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Tuesday, February 14, 2012
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Lady Vols make Wildcats ‘Bleed Orange’ Matt Dixon Sports Editor When the Thomson-Boling Arena PA announcer proclaimed, “This game is over,” after the final horn, it was an understatement. In reality, Monday night’s game between No. 13 Tennessee and No. 7 Kentucky was decided much earlier. The Lady Vols (18-7, 9-3 SEC) never trailed and led by as many as 40 points in a 91-54 rout of the Wildcats (21-4, 10-2) in front of a home crowd of 14,807. “This was a great team win tonight,” UT coach Pat Summitt said. “I can tell you our players needed it, our staff needed it and I’m sure our fans needed this win too.” The victory avenges a 61-60 overtime loss UT suffered to the Wildcats on Jan. 12, and brings the Lady Vols to within one game of Kentucky in the conference standings. “That’s the type of team that we know can come on the court every night,” UT associate head coach Holly Warlick said. “I’m just extremely proud of them and their effort tonight.” Led by sophomore guard Meighan Simmons, UT shot 59 percent from the field (36-of-51), including 46.2 percent (6-of13) from 3-point range. “I was very confident today in my shot, and I was just able to continue to hit baskets,” Simmons said. Simmons had a season-high 25 points, which is also her career-best in conference play. “When (Simmons) scores, we’re an outstanding basketball team,” Warlick said. Senior forwards Shekinna Stricklen (18) and Glory Johnson (10) were the only other Lady Vols to score in double-figures. UT, usually a man-to-man defensive team, controlled the game’s tempo with a 2-3 zone, holding the Wildcats to just
33.3 percent shooting from the field (21-of-63), and forced 20 turnovers. “When our zone is active, we create turnovers,” Warlick said. “It worked for us tonight. I think the last time we played 40 minutes of zone was Georgia here last year.” UT scored 32 points off UK turnovers, and had 22 fast-break points. “When we run the ball, it gives us a lot of energy, gives us a lot of confidence,” Warlick said. The Lady Vols scored 10 of the game’s first 12 points, and went on a 14-0 run midway through the first half to extend its lead to 39-18 on a Stricklen lay-up with 4:36 remaining in the first period. At halftime, UT led 46-28. The onslaught continued over the final 20 minutes. A jumper by junior guard Kamiko Williams extended UT’s lead to 84-44 with 4:37 remaining. “When we went on the floor after halftime, we were like, ‘it’s 0-0, it’s a new game, it’s a fresh game. Let’s start over. Let’s play as hard as we can. Let’s play as hard as we did from the (opening) jump,’” Johnson said. “I think when you have that mindset, it helps.” UT has struggled more than expected this season, and had lost two of their previous three games, including a 14-point loss at Vanderbilt on Feb. 9. “As a team, we feel like this is a turning point for this team, and it’s not just a one-game thing,” Stricklen said. “It’s time for us to keep it going.” In UT’s annual “Live Pink, Bleed Orange” game, the Lady Vols wore pink jerseys with orange numbers, instead of their traditional white home uniforms, as part of the Play 4Kay campaign, which raises awareness for breast cancer through the Kay Yow foundation, in memory of the former North Carolina State women’s basketball coach. Up next for the Lady Vols is a Thursday night road game at Mississippi State with tip-off scheduled for 9 p.m. EST.
Matthew DeMaria • The Daily Beacon
Meighan Simmons yells in celebration after a shot during a game against Kentucky on Monday. Simmons led with 25 points to help the Vols to a crushing win over the Wildcats, 91-54.
Plants may lead to form of alternative energy Matt Miller Staff Writer Dr. Barry Bruce was cleaning his car and a science magazine fell on the ground. On the page that it opened to was an article about a study of photosynthetic hydrogen production, conducted by Elias Greenbaum. As Bruce read this article, inspiration struck when he realized that Greenbaum’s study was very closely related to his own work as a graduate student. After reading the article, Bruce purified Greenbaum’s system and brought it to Greenbaum, resulting in the 2001 paper, Nanoscale Photosynthesis. “Probably, if I hadn’t been washing the car and had this fall out right to the center,” Bruce said, “I wouldn’t have had these thoughts.” Bruce has been working on photosynthesis since 1975. He created his first photosynthetic complex as an undergraduate student at the University of California. In his lab, which studies two aspects of membrane biochemistry related to photosynthesis, Bruce and his team of graduate and undergraduate students are working on what they like to call “applied photosynthesis.” “We take the elements that allow algae capable of converting sunlight into chemical energy and we take it out and put it into a new context,” Bruce said. This process can take the system plants have for George Richardson • The Daily Beacon creating energy and create an electric current or A student wears mittens while riding to class on a cold Feb. 10, 2011. While the win- even create molecular hydrogen. “The beauty of that is there is virtually no polluter has been unseasonably warm, temperatures dropped to freezing levels over the tion; you just use water,” Bruce said. weekend and have extended into the school week.
Bruce feels that we could use the hydrogen that the system produces as a new alternative energy source. Bruce ran his catalytic system for 90 days without any loss of activity. “We’re talking about a pretty robust system that could work,” Bruce said. “Maybe not forever, but maybe for a year.” Bruce thinks this system could be used in the summer, when there is the greatest solar intensity. Because the panels would be renewable and biodegradable, you could potentially just throw them out after the summer. Solar panels today have a shelf life of 30 years, but what many people do not know is that it takes seven to ten years of running to pay back the initial cost of making them. Bruce is hoping that his system will take less energy to produce but last a lot shorter. Though Bruce does not know exactly how costeffective his process is because he is still in the laboratory scale, he said that many of the techniques they use in the lab are simple and could be done in a relatively low-tech fashion. The other major problem with solar panels today is that they use rare metals. When researchers talk about how much energy can come from solar panels, they talk about hundreds of square miles, but this might not even be possible due to limited resources on the planet. “This could be one place that we have a renewable resource,” Bruce said. There are many potential uses for the system that Bruce and his team are creating. This could become a viable source of environmentally friendly energy. “If it’s more efficient, then I think it’s a good idea, and yes I’d use them,” Melanie Daley, freshman in biological sciences, said.
New apps help autistic children Justin Joo Staff Writer While many people use smartphone applications every day for everything from simply flash games to making credit card purchases, Dr. David F. Cihak is using them to help educate children with autism. Cihak appeared at the UT Science Forum on Friday to discuss how simple apps that can be used by anybody can greatly benefit the education of autistic children. “Initially these (apps) were designed for people with disabilities,” Cihak said. “But we find that these broad applications can help with (autism).” After giving some basic characteristics and information about what autism is, Cihak began discussing some of the many apps that he is studying and using to help autistic children.
The first app was the Proloquo2Go, which is designed to help with communication. The iPad screen is filled with cards that have drawings and phrases on each one. An example would have a person waving with the words “Hi/Bye” written below. When a card is tapped, the phrase is read out loud. While the product, created by AssistiveWare, is designed to help anyone who has trouble communicating, Cihak said that it works very well with helping autistic children who have trouble conveying exactly what they want to say. Next, Cihak discussed an app called “video social stories.” These are apps that allow visual stories to be created using video, pictorial and audio clips. These stories can be used to help autistic children who have difficulty handling new situations or changes, such as going to get a hair cut for the first time. Stories can be created to illus-
trate what will happen during an upcoming event, step by step, so the child will know what to expect and will be able to better handle the new situation. While there are several different types of this app, a free one is available at http://www.modelmekids.com/iph one-app-autism.html. Cihak next discussed Touch and Learn — Emotions, which can help autistic children better identify what emotions people are feeling as some children have trouble recognizing facial cues. Children see pictures of people displaying different emotions through facial cue, and must identify which one is happy or sad. This app can also be used to help an autistic child learn to distinguish between different age groups by picking the photo with a child, teenager or adult. Touch and Learn — Emotions is also available for free download on iTunes.
But what drew the most interest from the audience were the augmented reality apps. Augmented Reality is when the images seen through a lens and depicted on a screen (such as on a smartphone) are shown with new computer-generated graphics. The one Cihak demonstrated that drew the most attention was designed to help guide an autistic individual from one place to another. The app, combining the smart device’s GPS and video camera, would locate the person, process directions from getting from A to B, and then show directions on the video screen while depicting the world around the individual. What would appear on the screen would be the different buildings and streets surrounding the person, but the reality would be augmented to include arrows pointing which way to turn, the walking distance from one location to the next and the time of arrival. All of the apps Cihak discussed
are available to download online, offered for free with the exception of the Proloquo2Go, which is $189.99 on iTunes. Brandon Swinford, junior in psychology, was very impressed with the presentation. “I hope to work with kids with autism,” Swinford said. “I’m thinking about and exclusively designing technology for working with autism, so this (program) was exactly something I’d like to see.” The UT Science Forum meets on Fridays from noon to 1 p.m. at the Thompson-Boling Arena near the Café in Private Room C-D. Those attending are encourage to bring a lunch. Next week Mark Blevins will be the speaker discussing “This Most Uncivilized War — Reenacting Civil War History in the Classroom.” You can find the entire Spring Semester schedule at http://research.utk.edu/forum/.