Police recently apprehended two university professors, L. Scott Ward and David Watt, for sex-related crimes.
Ward, a former marketing professor at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, was arrested for importing child pornography, his third charge in 11 years for child sex-related crimes. Federal investigators became suspicious after they noticed he had taken an unusually high number of trips to Thailand, a well-known destination for sex tourism. After apprehending Ward, investigators found a video on his laptop that allegedly shows him having sex with young boys. Ward was acquitted on charges of "involuntary deviate sexual intercourse" in 1995 after a video revealed a witness extorting a bribe from Ward. On his second arrest in 1999, he entered an Alford plea for soliciting an undercover agent posing as a 15-year-old boy. He was stripped of his teaching assignments at Penn and will not be eligible to teach there again, according to Penn representative Lori Doyle.
Watt, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, was arrested for soliciting sex from minors via the Internet. A Cybersafe task force rounded up seven Hillsborough County individuals after it began monitoring popular children's chat rooms. The group's efforts have led to the investigation of about 80 other cases involving Internet child predators.
Across New England, Hannaford Bros. grocery stores plan to implement a program called "Guiding Stars" that assigns between one and three stars to foods on a nutritional basis. Stars will be displayed on shelves next to foods to guide consumers.
Dartmouth Medical School professor Lisa Sutherland is co-chair of the seven-person panel that developed the program.
"Consumers already know what's not good for them. This system isn't meant to police people's choices," she said.
Have you ever complained that you were losing your mind after forgetting an important meeting or activity? A new study published by the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology suggests that complaints of memory loss in elderly patients could be linked to a loss of gray matter in their brains. The study, led by Dartmouth Medical School professor Andrew J. Saykin, focused on patients with significant memory loss but who have not been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment. The study revealed a 3 percent difference in loss of gray matter between these patients and healthy individuals.
"This is important since early detection will be critical as new disease modifying medications are developed in an effort to slow and ultimately prevent Alzheimer's disease," Saykin said.
