Headlines @ U.Va.

PLAYING IT SAFE WITH TEEN DRIVERS
Daniel Cox, a professor of psychiatric medicine and the director of U.Va.’s Behavioral Medicine Center, has more than an academic interest in the question of the driving skills of teens with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. He is also the father of two teen-age sons with ADHD. He recently discussed his research and his personal experience in a Washington Post article. His No. 1 rule: Take your medicine, or you can’t take the car.
— Washington Post, Dec. 10

BOND: SHAME SLOWED LOTT REACTION
The storm over Sen. Trent Lott’s remarks took some time to develop, mostly because there is no unified American memory on the civil rights era, history professor Julian Bond, national chairman of the NAACP, told the New York Times. “Different Americans reacted differently” to Lott’s remarks, he said. “Black Americans were angry. White Americans were ashamed. And sometimes, shame makes you push the memory away. As a nation we’re not comfortable with this memory.”
— New York Times, Dec. 15

IS IT WARM HERE, OR IS IT ME?
Is human activity warming the climate, or is the recent spate of record temperatures merely the product of a natural cycle? Environmental sciences professor Michael Mann thinks the evidence is piling up on the side of man-made effects. “It seems obvious just to the lay person that if we’re getting these record breakers almost every year something unusual is going on that doesn’t just result from a random rolling of the dice.”
— Scripps Howard News Service, Dec. 16

A PEEK AT EARLY DECISION
Early-decision admission programs have come under fire all over the country, with charges that they favor elite, mainly white students and fill slots that may otherwise have gone to more qualified applicants in the spring. Dean of Admission John Blackburn allowed the Washington Post an inside look at the early-decision process, while expressing reservations about the proceedings. “I don’t think a public university should be giving an advantage to students who can apply early,” he said, vowing to review U.Va.’s policy soon.
— Washington Post, Dec. 16

CLONES ATTACK PUBLIC PROCESS
Bioethicists pulled no punches in denouncing a religious sect’s claims to have cloned two humans. The claims — as yet uncorroborated — short-circuit the deliberate process with which the scientific and public policy communities have been approaching the issue of human cloning. “This is the worst thing that could happen,” said Jonathan Moreno, director of U.Va.’s Center for Bio-Medical Ethics. “They’ve transgressed many of the basic rules of human experimentation.”
— Richmond Times-Dispatch, Dec. 28