The heat is rising and summer classes are really getting into the swing of things. To keep you cool on the weekends, The Chronicle’s Julian Spector keeps an eye on the events horizon to give you an interesting weekend. (more…)
A Duke alum is now the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in wake of a political scandal surrounding the tax collection agency.
Daniel Werfel, who has a master’s degree from the Sanford School of Public Policy as well as a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was chosen by President Obama in mid-May for the position. (more…)
This weekend, say goodbye to May and prepare for the balmy days of June in Durham. This week’s offerings are more activity-oriented. You can try your hand at salsa dancing, explore some small-town festivities and learn how to grow your own culinary herbs. (more…)
Summer has really sunk its fiery teeth into dear old Durham, but with some help you will have no problem staying cool and hip under the southern sun. With free live hip-hop, West African grooves and phantasmagorical beer, The Chronicle’s Julian Spector knows what you should be doing this weekend.
Thursday:
Art of Cool at the Stack presents LiLa, 5-7 p.m. at the American Tobacco Campus. This is a free live-music happy hour event, so head to ATC’s Lucky Strike smoke stack for some outdoor food, drink, tunes and good cheer. The band plays hip hop with elements of folk rock, perfect for chilling on a nice summer evening.
Language of Angels at Common Ground Theatre, 7:30 p.m. This is a ghost story play set in rural North Carolina that utilizes Japanese Noh theater techniques to do its thing. The story involves a bunch of youths who go into a dark cave to party, except one of them never resurfaces. And the rest find their fates tied up in that loss. Sounds haunting, spooky and darn intriguing. Common Ground Theater is an intimate venue just about ten minutes up Hillsborough Road from East Campus—easily accessible by car. The play is only showing through this weekend, so head over before the ghosts vanish.
Friday:
Africa Unplugged with Kata Band at Casbah, 9 p.m. Seven-member band Africa Unplugged will be playing a high energy show just down Main Street from East Campus. If you think you know dancing from the musical repertoire of Shooters, then try moving your body to the rolling polyrhythms of a West African djembe orchestra.
Fast and Furious 6 at local movie theaters. Before we get too lost in the cosmos of arts and culture, I figured I’d throw in a bit of popcorn culture. I’ve only seen a bit of the first Fast and Furious, the part where Vin Diesel says, “You can have whatever beer you like, as long as it’s Corona.” If that’s not summer movie pedigree, I don’t know what is. This fifth sequel promises more of the winning formula—explosive car chases, gun battles and a bunch of finely toned action heroes having fun together. There should be air conditioning involved too, if you’re at the right theater.
Saturday:
Durham Pub Crawl and Haunted Adventure Tour, 7:30 p.m. at Tyler’s Tap Room. Have you ever wished you could explore Durham’s most haunted locations, but worried you wouldn’t be allowed to drink beer while doing so? If so, consider this offering from Tobacco Road Tours, which will take you to four Durham pubs and four haunted locations in just 2.5 hours, all for a hauntingly reasonable $20. See http://www.tobaccoroadtours.com/durham-pub-crawl-haunted-adventure-tour/ for more info.
While many pre-med students spend their research hours with pipettes and buffer solutions, some have the opportunity to pursue research internationally in the field.
Special to The Chronicle
Junior biology major Lynn Theprungsirikul is a candidate for the Global Health certificate who researched the barriers to the uptake of cataract surgery faced by eye patients in Tamale, Ghana while working as a Unite For Sight Global Impact Fellow volunteer. Her project seeked to explain why patients who have been approved for free eye surgeries tend not to show up for their appointments.
“At first I thought it might be transportation. Some people have to walk miles to get to the health clinic, but actually, most were willing,” Theprungsirikul said. “The main reason was because they are afraid that once they go to the hospital, they won’t come back the same. It’s fear and false assumptions.”
Besides spreading awareness about the clinic to quell these fears and screening patients for eye diseases using visual acuity tests, Theprungsirikul spent time with patients, gathering data for her research. Despite the language and culture competency training provided by the program, there was a huge communication barrier, Theprungsirikul said. But she added that there were still plenty of personal moments.
“I spoke to a woman who told me she had to walk barefoot for three hours to reach the clinic and stay overnight to get post-op,” she said. “But since she couldn’t leave [her family] back at home, she couldn’t get the surgery.”
Aside from her volunteer work and research, Theprungsirikul noted that simply being in Ghana was a novel experience. Since the diet there did not include many vegetables, each volunteer was asked to bring fiber supplements, which they would eat each day.
Now, nearly two years after her overseas research experience, Theprungsirikul actually does work in a lab with pipettes and buffers, studying tissue signaling. The experience, however, is a bit different, she says. Whereas her tissue signaling research seeks to discover something new, Theprungsirikul’s project in Ghana was more descriptive, trying to identify an issue that already exists.
“The purpose of the research requirement [in Global Health] is to apply what we learn in our classes—like ethics—to fieldwork,” Theprungsirikul said. “I was able to do that through my project.”