Wednesday, April 23, 2014 VOLUME 33 / NUMBER 29 www.uicnews.uic.edu facebook.com/uicnews twitter.com/uicnews NEWS UIC youtube.com/uicmedia For the community of the University of Illinois at Chicago Photo: Timothy Ngyuen Curtis Granderson, UIC business grad and former Flames baseball player, takes a day off from the New York Mets to throw out the first pitch at the opening of the stadium he helped build. More on page 12. New pitch for baseball at UIC, in Chicago INSIDE: Profile / Quotable 2 | Campus News 4 | Calendar 8 | Student Voice 9 | Crossword / Police 10 | People 11 | Sports 12 Physicist Dirk Morr says ‘Star Trek’ Is massage therapy good for you? Lights, camera, action! UIC gets Tamar Heller wants people with led him to science Yes, researchers say its closeups on film, TV disabilities to be healthier Profile, page 2 News, page 5 News, page 6 People, page 11 2 UIC NEWS I www.uicnews.uic.edu I APRIL 23, 2014 profile Send profile ideas to Gary Wisby, [email protected] Physicist Dirk Morr finds scientific facts in science fiction By Gary Wisby Scotty emulators can’t beam anybody up — not yet, anyway — but much of what “Star Trek” showed us 50 years ago as sci- ence fiction is scientific fact today, says UIC physics professor Dirk Morr. One example: Lt. Uhura’s earpiece, forerunner of the now- ubiquitous Bluetooth device. Nanoprobes, which turned people into borgs on the show’s “Next Generation,” are used to save lives today, in- jected to “attach to cancer cells — they’re metallic so they heat up very rapidly and destroy the cells,” Morr said. The alien translator used by Captain Kirk and crew finds its latter-day equivalent in a phone app “where you say a sen- tence and it’s translated into French or Spanish,” he said. The communicator flip-device? “Our smart phones,” he said, “are much more powerful and versatile.” Kirk also made use of a tablet that foresaw the iPad of today. What “Star Trek” tech isn’t here yet? Warp drive would require penetrating the wall that is the speed of light, i.e., moving even faster. Is that possible? “The special theory of relativity tells us no, but will we be able to get through in the future? We really don’t know at the moment,” Morr said. “But the only thing that separates us from that is a brilliant idea.” Wormholes, on the other hand, are already known to be Photo: Roberta Dupuis-Devlin possible. Dirk Morr’s fascination with “Star Trek” while he was growing up started him on his journey into a science career. “It’s a trait of scientists that He demonstrates with a piece of paper. Placing the left and we want to see what’s around the corner. It’s why many of us become scientists,” says Morr, professor of physics. right edges of the paper together, Morr illustrates a worm- hole, the bending of space and time for instantaneous travel. “In 1988 at Caltech, Kip Thorne showed that you could ogy, titled “The Real Science Behind ‘Star Trek.’” followed by post-doctoral work at Urbana-Champaign. He was create wormholes that would live long enough that you could Its genesis was an exhibit called “Science Storms” that he a director’s fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New move through them,” he said, although we don’t yet know helped create for the Museum of Science and Industry, which Mexico for two years before joining UIC in 2001. He is also how. opened in 2010. an associate of the James Franck Institute at the University of No less a challenge is beaming technology, which requires “They wanted to see if the exhibit could duplicate the re- Chicago. the conversion of mass into energy. search we were doing in our computer and labs,” he said. Morr lives in Chicago’s Edgebrook neighborhood with his Scotty used to beam Kirk, Mr. Spock & Co. up to the star- Similarly, he wanted “to connect something as popular as wife, Elizabeth Elliott, professor of Slavic linguistics at North- ship Enterprise every week. But to beam even a sandwich, ‘Star Trek’ with the cutting-edge research we’re doing at UIC western University, and their children, Leni, 8, and son, Max, 6. Morr said, “would require us to store as much energy as the and other universities,” he said. A fan of literature, he recently re-read War and Peace. entire world uses in about an hour.” “Star Trek” first aired in 1966 to 1969. It was shown in How much did his early interest in “Star Trek” have to do How about a 12,000-pound elephant? “The energy would Germany, where Morr grew up, in the early ’70s when he was with his trek to academic stardom? be equal to that of world consumption in a year, while the a kid. “I would say it definitely started a fascination with science,” amount of information we needed to store would be 100 tril- “I was fascinated by the idea of jumping into a space ship Morr said. lion times the size of the World Wide Web,” he said. and going to distant galaxies,” he said. “It’s a trait of scientists that we want to see what’s around the Morr talked about all this April 2 at a lecture on campus, He earned a master’s degree at the Free University of corner. It’s why many of us become scientists.” sponsored by the Chicago Council on Science and Technol- Berlin and a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, [email protected] quotable “This is big not only for the university, but what we “Our program can review medical records. We can “Of course, most people do not understand the both wanted was for it to reach the community in talk to doctors. On occasion, I will go out. And when reality that probably 98 percent of racism is learned Chicago too.” I do, it’s like having people from CBS News from ‘60 behavior, and maybe 2 percent is due to some seri- Minutes’ come by. It usually means something not so ous underlying personality problems.” Curtis Granderson, UIC business grad and New York good.” Mets outfielder, on the opening of UIC’s new Curtis Carl Bell, professor of psychiatry, answers the question Granderson Stadium, April 17 New York Daily News Michael Naylor, associate professor of psychiatry and “Are Racists Mentally Ill?,” April 16 Chicago Tribune director of a state-mandated program that reviews psy- chiatric medications prescribed to children in foster care, April 16 Denver Post APRIL 23, 2014 I UIC NEWS I www.uicnews.uic.edu 3 Aviation leader: going green saves money By Nicole Cardos “We’re always looking to partner with universities. You guys are the future,” Chi- cago aviation commissioner Rosemarie Andolino told students and faculty members Thursday as she presented the College of Engineering’s first Distinguished Lecture. Andolino, who oversees the needs and safety of 86 million passengers and 55 air- lines at Midway and O’Hare airports, is known as a leader in airport sustainability. Photo: UIC Library Special Collections She oversaw the O’Hare Modernization UIC Library resources in the Chicago Collections Plan, an $8 billion expansion that reconfig- Consortium portal include materials from ured O’Hare’s layout for higher efficiency. Hull-House and its founder, Jane Addams. Andolino discussed some of the project’s engineering challenges. Online portal to One of the biggest: working on improve- ments while the airport remained in opera- Photo: Ron Fernandez tion. The construction team had to watch “You guys are the future,” Rosemarie Andolino, Chicago aviation commissioner, told the UIC community. Chicago history height restrictions to avoid incoming and departing planes. like a road — just a little deeper and stronger minal 3, where herbs and other plants grow By Anne Brooks Ranallo “Safety and security are the first things — but it’s a little bit more than that,” she said. from tall silos. A green roof was planted atop you have to do, and you have to do them To enhance O’Hare’s green initiative, the the north air traffic control tower. A $194,000 grant from the Andrew W. well,” Andolino said. “That’s our focus each pavement’s base level was a mixture of lime “Going green doesn’t cost you money, but Mellon Foundation will fund software devel- and every day.” and dirt to make a permeable surface, “in- it can actually save you money,” Andolino opment led by UIC for a free, easily accessible Another challenge focused on the con- stead of bringing in an aggregate,” she said. said. “It also helped us be a good neighbor to online portal to materials on Chicago history struction of runway pavement. O’Hare’s sustainability movement, which the surrounding communities.” in at least 12 libraries and museums. “Most people think of runway pavement began in 2003, brought a fresh garden to Ter- [email protected] The portal will allow one-click searching of materials at UIC, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago History Museum, Chicago Public Library, Columbia College Chicago, DePaul University, Illinois Institute of Technology, University seeks pension law change Loyola University Chicago, Newberry Li- brary, Northwestern University, Roosevelt University and University of Chicago. as many employees consider retirement “This portal will offer unprecedented ac- cess for students, scholars and citizens to in- By Sonya Booth pus faculty senates to contact legislators. have received that amount even if they retired formation about diaries, photographs, letters About 60 to 70 percent of the approximate- months or years later.