BAD RABBITS
hop into Northampton
Life’s biggest challenge Former UMass star battles for his life against cancer
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THE MASSACHUSETTS
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DAILY COLLEGIAN DailyCollegian.com
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Serving the UMass community since 1890
News@DailyCollegian.com
New details, safety warning after accidents
UMass police gives pedestrians, drivers tips By PatriCK hoff Collegian Staff
Further details have been released about the pedestrian accidents that occurred last week as police warn students about safety while driving and walking. In a series of two accidents last week, a total of four pedestrians were struck by vehicles while crossing the street last Monday and Tuesday evenings, respectively. Both accidents occurred on
Commonwealth Avenue between Mullins Center and the Recreation Center. All pedestrians were University of Massachusetts students and both incidents occurred in the same crosswalk. Monday’s incident involved three female students: Patricia Martin, a sociology major, Adriana Sobel, a nutrition major, and Lauren Sokolovsky, a communications major. Sobel and Sokolovsky were both treated on the scene of the accident. Martin was taken to Cooley Dickinson Hospital with a head injury but was released after treatment. The driver in Monday’s acci-
Gregory Lazan of Worcester was the driver in Tuesday’s accident and was also charged with a civil motor vehicle infraction. Following the two incidents, UMass Police Chief and Director of Public Safety John Horvath sent John Horvath, UMass Police Chief an email to the University community emphasizing safety both Tuesday’s accident occurred while walking and driving through dent was Henrique Deassuncao of Osterville. Deassuncao, who is not shortly after 6 p.m. on the same campus. a UMass student, was charged with road. The vehicle struck UMass “Your ability to react quickly a civil motor vehicle infraction of student Benjamin Robbins, a sus- and adapt to a given situation will failing to yield to a pedestrian in tainable horticulture major, with increase your ability to stay safe,” a crosswalk. Police also noted that the passenger side of the car. Horvath said. Horvath emphasized the use of his windshield was not clean and Robbins was transported to Bay this diminished his ability to see State Medical Center and released see ACCIDENTS on page 3 after treatment of his injuries. the road.
“Our campus welcomes visitors every day, many of whom may not be accustomed to driving in such a heavily populated pedestrian community. ... Crosswalk safety is a shared responsibility.”
Pizza by the lights
Gold medals for UM skydiving club By Katrina BorofsKi Collegian Staff
JAMES JESSON/COLLEGIAN
The classic Amherst pizza restaurant Antonio’s recently installed a new lighted sign to replace the old green, white and red awning.
The winter months are often filled with news on the performance of the University of Massachusetts’s men’s and women’s basketball teams or the hockey team. Frequently overlooked is the UMass sport parachuting/skydiving team, which also competes during the winter season. Most recently, the skydiving club competed at the United States Parachute Association’s (USPA) 2013 National Collegiate Parachuting Championships, which took place in Lake Wales, Fla., from Dec. 27 to Jan. 2. A typical collegiate competition includes various categories for participants to enter into, including twoway, four-way, six-way speed, sport accuracy and formation skydiving. “Two-way is an event you only see at collegiate or other competitions intended for
jumpers with fewer than 125 jumps,” said club member Derek Clougherty, an engineering student at UMass. “That may sound like a lot of skydives, but people are just starting to gain awareness and the skills necessary to fly in close proximity to other skydivers.” Sports accuracy, like classic accuracy, is the category in which jumpers attempt to land as closely to the target as possible. “They have an electronic target out on the ground in the field,” junior skydiver Casey Tylek said. “They add up all your distances and the person with the lowest number wins.” In formation, skydiving points are scored based on properly building specific formations between jumpers, while incorporating block moves and a dive pool or random. “The randoms have a see
SKYDIVING on page 2
Origins of Earth’s moon Olympic issues continue challenged by professor to plague Russia, citizens 1960s model akin to new 2012 model
By sergei L. LoiKo Los Angeles Times
By Catherine ferris Collegian Staff
The common belief that the moon was formed after a giant impact between a young Earth and a body the size of Mars may not be so common anymore due to several new bits of evidence, one of them major: There is no evidence on the moon of any contamination from such an impact. Donald Wise, professor emeritus of geosciences at the University of Massachusetts, noted that new models released in 2012 adopt “starting conditions” similar to those in a lunar origin model he and several other scientists worked on in the 1960s. Wise and his team put forth a “fission” origin for the moon. He described his hypothesis by saying, “The early earth was spinning at almost its breakup speed
COURTESY OF DON WISE
Don Wise proposed a fission theory that explains the origin of the moon. before its core separated and settled. The result increased its spin rate, much as ice skaters pull in their arms to spin faster. This caused the outer portions, now without the metal core, to spin off as the moon with a composition in many ways identical to the Earth’s mantle.” During this time, there were two other hypotheses about the origin of the moon:
that the moon was part of a double planet system, and that the moon was a small body captured from elsewhere in the solar system. At the time, the double planet system seemed unlikely to have survived without the two planets impacting each other and fission seemed to have angular momentum see
LUNAR on page 3
The road to the Olympic Games has been rocky for the 360 or so residents of tiny Akhshtyr, an ancient village not far from Sochi. It also has been long, rutted and piled with construction debris. Once a paradise surrounded by woods, ravines and trout streams, Akhshtyr has acquired a gigantic limestone pit and daily truck trips that have covered the village with layers of limestone dust - all part of the massive construction project that has transformed much of the Sochi area, for better and for worse. But what has people most upset are the police and security agents who have prevented them from making their usual 10-minute trip to a bus stop. A few weeks ago, authorities erected a checkpoint prohibiting residents, either on foot or in vehicles, from getting to the road that lies a few hundred yards away. It
is the main road linking the Olympic mountain cluster at Krasnaya Polyana with the Olympic village in Sochi. That left one way out: a seven-mile winding road heaped in spots with construction waste and piles of gravel. “They told us this measure is necessary to prevent possible sabotage along the main Olympic route,” said Ilya Zamesin, a 35-year-old farmer and local activist. “A majority of the local population are elderly people and they aren’t capable of walking seven miles to get staples - food, medicine and water.” Many of the pre-Olympics headaches have eased in Sochi as frantic last-minute preparations were completed and some of the bugs that marred the run-up to the Games were fixed. The Olympic venues have mostly been getting high marks from athletes and spectators. Despite fears of terrorism, Russia’s vaunted security apparatus so far seems to
have things under control. Still, the Olympics haven’t warmed the hearts of everyone in this temperate corner of Russia. In Sochi, where quiet streets are being patrolled by police and Cossacks in black woolen hats, locals complained that the promised hordes of tourists were relatively meager. “We were told we will be dealing with thousands of foreigners; we even studied English for two weeks,” complained Nodar Bagrandzh, a 50-year-old taxi driver. “Where are all these crowds? We sit for hours without work. Our local residents are hiding out somewhere, and the promised foreign visitors and fans never came.” Moreover, residents said, many of the places where they usually shop have closed for the Games because of security-imposed limits on what suppliers could bring into the area. Popular see
OLYMPICS on page 3