f Michelle Paulman/DN
Tim Jones, an associate professor of oral biology at UNL, cradles one of the chicks he uses in his ear research.
Fowl discovery
Professor hopes bird experiments lead to better human hearing
By Mark Harms
Staff Reporter
To study the properties of
balance, Tim Jones has
spent eight years working
on a technique to measure nerve
impulses — specifically, nerve
impulses emitted by the part of a
chicken’s car that controls
balance.
However, at a meeting of car
scientists in 1990, Jones, an
associate professor of oral
biology at the University of*
Nebraska-Lincoln, heard of a
discovery that gave his measur
ing techniques another use;
helping to find out how chickens,
after losing their hearing, can
regenerate their damaged nerves
and hear again.
The discovery, Jones said,
“caused a kind of clamor among
car researchers.”
Until recently, he said,
scientists had thought that birds,
like mammals, could not regener
ate nerve tissue once it had been
damaged.
But in 1989 and 1990,
researchers at the University of
Virginia — alter causing chick
ens to go deaf with high-volume
noise — found that the birds
regained their hearing within two
months.
Before concluding that the
nerves in the chicken’s cars
actually had regenerated, Jones
said, scientists needed more
evidence.
He said he thought that if the
hearing nerves in chickens could
regenerate, perhaps the balance
nerves in their ears could
regenerate as well. * - ,
Late last year, Jones and his
lab technician, Rick Nelson, set
up an experiment in their
laboratory at the Dental College
on East Campus.
First, Jones said, they mea
sured the nerve impulses in the
ears of several healthy chicks.
Next, Jones and Nelson
injected a drug that damages the
car’s nerve tissue. Then they
measured the chicks’ nerve
impulses from day to day.
Shortly after the drug was
injected, Jones said, the chicks’
ears emitted no measurable nerve
impulses. But, within a few days,
the impulses began to return.
After 60 days, he said, the
chicks’ responses were the same
as they were before the drug was
injected.
“The study went beautifully,”
Jones said.
He said the experiment, ,
completed last February, showed
that the dead nerve cells had been
replaced.
A scientific journal called
Hearing Research is publishing
the results, he said, and copies
should be available at libraries
soon.
Now, Jones is working with a
molecular biologist at Harvard
University to try to isolate what
causes the nerves to regenerate.
It appears that birds have a
gene that produces a special
protein, he said, which causes
nerve cells to divide in order to
replace dead ones.'
“If we knew what turns on the
cells to regenerate, then maybe
we could do the same with
mammals,” he said.
Jones said their long-term,
“pic-in-thc-sky” goal was to find
- a way urrcplacc damaged ears in
- humans. , ' .
“But that’s a long way off,” he
said.
Perot’s
entry may
complicate
election
By Jeremy Fitzpatrick
Staff Reporter
Ross Perot’s late entry into the
presidential race will compli
cate the election and could
result in Congress selecting the presi
dent for only the third time in the
history of the United States, a profes
sor said.
UNL political science professor
Robert Sittig said Perot, who an
nounced he would
actively cam
paign for the
presidency Thurs
day, has little
chance of winning
the election. But
Perotcouldplaya
significant role in determining who
will win, he said.
“I anticipate a close race, and it
could be even closer in the Electoral
College,” Sittig said. “So when you
put the Perot factor in, it’s going to get
a lot more complicated.
“If the election is otherwise close
See ELECTION on 2
Toxic drug
hits streets
of Lincoln
By Susie Arth
Staff Reporter
he Lincoln/Lancastcr County
Narcotics Unit is warning stu
dents not to believe every
thing they hear.
A highly'*pui*Qnous substance
called jimsonweed,or “moonflower,”
is being distributed on Lincoln streets
as opium with hallucinogenic effects.
But in reality, the drug is a highly
poisonous substance, said Lt. Duainc
Bullock of the narcotics unit.
“It’s being sold as something it’s
really not,” Bullock said. “I hope
people will take heed.”
Bullock said people were cither
eating jimsonweed as a seed or drying
it and eating it as marijuana.
The narcotics unit has received
several reports of the drug, he said,
and he believes there is a lot of it
floating around the streets.
. The drug, Bullock said, is being
called “moonfjower” on the streets.
In low doses, he said, it" can cause
See DRUG on 2
Rail crossings may be eliminated
By Angela Opperman
Staff Reporter
The Railroad Transportation Safety
District Board is laying down tracks
for a plan to eliminate railroad cross
ings north of the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln.
HWS Engineering Inc. of Lincoln
has studied different railroad routes,
from Eighth and V streets to 33rd
Street and Comhusker Highway, and
has recommended that some of the
routes be merged.
The engineering company outlined
ways to reroute trains away from City
Campus, where sludents have been
darting under and in front of trains.
Andrew Loudon, speaker of the
senate for the Association of Sludents
of the University of Nebraska, said
AS U N ’ s major concern was the safety
of female students who had to wait in
a parking lot north of the tracks at
night when trains passed.
‘‘We trust students’ judgment not
to foolishly jump in front of a train,”
he said. ‘‘Our main issue is safety for
the sludents who get stranded out
there.”
And sludents aren’t the only ones
who have to wait for trains to pass,
Loudon said.
“People who attend events at the
(Bob Dcvancy Sports) Center or fair
grounds have the same problem,” h;
said.
Some students who aren’t used to
trains have complained about the
noise, Loudon said, but that was a
minor issue.
The firm’s findings recently were
presented to the Railroad Transporta
tion Safety District, which is made up
of County Board and City Council
members.