School Community

The Big Ten officially announced that it would start a college hockey conference for the 2013-2014 season this morning.

Early comments from the league say that they are still interested in maintaining a close relationship with the CCHA and WCHA, though the amount of boot-licking it will take from those conferences to keep the relationship in good standing still remains to be seen.

I suppose we all knew on some level that this day was coming. Now that it’s finally here, what are everyone’s thoughts?

Here’s a link to the SB Nation post on the announcement.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a little bomb that promises a big bang for cancer patients.

Preliminary tests show an anti-cancer drug loosely attached to gold nanoparticles starts accumulating deep inside tumors within minutes of injection and can be activated for an effective treatment within two hours. The same drug injected alone takes two days to gather and attacks the tumor from the surface—a far less effective route.

Speeding anti-cancer drugs directly into tumors enables patients to receive lower doses of the toxic chemicals, thereby saving healthy tissue from damage and other harsh side effects suffered in traditional chemotherapy.

“We hope to lower the dosage by at least a factor of 10,” said Clemens Burda, associate professor of chemistry and senior author of the paper. The research team comprised Burda, graduate students Yu Cheng and Joseph D. Meyers, research assistant professor of biomedical engineering Ann-Marie Broome, chemistry professor Malcolm E. Kenney and associate professor of biomedical engineering James Basilion.

The key to success? The scientists tied an anti-cancer drug to golden missiles using a weak chemical interaction called a noncovalent bond. In molecule construction, a covalent bond is a heavy rope lashed and knotted; a noncovalent bond is a shoestring tied in a bow.

“Very often, additions to chemical systems change properties of the components of the system,” Burda said. Attempts by his and other research groups to use covalent bonds for drug delivery have resulted in such complications and less than hoped-for results.

The researchers, who come from a breadth of disciplines, found that by using a noncovalent bond to attach the drug to coated gold, they eliminated interference among the desired properties of each component.

Burda’s group sought to simplify the process by using materials that have well-known properties.

The work, titled “Deep Penetration of a PDT Drug into Tumors by Noncovalent Drug-Gold Nanoparticle Conjugates,” was published in February in the online edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. To read more, click here.

Most serious hockey fans in the Twin Cities will tell you that there is no better night of hockey in the area than the double-header section finals of Sections 2AA and 6AA and after two kind of down years, this year’s installment at Mariucci Arena lived up to the hype.

Edina came back from a 2-1 deficit in the third period, scoring the game-winning goal with just over a minute left in the game to earn a trip back to St. Paul with a 3-2 win. The late game was even better, with Wayzata erasing a 3-1 deficit in the third period to send the game to overtime, before losing on a Kyle Rau goal deep into the second overtime period.

Edina vs. Burnsville

I would have liked to have seen Burnsville win this game, in part because they were the underdog(in this context, since a 2400-student HS hardly counts as a “little guy”), and because they have one of the best student sections in the state. But my gut feeling heading into this game was that Burnsville had the ability to keep a game close with anyone in the state, but didn’t quite have the ability to pull out a win, and that’s pretty much what happened.

The effect of playing on the big ice really slowed down the pace of the game. It was an interesting contrast in style of play though, with Edina generating their offense by getting the puck deep into the zone, cycling around, and getting shots that way, while Burnsville tried to counterattack by sending forwards streaking out of the zone as soon as they got possession of the puck and trying to generate odd-man rushes.

This game was really a coming out party for Lou Nanne, who I thought was one of the most impressive players on the ice. Steve Fogarty was good, but the bigger ice doesn’t suit him as well. Heading to the CCHA is probably a better fit.

Wayzata vs. Eden Prairie

This was just a fantastic game. It was two really talented teams playing at a very level and it was an extremely competitive game with lots of great scoring chances both ways. I thought the big key for Wayzata coming in was to get some production out of their second line, and to have their goalie play really well. Neither of those happened, but it’s perhaps a credit to how good Wayzata’s top line was that despite that, Wayzata still had multiple extremely close chances that could have won them the game.

I thought Wayzata had the advantage for much of the game, especially when their top line was out. Technically Wayzata outscored Eden Prairie 4-2 in regulation, Wayzata just happened to score one of those goals in their own net.(The big ice surface didn’t affect the pace as much in this game because it was so fast, but both teams really struggled with the weird corners on the bigger ice, including on the own goal.) But as the overtime dragged on, I thought that really played to Eden Prairie’s advantage since they were the much deeper team.

On the Mr. Hockey front, I thought this game would end playing a big factor in the decision between Kyle Rau and Tony Cameranesi. Cameranesi probably had the better game, but he only had a single assist. Rau probably wrapped up the award by scoring the game-winning goal in the biggest pre-State Tournament game of the year.

A federal appeals court has upheld $25 damages awards to two Illinois students who were barred by school officials from wearing T-shirts that said “Be Happy, Not Gay” to protest a day meant to promote gay tolerance.

Tuesday’s unanimous ruling by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, in Chicago, is a follow-up to a 2008 decision by the same panel granting students Heidi Zamecnik and Alexander Nuxoll an injunction allowing them to wear the T-shirts at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Ill.

In the earlier decision, which I blogged about here, Judge Richard A. Posner said that the phrase “Be Happy, Not Gay” on a student’s T-shirt was not derogatory or demeaning to other students.

The students sought to wear the shirt on the “Day of Truth,” a conservative response to the “Day of Silence,” which supports gay tolerance and is backed by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

The new 7th Circuit decision comes after a federal district court conducted further proceedings and ruled for the students. The district court expanded its injunction to cover any student at the high school, and it awarded to two plaintiffs $25 each in damages.

Judge Posner wrote the new opinion as well.

“[A] school that permits advocacy of the rights of homosexual students cannot be allowed to stifle criticism of homosexuality,” the judge wrote in Zamecnik v. Indian Prairie School District No. 204. “The school argued (and still argues) that banning ‘Be Happy, Not Gay’ was just a matter of protecting the ‘rights’ of the students against whom derogatory comments are directed. But people in our society do not have a legal right to prevent criticism of their beliefs or even their way of life.”

There was no separate statement in the new opinion from Judge Ilana Rovner, who in the earlier decision agreed with the preliminary injunction but took issue with Judge Posner’s characterization of youths as making only a “modest” contribution to the marketplace of ideas.

Judge Rovner said in her 2008 concurrence that youths “are leading a broad, societal change in attitude towards homosexuals,” and for Judge Posner to “blithely dismiss their views as less valuable than those of adults is contrary to the values of the First Amendment.”

Lots of new faces on the state Board of Education. Gov. Nathan Deal just released his new appointees to the influential state board.

I don’t know many of these folks so I am unsure of their educational philosophies, but there certainly are enough of them to shift the direction of the board. There are six new Deal appointees joining the 13-member state Board of Education.

Helen Odom Rice, 3rd Congressional District

Rice is a classroom teacher with more than two decades of teaching experience in Georgia. She has worked as an instructor in both elementary and high school classrooms in several school systems throughout the state. Rice has also served on several boards and community organizations, including the Troup County Council on Child Abuse, the United Way Board of Directors and the West Georgia Health Foundation. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in Education (T5) from Valdosta State University. She and her husband, Bill, have one son and three grandchildren. They live in LaGrange.

Daniel Israel, 4th Congressional District

Israel heads Consumer Mobile Product Management and Strategy at Home Depot. He has worked as a writer at Atlanta Jewish Times and a radio show contributor for WMLB 1690 and is a member of Atlanta Kiwanis. Israel earned a bachelor’s in economics and international studies, a master’s of Science from the London School of Economics, and his MBA from the Ross School of Business. He and his wife, Maya, have two children. They reside in Atlanta.

Kenneth Mason, 5th Congressional District

Mason is director of Urban Initiatives for the Southern Regional Education Board. He is a founding board member and advisory council chair for KIPP Strive Academy and teaches high school students on a civil rights emergent experience called Sojourn to the Past. Mason has also been a community liaison and robotic engineering consultant for Berkeley National Laboratory and served as a corps member adviser for Teach For America. Mason earned a bachelor’s of Science degree from Hendrix College and a master’s of Teaching/Education degree from the University of San Francisco. He and his wife live in Atlanta.

Barbara Hampton, CPA, 6th Congressional District

Hampton is the senior vice president and chief financial officer of the Georgia Transmission Corp. She serves as the chairman of Leadership Georgia and was a finalist for the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s CFO of the Year Award in 2010. Hampton earned a bachelor’s degree from Northeast Louisiana University and a master’s degree from the University of Georgia. She and her husband, Randy, have two children. They reside in Roswell.

Mike Royal, 7th Congressional District

Royal currently works at BWT Risk Advisors, LLC, and has 15 years of experience in the insurance industry. He serves as chairman of the Gwinnett County Zoning Board of Appeals, as a board member of the Governor’s Office of Consumer Protection and is also a member of the Legislative Council of the Gwinnett County Chamber of Commerce. Royal earned a bachelor’s in Finance with an emphasis in Risk Management and Insurance from Georgia Southern University. He and his wife, Lori, have three daughters. They live in Lawrenceville.

J. Grant Lewis, M.D., 11th Congressional District

Dr. Lewis practices internal medicine in Rome. He currently is on staff at several hospitals including Floyd Medical Center, Redmond Park Hospital and Beverly Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, all in Rome. Lewis earned undergraduate degrees from both Oxford College and Emory  University and a medical degree from Emory University’s School of Medicine. He also served on the Georgia Composite State Board of Medical Examiners. Lewis has three grown children and seven grandchildren.

–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog