Friday
November 7, 2003
©2003 The Michigan Daily
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Vol. CXIII, No. 47

--- 9;1! as" J4

One-hundred-thirteen years ofeditorialfreedom

TODAY:
Skies will be
sunny and
clear, with
winds com-
ing from the
west.

,r
Tomorrow:
38125

wwwmichigandailycom


2 council
honors
outgoing
member

Taubman defends his
innocence after release

Councilwoman Heidi
Herrell bids farewell after
eight years of service
By Mona Rafeeq
Daily Staff Reporter
The Ann Arbor City Council
began preparing for the departure of
a retiring council member two days
after students and Ann Arbor resi-
dents reelected four out of four
incumbents as their City Council
members.
State Rep. Chris Kolb (D-Ann
Arbor) attended last night's City
Council meeting to present a cer-
tificate of recognition to Democrat-
ic Councilwoman Heidi Cowing
Herrell of Ann Arbor's 3rd Ward.
"Heidi Herrell has been truly dedi-
cated to the welfare of the residents of
the 3rd Ward ... regardless of their
income level and the neighborhood in
which they live," Kolb said.
He added that during her time as
a councilwoman, Herrell has been a
strong advocate of environmental
protection and animal rights and
services.
"She has been putting in time for
the past eight years - most of us
couldn't conceive how much time
- for her ward constituents and for
the rest of the residents of Ann
Arbor," Kolb said.
Kolb and Gov. Jennifer Granholm
signed the certificate of recognition.
Herrell has served four two-year
terms on City Council.
Leigh Greden, who won the 3rd
Ward election with 73 percent of
the vote, will replace Herrell.
Greden, a Democrat, will be the
only new face on Monday at the
swearing-in ceremony of the new
City Council.
He will attend his first City
Council meeting as part of the
group on Monday, Nov. 17.
In each of the other four wards,
incumbents Robert Johnson,
Michael Reid, Marcia Higgins and
Wendy Woods were reelected to
their positions for another two
years.
Ann Arbor is composed of five
wards and each of these wards is
represented by two council mem-
bers. One half of the council is
elected in annual elections and each
member serves two-year terms.
The city's mayor provides the
11th vote.
Also at last night's meeting, Ann
Arbor resident Chandra Mont-
gomery Nicol addressed the City
Council by expressing her gratitude
that a proposal for the expansion of
the Washtenaw-Hill Historic Dis-
trict had been removed from the
agenda.
Nicol said homeowners and mem-
bers of University fraternity and
sorority houses are concerned about
the expansion because it could
potentially threaten affordable hous-
ing in the city by increasing hous-
ing costs.
"There are only 29 property own-
ers in the city who favor an expan-
sion of the historic district and so
the rest of us urge you all to discon-
tinue any expansion of the Washte-
naw-Hill Historic District," Nicol
said.

By Jeremy Berkowitz
Daily StaffReporter
Real estate developer A. Alfred Taubman,
namesake of the College of Architecture and
Urban Planning, still proclaims his inno-
cence.
"I've never broken the law," Taubman said yes-
terday at a real estate forum in the Michigan
League, adding that he believes he was wrongly
convicted of price fixing due to his notoriety. "I
was a trophy."
In December 2001, a U.S. District Court jury in
New York found Taubman guilty of price fixing
while he was chairman of the New York-based
Sotheby's auction house. Evidence showed that
Taubman collaborated with Anthony Tennant,
chairman of rival Christie's auction house, and the
two made more than $400 million in commissions

during a six-year period. In April 2002, a judge
sentenced Taubman to one year at a federal prison
in Rochester, Minn.
Taubman, who was released in June, said his
activities in prison included reading, exercising
and playing a lot of bridge. But, he said, the expe-
rience did not change his views of the world. He
added that he offered the University the opportu-
nity to remove his name from the Medical Library
and CAUP
"They refused to do so ... they believed in
me," Taubman said. He did not respond to a
question about whether he owes University
alumni an apology.
In his first public address since being released
from prison, Taubman was the keynote speaker at
the University of Michigan Urban Land Institute
Forum yesterday. He spoke mainly about the his-
toric development of Detroit, factors that led to

the decline of the city during the 20th century and
the importance of Detroit riverfront revitalization
in the future.
He said that from the beginning, the Detroit
River created a boundary for communities to
grow. In the early 20th century, the invention of
the car and the building of concrete roads
allowed people easier access to towns outside
the city.
"You could live in the suburbs and work in
the city without depending upon public trans-
portation," Taubman said.
The automobile industry's dominance of work-
ers prevented other businesses including insur-
ance companies and banks from flourishing in
Detroit, he added.
He said middle-class flight to the suburbs creat-
ed the problems leading to the 1967 Detroit racial
See TAUBMAN, Page 3

JEFF LEHNERT/Daily
Alfred Taubman, real estate developer and University
donor, speaks at the Michigan League yesterday.


Close encounters of the toad kind

'U' center finds
gene for stem-
cell renewal
By Jameel Naqvl
Daily Staff Reporter
The University's Comprehensive Cancer Center has isolated
a gene responsible for stem-cell growth, which is used to
regenerate damaged tissues. The study found that the gene,
known as Bmi-1, is required for self-renewal, or replication, in
stem cells of the central and peripheral nervous systems.
"It was important to find the mechanism by which stem
cells can survive into adulthood," said Ricardo Pardal, a co-
author of the study published last month.
"We found a gene involved in maintenance of stem cells
into adulthood," he said.
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, he said, which means
they can differentiate into neurons, red blood cells or any other
type of tissue. In contrast, adult stem cells are tissue specific
- neural stem cells only differentiate into neural cells,
hematopoietic stem cells only turn into red blood cells and so
on for each population of stem cells. "We need stem cells
because differentiated cells have short lives," said Pardal, a
post-doctoral medical student. Adults would die without stem
cell proliferation to supplement normal cellular replication.
The Bmi-1 gene was singled out for testing because it is
known to be a proto-onco gene that can be used to culture
tumors, Pardal said. Cancers of the blood are provoked by the
hyper-proliferation of stem cells, he said. Pardal hypothesizes
that the overexpression of the Bmi-1 gene could be the reason
for metastasis in some cancers.
"Bmi-1 came to our attention because of a prior study that
found that Bmi-1 is necessary for hematopoietic stem cells to
form red blood cells" Anna Molofsky, a co-author of the study
and medical student, said. "So far, we and our colleagues have
studied three important types of adult stem cells and Bmi-1
appears to work similarly in every case," said Medical School
Prof. Sean Morrison in a written statement. Morrison con-
ceived the follow-up study, after having authored the first
study, added, "This raises the intriguing possibility that Bmi-1
could be a universal regulator controlling self-renewal in all
adult stem cells."
Unlike differentiated cells, stem cells seem to require Bmi-
1 to replicate. Morrison said his research "raises the possibil-
ity that inappropriate activation or over-expression of Bmi-1
in stem cells could lead to uncontrolled growth and cancer."
This study has important consequences for cancer patients and
sufferers of neurodegenerative diseases.
"There are big implications for any therapeutic use of stem
cells" Pardal said. We can use this gene to expand the stem
cell pool, he added. "People are excited about the possibility of
regenerative growth in the neural cells of patients with neural
diseases," Molofsky said.
Though much media attention has focused on the possible
uses of stem cells for neural diseases, stem-cell research
could also develop new cancer therapies.
"A lot of genes that regulate stem cells regulate cancer,"
Molofsky said. "This study reinforces the notion that stem
See STEM CELLS, Page 3

J.J. Marron, a fifth-grade student at Logan Elementary School, eyes a toad brou
program, yesterday.

Video lectures assist professors, may
boost students' grades, attendance

By David Branson
Daily Staf Reporter
Driven by the need to save time and money, university professors
across the nation are looking for ways to adapt the educational process
with new resources. Technologies such as video lectures and Internet
broadcasts are making traditional lectures more accessible to students.
One of the newest technological developments at the University is
Physics 522/644, a graduate-level course in advanced atomic physics. The
class is taught in tandem by physics Profs. Chris Monroe and Daniel
Heinzen of the University of Texas in Austin. The class meets twice a
week in Austin and Ann Arbor, and both professors teach once a week.
The class is delivered through the Frontiers in Optical Coherent and
Ultrafast Science program and is broadcasted over the Internet. When
Monroe teaches in Ann Arbor, the lecture is broadcast to the students in
Austin and the same method applies whenHeinzen'teaches from Austin.
By jointly teaching this class, Monroe and Heinzen's students learn the
information in a broader and more diverse process.
Cedric Fricke, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan's
Dearborn campus, used video lectures for his finance and business fore-
casting courses as early as 1979. Fricke began teaching with video after a
colleague received a grant for a television camera. "I went to the dean and
told him that with video, I could teach five sections instead of three and

"What I did in my day was archaic, and
with the new technology today, you
could not only cut tuition but save
taxpayers' money.'
- Cedric Fricke
Professor emeritus
generate twice as much student credit hours as other faculty, and do it in
one day a week," Fricke said.
"What I did in my day was archaic, and with the new technology today,
you could not only cut tuition costs but save taxpayers' money," Fricke
said. "The time that students and faculty would save means a lot for the
higher education budget in the state of Michigan. No one cares that we
are wasting $200 million a year."
Fricke seeks to implement the alternative teaching system he used in
the past but with the modern technology. "With my system, the material
was more organized and compact, and increased the output 25-40 per-
cent, we also were able to present the same material to twice as many stu-
See LECTURES, Page 2

Student groups unite, protest behind
model of Israeli security wall on Dial

39

By Carmen Johnson
Daily Staff Reporter
Members of Students Allied for Free-
dom and Equality stood next to a fake
wall placed on the Diag yesterday protest-
ing Israel's construction of barriers that
cut through the West Bank. Meanwhile, on
the other side of the Diag, pro-Israel stu-
dents urged passersby to buy blue Israeli
"solidarity" T-shirts.
The "wall of segregation" display was
part of a national effort to educate the
public about on the wall separating the
West Bank - which critics say is a land
1,...- L-4- -. 4- - -r., ..,- -.- - r I

"The wall is segregating and isolating
the people in the West Bank who have to
go through security checks if they want to
pass," said Husseini.
Last month, the United Nations General
Assembly approved a non-legally binding
resolution demanding that Israel halt con-
struction of the wall that Israeli officials
said keeps out suicide bombers.
A day later, Israeli officials said the
fence would stay up.
The construction of the wall has created
tension between pro-Israeli and pro-Pales-
tinian student organizations -, like the
opposing voices on the Diag yesterday -

attempt to bring together students in dia-
logue, said organizer Abby Hauslohner.
"We don't want to polarize groups on
campus," Hauslohner said, standing near
the protest wall.
"We try to reach an understanding for
both sides and bring together people with
their own perspectives."
The group's members are against the
Israeli occupation, but support Israel's
right to exist and advocate a non-violent
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
Hauslohner said.
Yael Granader, a Progressive Israeli
Alliance member, said the tension


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