Through a back door at UMC sits a drugstore-sized laboratory cluttered with computers, microscopes and centrifuges. Technologists hunched over the equipment examine blood samples and interpret computer printouts. Their task: making sure patients are diagnosed and treated properly.

If you're being treated at the hospital, you won't see the lab or these technologists. But if you've had blood drawn, a urine sample taken or other tests run, they may figure out what's wrong with you. [Read article]

Tuition hikes, activity fee necessary for better UA

It's a basic economics lesson: There's no such thing as a free lunch.

And that lesson is the new UA mantra as student leaders tell their peers, "If you want your college experience to be all it can be, pay up."

It's a mentality change that's in stark contrast to how student leaders approached the idea of tuition and fees just a few years ago, Dean of Students Melissa Vito said. [Read article]

When Kellie Gonzalez came across a man lying in the middle of a Phoenix street on the night of June 14, 2003, she had no idea it would affect her entire first year in college.

Gonzalez, a pre-physiological sciences freshman, was a witness in the trial Tuesday that convicted Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien of leaving the scene of a fatal hit-and-run. O'Brien was head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, a position he no longer holds. [Read article]

PHOENIX - A bill criticized by UA health officials as costly and ineffective, as well as pandering to special interests, drew disapproval from some state lawmakers yesterday, but managed to pass committee by a single vote.

The bill mandates that state universities distribute information on the risks associated with meningococcal disease, or bacterial meningitis, and the effectiveness and availability of vaccines for the disease. The universities already distribute information voluntarily. [Read article]

Liberal arts struggle against corporate values

Corporate values that have invaded universities are harming the humanities, Walter Mignolo told a crowd of more than 50 people last night.

Mignolo, a professor of literature at Duke University, spoke at the Integrated Learning Center about a question organizers of the event called vital to the university community: What role does humanities play in the corporate university? [Read article]

Question: What does ASUA stand for?

"Uh ... Arizona State, uh, Arizona Senators ... University. I don't know."

"Um. Arizona Students Union Administration ... um ... I really don't know."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Cheerleaders do everything together, bicker like siblings and have really weird dreams

Hamilton: Are we on the spot? Oh my God, can this be a double interview? Please, please, please! We do everything together!

Wildcat: Well, I am Claire from the Daily Wildcat and I guess you're both on the spot. So tell me, what's the most difficult thing about cheerleading? [Read article]

Things you always never wanted to know

"I do not recommend drinking urine ... but if you drink water straight from the river, you have a greater chance of getting an infection than you do if you drink urine."

- Howard Dean, former presidential hopeful, on health in an eighth-grade science class in La Crosse, Wis.

"Dave Matthews Band costs about $100,000 and it's not like we're having 14 Dave Matthews concerts."

- Josh Shapiro, presidential candidate and economics junior, on the estimated $1.4 million that would be raised by the proposed $15 to $20 activity fee. [Read article]