sports kit THURSI AY
Only exhibition Dance of determination November 13,1997
The Nebraska women’s basketball team lost to A 1994 auto accident left Stacey Wonder a para
the Victoria All-Stars 82-67 in an exhibition plegic. Having turned the situation into opportu- COLD As ICE
game Wednesday night. PAGE 10 nity, she now helps others do the same. PAGE 12 Cloudy and windy, high 32. low 20.
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' VOL. 97 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 58
Students
get chance
to cash in
■ UNL Math Day provides an
opportunity for high schoolers
to earn scholarship money, and the
; university to find new recruits.
By Erin Gibson
Senior Reporter
; Last fall, high school senior Jaclyn Kohles
spent three hours taking math tests during
UNL’s Math Day.
But Kohles, now a University of Nebraska
# Lincoln freshman, will take four years to spend
f the $8,000 scholarship she won in that'short
time.
The scholarship was one of 10 offered to
high school students attending Math Day, a day
of mathematics learning and competitions held
at UNL each fall for the past eight years.
Math Day officials said the day is a day of
fun competition where high school-aged teens
duke it out with equations - not sports equip
r ment - in a fight for a No. 1 trophy.
But the university has an alternative motive
in holding Math Day, officials said.
Like Kohles, many students who compete
in Math Day contests represent the state’s best
and brightest college hopefuls.
Today, when about 1,150 students from 94 ,
Nebraska high schools arrive on campus for i
the 1997 Math Day, they will fihd themselves >
among the most new sought-out recruits for
UNL.
: The day of recruitment isn’t cheap; it costs
UNL about $3,000 every year.
After collecting a $4-per-student registra
tion fee, the university spends another $5,100,
including paying for a dozen high school
groups to spend tonight in the Town House
Mini-Suites at 18th and M streets.
Event sponsors spend another $34,000 to
award scholarships to 10 students who score
highest on the day’s math tests, bringing Math
Day’s total money exchange to more than
$42,000.
That’s more than the starting salary for
most UNL graduates.
But Kohles and several university officials
said the Math Day money is well spent.
Kohles attended Math Day for four years
while attending Omaha’s Ralston High School
and won a total of $10,000 in scholarships
from the last two years of competitions.
Although she won $2,000 her junior year,
she still wasn’t interested in attending a univer
sity as large as UNL, she said. She was smart
and competitive for admission and scholar
ships at several smaller schools.
Kohles said last year’s Math Day - and the
$8,000 scholarship it awarded - changed her
• mind.
“I was really amazed at the size of tlje com
petition,” she said. “I saw (UNL) had such a
commitment to education and to promoting
math in the community.”
As a result, Kohles enrolled this fall as a
math major at UNL. •
Brian Foster, dean of the College of Arts
| . Please see MATH on 6
k . --—-—■—:—■—*— ---
Jumping for |oy
Matt Miller/DN
SOPHOMORE CHRIS BORGMEYER and freshman Jill Dolnicek bounce for an estimated $15,000 during Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity and
Gamma Phi Beta Sorority’s Trampoline-a-thon ’97 philanthropy. The students are jumping for 101.9 straight hours to raise money for the
American Lung Association. Dolnicek said the secret to the philanthropy was simple: “We just keep jumping,” she said.
Scientist speaks on cloning
Dolly’s creator calls genetic worries premature
By Brian Carlson
Assignment Reporter
Cloning technology will pro
mote useful advancements in
medicine and agriculture, not fos
ter the onset of a Brave New
World society, Ian Wilmut said
Wednesday night.
Wilmut, the leader of the
Scottish research team whose
cloning of a sheep called Doily
became public eight months ago,
told a packed auditorium at
Nebraska Wesleyan University
that panic about the new technolo
gy is premature.
“I really don’t think this is as
frightening as some of the stories
in the news media have made it
out to be,” he said.
When news of the cloning
reached the public, it immediately
touched off an ethical debate
among scientists, scholars and the
public. Alarmed by visions of pos
sible genetic engineering and
manipulation of human life, many
called for a freeze on cloning
research.
But Wilmut said fanciful
images of mad scientists design
ing humans in a lab missed the
new technology’s tremendous
promise. He said the technology,
which he calls nuclear transfer,
could lead to advancements in
agricultural breeding as well as in
treatment of cystic fibrosis,
Parkinson’s disease, muscular
dystrophy and other diseases.
Nuclear transfer technique
involves emptying the genetic
material from an unfertilized egg;
filling the egg with a somatic
donor cell in a “quiescent,” or
non-dividing, stage; and electri
cally fusing the donor cell’s nucle
us into the egg cell. Containing
identical genetic information as
the donor cell, the developing
embryo progresses normally until
birth, when the offspring repre
sents a genetic clone.
Dolly’s creation was the first
cloning from an adult mammal
cell.
Wilmut said he expected cattle
breeders and dairy farmers would
eventually use nuclear transfer
technology to improve their prod
ucts. Nuclear transfer could be
combined with genome mapping
advances that identify genes
responsible for certain traits.
Using “genetic targeting,” cat
tle breeders could create more and
healthier steers, which yield lean
er meat. Dairy farmers could pro
duce more fertile cows to increase
milk production.
“I don’t think there’s any
doubt in my mind that will some
day happen,” he said.
Much public policy debate,
Wilmut said, may center around
“the $64,000 question”: Will
humans be cloned?
Wilmut said human cloning
capability could be achieved with
continued research, but for now
it’s a ways off. Wilmut said he
doubted the technology ever
would be used on a large scale.
Please see DOLLY on 6
_r*_
UNO dean
gives talk
about trade
By Ann Mary Landis
Staff Reporter
The trade routes used dur
ing the days of King
Tutankhamen, as well as the
days of Marco Polo, survive
today to play an important and
complex role in the economies
of Central and South Asia.
And now the United States
has several interests in that
area, the dean of International
Studies and Programs at the
University of Nebraska at
Omaha said Wednesday night.
Thomas E. Gouttierre
addressed these issues during
his presentation at the E.N.
Thompson Forum on World
Issues, which was held at the
Please see FORUM on 7
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t T.