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June 9, 2008
Soundbites

Toastmasters talk public speaking
Toastmasters@Emory celebrated its fourth year of helping members become better communicators.
“School may provide us with knowledge, but this club really helps us prepare for real-life experiences,” said Kai Young, who cofounded the campus branch of the worldwide speaking organization as a student.

The Toastmasters nodded knowingly as keynote speaker Gary Hauk, vice president and deputy to the president, spoke of the three ‘PRs’ that he said relate to both speaking and living: “prepare, preside, project.”
Toastmasters@Emory meets on campus each Wednesday from 8-9 a.m. and welcomes new members. Noted Young: “Where else on campus can you find people praising and listening to you at 8 a.m.?”
—Kim Urquhart

Clinical researchers dissect ethics issues
“The sophistication of medicine is evolving rapidly through genomic research and stem-cell therapies that are on the way. These are going to present enormous challenges to IRBs (institutional review boards) and to investigators,” said Ernest Prentice, executive chair of the IRB at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. “We have to do the best we can to try to merge the evolution of ethics with the evolution of science at a closer point than it is now.”

A featured speaker for the Office of Research Compliance’s third annual ethics symposium, he discussed some of the critical problems facing IRBs, including inadequate training for members and investigators. “A culture of conscience is not a priority. Research funding is the academic mantra,” he said. —Carol Clark

‘Indiana George’ uncovers Nubia
In his 40-year career, archeologist George Reisner excavated literally and figuratively the ancient kingdom of Nubia, said Peter Lacovara, Carlos Museum curator of ancient Egypt, Near East and Nubia.

Reisner produced a “spectacular array” of artifacts from that lost culture, Lacovara noted.

Lacovara’s lecture title, “Indiana George: Reisner and the Rediscovery of Ancient Nubia,” plays off the fictional movie hero of derring-do but according to Lacovara, Reisner “was the most systematic archeologist of his day.”
Reisner had a methodical approach to a dig, took copious notes and was the first to use photography in archeology. —Leslie King