Olin administration’s choice to ignore exceptional teaching and apply such a heavy weight to published research,” Kristin Haggerty, the lead author of the article and a 2006 graduate of the business school, wrote. Emphasizing their oppo-
See ZACH, page 2
Stars come out in the afternoon
LUCY MOORE | STUDENT LIFE
Stars singer Amy Millan pumps up the crowd at Saturday’s WUStock on the swamp. The Montreal band, as well as many others, performed in the day-long concert sponsored by CS40, Project Earth Day, The Gargoyle, APO and Eleven Magazine.
W.I.L.D. just got a little bit wilder It’s time to start W.I.L.D. homework. Learn all about George Clintion, this year’s headliner. Also, find out the difference between Parliament and Funkadelic. Cadenza, Page 8
Jumping to victory The women’s track and field team won its eighth straight UAA title over the weekend, led by strong performance from juniors Danielle Wadlington and Alli Alberts. Sports, Page 5
tude, did not originate from the main fault line along the Mississippi River but rather from another area on the fault line called the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone. There are no reported injuries and Dave Overhoff, a geologist with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said this was not a major earthquake. However, it serves as a warning, and reiterates the importance of researching the New Madrid fault line. “It kind of borders on the small to moderate earthquake, but what it does is increases awareness and makes people realize there is an earthquake threat in the center of the continent, even if we don’t understand how that works,’’ Overhoff
was quoted saying in the PostDispatch article. “People have to understand that threat is there and prepare for it.” Although the earthquake’s epicenter was located in Bellmount in southeastern Illinois, 127 miles east of St. Louis, most students felt the shocks of the earthquake. Sam Kentor, a freshman from Texas, said he was frightened by the violent shaking that woke him up at 4 a.m. “My only experience with earthquakes was with ‘The Land Before Time.’ I thought my dorm was going to fall into the depths of the earth,” Kentor said. Katy Southworth, a freshmen
See EARTHQUAKE, page 2
Researchers examine a key risk factor for Alzheimer’s BY JOHN SCOTT STAFF REPORTER Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine have spent four years working to determine what effects a specific protein can have on Alzheimer’s brain plaques, a key risk factor for the disease. An estimated five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s, a disease that destroys brain cells and causes people to develop memory and behavior problems. John Cirrito, research instructor in neurology and lead researcher of the study, said that the study, published in the April 10 issue of the journal Neuron, has been underway for 1.5 years. The topic has been studied for four years. The team of researchers examined amyloid beta, a protein derived from amyloid precursor protein. Buildups of amyloid beta can create plaques in the brain that lead to a variety of problems including death of brain cells, eventually contributing to Alzheimer’s disease. According to Cirrito, scientists have been trying to determine what regulates the protein’s production. Cirrito said that amyloid beta affects two key areas of the brain, the cortex and the hippocampus. The cortex is responsible for cognitive functions while the hippocampus controls memory. The plaques inhibit the functions of these areas, leading to the symptoms indicative of Alzheimer’s disease. “Before [the plaques] kill the cells, [researchers] think they’re making neurons fire incorrectly,” Cirrito said. The study targeted a cellular process known as endocytosis, a process in which cells absorb materials from their surroundings by pinching off a section of their membrane. Production of amyloid beta is linked to both endocytosis and communication between brain cells. In the study, stopping endocytosis decreased the level of amyloid beta by 70 percent.
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According to Cirrito, the function of amyloid beta and its precursor are still unknown. Endocytosis, however, is a necessary function for nearly all cells in the body. Therefore, it is very difficult to inhibit the process without causing harm to the cells, so treatments must be specifically targeted. “It may be possible to inhibit [amyloid precursor] endocytosis specifically, not going after all endocytosis, by finding selective drugs that will only affect [amyloid precursor protein], which then would presumably lower amyloid beta production,” Cirrito said. Cirrito said the method used in the study would not be feasible for human treatment of Alzheimer’s disease because the methods in the study required that drugs be inserted directly into the brain. “It involved [the researchers] putting something inside the brain, which I don’t think is feasible [for humans],” Cirrito said. The best chance for successful treatment comes with carefully targeted inhibition of endocytosis, Cirrito said. “Hopefully in subsequent experiments, instead of going after the hammer approach of hitting all endocytosis, we [could block] very select kinds of endocytosis,” Cirrito said. Cirrito said that there are still several questions that need to be answered through further research, including what causes the proteins to form plaques once certain levels of buildup are reached. “We know that high amyloid beta levels make it more likely that it’s going to aggregate in these plaques. We don’t know why these levels would increase at some point in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease,” Cirrito said. Although much is unknown about amyloid beta, according to Cirrito, scientists want to find ways to keep its levels as low as possible to reduce the chance of it forming into plaques.
See ALZHEIMER’S, page 2
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