UO E-clips, May 17-19

A shift in voters, but Oregon still embraces the unconventional (The New York Times): The Obama '08 signs end roughly where the orchards begin. Another reinvented Western town gives way to another valley of calloused hands. Telecommuting gives way to irrigation. New gives way to old. … “There’s an absence of racial cleavages that hang over politics here,” said Joseph Lowndes, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon. “Where race does work for him is in a certain kind of Democratic idealism.”

Coming to a marketer near you: Brain scanning (San Francisco Chronicle): U.S. advertisers spent nearly $500 per American last year. But what makes one ad persuasive and another a dud? Two Bay Area firms have adapted brain scanning technology to gain insight into the science of spending. … Daniel Pope, a historian at the University of Oregon who has studied advertising, said marketers have always hopped on science to sell soap. But while the tools for measuring response get more precise, we are far from turning persuasion into a science.

Why nations fail to act in the face of genocide (Science Daily): The international community should take formal steps to justify inaction when conditions of genocide exist anywhere in the world. So says Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon psychology professor, who wants a formal process that requires nations to carefully weigh and publicly justify action or inaction in cases of intentional mass murder. "If they were required to deliberate, I think it would be much more difficult for nations not to take action," he says. "This is something nations aren't required to do and don't really do now."

DNA rewrites prehistory (Los Angeles Times, appearing in the Courier-Journal.com): DNA from fossilized human feces found in an Oregon cave is 14,300 years old, at least 1,200 years older than previous evidence of humans in North America, researchers said. … "If you are looking for the first people in North America, you are going to have to step back more than 1,000 years beyond Clovis to find them," added archaeologist Dennis L. Jenkins of the University of Oregon, the report's lead author.

April snow an anomaly in global climate trend (Register-Guard, guest viewpoint by Bob Doppelt): The beauty of the snow that fell on a Sunday in late April was quickly forgotten when my wife and I realized our fruit trees might be at risk. It snowed a lot this year. Should we stop worrying about global warming? No. Don’t confuse short-term and long-term patterns. Weather describes daily, weekly and yearly fluctuations in rainfall, temperatures and such. Some years are colder and wetter than others.

UO president pay ranks high in 2 surveys (Associated Press, in the Oregonian): One of the best-paid officials in higher education last year was University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer. But after putting in 15 years on the job to reach that level, Frohnmayer has announced plans to retire. He will leave as one of only 26 presidents last year in a survey of 182 public universities to top $500,000 in pay and benefits, receiving a total compensation package worth almost $540,000. The package grew to more than $600,000 this year for the former state attorney general and law professor.

Sorority marks century of sisterhood (Register-Guard): The first sorority on the University of Oregon campus -- the Nu chapter of Gamma Phi Beta -- celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, with as many as 700 sorority sisters of all ages converging this weekend at 1021 Hilyard St. to reconnect with the venerable Tudor dowager that has housed them all. Although the house won’t be open to the public during this weekend’s centennial events, Gamma Phi Beta alumna Cece Steers, who lived in the house in the early 1970s, said the house welcomes tour visitors during “Greek Life” week, usually in July, when prospective students and their parents begin scouting the campus for preferred living arrangements.