[Currents headergraphic]

April 14, 1997

Headliners

The science journal Nature recently ran a commentary piece by linguist Geoffrey Pullum on the Oakland school board's decision to recognize Ebonics as a language. Pullum argued that Ebonics, which he calls African American English, is a dialect of English with its own grammatical rules, no different from a dialect of, for example, Arabic or Russian. Pullum also addressed the practical issues of teaching students who speak diverse dialects and asked what the implications are of reactions toward the school board's decision. The Santa Cruz County Sentinel ran a follow-up piece on Pullum's commentary.

The Scientist, a national biweekly newspaper for life scientists, featured biologists Harry Noller and Chuck Wilson in a long article about the role of the molecule RNA, a cousin of DNA, in the origin of life. Both Noller's and Wilson's research has shown that different forms of RNA can catalyze many of the reactions needed to sustain life. One of the article's photos showed Noller hard at work in his lab.

Literature's Earl Jackson Jr. was interviewed by Voice of America for a story on the Heaven's Gate cult. VOA turned to Jackson because of his expertise on science fiction literature and his extensive knowledge of the World Wide Web.

Germany's weekly news magazine, Der Spiegel, focused in February on the tenth anniversary of Supernova 1987a, the exploding star that shook the astronomy community. The mag interviewed and ran a photo of our own Stan Woosley, who celebrated the anniversary in grand style with colleagues in Chile, the country where astronomers first spotted the supernova.

The coordinators of the Community Supported Agriculture program at the Farm & Garden couldn't have asked for more positive press than the coverage they got in Santa Cruz Metro last week. Christina Waters's story about CSAs showcased the UCSC program and quoted Farm manager Jim Leap at length.

In a letter to the San Jose Mercury News, economist David Kaun expressed concern that proposed changes to the Consumer Price Index would skew benefits away from the poor, and he called instead for more accurate data on the extent of poverty in this country.


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