A new method of stress reduction may also help ease addiction to nicotine, a study conducted by professors at the University of Oregon and Texas Tech shows.

The latest in a series of experiments related to stress reduction conducted  by Texas Tech professor Yi-Yuan Tang, who once taught at the UO, and current UO professor Michael I. Posner over the last six years has reduced tobacco use by 60 percent within the control group in which the study was conducted.

The method for this reduction in tobacco use is attributed to a method of meditation called integrative body-mind training. The method relaxes the mind and takes the focus off of thought. It is meant to reduce stress, but in the experiment that Tang and Posner conducted at Texas Tech, integrative body-mind training showed that it can reduce nicotine addiction as well.

“It’s a version of mindfulness meditation,” Posner said of the method. “Instead of struggling to try and relax and try and concentrate on one thing, Tang tries to get people to relax into the state. You try to keep your mind focused in the present, but not on any specific thing, and he gets them to do that by concentrating on breath and eventually just concentrating – preventing the mind from wandering from thought to thought as it commonly does.”

Tang and Posner gathered a handful of undergraduate volunteers to conduct an experiment that would potentially reduce stress and improve performance. Of the handful, 27 were smokers who smoked an average of 10 cigarettes per day. The volunteers were unaware that the real reason behind the experiment was to see whether Tang and Posner’s method could lessen addiction to nicotine.

“As far as we knew they didn’t have any intention to quit. Now after the test, we asked them about the intention to quit and we found that it was unrelated to their degree of reduction in smoking. We didn’t find intention being related to the reduction in smoking,” Posner said.

Integrative body-mind training is a form of mindfulness training that was developed in and has long been practiced in China. Tang uses it to provide full body meditation. Tang and Posner used the meditation to target the part of the brain called the anterior cingulate that is related to self-control.

“It’s involved in a lot of different addictions, and many other things, and it has connections to lots of other parts of the brain,” Posner said of the anterior cingulate. “We’ve shown in our previous work that these connections were increased in efficiency with training. This is what kind of led us to the hypothesis that might serve as a way of improving addictions.”

The method increased activity in the anterior cingulate resulting in reduced tobacco use in the subjects. Posner is hopeful that the results of his and Tang’s experiment will catch on and ultimately reduce tobacco addiction.

“You never know what people will pick up on. We hope that people will pursue it and also look at other forms of addiction,” Posner said. “If we’re right, it will give people a whole other way of reducing tobacco addiction.”

Three student-made projects produced during a 10-week documentary filmmaking course were recognized at the 2013 National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences-Northwest Chapter Awards.

“Gymnasium of the Mind” and “Walking Tributaries” were nominated in the Long Form Non-Fiction category, and “We Refuse to be Enemies” won in the Emmy in the Arts and Entertainment/Cultural Affairs category.

“We Refuse to be Enemies” follows the life of Ibrahim Hamide as he educates Eugene residents on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Co-director/editor Summer Luu believes that the documentary’s success can be attributed to Hamide himself.

“Honestly, I think it’s because of him. His story, his attitude, his perspective on life and his hope for the future of the human race is really inspiring, and I think honestly that he made it. It wasn’t us really. It was his story. I think people are really interested in hearing about that,” Luu said.

Co-director David Zupan came upon the story after meeting Hamide while playing basketball on the weekends.

“Walking Tributaries” is about the McKenzie River and the residents who have fought to preserve it.

“Our documentary is about the people who love the Mckenzie River, who’ve lived on the Mckenzie River, who have worked to protect the Mckenzie River, to preserve the Mckenzie River, and to educate others about it,” said Leilani Rapaport, who worked on the project. “So it’s a documentary really about the people around the river and their connection to it. It’s about sort of the magic of the river that people have found in it as well. That’s kind of a side thing that we found.”

Rapaport says that the pitch came from the professor of the course, Dan Miller, after he grouped her with two other students in the class because he thought they would make a good team. She also attributes the nomination of her documentary to the people in it.

“The people who are featured in it are so passionate and so connected to the topic that they’re talking about and they’re a part of. So it’s, I think, very honest and curious. And also there’s the music that comes from a local artist,” said Rapaport.

“Gymnasium of the Mind” is about the game of chess and its popularity in Oregon. The film feature perspectives from players, coaches and teachers.

Miller is an award-winning documentary filmmaker himself, and his class has produced more than 60 award-winning films during its time. Both Rapaport and Luu worked for The Emerald last year.

CNN reported Wednesday that an AMBER Alert has been issued in Oregon for 16-year-old Hannah Anderson and eight-year-old Ethan Anderson. The two are suspected to have been kidnapped by James DiMaggio after their mother’s body was found among the ashes of his burned down home in San Diego, California.

The blue, four-door Nissan Versa with California license plate 6WCU986 that DiMaggio is believed to have been driving was sighted in Oregon Wednesday. Hannah and Ethan were reported missing Sunday by their grandparents.

A law enforcement source with knowledge close to the investigation said there were charred human remains that are similar to that of an eight-year-old boy. Police say that they are waiting on DNA tests to determine whether the remains are Ethan’s.  

DiMaggio is said by relatives to have been a close friend to the Andersons. An arrest warrant has been issued for murder for DiMaggio.

Anyone with information on the investigation should call the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Detail at 858-974-2321 or submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.

Universtiy of Oregon President Michael Gottfredson, along with 164 other university presidents and chancellors signed, an open letter to President Obama and Congress on July 31 in an attempt to persuade leaders in Washington to close what they referred to as the “innovation deficit.”

Gottfredson and his colleagues defined the innovation deficit in the letter as “the widening gap between needed and actual investments” in research and higher education.

The letter is timely in that Congress will face several decisions regarding the federal budget in the coming months. The letter urges Obama and Congress to stop the reduction in investments in universities so that innovation can flourish and in turn strengthen the economy.

“Graduates produce much of the intellectual wealth of this country,” Gottfredson said. “It really is investment and the next generation of ideas that will enhance the quality of life.”

Gottfredson and his colleagues addressed in the letter that throughout the history of the United States, research and higher education have been responsible for the country’s success as an innovation leader. The letter points out that “more than half of U.S. economic growth since World War II is a consequence of technological innovation.”

Such breakthroughs have resulted in life saving technologies such as MRI and vaccines as well as inventions that have strengthened economic growth such as touchscreens and the Internet. All of this, Gottfredson and his colleagues wrote, was due in large part to government investment into research and higher education.

“Much of the reason why we think it is important is because of the return on investment,” Gottfredson said of government funding of higher education.

The lack of government investment has created an innovation deficit that has reduced the United States’ role as an innovation leader compared to other nations, Gottfredson and his colleagues argued in the letter. The United States became a model for other countries such as China, Singapore and South Korea. Over the past decade these countries have invested into research and higher education at two to four times the rate of the United States.

Furthermore, they pointed out that the United States is now 12th among developed countries in the number of young adults who have college degrees.

The letter ultimately calls on leaders in Washington to carry out the budget toward research and higher education in order to close the innovation deficit.

“We call upon you to reject unsound budget cuts and recommit to strong and sustained investments in research and education,” wrote Gottfredson and his colleagues in the letter to Obama and congress. “Only then can we ensure that our nation’s promise of a better tomorrow endures.”

There are several places where you can find music in today’s world. Apps, websites, radio stations and  CDs are all viable options to satisfy your lyrical needs. The question is: Which sources should you use for different situations? The following is a list of activities and the music sources that go best with them.

Cruising through Eugene

Whether you’re driving to work, the grocery store, or just a friend’s house, the brief amount of time that you’ll be listening to music almost assures that the radio is your best bet for music. Just pop it on and go through your favorite stations until you hear what you’re in the mood for. Try 102.3 for modern pop music or 99.1 for a mix of oldies and soft rock.

Working out

A good playlist from your very own iTunes library should do the job. You’ll want to organize it beforehand, though. Choose from your favorites that you’ve accumulated throughout the years to craft the blend that will get you toned, in-shape, or just downright “swoll” as the kids call it these days. 8tracks is also a viable option, but iTunes will offer more freedom to choose songs so that you don’t end up with the wrong tune in the middle of a workout.

Entertaining guests

You’ll want to go with 8tracks in this case. With 8tracks you can pair together moods and genres to help the search for the right playlist for free. For example if you’re having a barbecue, you might pair together “rock” and “summer” and see which playlists come up. If you’re trying to solicit a dance party from your guests, you’ll want to go with “hip-hop” and “dance.” Then once you play it, you can enjoy the gathering without having to worry about any sort of DJ responsibilities. Playlists vary in length, but once one ends, another with the same moods will begin.

Relaxing at home

For lounging around the house, Spotify is a good choice. Spotify allows you to choose from a wide variety of music and make playlists for your desktop for free with unlimited use. Relaxing at home is the perfect time to explore new artists and albums, and with Spotify you can listen to entire albums without having to purchase them.

Road tripping

If you’re driving home for a visit, going on a vacation, or just driving in your car for a long time, this is when you get to prove to the world that CDs aren’t dead. Go back into your CD collection (however old it may be) and pop in an album. It will ensure that there is music playing for the entirety of the trip and might even take you back to a previous time in your life.

Miles Sisk is a sophomore at the University of Oregon with an idea. That idea is to connect a web of students with different talents that are willing to teach others. He calls it TalentShare.

“It connects students who have particular skills, talents, abilities that they’ve acquired throughout their life who can then volunteer to teach students how to do those things,” said Sisk.

What Sisk is trying to organize is a club. He wants to have a website and possibly a board up at the EMU that lists students with different skills and talents. That way TalentShare would connect students who want to learn a skill to the person on the board who is volunteering to teach it for free.

The board and the website would make it so that students can reap the benefits of TalentShare without making any sort of commitment to the organization. There will be volunteers who manage the club, but no weekly meetings. Anyone can use it.

“You can do more than just come here and take some classes and get your degree, but you can come here and pick up skills that you never even thought were possible,” said Sisk.

Sisk has been getting the word out about his program by talking to individual students at Introducktion. He hopes to get a table at the Week of Welcome and plans on advertising it on Facebook and other social media outlets.

The program also aims to bring students out of their shells so that they can meet new people. It is designed to bring the entire UO community together.

“It can be hard to get outside of your own little group, and I think that it provides a really unique opportunity to give students a specific reason to be reaching out and meeting new people and interacting with people,” said Althea Seloover who is helping Sisk with TalentShare.

Sisk does not believe that TalentShare will be an officially recognized club by the ASUO for a while, but he has already found volunteers to teach knitting as well as the piano. Sisk and Seloover have been reaching out to businesses around town to get funding for expenses that the club may incur such as the website and the board in the EMU.

The club has not taken lift-off quite yet, but with any luck there will be students teaching students sooner rather than later.

“I’m in the process of figuring out what talentshare is and what it can be,” said Sisk.

The dual enrollment program between Lane Community College and the University of Oregon may be the best kept secret at the UO. Both in-state and out-of-state students have benefited from the thousands of dollars in savings that the program has the potential to provide.

The program allows students to take classes at LCC and the UO in the same term. Once the term is finished, the credits that were earned at LCC automatically transfer to the UO and appear on the student’s transcript making them as good as UO credits. The financial difference is that the LCC credits are significantly cheaper.

“I couldn’t afford the university because I’m paying my own tuition,” sophomore Shannon Malamphy said. “I couldn’t see myself even affording my first year of school with the amount of FAFSA I got.”

Malamphy lived in the dorms as a freshman. She started dual enrollment with LCC during winter term to continue attending the UO and living in Eugene.

“It was a lot less expensive for me to go to Lane and still be able to have a similar college experience. I can still live in Eugene and live in town and be right next to campus. It’s just much cheaper,” said Malamphy.

Out-of-state transfer student Bayley Azevedo also lived in the dorms last year and started dual enrollment in the spring to save money.

“It cut my tuition cost more than in half,” said Azevedo of the dual enrollment program. “Being an out-of-state student, the tuition is really high. Having to take some lower-level classes, it made more sense to do it at Lane.”

Based on rates for the 2013-14 academic year, an in-state student who decides to take roughly half of their classes at the UO — eight of 15 credits — and the other half at LCC  for the entirety of a freshman or sophomore academic year would save $1,412 in tuition. If that student were out-of-state, the savings would be $7,769.10.

Both Malamphy and Azevedo used the free public transportation system that is offered to UO students with their student ID to get to LCC. Buses leave every half-hour on weekdays to go to LCC from 13th Avenue and Kincaid Street just outside campus.

Both students also agreed that the biggest difference between classes at LCC and those at the UO is the size.

“The classes are a lot smaller, that’s the only difference, and you have to ride the bus,” said Azevedo.

Students can sign up for the dual enrollment program by applying to LCC online and filling out a short dual-enrollment application and submitting it to the admissions offices at both schools.

From Snapchat to Instagram and Twitter to Facebook, the advent of the smartphone is a magical thing that has revolutionized the way that the world socializes. Believe it or not however, there are still people walking the grounds of the University of Oreong who are still plagued with phones that flip and screens you don’t touch.

University of Oregon Sophomore Karinne Evans is one of those people.

“It’s actually rough sometimes because everyone has Instagram, Facebook and Twitter on their phones — I’m a very big fan of Twitter — and I’m always juggling two devices,” Evans said.

Evans is fighting through the adversity that her phone has beheld her by using an iPod Touch to acquire the mobile apps that the rest of the world enjoys from the convenience of its smartphones. That way she doesn’t have to live through the horror story that would be life without Snapchat.

But that doesn’t mean that emotional trauma doesn’t still reach her from her emoji-less cellular device.

“I feel like a dinosaur when I’m using it,” Evans said. “Outdated is a good word to use. My heart feels outdated. I don’t have emojis and I’m a very big fan of emojis.”

Evans says that one of the things about iPhones that she envies most is “the color that your box turns when you send a message. My phone doesn’t have that. My phone is trash.”

Junior Spencer Tanner recently upgraded to a smartphone from a flip phone and has been basking in his mobile spoils ever since.

“All of my affairs are in one place. I got email, I got a UO app, I got the Snapchat, I got the Youtube, I got the internet, I got my games, I’m killing it on Temple Run,” said Tanner of his smart phone.

Although Tanner acknowledged that his life is “a million times better” now that he has a smartphone, he still can’t help but remember the isolation that he experienced socially when his phone flipped. He remembers the toil that he used to experience and that Evans is currently enduring.

“It’s crucial. I learned from experience,” Tanner said of having a smartphone in today’s world. “I learned the hard way that not only are you a step back in terms of the social aspect of staying connected, but also people literally, verbally ridicule you. They actually single you out and ridicule you. It’s actually like a form of harassment. I was bullied for having my dumb phone believe it or not, and it was hurtful.”

Although it is easy to laugh at and make fun of those without smartphones, it’s important to be there for and support them through their trying lives. After all, there has been a time in every man and woman’s life when they couldn’t tweet on the go or capture the moments in their lives with a square photograph and stunning image filters for the world to see.

For many fraternity and sorority members, living in a fraternity house over the summer is an experience in its own. The rent is often cheaper than during the academic year and the halls are relatively empty compared to their previous spring term bustle, but hanging out with friends in the sunshine rules the day.

For Cory Harrison of Sigma Pi fraternity, getting bored is a non-factor while living in the house through the summer months.

“You get bored here, just because it’s summer time, but it’s a different kind of bored,” said Harrison. “You get bored at home and you can’t do anything. You get bored here and you have like your ten closest friends still living here with you, and you just come together and you do the weirdest, stupidest, dumbest stuff.”

At Sigma Pi, Harrison and the other summer residents have the option to purchase a $500 meal plan that offers lunch and dinner Monday through Friday for the entirety of the summer. Harrison mentioned however, that hot plates and George Forman grills were used regularly during his previous summer stay.

Also, fraternities are independent of FSL during summer, so they have the freedom to rent out rooms to non-fraternity members or anyone they see fit. Sigma Pi rented out rooms to cooks from the Olympic trials last summer, and many fraternities house sorority members over summer as well.

“When you live together for three months, you get over the scenarios like awkward moments in the bathroom or what have you,” said Harrison of living with sorority members. “We just kind of became one giant family that lived together, so it was fun having them here. They just added to the experience of living in over the summer.”

University of Oregon’s Delta Delta Delta sorority announced last month that it raised $42,000 for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital with several philanthropy events throughout the school year.

Tri Delta held three philanthropy causes over the course of the year to raise the money. During fall term the sorority hosted an all-you-can-eat dessert sale, Delta Desserts, at the Tri Delta house; for winter term they conducted a letter-writing campaign in which members of the sorority collectively wrote over 4,200 letters to friends, family and alumni asking for donations to St. Jude’s; and to top it off in spring term Tri Delta held its first-annual spring carnival along with fraternities Phi Gamma Delta and Chi Psi on April 27. The carnival included food, a dunk tank, a bounce house and a silent auction.

According to Tri Delta President Alexis Drakatos, Tri Delta’s fundraising goal for this year was $40,000, and they have even higher aspirations for next year.

“Next year we’ll make our goal even higher — just to try and raise the bar,” Drakatos said. “I think it just shows how much we really do care about St. Jude, and we really do want to support them.”

Tri Delta has been donating to St. Jude’s nationally since 1999. In 2010, national Tri Delta set a fundraising goal of 15 million dollars to be attained within a five-year period. Three years in, the sorority is at 11.2 million nationally. Each Tri Delta chapter across the nation conducts their own philanthropy fundraisers to try to meet this goal collectively.

According to Drakatos, other fraternities and sororities on campus played a strong role in contributing to Tri Delta’s fundraising efforts.

“I think it really shows how active all the chapters are,” Drakatos said of the fundraiser. “I know that we wouldn’t be able to do what we do without the support of other chapters.”