1 COMICS PAGE 7 LIFE&ARTS PAGE 8 SPORTS PAGE 6 Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900 @thedailytexan facebook.com/dailytexan Monday, February 8, 2016 dailytexanonline.com bit.ly/dtvid CITY CAMPUS Students in Groups split support in HD 49 race UT directory By Forrest Milburn & legislative aide and 2014 UT campaign.” Us endorsing him shows to the com- Caleb Wong graduate Huey Rey Fischer Fischer, a former UDems susceptible @thedailytexan won the endorsement from president, has been actively munity that all the stuff Huey has been UDems, while Austin ISD working alongside campus saying [about representing] students is, to scammers University Democrats and school board member Gina organizations to increase stu- Central Austin Democrats Hinojosa won the CAD en- dent voter participation. in fact, the truth. endorsed different candidates dorsement. UDems chose to endorse By Mikaela Cannizzo —Maliha Mazhar, @mikaelac16 for House District 49 on Sun- “The students are taking Fischer largely for his cam- Government senior day, establishing a divide in me to the Capitol,” Fischer pus outreach and positions Personal information avail- widely coveted support from said. “This is our opportunity on key issues such as sexual stuff Huey has been saying more than 200 endorsements able through the University’s two of Austin’s top Democrat- to really have youth repre- assault and student loan debt, [about representing] students from groups around Austin, online directory makes UT ic institutions. sentation heard in the pink UDems communications di- is, in fact, the truth,” govern- including her most recent students prime targets for scam With just two weeks of dome just a few blocks away rector Maliha Mazhar said. ment senior Mazhar said. from the Austin American- artists, according to UTPD po- campaigning left before early from the UT campus, and “Us endorsing him shows Throughout the primary lice officers. voting on Feb. 16, former it’s great momentum for our to the community that all the campaign, Hinojosa received page 3 HD 49 UTPD officer William Pieper said a recent scam af- fecting students begins with a NATIONAL fraudulent call from a phone number that appears to be from law enforcement. After convincing the student he or College cost plans differ in 2016 election she owes money to the govern- ment, the scammer directs the By Caleb Wong student to purchase a prepaid @caleber96 credit card and give the scam- STUDENT DEBT BY THE NUMBERS mer the card information. College affordability has “We’ve seen [the scam] now become an increasingly im- for more than a year, and with portant issue in the presi- tax season coming, we suspect dential campaign, but each The total student The student loan debt of more and more of these calls candidate has a distinct and loan debt in U.S. UT-Austin graduates averages will be sent to students,” Pieper different plan to tackle this amounts to said. “Because everything’s issue that many students $22,165 done over the phone, the callers face. $1.2 trillion can be anywhere worldwide.” Marco Rubio has dis- Pieper said easily accessible cussed his own college The typical student loan information in the UT direc- debt and the amount of monthly payment of tory, which includes student time it took to pay it off. UT-Austin graduates is emails, phone numbers and Bernie Sanders has railed home addresses, has provided against Wall Street at his $246 per month scammers with necessary rallies, promising a tax on tools to deceive students. To Wall Street speculation prevent this from occurring, to pay for free tuition at 40 percent Pieper recommends students public institutions. 71 percent of UT-Austin students take advantage of the opt- Maliha Mazhar, com- of college students receive federal loans out policy and restrict their munications director for graduate with debt available information. University Democrats, said “If students go online and the Republican emphasis restrict that information, the on cutting taxes is at odds scammers won’t have access with increasing access to and they should never receive higher education. She said Sources: collegesourcecard.com, whitehouse.gov, markethous.com the phone calls,” Pieper said. LOANS page 2 Infographic by Iliana Storch | Daily Texan Staff DIRECTORY page 2 SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY Research changes understanding of RNA By Samah Khan UT graduate stu- @Samahk9 dent Brant Gra- cia is developing A new laboratory technique new laboratory techniques to that reveals the intricate work- further knowl- ings of genetic material is de- edge about the veloping at UT-Austin. UT structure of RNA. graduate student Brant Gracia His techniques researches how RNA mol- include rigorous ecules form functional shapes quantification Rachel Zein | Daily Texan Staff to improve researchers’ under- and tertiary structure modifi- Emma Dietrich will give a talk on spider silk at Science Under the standing of and ability to ma- cation. Stars at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory on Thursday. nipulate these molecules. RNA enables and controls the expression of genetic ma- terial in organisms such as Samah Khan UT alumna speaks on humans. Gracia’s research Daily Texan Staff on RNA has applications in potential of spider silk medicine, therapeutics and and potential applications Stovall leads a Freshman Re- is not only developing oligo- pharmaceuticals. of RNA by discovering that search Initiative (FRI) stream nucleotide (nucleic acid mol- By Danielle Ransom cause of its potential use in a Because RNA is a single- the secondary and tertiary that develops aptamers, ecule) tools that have very @thedailytexan variety of human products, but stranded molecule, it can structures could, in fact, be which are sequences of RNA beneficial applications to the because of its really interesting rearrange itself from its sec- induced separately. or DNA, to perform specific new world, but it is making Students may not be able and unique natural history,” ondary, linear structure into a “The immediate implica- functions. Stovall’s stream has fantastic scientists [who] will to swing through the city sky- said Emma Dietrich, a gradu- three-dimensional “tertiary” tions of my research are how designed therapeutic RNA be solving the real challenges line on spider webs, but they ate student in the UT Depart- structure that takes up space. to quantitatively dissect and sequences to target proteins we face today.” are one step closer to having ment of Integrative Biology. Previously, scientists believed understand molecules and involved in neurodegenerative Gracia has fulfilled Stovall’s consumer goods make out of Companies are in the early the secondary and tertiary their mechanisms,” Gracia diseases such as Alzheimer’s. prediction in a profound way: spider silk. phases of developing spider structures to be infinitely co- said. “By studying the details Stovall predicts that designing by founding UT’s scientific Researchers and biotech- silk products, but they plan to operative, meaning one struc- of these RNA structures, oth- an aptamer that stops these outreach organization, called nology companies have be- produce goods as soon as they ture could not occur without ers can hopefully come up diseased proteins from func- “Present your Ph.D. thesis to gun genetically modifying vi- figure out how to manufac- the other, according to the with clever ways to engineer a tioning could lead to success- a 12 year-old.” This program able organisms, such as goats, ture silk wholescale, according Proceedings of the National useful molecule.” ful medical and diagnostic ap- allows graduate students such to produce spider silk for to Dietrich. Academy of Sciences of the Gracia is not alone in his plications in the future. as Gracia to introduce K–12 consumer goods. Dietrich will give a talk on United States of America. endeavor to discover the dy- “I think that we are pushing students to the research tract “ Spider silk is simply a fas- Gracia contributed knowl- namic possibilities of RNA. the needle forward,” Stovall cinating material, not only be- SPIDER SILK page 2 edge about the behaviors UT research educator Gwen said. “I feel that our research RNA page 3 NEWS OPINION SPORTS LIFE&ARTS ONLINE REASON TO PARTY SG hopes to establish African-Americans are Men’s basketball faces tall UT professor discusses Prefer puppies to football? entrepreneurship hub. being priced out of Austin. task down the stretch. minority women in film. Check out our video recap PAGE 3 PAGE 4 PAGE 6 PAGE 8 of the Puppy Bowl at Five planets will align The Iowa caucuses were Baseball shuts out former Shoegaze band DIIV across the sky this month. politics at its very worst. Longhorns in alumni game. releases sophomore LP. dailytexanonline.com ONLINE PAGE 4 PAGE 6 PAGE 8 PAGE 7 2 2 Monday, February 8, 2016 NEWS FRAMES FEATURED PHOTO thedailytexan Volume 116, Issue 95 CONTACT US Main Telephone (512) 471-4591 Editor-in-Chief Claire Smith (512) 232-2212 [email protected] Managing Editor Amy Zhang (512) 232-2217 managingeditor@ dailytexanonline.com News Office (512) 232-2207 [email protected] Sports Office (512) 232-2210 [email protected] Life & Arts Office (512) 232-2209 lifeandarts@dailytexanon- line.com Multimedia Office (512) 471-7835 multimedia@ dailytexanonline.com Retail Advertising (512) 471-1865 advertise@texasstudentme- Zoe Fu | Daily Texan Staff dia.com Hendrix, 3, holds Genie, a two-month-old border collie mix, under the supervision of volunteer Joann Cass at the ninth annual Puppy Bowl hosted by the Austin Humane Society on Saturday. The Puppy Bowl is a Super Bowl-themed free adoption event. Classified Advertising (512) 471-5244 classifieds@ dailytexanonline.com stages, but hopes to have the exact cost for his plan, but rates on student loans and DIRECTORY opt-in policy implemented by LOANS his advisors have said it will create an income-based re- continues from page 1 continues from page 1 the beginning of next school not increase spending, ac- payment program, accord- The Texan strives to present In an attempt to further year.