UO E-clips, July 23

Worms do calculus to find food (Live Science): Like humans with a nose for the best restaurants, roundworms also use their senses of taste and smell to navigate. And now, researchers may have found how a worm's brain does this: It performs calculus. Worms calculate how much the strength of different tastes is changing -- equivalent to the process of taking a derivative in calculus -- to figure out if they are on their way toward food or should change direction and look elsewhere, says University of Oregon biologist Shawn Lockery, who thinks humans and other animals do the same thing.

CLIF(R) BAR Encourages People to "Bike Once a Week to Fight Climate Change" (Market Watch): (CLIF(R) BAR is back on the road with its second annual 2 Mile Challenge(TM) tour urging people to leave their cars at home and use bikes for trips of two miles or less. The company is challenging people to "Bike Once a Week to Fight Climate Change" to demonstrate that small changes in daily habits can have a big impact on the environment. Every mile traveled by bike instead of car prevents one pound of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere, according to the Climate Leadership Initiative at the University of Oregon.

Hynix leader comes calling (Register-Guard): The chairman of Hynix Semiconductor, the South Korean parent company of the computer chip plant in west Eugene, will be in Oregon to meet with state and local officials today amid rumors that changes may be in store for the local plant. Hynix Chairman Jong Kap Kim is scheduled to talk with Gov. Ted Kulongoski, Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy and University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer in separate meetings during the day, local Hynix spokesman Bobby Lee said Tuesday. The meetings, which Lee had described last week as a “meet and greet” session, could turn out to be more than that, according to an e-mail from the mayor.

Rising costs of financial turmoil: The multibillion-dollar cost of government bailouts is just the start (Christian Science Monitor): Accountants for Congress this week put a $25 billion price tag on the federal rescue of two companies that anchor US mortgage markets, but that's just the tip of a potential iceberg of taxpayer costs for America's banking mess. The reality is that taxpayers could end up paying nothing at all for rescuing the financial system – or the cost could end up as much as 10 times that $25 billion guesstimate. … "To say we could just walk away from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac without having some severe consequences is really questionable," says Tim Duy, an economist at the University of Oregon in Eugene. "The government does have to make that balancing act." That balancing act, however, is becoming a fiscal tightrope.