Students, staff and faculty are invited to join speakers from across the state and nation today during the university's first diversity celebration, UA Discusses Diversity.

Workshops, films and guest speakers are meant "to demonstrate, clearly, from the first moment of the year, the importance of diversity at the UA," a press release said.

UA Discusses Diversity is meant to be the kick-off to a yearlong effort to emphasize diversity on campus. [Read article]

Popular U-Lock can be opened with Bic pens

Cunning bicycle thieves who already have an effortless time stealing bicycles have found a new way to snatch their next prized two-wheeler with a ballpoint pen in less than 10 seconds.

The New York Times reported last week that ballpoint pens can be used to open Kryptonite U-locks by putting the hollowed pen into the keyhole and turning it like a key. The pen-pick can be carried out in a matter of seconds, the New York Times reported. [Read article]

Controversial director, writer and political activist Michael Moore will speak to UA students Oct. 11 at McKale Center.

Moore is coming to campus to address the upcoming election and offer his point of view, said Fernando Ascencio, ASUA Speakers Board director. He is coming to campus through a speaker series put on by the ASUA Speakers Board.

Ascencio, a political science senior, said he knows Moore's appearance will cause controversy on campus, but said ASUA is not endorsing Moore or his ideas. They are only bringing him to campus for students to hear and educate themselves on what he has to say. [Read article]

Snake bit Campus Life VP on toe as she took out the trash at her Starr Pass home

A UA administrator returned to work last week after being hospitalized for a rattlesnake bite.

Saundra Taylor, senior vice president of campus life, was bitten on her toe Sept. 3 as she was taking out her garbage at her home in Starr Pass.

Taylor was wheeling the big plastic garbage can down her driveway, in sandals, at about 9:15 p.m. when she suddenly felt an intense pain in her foot. [Read article]

About 90 student ambassadors put on UA payroll for giving campus tours

For more than two decades, Arizona Ambassadors has been strictly a volunteer organization, giving tours of the UA campus to college prospects and their parents, with not much more than moral satisfaction as compensation.

No longer.

With the start of the fall 2004 semester, the Arizona Ambassadors were put on the university's payroll, said Keith Humphrey, senior assistant director of admissions. [Read article]

After conducting a yearlong study in California, a team of UA geologists has new information about how mountains are formed, and says this knowledge could help scientists predict when and where volcanic eruptions will occur.

Published in the Sept. 2 issue of Nature magazine, the findings explain the disappearance of Moho, the role of "the drip" and what it all means for volcanoes.

The Moho, or Mohorovicic Discontinuity, is a boundary surface 10 to 70 kilometers beneath the ocean floor that separates the Earth's crust from the underlying mantle. [Read article]

Things you always never wanted to know