UO E-clips, Sept. 5

UO seeks funding shift for garage (Register-Guard): The University of Oregon wants to drop a plan to have donors pay for more than a third of its new underground parking garage on the east side of campus and instead have most of that portion picked up by state-backed bonds. The total cost of the garage, $18 million, would not change. But instead of having donors contribute $7.8 million and state bonds cover the remaining $10.2 million, the UO is asking for $16.6 million in bonds. Donor money would be used to close the remaining $1.4 million gap. The state Board of Higher Education will consider the request at its meeting today in Portland.

UO arena: permit schmermit (Eugene Weekly): The UO has asked the Oregon attorney general to let it start construction of its new basketball arena, the most expensive public building in state history, without a building permit. At a Eugene City Council Meeting Aug. 13, Councilor Alan Zelenka said he didn’t see how the UO could get a special exemption from basic requirements for other builders. “They cannot excavate this site until they get a building permit,” he said, “unless they get a special deal from the attorney general to do an excavation without a building permit.”

Bone parts don't add up to conclusion of Palauan dwarfs (Science Centric): Misinterpreted fragments of leg bones, teeth and brow ridges found in Palau appear to be an archaeologist's undoing, according to researchers at three institutions. They say that the so-called dwarfs of these Micronesian islands actually were modern, normal-sized hunters and gatherers. In a paper published 27 August in PLoS ONE, an open access journal of the Public Library of Science, scientists from the University of Oregon, North Carolina State University and the Australian National University refute the conclusion of Lee R. Berger and colleagues that Hobbit-like little people once lived there.