Archive for June 15th, 2010

June 15th, 2010

Greater Lowell Community Foundation – $20 million in Assets

by Marie

Greater Lowell Community Foundation Past Grant Awardees

Earlier this evening I attended the  Annual Meeting of the Greater Lowell Community Foundation. As an early advocate and a founding member of the Community Foundation along with Dick Donahue, Peter Stamas, Mary Bacigalupo, George Duncan and others – I have a special interest in the Foundation. I’m happy to report that the GLCF has over $20 million in assets – a remarkable achievement in these financial times – up from $16.8 million in 2009.  New contributions  totaled over $3 million and thirty-five non-profit agencies have an endowed fund with the foundation.

In May $175,000 was distributed in Lowell High School Scholarship to 178 graduating seniors. Later this year the foundation – in the annual fall grant cycle – expects  to award through its Distribution Committee nearly $99,000 in a new grants program and will again host a “Celebrate Giving” event in October.

Executive Director John Thibault - on a medical leave – attended the meeting and spoke highly of  Charles Wibiralske the interim director who has years of experience in development and philanthropy. John hopes to be back at the helm soon with Mr. Wibiralske staying on as his deputy for development. Expect a continued and aggressive presence of the Community Foundation in Greater Lowell, the Merrimack Valley and all communities  in  the foundation catchment area.

My congratulations to newly elected Greater Lowell Community Foundation President Steven Joncas who succeeds Luis Pedroso and other officers: Vice-President Lori Trahan, Treasurer James C. Shannon, III CPA, Assistant Treasurer Brian J. Stafford, CPA and Clerk Attorney Annemarie Roark.  Stay tuned for more on the activities of the Greater Lowell Community Foundation. Learn more about the GLCF here on its website.

CategoryCulture, Current Events, Education, Greater Lowell, History | CommentNo Comments »

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June 15th, 2010

Mass. Economy Improving Faster than U.S. Economy

by PaulM

Read the Globe’s report about the views of the editorial board of Mass. Benchmarks, which tracks the state’s economy. Prof. Bob Forrant of UMass Lowell is a member of the board. Click here for Rob Gavin’s article in the Globe, and consider subscribing if you appreciate the writing.

And here’s the link to Mass Benchmarks for the full story: www.massbenchmarks.org

CategoryCulture, Current Events, Education, History, Lowell | CommentNo Comments »

June 15th, 2010

Book Launch Party is Friday, June 25

by PaulM

There’s a tweet out there notifying people that the “Smokestack Lightning” and “Coffin Dust” book launch party at the Old Court is this Friday, but that’s a week early. I understand the excitement and wild expectation. We’ll have to wait one more week, however, for the prose and Guinness. Come by the Old Court at 7 pm on June 25 for the festivities, and, as mentioned in an earlier post, be prepared to take away as many books as you can possible carry. I stole that line from my friend Bob Martin, singer-songwriter extraordinaire of Lowelltown. He uses it to push CD sales. Either way, buy ‘em by the stack, like pancakes.

CategoryCulture, Education, History, Lowell | Comment1 Comment »

June 15th, 2010

A New Hominid?

by Andrew

This is the seventh of a series of posts I will be doing on human evolution. The previous one can be found here. As always, please leave any questions you’d like to have answered.

For quite some time scientists have known that there were three separate instances of hominids leaving Africa to settle the rest of the Old World. The ancestors of modern humans left about 60,000 years ago. The ancestors of Neandertals, about 500,000 years ago. And the first group to leave, Homo erectus, about 1.9 million years ago. These three migrations accounted for all of the diversity found in fossils throughout Europe and Asia. But now we know that there was a fourth group.

In April a team of researchers published a paper in Nature announcing the sequencing of DNA from a finger bone fragment found in the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia. The bone fragment had been dated to an age of 30 to 48 thousand years old, a time at which both modern humans and Neandertals were living in the region. Curious about which species the bone belonged to, the researchers decided to sequence its mitochondrial DNA.

Much to the surprise of the researchers, the mtDNA in the bone fragment was neither Neandertal nor human; it belonged to a different, unknown species. When they calculated the time at which the individual the bone fragment had belonged to shared a last common ancestor with modern humans, it was found to be 1 million years ago, 900,000 years too late for this to be a Homo erectus.

That means that this is fossil belongs to a newly discovered species of hominid whose ancestors left Africa about 1 million years ago. We do not know anything about them at this point; we have not been able to associate any other bones or tools with them yet. We have no idea what they looked like, how they behaved, or how they lived. All we have is a string of DNA.

For me, this story illustrates the power of modern science. A discovery like this would have been impossible 10 years ago. Without sequencing technology, we probably would never have known about this chapter in hominid history. But now we know this species lived and can go back to the fossil record looking for traces of it, traces we would never know belonged to another species without this genetic data.

CategoryScience | CommentNo Comments »

June 15th, 2010

I Want My Bob El — Lis

by PaulM

UMass Lowell hockey broadcasts have been over for many weeks, the WUML-FM SUNRISE radio program is long-gone, WLLH’s MORNING MAGAZINE is a memory, and I’m missing the voice of radioman Bob Ellis on the Merrimack Valley airwaves. Bob’s voice is a piece of our modern cultural history in this region, a sound that has tracked our way of life in this region. Bob’s radio reports, if we had a complete set, would make an impressive aural document of the past 25 or so years. Maybe we can entice Bob to create a digital package now and then that we can link to on this blog, reports from the field. He’s also a good photographer, so there’s a words-and-pictures possibility. This isn’t the NHL, NFL, or NBA, but we’re drafting you, Bob.

CategoryCulture, Current Events, Education, History, Lowell | Comment6 Comments »

June 15th, 2010

Glucosamine and Chondroitin

by DickH

Midway through my freshman year at Providence College I joined the ROTC program. PT, or physical training, was a big part of Army life so running became part of my daily routine back then. Thirty years later, it still is. Because I run for exercise and enjoyment, my distance, speed and frequency have varied from year-to-year, but I probably averaged three miles per day, three days per week throughout that time period. By that measure, I’ve run more than 14,000 miles which means my knees have taken quite a pounding. About ten years ago in the aftermath of arthroscopic surgery on my knee for torn cartilage (suffered while doing household chores, not while running), I started taking daily tablets containing “glucosamine and chondroitin” which are supposed to help aging joints. Medical studies on the efficacy of these over-the-counter supplements are inconclusive, with some saying they do nothing and others saying they might help. From my own experience, they do provide some relief. In the past, if I’ve run out and gone a few days without, knee pain returns. But as long as I take my daily dose, I’m pretty much pain free.

The reason I write about this today is that a story in today’s New York Times reports that society is about to get hit by a vigorous public relations campaign for a new drink called “Elations”, a juice drink laced with liquid glucosamine and chondroitin. While part of the target audience are those who have trouble taking pills, the main focus is on aging Baby Boomers. As the director of marketing for the company that produces Elations puts it, “Baby boomers view themselves as forever young, and they think taking pills feels like taking medicine and like a symbol of feeling old or sick.”

So if you haven’t been exercising because taking pills to suppress joint pain makes you feel old, pick up some Elations and get moving.

CategoryCulture, Science | Comment1 Comment »

June 15th, 2010

More Movement on Merrimack Valley School Superintendent Scene

by Marie

The Merrimack Valley has seen changes or changes are in the works at the top level of many school districts lately – Tewksbury, Dracut, Andover, Lawrence, Haverhill, Greater Lowell Voke, Greater Lawrence Voke and probably more. There are so many that even the Massachusetts Association of  School Superintendents can’t keep its website member-roster current. It sometimes seems like a chess game as retired superintendents return as interims and administrators from one district – Greater Lowell for example – move across the Valley to head another. Fiscal considerations, falling state reimbursements and revenue constraints have school districts on the hot seat these days with the superintendents needing all the answers. Retirement beckons – or maybe just a change of scenery.

Another change is on the horizon – this time in Methuen. Superintendent Dr. Jeanne Whitten – who includes a stint in the Lowell School system on her resume - announced last night that she will retire in August. Family concerns triggered her decision.  Dr. Whitten has spent thirty-eight years as an educator. See the Eagle-Tribune article here.

CategoryCulture, Current Events, Education, Greater Lowell | CommentNo Comments »

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June 15th, 2010

Innovative Cities Conference Starts Thursday

by PaulM

There’s still time to register for the Innovative Cities Conference this week at the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center. Speakers will include former White House Director of Urban Affairs Adolfo Carrion, National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis, and urban affairs experts and city leaders from Ann Arbor (Mich.), Asheville (N.C.), Belfast (Northern Ireland), Lowell, Milwaukee (Wis.), and Portland (Ore.).

For schedule info and to register, click here.

CategoryCulture, Current Events, Education, History, Lowell | CommentNo Comments »

June 15th, 2010

Ken Burns at Middlesex Comm. College in Lowell Tomorrow

by PaulM

Click here for details on acclaimed American filmmaker Ken Burns’ talk at Lowell Memorial Auditorium tomorrow evening and ticket info.

CategoryCulture, Education, History, Lowell | Comment4 Comments »