Thursday, March 28, 2024

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Compassionate Christmas

This is the seventh time that I shall be conveying my Christmas message to the whole academic community, and there seems to be always a persistent nuisance that attempts to destroy the mood of this joyous season. This persistent intruder is called crisis. Before we dare to point our finger to the so-called culprits, let us consider first how many fingers would point to ourselves. Let us rather use those fingers to strike our breast and acknowledge that we are partly responsible for the mess we are experiencing in our country.

Another tragedy

A FEW days go a couple of typhoons wreaked havoc on several Luzon provinces, especially Quezon, where thousands died as a result of the landslides that were caused by the relentless logging in the mountains of the Sierra Madre range.

Because of these meaningless deaths, calls have been made to put a moratorium on logging, both legal and illegal. Also, there is a clamor to make illegal logging punishable by death.

What else is new?

Cats cause SARS?

EVEN the cutest of animals can strike fear in the hearts of men. At least health-wise.

The civet, a brown, furry, carnivorous mammal found in Asia and Africa, was discovered by Chinese experts as being responsible for the SARS epidemic that affected about 8,000 people worldwide, and ravaged airline and tourism industries.

According to the SARS Defense and Cure Scientific Group in China, the civet, the “most easily infected wild animal”, is the primary source of the Human Coronavirus which causes SARS.

Mini-technology to perform advanced microsurgery

IMAGINE bacteria-sized robots performing surgeries on your organs. In the future, these “nanosurgeons” will be a staple in every operating room, leaving no scars like conventional surgery does.

Nanotechnology is the development and engineering of devices which will operate at the atomic level. The “nano” prefix comes from nanometer, billionth of a meter or about 10 hydrogen atoms laid side by side.

Unlocking the stem cell

WHAT do the Pope and the late Christopher Reeve and Ronald Reagan have in common? Aside from having become popular icons, they have bodies ravaged by diseases modern science seeks to prevent through stem cell research.

With high hopes of treating life-threatening diseases ranging from Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s to diabetes, researchers are now hooked on harvesting stem cells or “primitive cells” that can be cultured and grown into any kind of tissue.

Guidelines for nursing schools drafted

DUE TO the heightened alarm against “substandard” nursing schools, the UST College of Nursing (Nursing) drafted the first core competency standards for nurses during a seminar-workshop last Oct. 25 to 26 at the Nursing Auditorium.

“We will use the competencies identified as our guide to maintain the standard,” Nursing Dean Glenda Vargas said.

USTV awards nominees in

Three major television stations dominated the finalists for Best Programs of 2004 in the first USTV Students’ Choice Awards themed, “TV on TV: Thomasian Visions on Television.”

The mainstream programs of long-time rivals ABS-CBN and GMA-7 gained the votes of the Thomasian community.

ABS-CBN’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Studio 23, completes the three finalists for the Best TV Station category.

University reinforces Portuguese links

TO REINFORCE its international linkage, the University forged a five-year pact with the Portuguese Centre for the Study of Southeast Asia (CEPESA) last Oct. 26 at the Central Library conference hall.

According to Fr. Lucio Gutierrez, O.P., assistant UST Central Library archivist, the agreement re-establishes UST as part of the global academe while enriching Thomasians’ knowledge about the Portuguese heritage in the Philippines.

Most powerful telescope almost done

If you think the Hubble Space Telescope sees it all, think again.

Arizona, home of the world’s greatest space observatories, unveiled on October 13 the world’s most technologically advanced ground-based optical telescope.

The 120-million-dollar Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Mount Graham is nearing the completion of its twin giant mirrors. When completed, LBT images will be 10 times as sharp as those from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Inkblots 2004: CAMPUSWRITE

Since it started six years ago, Inkblots, the UST National Campus Journalism Fellowship, has consistently left its participants wanting for more.

By inviting prominent lecturers in different fields of journalism, the Varsitarian, organizer of Inkblots, has been attracting campus journalists from different universities and colleges from as far as Mindanao in the south and Batanes in the north by hundreds.

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