Duke to host podcasting symposium
Information Science and Information Studies will hold what organizers believe to be the first-ever academic podcasting symposium Sept. 27-28.
Podcasting is a process of broadcasting digital audio recordings over the Internet to listeners who sign up to receive them. It includes a combination of blogs, a distribution system called Really Simple Syndication and desktop software.
The Duke symposium will unite various scholars and technology officials to discuss the effect podcasting could potentially have on academics and digital culture.
The symposium, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences auditorium.
Graduate exhibits photos at NCCU
Titus Heagins, Trinity '89, opened his photography collection entitled "Plantation Lullaby" at the North Carolina Central University Art Museum Sunday. The collection includes photos that recreate images of slave life.
Parts of the collection at NCCU are accompanied by verse written specially for the exhibit by poet Jaki Shelton Green.
Heagins has dedicated his career as a photographer to producing images of African Americans.
DUHS officials to study Mexican culture
Pam Edwards, director of education services for Duke University Health System, and Alicia Gonzalez, a clinical specialist at the medical school, will join 19 other North Carolina health care professionals in a week-long trip to Mexico that is a component of a course designed to help the participants incorporate Hispanic culture into their practices.
The team will visit Mexico City as well as rural areas to study health systems.
The endeavor was organized by the Latino Initiative of the Center for International Understanding, which is a part of the University of North Carolina system.
Reports show N.C. tourism slip
Money from tourism in North Carolina exceeded $13 billion last year, but attendance at some major attraction sites dropped.
The N.C. Department of Commerce recently reported that attendance at more than 20 locations declined 5.2 percent last year. The slip perpetuates a drop that began in 2003.
Studies reveal lack of drug development
Two studies conducted by Duke and University of North Carolina researchers show that pharmaceutical companies have not made significant headway in developing treatments for either schizophrenia or depression in the last 50 years.
The studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and online, posit that the most widely used schizophrenia medication works approximately as well as four new ones that cost substantially more than the old drug.
They also indicate that 10 commonly prescribed depression drugs, including Prozac and Zoloft, exhibit little difference in effectiveness.
Schizophrenia affects 3.2 million Americans; depression affects 16 percent of U.S. adults during their lifetimes.
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