The Wall Street Journal-20080130-The Informed Reader - Insights and Items of Interest From Other Sources

Return to: The_Wall_Street_Journal-20080130

The Informed Reader / Insights and Items of Interest From Other Sources

Full Text (643  words)

Aviation:

In Fossett Search, Technology Came Up Short

Why were searchers unable to locate millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett's lost plane despite huge advances in information technology?

Tools like Google Earth satellite imaging and Global Positioning System, or GPS, locators can come up short, especially in mountainous places like Nevada. Successful searches still depend largely on volunteer pilots' stamina, sharp eyes and high tolerance for motion sickness, as well as dumb luck, says Michael Behar after a stint with the Nevada branch of the volunteer Civil Air Patrol.

Nevada's terrain generates strong winds that can floor even experienced pilots like Mr. Fossett, whose plane disappeared in September. Even on clear days, search pilots get headaches from trying to keep a steady gaze while being bounced by the wind. On the ground, the remains of old mining equipment are hard to distinguish from downed planes. It took Mr. Behar four passes before he was able to spot a wreck of an identified plane far larger than the one Mr. Fossett flew.

In Nevada, the newest technology often isn't helpful. The jagged terrain can block signals from emergency-locator transmitters. (Last year, a locator device drew Mississippi rescuers to a crashed pilot who had been hanging upside down in his wrecked plane, hidden beneath a thick canopy of trees, for 56 hours.)

The wide distribution of Nevada satellite photographs on the Web led to so many distracting false tips that the Civil Air Patrol had its office phone number changed. The hunt for Mr. Fossett was called off in October. Civil Air Patrol volunteers suspect that despite their extensive search, Mr. Fossett crashed relatively close by, soon after taking off from his ranch, as is the case with most private-plane crashes.

-- Air & Space -- February/March

Universities:

In Freshman Year, Students

Rarely Broaden Their Views

It is time to retire the ideal of the first year in college as a roller-coaster ride of exploded prejudices, mind expansion and self- discovery, writes James M. Lang, an English professor at Assumption College in Massachusetts. Freshmen today are simply too practical.

Mr. Lang's own experiences with students dovetail with a recent survey by Tim Clydesdale, an associate professor of sociology at The College of New Jersey, which found that freshmen keep their high- school social identities firmly intact and actively resist entreaties from professors to expand their horizons.

Their main concerns involve dealing with unfamiliar experiences like drinking, paying bills and developing a life-work balance without help from their parents. "Most of the mainstream American teens I spoke with neither liberated themselves intellectually nor broadened themselves socially during their first year out," Mr. Clydesdale says.

The idea that every freshman goes through this transformation might come from the fond and oft-repeated memories of the minority of former students who experienced profound intellectual enlightenment, Mr. Lang speculates.

-- Chronicle of Higher Education -- Feb. 1

Science:

Hairless Rat May Offer Clues

About Chronic Human Pain

The naked mole rat is highly sensitive to touch, but when it comes to chili peppers or acid, the hairless, sausage-like creatures are immune to the sting. That resistance has raised hopes that the animals might hold clues about how to treat chronic pain in humans, reports Charles Q. Choi on LiveScience.com.

Found in oxygen-starved burrows in East Africa, naked mole rats lack a chemical called Substance P, which causes the sensation of burning pain in mammals. The chemical's absence probably helps the rodents cope with the acid that builds in their tissue as they breathe in the high levels of carbon dioxide in their underground dens.

Because acid-sensing is thought to play a key role in chronic inflammatory pain, the naked mole rat's unusual pain-receptor system could help scientists unravel what causes humans to experience persistent aching.

-- LiveScience.com -- Jan. 28

---

See more on our blog, at WSJ.com/InformedReader. Send comments to [email protected].