Students, Tucsonans march from Old Main

About 200 people gathered at the UA Old Main fountain yesterday afternoon to walk in an inauguration day protest march downtown to a rally at the Federal Building.

UA students and Tucson citizens of all ages convened at the fountain at 3:30 p.m. wielding noisemakers, megaphones and signs in protest of President Bush's swearing-in ceremony.

Several UAPD officers stood atop the Old Main building overseeing the crowd before they began walking east on University Boulevard, leaving the campus at around 4:15 p.m. [Read article]

A government study reported the number of sexually active women using birth control is on the decline, but Campus Health officials say they have not seen evidence of such a decline on campus, where oral contraceptives account for nearly half of all prescriptions filled.

Campus Health Service fills 200 to 250 birth control prescriptions each day, making oral contraceptives 47 percent of all prescriptions filled, said Jana Knutson, a Campus Health pharmacist. [Read article]

A play center for children opened last month in an effort to make the UA more student-parent friendly.

Kidz Korner, located on the fourth floor of the Student Union Memorial Center in the Commuter Student Lounge, is a modest-sized play area for children to entertain themselves while their parents study.

However, children must be supervised by a parent or guardian while they play, said Heather Gasser, senior coordinator for Commuter Student Affairs. [Read article]

A contract with the UA's Steward Observatory Mirror Lab will help astronomers scan the sky for substantial asteroids possibly headed on a collision course with Earth.

A $2.3 million contract with the mirror lab will pay for the 8.4-meter diameter main mirror for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

Philip Pinto, a UA associate professor of astronomy and member of the LSST board of directors, said the LSST is unique when compared to other telescopes because it uses wide-angle format rather than the traditional format used in telescopes. [Read article]

Doctors will now be able to save the lives of people in rural Arizona hospitals with virtual assistance from University Medical Center surgeons thanks to "teletrauma," a newly implemented videoconferencing software system.

UMC installed the two-way audio and video system in November, connecting a computer in a small room of the trauma ward with a computer in the emergency room at Southern Arizona Medical Center in Douglas, 120 miles southeast of Tucson, on the Arizona-Mexico border. [Read article]

The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity is being denied university recognition by its homeowners association after receiving several noise complaints from neighbors.

The West University Neighborhood Association is denying the fraternity, 545 E. University Blvd., recognition after homeowners like Vince LaMotta, an anthropology doctoral student, said the fraternity makes a lot of noise and causes parking problems. [Read article]

Representatives from facilities management and the College of Engineering presented a $15,000 donation check to an engineering endowment yesterday, to honor engineering students.

The check, donated by the Association for Facilities Engineering, went into the Walt Willis Memorial Fund, an endowment created to support students studying engineering on campus. One student in the field of engineering, preferably electrical and mechanical receives the scholarship each year, said Al Tarcola, director of Facilities Management. [Read article]

Things you always never wanted to know