Duke takes control against the Badgers to claim their fifth national championship

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Who says youth is wasted on the young? The Duke Freshman players certainly did not get that memo.

The team was led all season by who many believe is the consensus number one pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, Jahlil Okafor and point guard Tyus Jones, who was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. Tonight was no different. Tyus led the team late and though he was thoroughly outplayed all night by the Naismith Player of the Year, Frank Kaminsky, Okafor came up with key offensive rebounds and scores. The X factor and one of the main reasons the Blue Devils took home the hardware was freshman Grayson Allen, who finished with sixteen points. Duke was down by nine midway through the second half, and the freshman, who was a high school All-American, went on his own 8-0 run to get the Blue Devils momentum back into the game.

Frank “The Tank” Kaminsky was outstanding throughout the game, collecting twenty one points to go alongside twelve rebounds. He played great defense on Okafor and even got the big man into foul trouble early and often with his crafty footwork down in the paint. But the story of the game for both Kaminsky and the Badgers was the fact that they often passed on great shots, and for the most part, came up empty. Granted, that’s the style of play that got them to the dance, but Duke’s defense was too stifling all night for them to leave money on the table.

Duke’s defense early and late were essential for their success. They led the tournament in defensive efficiency and it showed tonight. They made Wisconsin, who are notorious for not turning the ball over, play their brand of offense early, which caused the Badgers to cough up the ball on three straight possessions. They ran the ball on transition off of those turnovers and got easy baskets. They made Wisconsin play even more conservatively than they would have liked late, bringing that aggressive ball pressure and jumping the passing lanes.

Coach K made sure to give Wisconsin their props in his post-game interview, stating that they beat a great team who was headed by a great coach. Tyus gave praise to his teammates and coaching staff for giving him the confidence to take over late, not just in this game but over the course of the season.

It will be very interesting to see how Duke is structured next season, with four of their starters projected to either go in the lottery or first round.

Article by Jalen Perry

“The Imitation Game”: Worthy of (Most Of) Its 8 Oscar Nominations

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“The Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kiera Knightly and Matthew Goode was released on DVD and Bluray on March 31. Having 8 Oscar nominations this year, the anticipation for this release was building, even among those that believe it should be known as “Oscar bait.” Having seen it, it was definitely deserving of quite a few of its nominations, but not all of them.

Writer Graham Moore won the award for best adapted screenplay for his adaptation of the novel by Andrew Hodges. Having not read the novel I can’t judge too harshly on the job of turning book into film, but as a film, even though it was amazing, I have a few qualms.

The story is of the life of the inventor of the first computer, a machine that was created to decode the German machine Engima, which would send cryptic messages so that they were the only ones who were able to understand them. With a film that is going to be about Turing’s life, I completely understand the need to have some back story into his personal life, but this film went too far into it.

It is essential to know, based upon how he committed suicide via cyanide in later life, that he was gay. I am proud to see that the film industry is finally acknowledging the contribution of the lesbian and gay community to the world in a positive way, which has been a rarity in the past. There are many gay people who are not recognized for what they have done for the world simply because they are gay, making this film revolutionary. I just don’t believe that a film about how Turing helped to change the world by saving an estimated 1.4 million lives with his machine needs to spend about 40 minutes on his sexual orientation. I fully believe that it is awful that he was persecuted in his later life for his homosexuality, but I would have liked to see more of the moral conflict of all of the characters in regards to the secrets and the choices that they needed to make during this time of war.

Benedict Cumberbatch did a phenomenal job in his role as a slightly socially awkward young man who is exceptionally smart. He is my personal second choice in the running for best actor of the year, second to Eddie Redmayne for his role in “The Theory of Everything.”

Kiera Knightly, however, raises some questions. First question being: why was she nominated for best “supporting” actress? She was the only actress in the entire film really. There were small roles played by a few other women, most of which were extras, but no other actresses. She may have supported Cumberbatch, but she was the only actress in the entirety of the film. So why not the best leading actress? After saying that, I do not feel she would win at all. With the actresses that were up for best actress, and best supporting actress for that matter, Knightly did very little in comparison. As per usual, she did a good enough job, but nothing spectacularly breakthrough such as Emma Stone from “Birdman” or Julianne Moore from “Still Alice” did. Not to pick on her, but Rosamund Pike doesn’t really deserve her nomination either. The pickings were slim this year in the actress realm.

All in all, the movie as a whole was great. I believe that it did deserve its nomination for best film of the year, and had it not been for “Birdman,” a film about the film industry itself, I would probably think that “The Imitation Game” might have won. It was completely worth a watch, and probably Cumberbatch’s best role yet.

Article by Krista Skweres

The Science of Maple Syrup

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“We get a little twitch in our shoulder when March comes around,” professes Dr. David Higgs. It’s maple syrup season! This past year, Biological Sciences Department’s botanists, Dr. David Higgs and Dr. David Rogers along with Vince Shaff and other faculty, staff and students launched a small project to try and harvest sap on Parkside’s campus in order to make maple syrup. On Wednesday, March 11, Higgs and Rogers shared their interesting work during Parkside’s Science Night with the surprising science behind maple syrup. With Rogers specializing in plant and forest ecology and Higgs in plant molecular biology and physiology, it made for a fascinating night.

The sap harvesting season usually starts in March. Higgs and Rogers have already distributed their sap siphons and buckets throughout the Greenquist trees. You may spot a few of their blue buckets hanging on the trees. They use a more traditional way of collecting the sap, using a siphon and hanging a small container on the tree and then transporting it to a cooker to make the syrup. While this traditional way still exists in some places, today it is more common to use piping systems, instead of the buckets, that move the sap by gravity flow or vacuum systems into tanks where reverse osmosis starts the conversion into syrup instead of cooking. To make syrup, you need to remove 98 percent of the water in the sap, whether it be through reverse osmosis or cooking. What is left after that is your syrup. So if 98 percent of the water is removed, then what is syrup really made up of?

Maple syrup is mainly made up of carbohydrates, and the makeup of a majority of those carbohydrates is sucrose. Essentially, sucrose is sugar and is what gives maple syrup that sweet taste that we all crave. Usually the syrup is about 88 to 99 percent sucrose. The concentration all depends on the time of year that it was harvested. In the late season there is less of a concentration of sucrose and more fructose and glucose. Fructose and glucose are also sugars, and actually derive from sucrose. Fructose and glucose are monosaccharides, simple sugars, and are the building blocks of sucrose, a disaccharide. When sucrose breaks down it is broken into those simple sugars. This breaking down process in the sap actually happens when the sap is sitting in the buckets, hanging on the trees. When it’s later in the season the weather becomes warmer and becomes an incubator for yeasts and bacteria in the buckets, the culprit of splitting sucrose into fructose and glucose. This process is called inverting and is fueled by the enzyme invertase. This higher concentration of fructose and glucose still makes perfectly good syrup, just a different appearance and taste. When the sap is cooked down, the fructose and glucose actually caramelize which gives the syrup its darker coloring. This darker syrup is usually referred to as Grade B syrup.

The sweetness comes from the sucrose, but what gives maple syrup that maple flavor? Higgs says that it is not completely understood, but is thought to be a combination of a specific mix of amino acids paired with the presence of the compounds maple furanone, strawberry furanone and maltose.

So we have looked at sap at a chemical level, but what about the physiological side of it? Why are we able to draw out sap from a tree to make syrup? Higgs explains that the harvesting season only provides this small window because it is the time when the tree is transporting the sucrose from the roots to the branches. The syrup is essentially the product of last seasons photosynthesis. In the fall, before the tree looses it’s leaves, the tree transports its energy that it stored from photosynthesis in the leaves down to the roots to store it over winter. This energy reserve in the roots is what the tree uses in the spring to make new leaves. The energy is stored as starch in the roots and leaves, but before being transported to either end of the tree, it is converted into sucrose, the sap we collect.

While almost any maple tree has sucrose in the spring that can be used to make syrup, Dr. David Roger explained how to best identify the sugar maple tree (the best type of tree to tap). The Norway maple is the one maple tree that has a bitter sap that you can’t make syrup from, and unfortunately is most similar looking to the sugar maple. You can tell the difference between these trees by looking at the leaves. The Norway maple has more lobes and long tapered teeth on their leaves while the sugar maple’s leaves are smoother. But at the time of harvesting sap, the trees don’t have any leaves left so the best way to identify the sugar maple is by looking at the buds and the bark of the tree. The sugar maple’s buds are quite distinct. They are long and stiff and are made up of about 11 to 13 scales. They also often have ancillary buds. The bark is another way of identification. The sugar maple’s bark has soft ridges and valleys and is a beautiful, light-grayish color.

Once you have correctly identified the sugar maple trees, harvesting sap and making syrup is a very fun and interesting hobby. But it’s not just a fun hobby. Wisconsin is actually the fourth largest producer of syrup in America, and Vermont makes the most syrup in the U.S. at about 42 percent. But worldwide, Canada is the boss in the maple syrup industry, making 80 percent of the world’s maple syrup.

Though the maple syrup industry booms and it’s tastier than ever, Rogers brings to light studies that show that sugar maple trees are being greatly affected by climate change and global warming. Scientists’ estimates show that the number of sugar maple trees will greatly decrease over the years. Now just imagine how sad your mornings will be with no syrup on your pancakes. It’s time to stop global warming.

Article by Liv Gripko

Governor Walker’s Budget Offers More Questions than Solutions

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When Governor Walker unveiled his new budget, one of the key components was a thirteen percent cut of state funding for the University of Wisconsin higher education system. Widespread concern throughout the UW system spread. Chancellors from different UW branches talked of how this would affect their schools, and ultimately the students. But what do we really know about the impact of this budget? How will it affect us here at UW-Parkside? The answer seems to be a resounding: “We are not quite sure.”

Here is what we do know. We know that the Governor has done this before. We know that when things get cut, they stay cut, and there is no use in trying to get him to change his mind. He has a very precise idea of what he wants, and whether you agree with it or not, he is going to carry that idea forward. So where does that leave the UW system as a whole? More directly, where does that leave UW-Parkside and Parkside students? Let’s look at it from large scale to small.

This budget will go into effect in two years, beginning in the year 2017. That means the system has two years to figure out how it is going to handle the reduction of funding. Throughout the system the consensus seems to be that in order to function under the new budget, there will have to be a serious loss of jobs, first and foremost. The Chancellor of UW-Milwaukee forecast a loss of 200 to 300 personnel, UW-Stout predicted 50 to 90 and UW-Stevens Point estimated around 115. The leaders of both UW-Madison and UW-River Falls have said that there seems to be no way to avoid layoffs and that there is a high possibility that jobs will be cut. But what type of jobs?

The Chancellor of UW-Milwaukee said that it would have to start with Administrative jobs first, then there would be a decrease in full-time professors with a switch to more part-time adjunct professors, then research funding would be cut and finally, costs to students. Here at UW-Parkside, this reporter was told by a reliable source that is currently teaching here that already ten current teachers that hold multiple positions within their departments have been told that they will not be coming back. Another source who is a long time professor here said, on the condition of anonymity, that he was aware of professors either losing their jobs entirely or getting pay cuts, while administration was being given raises. A student senator told us that when discussing the budget with the Chancellor here at Parkside, the perception was that our Chancellor was unsure of exactly what was going on.

We do know that there is a tuition freeze that lasts until 2017, so if you are going to graduate within that time frame, you do not have to be concerned about that. But it seems like you do have to be concerned about larger classes, fewer teachers being asked to accomplish more tasks and possibly a smaller administration staff to assist you with your non-scholastic concerns. After 2017 there is a big cloud of confusion as to what will happen to the students. The Governor was asked and he said that there would be an “inflation-based cap” on tuition, but that was not specifically written in the budget. This reporter encourages all of you to go to the uwp.edu webpage, and at the bottom of the page there are links to view a budget summary, the governor’s speeches and transcripts as well as reactions to this budget. What we do know is that the UW-system is losing money from the state. What we don’t know is how hard it will hit us and in what fashion, and not knowing seems to be worse than the facts.