HEADLINERS
POLITICS OF SURVIVAL
Brantley Thrasher, chair of the Department of Urology at the KU Medical Center, was quoted in an article in the Washington Post regarding presidential candidate Rudy Guiliani’s recent statement that chances of surviving prostate cancer under socialized medicine in England were only 44 percent. According to Thrasher, the role of either “capitalistic” or “socialistic” medical systems in survival rates for prostate cancer is “impossible to say” on the basis of statistics. Thrasher instead suggests examining treatment methodology when considering statistics. He points out that American doctors are often more “interventionist” than doctors in Britain or Canada, who in turn emphasize “active surveillance.”
THE SKATE’S ‘THE THING’
Ed Wiley, senior curator at the Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, has helped uncover the fishy origins of “The Thing,” an odd specimen belonging to local comedian/magician/ventriloquist T.A. Hamilton. According to Wiley, “The Thing,” previously unidentified by experts at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the Kansas City Zoo and the Missouri Department of Conservation, “…is a common marine skate, a shark relative, that has been hacked up to look like a ‘devilfish’ or ‘priest fish.’ Such hack jobs have been done for centuries. All you need is a poor dead skate and a sharp knife.”
OUR SENSORY DIFFERENCES
Winnie Dunn, professor of occupational therapy at the KU Medical Center, was quoted in a recent London Times article on how people respond differently to certain stimuli. She works with children with learning disabilities, measuring how they respond in certain situations to help them cope with everyday life. If you can understand where a behavior comes from, it is much easier to find a way to deal with it. Dunn has developed a system of identifying and defining patterns of sensory response, the article states.
KU HISTORY
This month’s observation of Veterans Day and the recent success of the football team perfectly demonstrate the spirit behind the creation of KU’s Memorial Stadium. The athletic arena was officially dedicated on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1922, four years after the fighting stopped in the First World War. The project provided a home for sporting events and serves as a memorial to the 130 students, faculty and alumni who died in the war.
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