The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, January 17, 2013 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS DETROIT U.S. transit chief to visit Detroit for major project U.S. Transportation Secre- tary Ray LaHood is coming to Detroit on Friday to make "a major funding announcement" that is expected to involve plans for a light rail system between the city's downtown and the cultural, medical and educational center a few miles north. LaHood's office said in a state- ment Wednesday that Mayor Dave Bing, U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow and others will be at Wayne State University to reveal details of a plan "that will significantly expand transit options in downtown Detroit." The U.S. Transportation Department didn't reveal details, but LaHood has been in talks for months with city, regional and state officials on their part of a deal to create a 3.3-mile light rail line that's expected to cost $137 million. * NEW YORK Study: Flu vaccine safe in pregnancy A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot. The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losinga fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more * likely, the Norwegian research showed. The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women dur- logsa flu pandemic in the late 1950s. ALGIERS, Algeria Foreigners held by Algerian militants In a desert standoff deep in the Sahara, the Algerian army * ringed a natural gas complex where Islamist militants hun- kered down with dozens of hos- tages Wednesday night after a rare attack that appeared to be the first violent shock wave from the French intervention in Mali. A militant group that clainied responsibility said 41 foreigners, including seven Americans, were being held after the assault on one of oil-rich Algeria's energy facili- ties, 800 miles from the capital of Algiers and 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the coast. Two foreigners were killed. -Compiled from Daily wire reports Reusable lunchboxes launch at'U' Pilot program funded by Coleman's sustainablity pledge and goals By ERIN FORSYTHE Daily StaffReporter It takes some out-of-the-box thinking to reinvent the lunch box. Now in its pilot phase, the Go Blue Box is an reusable, eco-friendly food container offered at the University Club in the Michigan Union as an alterna- tive to the ubiquitous white polystyrene take-out box. The program was created in November in an effort to reduce the waste created by dining services. The Go Blue Box requires users to register for the program and pay a $5 refundable deposit for a clamshell con- tainer. After diners are finished with their Go Blue Box, they can return it for their deposit or bring it back in exchange for a clean one the next time they visit the U-Club. The box itself is much more durable than the typical foam takeout box, last- ing for about 360 uses. The Go Blue Box is also BPA-free, dishwasher safe and microwavable. A reusable soup contain- er is also available for a $3 deposit. The pilot program was funded by a grant from the Planet Blue Student Inno- vation Fund and is led by Rich Grousset, Phel Meyer and Dave Yang, students of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise. According to Meyer, similar programs have been implemented at more than 200 universities across the country and experienced a fair amount of success. Meyer added that he was inspired by the work done on the project and grateful for the assistance the PBSIF grant has pro- vided. "(University President) Mary Sue Coleman made a big announcement (in 2011) setting some pretty ambitious sustainability goals and waste reduc- tion was one of them," Meyer said. "We thought this was a great opportunity to do something that's been tried at many other schools." "We wanted to do something similar but with a Michigan twist," he added. The PBSIF has been a vital source for many sustainability projects on campus, including bike air pumps in different locations across campus and a sustain- able food kiosk pilot program that ran last year in April. In 2011, Coleman pledged $50,000 per year for three years in order to promote projects that benefit the environment and encourage student involvement in sustainability projects. Undergraduates interested in campus sustainabilit.y also contributed to the program alongside graduate students. Through a course, "Sustainability and the Campus", students prepared a mar- keting campaign and designed operation aspects of the Go Blue Box project. Laura Seagram, the marketing and communications specialist for the Union, stressed the importance of the course in assisting with sustainability projects over the year. The class has also contributed to the .implementation of water bottle refill stations and to signage for the University's single-stream recy- cling program. LSA junior Maria Kim said she had done environmental work in Africa through civil and environmental engi- neering programs during summer 2012 and was interested in making a contri- bution on campus through the project- based environment course. "It was definitely a learning experi- ence of why it's important to keep things sustainable," Kim said. "What kept me going was wanting to see this happen in reality, because it's definitely the first one at our university, and it would be awesome (to contribute to) because Michigan is still moving toward becom- ing a more sustainable and environmen- tally friendly university." LSA junior Aaron Handley, another student in the course, said programs like the Go Blue Box benefit the participating restaurants themselves. "All of the logistic analysis that has been done on the containers we use shows that there was much less of an environment greenhouse footprint with the washing as opposed to the dispos- able Styrofoam containers that most people used," Handley said. "Something like this is cost saving and reduces the amount of waste each establishment produces." LSA sophomore Jason Liu hopes the Go Blue Box would become the standard take-out container, not just a unique innovation. "We looked at alot of different schools, (but) the University of Vermont was one of them that we looked at more specifi- cally," Liu said. Some of their programs had incentives for using it, so (patrons) got five or 10 cents back every time they used the containers." Currently, the Go Blue Box is only available at the University Club in the Union, but creators are hopeful that use will spread to other vendors on campus and generate interest from students. "The University Club wants students to come, and they're trying to advertise more to students that there's great din- ing options'available," Handley said. "And they take Blue Bucks, alot of people don't realize that." Meyer added that he is hopeful for the development of the Go Blue Box and feels the positive responses they have received are promising for the program's future. "Ultimately nobody likes creating waste necessarily, it just happens to be easier to take a disposable container back to your office and throw it away," Meyer said. "I think people really appre- ciate having an easy way to improve their behavior." University researcher leads archeological dig Excavation is in search of ancient settlement in African kingdom By RACHEL PREMACK Daily StaffReporter An ongoing archeological dig in Sudan conducted by a University researcher may unearth discoveries about an ancient Nubian city. Geoff Emberling, a research scientist at the University's Museum of Archeol- ogy, began the excavation on Jan. 2 and is workingwith several Sudanese professors. They are looking to find traces of settle- ments in El-Kurru, a 3,000 year-old politi- cal center in the African kingdom of Kush. Derek Peterson, professor of History and Afro-American and African Studies, said researching Kush settlements may transform the way scholars approach Afri- can history. Historically, scholars have struggled to connect ancient Egyptian civilization to the rest of Africa. "In the study of Kush we can begin to understand the routes by which ideas, commodities, symbols and people moved from north to south and back again, draw- ing Egypt into a close relationship with the rest of ancient Africa," Peterson said. El-Kurru's pyramids and burial grounds were excavated inthe early2oth centuryby American archaeologist George Reisner. Emberling said Reisner's notes indicate that structures, including a 200 meter- long wall, a rock-cut well and two temples, did exist, though Reisner did not excavate them. The structures are invisible today, likely due to unusually high flooding ofthe Nile River during the 1980s. Emberling's fieldwork is sponsored by the National Geographic Society and Kath- leen Picken, a private donor from Chicago. National Geographic requires Ember- lingto maintain ablogabout his dig, detail- ing his ongoing discoveries and daily life. Emberling has made five trips to Sudan, beginning in 2007 after a dam was planned to be built in the Nile that would have flooded 100 miles of the river valley. If archeologists hadn't intervened, Suda- nese artifacts would have been lost. "It was an international effort," Ember- ling said. "You would think that there are no foreigners here, but it's actually a boom time to archaeology in Sudan." Thankfully, the Sudanese government is allowing archaeologists to bring back objects they discover. "It's rare to have material to look at and bringback," Emberling said. "They're enti- tIed to keep everything. Sudan has been very generous in that way." Due to a 20-year-old international sanc- tion, Emberling was required to appeal to the U.S. government for his projects, prov- ing his reasons to work in Sudan were not' related to terrorism. Emberling said he didn't hear back from the U.S. Depart- ments of State, Treasury and Commerce for over a year. He noted that he also had some difficul- ties oftraveling around Sudan. "Sudan's infrastructure of roads are only very recently up to modern standards," Emberlingsaid. "Just in the five years since I first came to Sudan they've completed bridges and roads." New archaeology technologies in Sudan parallel its infrastructure. Subsurface methods like magnetometry, which records variations in the magnetic field resulting from objects up to15 feet underground, are new in Sudan, despite their prevalence else- where. "Some of the satellite image analysis is quite sophisticated," Emberling said. "But other parts of our toolkit are really old school: shovels and wheelbarrows, paper and pencil, and tape measure and ruler. At some point we might be all-digital, but we're not there yet." Another tool is as "old school" as it gets: tales from the townspeople. Emberling said though they may seem farfetched, the sto- ries sometimes point to new discoveries. Tradition and technology work in tandem in Emberling's fieldwork. A resi- dent pointed out to Emberling where he thought the city wall and the royal bath might be. A magnetometry survey con- ducted by Emberling's colleague, Salah el Din Mohammed, confirmed there was in fact an ancient building in the location where villagers recalled the royal bath's location. Emberling noted the peculiarity of try- ing to discover an ancient city in a still- inhabited village like El-Kurru. "It's funny digging in a living village. I spent the day digging through a modern garbage pit through razor blades, plastic bags, batteries," Emberling said. "It wasn't pleasantbut it had to be done." Emberling said he will return to Ann Arbor by the end of February after the six- week diggingseason. If his fieldwork yields results, he will plan for a trip next year to investigate findings morethoroughly. "For me to have agood season - and it's looking pretty good - I would have to locate several ofthese monumental remains, and I would have to dig all the way to the bottom ofthem, so I'll know what I'mup against for next year," Emberling said. . Historians, too, are eager to see what Emberling and the 30-some other arche- ologists laboring in Sudan will find. Find- ings of Kush culture proposes that ancient Africa is more complex than previously imagined. "Thanks to the work of archaeologists like Dr. Emberling, we're learning that the story is actually much more compli- cated," Peterson said. "Kush's culture, religion and politics were not simply derived from Egypt." WATCH OUR NEW VIDEO SHOW AT MICHIGANDAILY.COM Every Thursday on This Week at the Daily, we'll bring you the "story behind the story" in interviews with our reporters and important campus sources.