I SrOBTS A ft E
See You Sooners Intimidation Factor
With the help of a strong offensive attack, the The Sheldon seeks ways to reach out to students
Nebraska volleyball team swept Oklahoma and tell them, “Art doesn’t have to be intimidat
Wednesday night at the NU Coliseum. PAGE 14 ing.”. PAGE 11
VOL. 99 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 39
Senate rejects
test ban treaty
By Josh Knaub
Staff writer
The Senate on Wednesday voted
down a treaty that would have banned
all nuclear testing.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel voted
against the ratification of the treaty, and
Sen. Bob Kerrey voted for ratification.
The final vote was 48 to 51, far
short of the 67 votes - or two-thirds of
the Senate - needed for ratification. As
expected, the final vote closely fol
lowed party lines, with only four
Republicans voting for it and one
Democrat abstaining.
Hagel said he had voted against the
treaty because the Senate had not taken
enough time to consider the treaty’s
effects on national security.
In a press release Wednesday, Hagel
said he had been left with no choice but
to vote against the treaty.
“I am gravely disappointed that
members of the Senate in both parties
and the president were unable to find a
way to do the right thing and set this
treaty aside for farther hearings,” Hagel
said.
Hagel said the defeat of the treaty
damaged the credibility of the United
States.
“The effects will ripple around the
«
(The treaty) will
resurface when we
have the technology
to enforce it.”
Andrew Faltin
senior philosophy major
globe,” he said.
Kerrey said national security was
his reason for voting for the treaty.
“Senate ratification would enhance
our existing national detection assets,”
Kerrey said.
“Our ability to monitor the treaty
will be enhanced by access to the more
than 300 monitoring stations that will
make up the... monitoring system
Supporters got a parliamentary rul
ing that the rejection did not kill the
treaty. Instead, the vote returned the
document to the clerk’s desk in the front
of the Senate - where it will sit unless
called up again.
Democrats vowed to make the
rejection a prime 2000 campaign issue,
Please see TREATY on 10
State area codes
may see changes
By Veronica Daehn
Staff writer
Within the next year and a half,
Nebraskans may be dialing more num
bers than usual when making a local
phone call.
Experts predict that by the end of the
year 2000, the 402 area code will be full.
When this happens, the code will not
be able to service any more phone num
bers.
Gene Hand, director of telecommu
nications for the Public Service
Commission, said two options are being
looked at to solve the problem.
One type of relief, he said, is called a
split. A split would divide the area of
eastern Nebraska that the 402 area code
services.
One part of the area would keep the
402 area code, and the other part would
be given an entirely new code.
There would then be three area
codes servicing Nebraska.
The other type of relief, Hand said, is
called an overlay.
Once the state runs out of numbers
in the 402 area code, a different “layer,”
or area code, would be placed on top of
it
This would mean that two area
codes would exist in one city or section
of the state.
“Consumer education comes into
play here,” Hand said. “People would
have to include an area code to make a
local call.”
Hand said people would have to get
used to dialing different digits when
making a local call.
The public service commission is
still doing research on the best option.
Hand said.
Public hearings will be held at the
end of the year and data requests have
been sent out to gather input from con
sumers.
Hand said the 308 area code that ser
vices western Nebraska is not a concern.
“308 will not exhaust for another 30
years or so until 2031,” he said.
Another option Hand said his com
mission has looked at is moving the 308
area code further east to take over some
of the towns now serviced by 402.
That would cause a problem for
some towns, though, he said, because
they might also have to change the three
digit prefix of their phone numbers.
Please see CODE on 10
_ 'r - Mike Warren/DN
PILL-SOON SONG, a UNL chemistry professor, holds one of the plants he has used to research the rate of plant
growth. Song changed one amino acid to alter the rate of growth and hopes to apply this finding to other types
of plants.
New genetic engineering tool
could improve quality of plants
By Michelle Starr
Staff writer
Something as simple as a protein
could hold the key to healthier
plants, larger grains and shorter,
healthier lawns.
“It’s possible to fool the plant by
genetically engineering it,” said Pill
Soon Song, Dow Chemical Co. pro
fessor of chemistry at the University
ofNebraska-Lincoln.
Song is researching a growing
technique that, wheh research is
completed, could be used to produce
larger quantities of food compared to
current methods, produce stronger
plants and reduce fungal infections
in lawns.
Because a plant would be able to
access and use light more efficiently
and require less fertilizer, water and
pesticides, the research could help
improve the quality of plants and
crops.
The new technique could be
likened to the strengthening effect
that vitamins have on people.
Until this research, the connec
tion between the light signal sent to
the plant and a plant’s responses to
the signal had not been well under
stood, Song said.
For their experiments, the
researchers used a tiny plant called
Arabidopsis, which grows flowers
and seeds very quickly, Song said.
The experiments have worked on the
plant.
The researchers’ next step is to
find how the protein works as a DNA
binding protein, which is uncharac
teristic of most proteins not involved
with DNA.
The breakthrough in the tech
nique is the link that UNL and
Korean researchers found between a
plant’s detection of light and its
Please see PLANT on 10
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