University System News:

Marietta Daily Journal

Kennesaw State research team looks to expand mushroom production range

Demand for culinary mushrooms in Georgia and the wider region is far higher than supply, leaving both home cooks and chefs wanting. Mushroom-growing technology developed at Kennesaw State University could be poised to change that. “There is about an eight times greater demand for mushrooms than the supply available in the Southeast, so there is definitely room for a market here in Georgia,” said KSU researcher Kyle Gabriel. “Our research seeks to help local growers meet that demand.” KSU’s lead researcher on mushroom production, Chris Cornelison, and his team recently received funding from the Georgia Department of Agriculture to bring automated mushroom production technology to four mushroom growers in Dahlonega, Dalton, Ellijay and Gainesville. The $102,000, three-year award comes from the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, coordinated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to boost competitiveness of specialty agricultural products, such as culinary mushrooms, across the nation.

Middle Georgia CEO

Longleaf Pine A Natural Treasure For Middle Georgia State University

Along outer edges of the Macon and Cochran campuses of Middle Georgia State University (MGA), the tree that once dominated the South is making a comeback. Stands of longleaf pine the University planted just over a decade ago tower above 40 acres of the Cochran Campus near NeSmith Field, where the Knights play their home soccer and club football games. On the Macon Campus’s far west end, in areas also totaling about 40 acres, the almost perfectly straight trees bound portions of the Georgia Premier cross-country course. …But MGA also is reaping economic and ecological benefits. This fall, the trees on the Macon Campus finally reached the stage of maturity where the University could collect the fallen pine needles and use them in landscaping. A contractor raked 10,000 bales of pine straw, sometimes called “brown gold,” to use in landscaping on most of the University’s five campuses.

Health IT Analytics

Artificial Intelligence Works To Identify How Diseases Alter The Body

Using an artificial intelligence approach, researchers analyzed study cells to understand how diseases impact the body.

By Erin McNemar, MPA

With artificial intelligence, researchers have developed a method for providing insight into how diseases or injuries change the body, down to individual cells. The imaging tool known as TDAExplore uses topology and AI to study how cells alter during illness and where in the cell changes are happening, according to Eric Vitriol, PhD, cell biologist and neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia.

Johnson City Press

UGA scientists lead efforts to understand, correct animal-to-human disease spillover

In the latter months of 2019, a novel coronavirus probably leaped from a yet-unknown animal in central China into a human. Some speculate that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. But evidence suggests that it’s far more likely that the virus was a natural “zoonotic” leap from animal to human. The resulting COVID-19 pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, including more than 23,000 Georgians, and mutated into dangerous new variants. For decades, UGA researchers have been examining the phenomenon of zoonotic spillover — the complex conditions that allow opportunistic animal diseases to infect us. Some spillovers, such as the common cold, cause mild effects. But others can be deadly: plague, rabies, AIDS/HIV and Ebola. Each year, a zoonotic disease — an influenza A virus strain — kills about 1,400 Georgians on average and hospitalizes many more.

The Augusta Chronicle

Augusta better prepared for COVID-19 variants, but vaccination, boosters needed

Tom Corwin

Even before it arrives, Augusta is prepared for the Omicron variant of COVID-19, health officials said. In the meantime, get vaccinated or get a booster shot, they said. The new variant first identified earlier this month in South Africa is not in Augusta but the labs will be able to once it arrives, said Dr. Ravindra Kolhe, director of the Georgia Esoteric and Molecular Laboratory at Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

WFXG

“No reason to panic” health officials say with spread of new COVID-19 variant

By Eliza Kruczynski

Scientists in South African reported they have discovered a new COVID-19 variant “Omicron.” U.S. health officials are doubling down on their fight against the variant. FOX54 spoke with Dr. Rodger MacArthur with the Medical College of Georgia, who says this is not startling news. He says when there is a virus, there will be mutations that come along with it, but the U.S. is bracing for Omicron. “We don’t know how widespread this variant is going to be,” says MacArthur. The new week brings new concern among citizens around the world, as the new variant makes its way around the globe. However, Dr. MacArthur says there is no reason to panic.

Georgia Trend

Political Notes: Ups, Downs, and In-betweens

Former Savannah mayor wins special election, former Georgia Supreme Court chief justice goes to law school, remembering Max Cleland and more.

by Susan Percy

…Melton Returns to School: Harold Melton, former chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, has been named to the Carl E. Sanders Chair in Public Leadership at the University of Georgia (UGA) School of Law, where he received his law degree. He will teach a seminar in the spring semester. Melton joined the state Supreme Court in 2005 and served as chief justice from 2018 until he stepped down this year. … USG Foundation Award: Gov. Kemp received the Eldridge McMillan Lifetime Achievement Award from the University System of Georgia Foundation in recognition of his service to public education. It is the foundation’s highest award. Alford Pleads Guilty: A former member of the USG Board of Regents, Clarence Dean Alford, pleaded guilty to racketeering, according to the state attorney general’s office. Alford was sentenced by Chief Superior Court Judge Robert F. Mumford to 15 years and will serve eight years in prison and the rest on probation, during which time he may not do any business with the state.

WSB-TV (Video)

UGA students say mold in 60-year-old dorms making them chronically sick

Fox5 Atlanta

GGC criminal justice professor busted for felony shoplifting

By Randy Travis

An unlikely shoplifting suspect faces multiple counts. Gwinnett County Police booked Dr. Bruce Carroll on shoplifting charges on November 22. He is a longtime professor of criminal justice at Georgia Gwinnett College.

Other News:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Map: Coronavirus deaths and cases in Georgia (updated Nov. 29)

An updated count of coronavirus deaths and cases reported across the state

CONFIRMED CASES: 1,284,354

CONFIRMED DEATHS: 25,704 | This figure does not include additional cases that the DPH reports as suspected COVID-19-related deaths. County is determined by the patient’s residence, when known, not by where they were treated.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia on alert as omicron variant spreads around the globe

By Ariel Hart, Helena Oliviero

The Georgia Department of Public Health is on high alert, scanning for a new potentially more contagious variant of COVID-19 that has begun spreading around the globe. Public health workers are using sophisticated machines acquired in the pandemic to perform genetic sequencing on samples from COVID patients looking for the variant, called omicron. Private labs too, which handle the majority of COVID testing and sequencing now performed, are also on the lookout and will report their findings to the state. DPH spokeswoman Nancy Nydam said each week labs sequence hundreds of samples from the state, but none have yet shown the variant, which leapt to international attention last week. With COVID-19 cases beginning to rise again in Georgia, testing and case numbers will too, as will the number of specimens sequenced.

11Alive

Grappling with the omicron variant | Doctors urge Georgians to get vaccinated

Georgia doctors believe current vaccines will be effective.

Author: Doug Richards

Doctors in Georgia said they are concerned about the new coronavirus variant named omicron. However, they are also hopeful that steps already taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will be effective with the variant. What’s unclear is whether the omicron variant will be more communicable or more lethal than delta or other variants of the coronavirus. Dr. Carlos del Rio at Emory University believes people who are fully vaccinated and who have gotten booster shots will be able to withstand the new variant. … Doctors are stressing that the best way to fight the variant is to get vaccinated or get a booster shot.

WSAV

Georgia AG hopes for hearing after judge blocks Biden vaccine rule in other states

by: Molly Curley

A federal court on Monday halted the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for health care workers in 10 states. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who spearheaded the lawsuit, said the ruling “pushes back on the overreach of power” by those who are “using the coronavirus as a tool” for control over people. Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming — all states with either a Republican attorney general or governor — joined Missouri in what was the first legal challenge against the vaccine requirement. Similar lawsuits are still pending in other states, including one backed by the attorney generals in Georgia and South Carolina. In a tweet Monday, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said the Missouri court’s decision is proof the president’s vaccine mandates “are unlawful.”

Higher Education News:

Inside Higher Ed

Cal State Adopts Plan to Re-Enroll Students

By Sara Weissman

The California State University system is embarking on a systemwide campaign to re-enroll students ahead of the spring semester, EdSource reported. Chancellor Joseph Castro announced that the system would renew efforts to re-engage and re-enroll students by replicating across all its campuses a pilot program launched at San Francisco State University. The university emailed about 300 students who stopped out after fall 2019 to encourage them to re-enroll. Financial aid advisers also contacted the students who had outstanding balances about possible waivers or payment plans. About 60 students decided to return through the program. The systemwide push is part of a four-year initiative to improve the Cal State system’s graduation rates.

Diverse Issues in Higher Education

ETS Releases New Online Praxis Test Prep Resource

Jon Edelman

For many college and graduate students hoping to become K-12 teachers, Praxis tests are among their most formidable obstacles. Administered by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), these examinations in pedagogy and subject content are typically required for licensure in 47 states and sometimes take numerous attempts for aspiring teachers to pass. But ETS recently announced a potential remedy: Praxis Learning Paths, an online asynchronous test prep program. Developed in partnership with University Instructors (UI), a company that recruits and tutors teaching candidates, Praxis Learning Paths is structured and organized similarly to many of the courses available on Khan Academy. It begins with a diagnostic test that allows the content to be personalized to the user’s strengths and weaknesses, and features skill checks, unit tests, and a full-length timed practice test to guide the user further.