The Daily Reveille 11-10-2016

Page 1

Volume 122 · No. 53

Thursday, November 10, 2016

EST. 1887

lsunow.com

@lsureveille

thedailyreveille

dailyreveille

CAMPUS CRIME BRIEFS

BUSINESS

Business Student college arrested to hold for driving ‘Looking Up’ loader

photos by RYAN MCCARBLE / The Daily Reveille

Meet the

Beetles

A large colony of flesh-eating beetles lives on campus in the University’s Museum of Natural Science. The colony is housed in a small closet in the basement of the building — a room dubbed “the Bug Room.” “It’s just a room within a room here in the basement. At any given time there’s probably tens of thousands, and they’re all just roaming free in there,” said Steven Cardiff, the collections museum’s manager for birds and mammals and the man in charge of the Bug Room. The beetles serve a very specific purpose — to clean skeletons. “What we do is put skeletons — research skeletons — and the beetles eat all the flesh off for us and leave the bones,” Cardiff said. “And

Museum of Natural Science uses bugs to clean skeletons BY SCOTT GRISWOLD @Griswold_II that’s what we want, is nice clean bones so we can study those.” The skeletons Cardiff mentioned are usually frozen carcasses of various animals. The carcasses have already been skinned and gutted before being presented to the beetles. All that remains of the animal when it gets to the Bug Room is skeletal tissue and bones. Typically, the skeletons of small rodents, mammals and birds are cleaned within matter of days. But Cardiff said the colony of beetles could clean an entire horse, given enough time. “Just depends on the size of the specimen and the population density in the colony,” Cardiff said.

see BEETLES, page 2

LSUPD spokesperson Lt. Kevin Scott said a University student was arrested after he was caught driving a skid-steer loader early Saturday morning. According to the affidavit of probable cause obtained from the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office LSUPD observed University student Robert Ellis III, 18, driving a John Deere 329E skid-steer loader in the South Fraternity Parking lot on Nov. 5 at around 2:30 a.m. The skid-steer loader is owned by LSU Landscape Services, Scott said. When police attempted to make contact with Ellis, he exited the machine and began walking away, according to police records. Upon actual contact, Ellis was asked about why he was driving the machine. He stated that he had no idea what they were talking about, according to police records. At that time he also stated he was not driving the machine, according to police records. After confirming with University officials that Ellis did not have permission to drive the machine, officers arrested him, and he was booked into East Baton Rouge Parish Prison for unauthorized use of a moveable.

BY CJ CARVER @CWCarver_

LSU FAN IN DIRE NEED OF GETTING INTO THE GAME ARRESTED AFTER TRESPASS NOTICE ISSUED A non-University student

Entrepreneurs in Louisiana have the opportunity to meet and listen to speeches by significant business people from around the state on Nov. 17 at the 13th annual Louisiana Looking Up event. The E. J. Ourso College of Business and Flores MBA Alumni Association will host the event in the rotunda of the Business Education Complex. Since 2004, the event has been held every year and has featured those who have made significant achievements in entrepreneurship across Louisiana. This year, the event will feature five speakers: Melissa Campesi, chief executive officer of LCTA Workers’ Comp; Mo Vij, founder and CEO of General Informatics; Takeisha Charles Davis, president and CEO of New Orleans East Hospital; Byron C. Clayton, president and CEO of NexusLA; and keynote speaker Tim Barfield, president of CSRS, Inc. The emcee for this year’s event is Graham Ulkins, reporter and morning show anchor for WAFB. Ulkins is a graduate of the University’s Manship School of Mass Communication and an alumnus of Baton Rouge Magnet High School. At WAFB, he serves as a reporter and covers the health beat. Barfield presides over the Louisiana-based design and

see CRIME, page 2

see LOOKING UP, page 2

TECHNOLOGY

University students program robot to assist children with special needs BY RAYKAEL MORRIS @Raykael_Morris A handful of University students’ idealistic internship allowed them not only to serve the local community but also to put their classroom skills to the test over the summer. University students teamed up with local non-profit organization Louisiana Assistive Technology Access Network, LATAN, to program a robot that will help children with special needs. So far, the students have programmed the robot “Buddy” to put its hand over its chest and recite the pledge of allegiance. They are also trying to program

the robot to play Candy Land. University coordinator for the robotics engineering minor, Marcio de Queiroz, sent an email to all students with the minor to ask if they wanted to intern with LATAN and help program the robot. “Autistic kids are very responsive to technology,” he said. “They socialize better with machines than humans.” De Queiroz said the robotics engineering minor is growing, though it just started last fall with almost 70 students. LATAN purchased Buddy from a French company called Aldebaran Robotics. Initially, the robot’s programming was

primitive, which is why LATAN reached out to the University. Computer science senior Jonathan Nguyen worked on the robot over the summer and said LATAN outlined goals for Buddy and the students accomplished them. “[We] would start by looking at what Buddy’s abilities and limitations are for those tasks and delegate topics for each team member to focus on for the next week,” Nguyen said. University students began programming the robot in June. It has since turned into a project for students taking the

see ROBOT, page 2

Students enrolled in the robotics engineering minor helped program a robot “Buddy” through an internship with Louisiana Assistive Technology Access Network, LATAN.

courtesy of LATAN


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