Checking check-outs

According to reports, store clerks in North Dakota are helping in the battle against the production of meth labs by reporting any customers who buy items such as cold medicines, solvents and batteries. Dr. Linda Wilson, professor of chemistry, confirms that clerks and chemical suppliers are watching for people who purchase large quantities of ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and phenylpropanolamine containing cold/allergy medicines. "Persons possessing or distributing these precursor chemicals that are used to manufacture controlled substances are subject to severe penalties." The Drug Enforcement Administration Web site is http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/csa.html, adds Wilson, noting items 34 and 35.

Contact Wilson at 615-898-2489.
lwilson@mtsu.edu

Tough Times

What's happened at The New York Times is more an issue of authority than credibility, says Dr. David Ryfe, assistant professor, journalism. "The Times has an unrivaled cultural authority--it is the paper of record in the U.S. By pulling back the veil a bit and showing how the news is produced, these episodes may dint that authority a bit--but not much," he says. Ryfe adds that just like The Washington Post after the Janet Cooke affair, the Times will recover whatever authority it may have lost because no other paper rivals its importance.

Contact Ryfe at 615-904-8553.
dryfe@mtsu.edu

Tapping young minds

Camp Prism, which starts today through June 25, is a collaboration between MTSU and Murfreesboro City Schools, funded by the Jennings and Rebecca Jones Foundation and an MTSU public service grant. Emphasizing math, science and technology, children will work together in hands-on activities involving chemistry, biology, geology, math and more. They will build ramps to explore acceleration and rate concepts, construct robots and study earthquakes, among other things. Events will take place on campus and around the community, beginning around 8:30 a.m. Media welcomed.

For more information on times and locations, contact MTSU's Dr. Rebecca Zijlstra, coordinator, on her cell phone at 848-8960 or Linda Gilbert, M'boro City Schools, at 615-893-2313.

TR EXTRA

JUNE 16--JULY 3: The Jennings and Rebecca Jones Reading Academy that will be held at Bradley Elementary School in Murfreesboro. "The inability to read and write is a lifelong, crippling handicap," says director Dr. Nancy Crews. Contact Crews at 615-898-5630 or visit http://www.mtsu.edu/~readacad. Media welcomed.