Student newSpaper of the univerSity of Southern California SinCe 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | vol. 180, no. 20 | tuesday september 24, 2013
InDEX 4 · Opinion 5 · Lifestyle 8 · Classifieds 9 · Crossword 12 · Sports
Who asked you?: McMillan tells
stories set in South l.a. PAGE 5
Halted: the men’s water polo
team’s streak ends. PAGE 12
SCienCe
by kylie morgan
daily trojan
The USC Jet Propulsion
Laboratory failed to achieve its
goal to be the first university
group to reach space at the BALLS
convention when its rocket,
named Traveler, exploded after
launch on Friday.
The group said that although
they haven’t yet had a successful
launch, they have made extensive
progress for an undergraduate
team.
“We made it further than any
student group has ever made it in
this process,” said Sarah Cusson,
a senior majoring in astronautical
engineering who works in launch
operations in the rocket lab.
The group plans to launch the
rocket again the weekend of Oct.
18 to 20.
Cusson said the rocket’s launch
made the USC Jet Propulsion
Laboratory the first student
group to be granted the clearance
to potentially launch a rocket into
space, as well as the first student
group to launch a potentially
space-bound rocket from the
launch pad.
The motor of the rocket
exploded, ripping the rocket
in two when the combustion
chamber was over-pressurized.
The rocket lab was able to recover
almost the entire vehicle, however,
and easily determine what needed
to be fixed, after the launch.
The group said they will remain
positive despite the setback.
“In a failure, you tend to learn
more than you do in a success,”
said Head of Operations and
Global Design Jordan Noone, a
senior majoring in aerospace
engineering and biophysics.
For example, Noone said they
observed interesting things
within the motor that are visible
when it stops running mid-f light,
but generally not visible before or
after the f light.
Though the premature
vehicle separation prevented
the group from testing their
recovery systems, Jordan Raice,
a senior majoring in aerospace
engineering, said he is excited to
test the “burrito,” a contraption
designed to allow the rocket
to descend from space quickly
without causing it to break to
pieces when it hits the ground, in
the next launch.
Raice is the recovery team
lead and said the “burrito” is
a device that involves a small
parachute that allows the rocket
to come down quickly from space
and a larger parachute (initially
wrapped up like a burrito, hence
the nickname) to be released at
5,000 feet, allowing the rocket to
safely land.
The rocket lab has not
designed rockets intended for
USC Rocket Lab fails to
launch rocket into space
Students plan to fix, improve
and relaunch the rocket the
weekend of Oct. 18 to 20.
| see rockEt, page 3 |
by gaby vidal
daily trojan
Members of the USC medical
community came together on
Monday at Mayer Hall on the
Health Sciences Campus to
listen to Dr. Fernando Antelo
discuss the medical aspects of the
artwork of Frida Kahlo as part of
Hispanic Heritage Month.
The event, hosted by the Latino
Medical Student Association,
incorporated music and an
authentic Mexican lunch into the
discussion of Kahlo’s paintings,
which allowed attendees to view
medicine through a more cultural
lens.
“Monica [Melgar], our co-chair,
really wanted to have an event that
wasn’t just about medicine,”
said Susana Sandoval, a second
year medical student and the
secretary of LMSA. “She didn’t
want a medical talk. She wanted
to incorporate some art, some
Latino art.”
Antelo, a forensic pathology
fellow at the Los Angeles County
Department of Coroner, has
conducted similar cultural and
scientific presentations in several
parts of the state, including at
UCLA and UC San Diego.
Antelo attended Loyola High
School in Los Angeles, received his
bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley,
earned his medical degree at
the Olive View University of
California Medical Education
Program and then completed his
residency training in anatomic
and clinical pathology at Harbor
UCLA Medical Center.
Throughout his presentation,
Antelo developed a sense of
understanding science through
artwork by going through
the different body parts that
Expert discusses Frida Kahlo’s influence in science
Forensic pathology fellow Dr.
Fernando Antelo spoke of
Frida Kahlo’s art as science.
| see kAhlo, page 3 |
ConverSation
ralf cheung | Daily Trojan
Scientific art· Dr. Fernando Antelo lectures students and faculty on
the incorporation of science and medicine in artist Frida Kahlo’s work.
reSearCh
by alana victor
daily trojan
USC scientists in the Keck
School of Medicine Department
of Preventative Medicine were one
of 14 groups that received funding
to research smoking in vulnerable
populations, according to the Keck
School of Medicine.
The $20 million grant was
given to allow the USC researchers
to participate in a first-of-its-kind
regulatory science tobacco
program that will use the grant
over five years to establish one of
14 Tobacco Centers of Regulatory
Science. The funding is provided by
the Food and Drug Administration
and through the National Institutes
of Health.
The leading investigators on the
project for USC are Dr. Jonathan
Samet, professor and chair of
preventive medicine, and Mary
Ann Pentz, professor of preventive
medicine and director of the
Institute for Prevention Research
at the Keck School of Medicine.
“There are certain things that the
FDA needs to deal with under the
laws, and they need the scientific
basis for doing that,” Samet said.
“What we do and what others do
might be the basis for regulations.
It might be the basis for public
health campaigns. It might be the
basis for thinking about how to
control advertising on the Internet
related to tobacco use.”
The program will research seven
different aspects of smoking, from
the marketing of tobacco products
to the reduction of toxicity and
carcinogenicity.
“The grant involves not only
the School of Medicine, but
USC scientists receive grant
to study effects of smoking
USC’s Keck School of Medicine
was granted $20 million to
research the use of tobacco.
| see SmokInG, page 2 |
photo illustration by nick entin
light ’em up · A USC student takes a break to smoke a cigarette across from Waite Phillips Hall on campus.
USC researchers received a grant from the Food and Drug Administration to research the effects of smoking.