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Imagine filling up your car with fuel that comes from inexpensive algae that grow quickly, don’t use up freshwater supplies and can be cultivated in areas where they won’t compete with traditional food crops, such as corn or soybeans. Researchers at North Carolina State University are working to make that a reality, with a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Continue Reading »

What: North Carolina State University’s Open House gives high school students and families, school counselors and teachers an opportunity to visit the campus and learn about academic programs and student life at the state’s largest public university. About 7,000 people attend annually. Visitors can get information about specific majors, admissions, housing, dining, arts, athletics and more. Student groups will perform and entertain the crowd throughout the day.

Who: Hosted by NC State’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

When: Saturday, Oct. 17, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Campus tours will begin at 10 a.m. and run continually throughout the day. Tours start from the fountain on the north side of Talley Student Center. Admissions information sessions, scheduled for 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m.,12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m., will take place at Stewart Theatre in Talley Student Center. Bus tours of Centennial Campus are also available.

Where: Talley Student Center and Carmichael Gymnasium on NC State’s main campus.

Cost: All events are free and open to the public.

Contact: For more information, or to register, visit www.ncsu.edu/openhouse or call the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at 919/515-2434.

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The Carolinas Mounted Patrol Association’s 2009 training and certification week will be held Tuesday, Oct. 6, through Tuesday, Oct. 13, on North Carolina State University’s campus. During the weeklong training, hosted by the NC State Police Department, officers and their horses from a variety of agencies in North and South Carolina will learn crowd control, sensory obstacles (such as smoke and sirens), how to break up fights, arrests from the horses, search and rescue, and safety, among other topics. Continue Reading »

Colorectal cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, leading to over 50,000 fatalities every year. But it can be prevented with early screening using a procedure called a colonoscopy. Now researchers from North Carolina State University, Mayo Clinic and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass) have created a tool to help colonoscopy facilities operate more efficiently, ultimately lowering costs and leading to shorter waiting times for patients. Continue Reading »

Many pundits professed the dawn of a “post-racial” era following the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president. But race and interracial relations still stir deep emotions in the public and in the press. Evidence includes the recent furor over President Carter’s recent comments suggesting race is contributing to criticism of Obama’s presidential platform, and national debate stemming from the recent incident involving Harvard professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge, Mass., police. Dr. Rupert Nacoste, of North Carolina State University, has made a lifelong study of interracial dynamics, and can contribute historical context and key insights into the current state of race relations.

Nacoste, a professor of psychology at NC State, says “we are not in a post-racial era, we are in the midst of a period of interracial transition.” The Civil Rights era was a period of interracial transition that dealt with race relations at the institutional level, resulting in far-reaching legislative initiatives aimed at issues such as voting rights and desegregation. Nacoste says the current period of transition is revolving around individuals rather than institutions, and addresses how people are dealing with race in their interpersonal relationships.

Nacoste says that issues being grappled with in this current transition period include, “How and why does the presence of race influence the ways in which people try to interact with each other; what social mistakes arise from these interactions; and how can these interracial interactions be improved? Stereotypes still do real damage, and that is something needs to be addressed.”

For example, Nacoste says that research shows that “confronting a person in a polite way when they use racial stereotypes or slurs results in that person being less likely to use that stereotype again. We let stereotypes live by not speaking up – each of us has the power to influence another person. By speaking up during that interaction moment, each of us can create a quiet revolution against the stereotypes we still carry around.”

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