America is sorely under-informed when they are vot­ing on issues that are related to the sci­en­tific community

For too long now, sci­en­tific illit­er­acy has neg­a­tively influ­enced the polit­i­cal process, which in turn neg­a­tively affects the lives of Americans.

We are see­ing this most recently with cli­mate change bills strug­gling in Washington, and have seen it many times in the debates over evo­lu­tion and cre­ation­ism in pub­lic school sci­ence classes. At the heart of these issues, there is empir­i­cal evi­dence that weighs in much heav­ier on one side. When cit­i­zens aren’t aware of the sci­ence, their vot­ing against sci­en­tif­i­cally based bills impedes on the progress of America as a world­wide leader.

Thomas Friedman had an excel­lent arti­cle in the New York Times on Nov. 17. In it, he deftly tore apart the argu­ments of the “drill-baby-drill” pro­po­nents. The cen­tral point was this: If you don’t believe in global warm­ing, fine, but oppos­ing the research for alter­na­tive energy and only want­ing to drill for more oil will only sup­port inter­ests of those who we don’t want it to. (more…)

Releasing albums with a mix of old and new songs, per­form­ers look to change their style for the holidays

When “Sleigh Bells” starts play­ing, Nick Maddox feels a lit­tle more in the hol­i­day spirit.

Maddox, a junior in the mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing pro­gram, per­formed the piece in high school and has loved it ever since. Some artists are look­ing to put their own mark on hol­i­day favorites as they per­form new ver­sions of old songs and flood the mar­ket place.

Bob Dylan released a Christmas album titled, “Christmas in the Heart” and has pledged pro­ceeds from the album to the Feed America charity.

Both the Jackson Five’s album, “Ultimate Christmas Collection” and Ray Charles’ “The Spirit of Christmas” have been reis­sued, remas­tered and made avail­able in time for the sea­son. (more…)

The vic­to­ri­ous team is hope­ful to again win the national title

The Ferris State Rube Goldberg team will be gear­ing up for 2010 with hopes of again win­ning the national title.

A Rube Goldberg is defined as a com­i­cally involved, com­pli­cated inven­tion, labo­ri­ously con­trived to per­form a sim­ple oper­a­tion, accord­ing to Webster’s New World Dictionary.

Ferris’ Rube Goldberg team took the national title three years ago with a mech­a­nism that squeezed orange juice into a pitcher with a record tally of 315 steps. The pre­vi­ous record con­sisted of 242 steps.

The Rube Goldberg con­test is named after the Pulitzer Prize win­ning artist Rube Goldberg whose “inven­tions” sat­i­rized new technologies.

The con­test gained national recog­ni­tion in 1988 when stu­dents at Purdue University became inter­ested in the idea of the challenge-oriented project. In 1992, the first con­test appeared when Beyond 2000 came to Purdue to film the event.

Team mem­ber and last year’s cap­tain, Mike Dunakin, elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing tech­nol­ogy major, said the team is work­ing for a comic artist. He said, “We’re doing a task that is com­plex and we are to make it as sim­ple as pos­si­ble.” (more…)

Ferris is 8–0 at home this sea­son and hosts 18th-ranked Nebraska-Omaha this weekend

The Ferris State hockey team is ranked 17th in the nation accord­ing to U.S. College Hockey Online.

The Bulldogs are 8–0 at home this sea­son and it marks the best home start in school his­tory. Ferris has outscored its oppo­nents 39–16 in eight home con­tests this season.

The team is 9−3−2 over­all and 4−2−2−2 in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA). The team is cur­rently fifth over­all in the CCHA with 16 points. Ferris is unbeaten in its last six con­tests and has not lost since Oct. 31. Junior defense­man Zach Redmond said every­one on the team is play­ing well together.

“All four of our lines are con­tribut­ing at dif­fer­ent times and I think every­one knows their role,” said Redmond.

The Bulldogs swept Ohio State in its last con­tests. In the first game, Ferris scored nearly at will en route to an 8–1 vic­tory. The team scored three goals in just three min­utes and 44 sec­onds to take a quick 3–0 lead. (more…)

The Ferris State women’s cross coun­try team placed 11th at the national meet

The Ferris State women’s cross coun­try team fin­ished 11th at the 2009 NCAA-II National Championships, tying the second-highest result in school history.

Junior Tina Muir led the Bulldogs with a time of 21 min­utes and 11 sec­onds, which was good enough for a 12th-place fin­ish. She earned All-American hon­ors for the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive sea­son. Muir also fin­ished 12th at the cham­pi­onship meet last sea­son. (more…)

Ferris was rec­og­nized as a StormReady University by the National Weather Service

During times of inclement weather, Ferris stu­dents, fac­ulty and staff can be assured that their safety is a top pri­or­ity now that FSU is StormReady.

On Nov. 18 the National Weather Service rec­og­nized Ferris as a StormReady University, one of only four in Michigan to receive this acknowledgment.

In the spring, stu­dents in Dr. Tom Behler’s Sociology of Emergency and Disaster class began exam­in­ing cam­pus emer­gency pre­pared­ness at Ferris and ini­ti­ated the StormReady appli­ca­tion process. (more…)

Just a few days ago I was elated to receive an invi­ta­tion to try Google Wave.

Google Wave is the lat­est from Google and described as a tool for com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion. Essentially, Google has com­bined free e-mail, free instant mes­sag­ing and free richly for­mat­ted text doc­u­ments into one ser­vice that allows a group of peo­ple to share and edit var­i­ous types of information.

Google allowed only a lim­ited review in an effort to pre­vent bugs and to develop and improve the sys­tem with user feed­back. Limited invi­ta­tions and a “word of mouth” buzz was a help­ful bit of mar­ket­ing. (more…)

Issues with trust among fac­ulty, prob­lems installing new courses core of discussion

Discussions dur­ing the meet­ing con­cern­ing the College of Arts and Sciences dealt with issues of insti­tut­ing new courses and trust among fac­ulty members.

Those present at the fourth relationship-building meet­ing that took place on Nov. 19 were President David Eisler, Matt Klein, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, board of trustee mem­bers, FFA Representatives, and Provost Fritz Erickson, who facil­i­tated the discussion.

“We are sin­cere about improv­ing our work­ing rela­tion­ships,” said Erickson. (more…)

Neal Justin, MCT

Jesse Ventura’s most glar­ing flaws self-absorption, para­noia, stub­born­ness serve him to near-perfection in his lat­est and most promis­ing TV project, “Conspiracy Theory,” pre­mier­ing Wednesday on cable’s TruTV.

His other small-screen efforts, as a talk-show host and a sports com­men­ta­tor for the short-lived XFL foot­ball league, forced the for­mer Minnesota gov­er­nor to stray from his favorite sub­ject: him­self. Not this time. The new series may promise to be about gov­ern­ment and cor­po­rate coverups, but it’s really about Ventura play­ing tough-talking detec­tive a role that fits like a snug fedora. (more…)