Dozens of professors, high-ranking government officials and other experts have gathered this week at Duke U. to debate U.S national security policy.

The conference, titled “National Security Challenges and the Obama Administration,” includes two days of panels on topics such as cyberterrorism response and environmental effects on security.

Yesterday’s event drew some of America’s top legal minds, including Robert Litt, the general counsel for the Director of National Intelligence and Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department’s general counsel.

Johnson, expressed support for President Barack Obama’s policies on national security. He said decisions like closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay are given deadlines by federal judges in most cases. The role of the courts is crucial in establishing national security policy and speeding up the decision-making process, even if this means that policies cannot always remain uniform.

“Consistency for the sake of consistency has its risk,” he said. “I am confident that the policies of the Obama administration will stand in the courts,”

Major themes being addressed during the conference include how the current administration is changing U.S policy, and whether the nation is moving in the right direction.

The federal government’s role in assuring national security was a controversial topic. Paul Rosenzweig, a panelist from Red Branch Law & Consulting, said cyberterrorism is one area that should not be left in the hands of federal government.

“The federal government works slowly and is not equipped to deal with this problem,” he said.

Some felt that the federal government needs more power to regulate the Internet to prevent cyberterrorism, but it needs to avoid bureaucratic entanglement.

In Wednesday afternoon’s panel, private sector and academic experts criticized the Obama administration’s move toward more stringent regulations on military commissions and detention for terrorists. Several panelists expressed support for the steps to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and to create a new interrogation doctrine, saying it would improve perceptions of the United States worldwide. Others, however, were worried about the effects of the new rules on the United States’ ability to get information from detainees.

Keynote speaker Aziz Mekouar, the Moroccan ambassador to the United States, said an increase in international cooperation is key to combatting terrorism. He said the United States can do little to prevent the radicalization of foreign youth, other than support governments affected by terrorism.

“We need a fuller cooperation between nations in the region—unfortunately it’s not working,” he said. “The United States can do very little but to support governments themselves.”

Mekouar said Morocco was working toward solutions such as regulation on religious speech created by a National Council and increased international cooperation for regional national security.

He may not know his birthday and he hasn’t seen his parents for 21 years, but he does know what it’s like to endure and escape 19 years of civil war, and he knows what he wants to do when he earns his accounting degree at Arkansas State U.

Born sometime in 1981, Mayol Bol grew up in a small Dinka village called Bortown located in South Sudan. He lived peacefully for six years with his parents, four sisters and one brother.

The second wave of civil war was in full force between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Sudanese Government in southern Sudan. In 1983, the government issued a mass killing of the Dinka people.

By this point, more than 500,000 people had already been killed.

In 1987, six-year-old Mayol was tending cattle away from his village when Sudanese government forces stormed his village with heavy guns, backed by war planes. Many were killed and some were taken hostage, including his parents. The rest were forced to take refuge in the unforgiving wilderness.

After the attack, his village was burned. Nothing and no one was left for Mayol and the other boys tending cattle to go home to.

“We didn’t know what to do, so we just started walking. I remember looking back at where my village was, wondering if my mom and dad were alive or not and if I would ever see them again,” he said.

The boys walked from village to village only to see they had all been burned and abandoned. Luckily there were some elders among the group, but the number of children drastically outnumbered them.

“We didn’t know where to go. We just started following some elders. Eventually we were joined by thousands of other boys who lost their families too.”

After a three-month barefoot hike to flee Sudanese government soldiers, they made it to the Gilo River, which separates Ethiopia from Sudan.

While crossing the river at night, he witnessed several friends being eaten by crocodiles and lions. Hundreds more died of starvation and disease after they crossed into Ethiopia.

Fighting simply to stay alive, he finally made it to refugee camps in Ethiopia.

He remained there for four years still unaware of the whereabouts of his family, if they were even alive.

In 1991 civil war broke out in Ethiopia, and again, he was forced to flee gunfire and bloodshed.

“Because Ethiopia had there own chaos, we set out on foot again, following the elders.

There were about two elders to every 500 children.”

They finally made it to Kenya, where they were taken into a refugee camp set up by a Catholic charity and the United Nations. Mayol remained at camp Kakuma for nine years where he received an education.

In 2001, he was selected along with over 3,500 other young men to come to the United States to start a new life.

“Only the lucky ones made it to the U.S., the rest are still there and still trying to survive a broken country,” he said.

He ended up in Memphis, Tenn. in 2002 with six other “lost boys”. The U.S. government provided him with an apartment, clothes and food. It was there he earned his GED.

The owner of Arkansas Glass Container Corporation heard about his story and offered him a job in Jonesboro in 2004.

He has been in Jonesboro ever since and said he is more than thankful for the opportunity America provided him with, but he can never forget the journey that led him here.

“I will never get the smell of human blood and the image of dead bodies everywhere out of my head. My country has been devastated by war for more than 30 years and now it’s Darfur that is suffering like we did.”

Mayol is now a junior accounting major at Arkansas State University. He plans on serving the public by establishing his own business by investing in corporate business.

Helping others affected by war is the theme he has set for his future business.

“It has always been my idea, after my business is established, to go back and help the people of Sudan, especially Darfur where thousands more are being killed and displaced.”

The UN located his family a few years ago and they are still scattered.

His mom, brother and sisters are in Australia and his dad in Sudan.

A smile lightened Mayol’s face and tears filled his eyes as he talked about the day he will see his mom for the first time in 21 years.

“I’m going to Australia this summer to finally see my mom. I have a brother I don’t even know and he will be there too. Everyone but my dad will be reunited this summer.”

Mayol lives with two other men who survived the journey along side him.

He works part-time for Arkansas Glass Corporation and part-time at a Sudanese owned beauty supply store.

He is paying his way through college and sends money to Sudan and Australia every chance he gets to help support his family.

He said ASU has opened up many doors for him and he is thankful for the new chance at life that America has offered him.

“My principle is that if I got help, then why can’t I help others?”

The football team registered an estimated 410 new bone marrow donors for the Be the Match Registry, the new name for the  National Marrow Donor Registry, Wednesday.

In its three years running the bone marrow drive, the Owls have registered an estimated 1,270 new bone marrow donors.

The bone marrow drive is coordinated locally by Villanova football coach Andy Talley, and he received commitments from 30 college football programs for this year’s effort.

Though 20 million people worldwide are registered donors, only about 250 matches are found each year. Each day, about 6,000 people with diseases such as leukemia and lymphoma are searching for one.

Read this Owlsports.com article for comments from Temple football coach Al Golden and a few players on this year’s effort.

Audience members greeted Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah of Iran, with a standing ovation when he spoke of the relentless pursuit for democracy and human rights in Iran at an event Tuesday night at George Washington U.

Pahlavi – who has lived in exile in the U.S. since the ousting of his father at the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution – expressed his support for the protests following the disputed 2009 elections and said that it was up to the Iranian people to move toward democracy.

“For those of us who have devoted our entire lives to the cause of democracy and human rights in Iran, we had hoped to avoid this day and these tragic consequences,” Pahlavi said at the event, hosted by the International Affairs Society, which drew more than 300 students. “As it turned out, the events surrounding the fraudulent election in June 2009 caused the people of Iran to reach their point of no return, and the regime to abandon all pretenses of faith, national pride and humanity.”

The former crown prince of Iran showed his admiration for the unprecedented mass-scale demonstrations against the totalitarian regime that happened for the first time in the 31-year-old Islamic Republic’s history. He praised the nameless heroes who permeated the news with video clips, Twitter updates and blog posts that made the international community aware of the events unfolding within.

“The courage and resolve of these everyday heroes in Iran in the face of the tyranny, injustice and brutality of the regime has earned them the admiration of people the world over,” Pahlavi said. “And so begins what has been dubbed the first revolution of the 21st century – the Twitter revolution – also called the Green Revolution.”

Pahlavi said one result of the Green Movement is that the world has a better understanding of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the one hand, and the true desires of its citizens on the other.

“The black veil has been torn off the face of the regime,” he said. “Ultimately, I am confident my country will be liberated from this darkness. The Iranian people will prevail.”

The summer of 2009 was a watershed moment for members of the Iranian diaspora, some of whom have never visited their homeland, to raise awareness of the struggle inside Iran. Demonstrations were organized on different continents, signatures were collected and green wristbands in support of the movement became ubiquitous, Pahlavi said.

But Pahlavi asked the international community not to directly interfere nor take away from the legitimacy of the Iranian people’s movement. He called for a “proactive role” by which countries impose economic sanctions upon Iran and companies that support the regime. He also asked the world to provide citizens with software to help them overcome the various communication blockages imposed by the government.

At the end of his speech, Pahlavi asked students to bear witness to their generation’s “first great struggle for human dignity.”

“Your brothers and sisters half a world away use the same Internet you use to take on one of the most brutal regimes in the world, and they take it on with courage and conviction,” Pahlavi said. “Your generation uses new technologies in ways that makes me believe totalitarianism will soon be a thing of the past. Where information flows freely, no man can easily deceive and subjugate another. This we have learned from you.”

Pahlavi, whose wife Yasmine Etemad Amini attended GW as an undergraduate and also graduated from GW with a law degree, said it was a special pleasure to speak to students from his wife’s alma mater.

“I recall the many sleepless nights as she worked to meet course requirements and studying for finals. So, in a manner of speaking, I have been where you are today,” he said.

Behnam Taleblu, academic coordinator for the IAS, said the event was the organization’s crowning achievement for the year.

“Tuesday’s event was the premier speaking occasion of the year for our organization,” Taleblu said. “We brought the former crown prince of Iran to GW on our capacity, which took numerous phone calls and rigorous planning.”

Some people with damaged cartilage in their knees would often rather live with the pain than endure a major knee replacement surgery. But researchers in the U. Kansas School of Engineering have found an alternative to surgery that doesn’t involve taking the knee apart and produces a more natural transition from bone to cartilage.

Michael Detamore, associate professor of engineering, said many people chose not to have knee replacement surgery because they couldn’t afford it or were afraid of it.

“They chop off the ends of the bones and cartilage and put these plastic and metal pieces into your knee, so it’s a pretty severe type of surgery,” Detamore said.

Detamore and a team of almost 20 post-doctoral, graduate and undergraduate students who work in the Tissue Engineering Lab in Learned Hall have been working on a microspheric scaffold, or a tiny round plug, that carries proteins that promote bone and cartilage regeneration and decomposes inside the body as the tissue heals.

The National Institutes of Health awarded the team a $1.3 million, five-year grant in March for its research.

Detamore said making these scaffolds required a delicate balance of temperature, pressure and concentration to regenerate tissue. He said the researchers wanted to find a way to engineer these gradients to help tissue regenerate.

This meant they needed to find a way to mimic the seamless way healthy bone cartilage transitions into bone instead of using the connecting material used in knee replacements today.

Detamore said the scaffold would be a solution for people with early stage osteoarthritis, cartilage damaged through an injury or a localized area of damaged cartilage. He said surgeons could take out injured tissue and put the scaffold in its place. Surgery to implant a scaffold would be less invasive because the scaffold is only about 4 millimeters in diameter and 5 millimeters long — about the size of a pea — so a patient would need only a few days to recover.

“That’s another real advantage,” Detamore said. “You go in with a scope and just have a few stitches, and you’re back on your feet in a short amount of time.”

One of the problems with knee replacement surgery, Detamore said, is that the prosthetic used today prevents cartilage from mixing with bone, which is not how the knee joint works naturally. The scaffold created in Detamore’s lab mimics the healthy tissue because its properties allow bone and cartilage to mix.

Detamore said there were ways to transport these cartilage tissue cells that were currently on the market, but nothing was similar to what his team is working on.

“There’s nothing like this where you have a porous, biodegradable material that’s simultaneously going to promote both bone and cartilage regeneration,” Detamore said.

Nathan Dormer, a doctoral student from Topeka, has worked in the Tissue Engineering Lab for three years. He said the team’s research on cartilage regeneration was important to him because he has family members with arthritis.

“People you know could benefit from this,” Dormer said. “It could affect your future.”

The team is working with the Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation, a campus organization that helps to take research to the commercial market. If the IAMI can find investors for the Tissue Engineering lab, the scaffold could be ready for clinical testing in five years.

In the meantime, the researchers run several types of tests on the scaffold, including in vitro testing using stem cells. The stem cells typically are cord tissue cells from donated umbilical cords, which come from Lawrence Memorial Hospital, or bone marrow from rats, rabbits or purchased human cells.

Detamore said the researchers published their first paper on umbilical cord cells in musculoskeletal engineering in 2007 although their use in this kind of bioengineering is still relatively new.

“It’s something that’s really taking off now, and it’s good to be at the forefront of that,” Detamore said. “It’s exciting.”

Travis “TJ” Good woke up at 7 a.m. Tuesday shaky. He vomited and complained to his roommates that his body ached.

He thought that he had a fever, which at the time appeared to be nothing more than a common bug.

At 11:30 p.m., Bryce Rasmussen returned to the emergency room, where he had left his roommate, to be told that in the approximately two hours that he’d been gone Good died.

The cause of Good’s death has been preliminarily confirmed as bacterial meningitis, but the specific cause has yet to be identified said Michelle Hendricks, director of student health at Iowa State U.’s Student Health Center.

Bacterial meningitis is an infection of the fluid in the spinal cord and the fluid that surrounds the brain.

The illness is caused by three kinds of bacteria, which live harmlessly in humans’ mouths and throats: Haemophilus influenzae type b, Neisseria meningitidis and Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Which bacteria caused the infection is important because it can determine which type of antibiotics to administer in order to prevent the disease from spreading to other people; the results from Goods case are expected to arrive by Wednesday at the latest from the University Health Lab at Iowa City.

“[Bacterial meningitis] is not common, it’s a rare and devastating illness,” Hendricks said. “It’s prevalent in young children or people within the ages of 18 to 24, so it’s an illness we’re always conscious of.”

Good’s case is only the third reported among ISU students within the past five or six years, said Hendricks.

The health center and the Story County Public Health Office have been working together in response to Good’s death to identify anyone that might have come in full social contact with Good, and thus be at risk for infection.

Hendricks clarified that the spreading of bacterial meningitis is something that requires full social contact, defined as sharing the same living environment, eating meals together or drinking from the same cup.

Exposure from being in the same classroom or some similar situation wouldn’t be enough to put one at increased risk of infection.

“It’s a really difficult and sad situation,” said Hendricks. “We’ve been working closely with students and they’ve been very helpful in identifying anyone that may have come in contact with Travis. We’re very appreciative for all of the help that they’ve provided.”

Rasmussen, senior in chemistry, had been with Good periodically throughout the day and took him to the emergency room when he finally requested to go between 5 and 5:30 p.m.

Doctors initially thought it was a bug, gave  an IV since he was dehydrated and told him that he would probably be able to leave within an hour or two, said to Rasmussen.

Soon it was 8:30 p.m., and red/purplish bruises began appearing around Good’s knees. They alerted doctors, who suspected bacterial meningitis. A spinal tap was taken, but the fluid came back clear, which was an encouraging sign to them.

The rash continued to spread over Good’s body and he began to complain about having difficulty breathing.

He was given two different oxygen masks and eventually a tracheotomy.

Around this time, Rasmussen and their other roommate were asked to leave the emergency room.

“They kicked us out of the room and a doctor asked us a few questions,” Rasmussen said. “They said that we could see him in a few hours, so I went home and packed him an overnight bag, came back to the ER around 11:30 [p.m.] and found out that he had died.”

Good was a hilarious, unconcerned and shrimp-loving guy, who had a large amount of very close friends and was involved in a lot of peoples’ lives in a positive way, Rasmussen said.

Last month’s sophomore release for She & Him, “Volume Two,” marks another step in a growing trend for crossover stars.

She & Him is the duo of Hollywood actress-singer Zooey Deschanel and singer-songwriter M. Ward.

Their collaboration is just the latest example of a trend of Hollywood actors trying their hands at music.

But, unlike the Lindsay Lohans or Will Smiths of the past, this new crop of crossover attempts has been aimed more at critical respect than the pop charts.

She & Him does not make wildly experimental music, but it is still different from what one would expect to hear from a Hollywood star, as soft acoustics complement quiet, delicate vocals.

And, the group records for Merge Records, an indie label best known for artists like Arcade Fire, Spoon and Neutral Milk Hotel.

In addition to Deschanel’s project, more mainstream actress Scarlett Johansson has released two albums in the last two years.

The first, “Anywhere I Lay My Head,” was released in May 2008 and consisted mainly of Tom Waits covers.

Waits is a fine artist, but he holds far more critical weight in the music world than pop cachet, and his songs are certainly odd choices for a glamorous Hollywood actress to tackle on her debut album.

Johansson’s second effort, “Break Up,” released in September 2009, was an album of soft duets with singer-songwriter Pete Yorn.

Yorn is not an underground artist by any stretch — he is signed with Columbia after all — but none of his records have ever peaked higher than No. 19 on the Billboard charts.

Female actresses of the past, such as Olivia Newton John in the ’80s, have primarily tried to burn up the pop charts with their music careers, but Deschanel and Johansson have chosen to make music outside of those confines.

Ryan Gosling, star of “The Notebook,” is in the band Dead Man’s Bones, which released its self-titled debut album in October.

The band enlists the help of a children’s choir to complement haunting and ethereal male vocals, and the band members play all of the instruments used on the album. Gosling even learning how to play the cello for the track “Buried in Water.”

Dead Man’s Bones’ sound veers from classical to sparse, experimental rock, but this is not the kind of music fans are accustomed to hearing from their Hollywood stars, especially an Oscar nominee such as Gosling.

Is this a trend that is here to stay, or are these artistic pursuits just passing fancies for a select wave of actors?

As more independent music reaches the ears of people via the Internet, movie soundtracks and car commercials — think Phoenix on a Cadillac commercial or Grizzly Bear on a Volkswagen Super Bowl promo — it’s likely that many film stars will explore the realm of critically respected music as viable alternatives for a second career.

It’s hard to be critical of that.

Believe it or not, Democratic President Barack Obama has done little to loosen the chokehold on our nation’s civil liberties in the wake of Sept. 11. After the terrorist attack, the Bush administration embraced the unprecedented use of surveillance and detention, but Obama can’t seem to let go of the powers, either.

Whether it’s spying on Americans, monitoring activists, extremists or suspected terrorists or keeping unwanted DNA databases, Obama has exhibited concerning disregard for privacy.

National security, of course, is meant to protect the nation, but increasingly it has come at the cost of citizens’ rights, the preservation of which has classically been the first duty of the nation. The president has maintained a Bush-like disrespect for privacy and due process.

In a report tracking Obama’s progress in fulfilling American Civil Liberties Union’s 142 “Actions for Restoring America,” only one-third of the recommendations had been completed. His administration did well on issues such as open government, torture, civil rights and reproductive freedom, but he followed none of the recommendations regarding surveillance-orientated security including, most notably, warrantless wiretapping.

There are countless obstructions to our personal liberties, and the erosion begins with the small things. Warrantless wiretapping is, judging by the level of national outcry, one of those small things.

Wiretapping with a permit has been legal for years, but following the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush authorized the use of warrantless wiretaps. Now, any U.S. citizen’s conversations over landlines, cell phones and e-mails are essentially government property. In one fell swoop, citizens’ First and Fourth Amendment rights have been quashed.

Obama has continued this policy without much justification. The usefulness in monitoring potential threats should not be discredited, but it is unclear why the process of having a judge issue warrants, based on clear evidence, should be superseded. If there is no process to check government surveillance, we are at risk of producing a legal culture that openly mocks our democratic principles.

Another issue of civil liberties that Obama has put on the back burner is Guantanamo Bay. Since 2002, “enemy combatants” have been held without due process and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

Additionally, according to Bush’s former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, many of the 800 detainees held have been innocent. Few have offered connections to al-Qaida, and most were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Interestingly, Wilkerson also contends that the Bush administration knew of this, but did nothing in order to avoid the black mark on their records.

To right this wrong, Obama, just days after his inauguration, signed an executive order demanding the prison be closed after one year. Yet it remains open. Today there are nearly 200 detainees at the center, and many still have not been given proper counsel or trial, two basic civil rights. Sure, they aren’t Americans, but it is a troublesome precedent for us to deny Constitutional due process to those we simply stick with the label “terrorist.”

Obama has clearly stated his intentions of closing the prison, but he has maintained policies that put a dark shadow over the nation. There are nearly 50 detainees who have been labeled too difficult to prosecute, but too dangerous to release. Thus, after the prison closes, Obama has stated that these individuals will remain imprisoned without a fair trial.

This brings us to the most egregious of the violated civil liberties today: the president’s assassination program.

Just a little over one year ago, renowned investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, in a lecture at the University of Minnesota, alluded to an ongoing covert military operation he labeled as an “executive assassination ring.”

Hersh stated that during the Bush administration, highly specialized CIA forces reported directly to Vice President Dick Cheney with no congressional oversight. The agents crossed several borders, assassinated their victims, and did so all in secret.

A CIA spokesman responded to Hersh’s comments to say it was “utter nonsense,” but the remarks seem to have some validity, especially since the Obama administration spoke openly on their own assassination policies.

According to a recent Washington Post article, the military’s Joint Special Operations Command has a list of targeted individuals the government is prepared to kill. Shockingly the list includes several U.S. citizens.

In the case of alleged terrorist Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen, the Obama administration has adamantly asserted the “right” to kill. The cleric has not been formally charged with a crime. He has not been given a trial, counsel or any due process of law.

For the fools quick to quip, “Those who do nothing wrong have nothing to fear,” think again. Apparently these days it doesn’t matter if there’s evidence that you committed a crime or not. If the government deems you dangerous, you’re in danger.

The United States has rules, regulations and laws for a reason: to protect the rights of its citizens. This is not to say that Obama can’t wiretap, have prisons or watch-lists. It’s about following the protocol to ensure justice.

If the president or the U.S. Department of Justice continue to ignore whichever freedoms they may find inconvenient, America not only risks losing precious civil liberties, it risks losing the wider moral war against terror.