UO E-Clips is a daily report prepared by the Office of Communications (http://comm.uoregon.edu) summarizing current news coverage of the University of Oregon.

Media mentions for December 29

1. Lineman moves in to save life

Register-Guard, similar stories in the Oregonian, Chicago Tribune on KPTV and multiple other media outlets: Oregon's beefiest football player saved the Beef Bowl -- and a Duck fan's life. Mark Asper, the Ducks' 6-foot-7, 325-pound senior offensive lineman, performed the Heimlich maneuver to save a man who was choking on the signature beef at Lawry's The Prime Rib restaurant on Wednesday evening, saying the Eagle Scout skills he learned as a kid kicked in when needed. Paul Diamond was certainly grateful. Diamond's son, Tom, a student at the University of Oregon, was struggling to perform the maneuver on his father when Asper sprang to his feet, grabbed Paul Diamond from behind and popped the chunk of food free.

2. What are emotion expressions for?

The Hindu: That cartoon scary face -- wide eyes, ready to run -- may have helped our primate ancestors survive in a dangerous wild, according to the authors of an article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science. The authors present a way that fear and other facial expressions might have evolved and then come to signal a person's feelings to the people around him. The basic idea, according to Azim F. Shariff of the University of Oregon, is that the specific facial expressions associated with each particular emotion evolved for some reason. Shariff co-wrote the paper with Jessica L. Tracy of the University of British Columbia.

3. New theory on fish to amphibian evolution

Hindustan Times: A small fish crawling out of a drying desert pond underlines a theory that ties up the fishes with the amphibians. "Such a plucky hypothetical ancestor of ours probably could not have survived the overwhelming odds of perishing in a trek to another shrinking pond," said Gregory J Retallack, professor of geological sciences at University of Oregon, who led the study. This scenario comes from the late Devonian period, roughly 390 million to 360 million years ago, which late Harvard palaeontologist Alfred Romer propounded, the Journal of Geology reported.

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Late mentions for December 28

1. Portland's Economy Flickers While State Remains In Darkness

OPB News: Portland's economy is recovering at a faster rate than the rest of Oregon. Although, growth continues to drag in the state as a whole. That's the picture emerging from a new roundup of economic indicators put out by the University of Oregon. The report is essentially a snapshot of economic activities, says Tim Duy, director of the Oregon Economic Forum. Duy says Portland's economy has continued to benefit from its diverse mix of industries such as high tech and manufacturing. He thinks Portland is recovering more quickly than the rest of state from the collapse of the housing market.

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Media mentions for December 29

Lineman moves in to save life

A Duck football player successfully performs the Heimlich maneuver at a California restaurant

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Oregon's beefiest football player saved the Beef Bowl -- and a Duck fan's life.

Mark Asper, the Ducks' 6-foot-7, 325-pound senior offensive lineman, performed the Heimlich maneuver to save a man who was choking on the signature beef at Lawry's The Prime Rib restaurant on Wednesday evening, saying the Eagle Scout skills he learned as a kid kicked in when needed.

Paul Diamond was certainly grateful.

Diamond's son, Tom, a student at the University of Oregon, was struggling to perform the maneuver on his father when Asper sprang to his feet, grabbed Paul Diamond from behind and popped the chunk of food free.

"I was sitting enjoying dinner and the people at the table in front of us started stirring in commotion and they stood up, and the gentleman -- I didn't catch his name -- was giving the universal 'Help me, I'm choking!' symbol," Asper said, putting his hands around his neck to recreate the gesture. "... I patted (Tom Diamond) on the back and said, 'If you don't know what you're doing, I do, because I'm an Eagle Scout.' The first heave was a test heave, because the guy seemed a little old, and I didn't want to break his ribs or anything. So test heave, then it seemed like he could handle the full force, so I popped it out.

"He came up to me afterward and said 'Hey, man, thanks a lot, but you broke my sunglasses.' "

Paul Diamond could chuckle about the incident about 20 minutes later.

"I'm going to go home and find (Asper) on Facebook. He's my new best friend," said the elder Diamond, a Los Angeles resident who wore an Oregon T-shirt over a gray suit jacket. He was invited to the event as a guest of his cousin, Richard Frank, the chairman of Lawry's Restaurants.

Diamond said his son's Heimlich technique "might have been a little high. Then I got a bear hug from the lineman, and everything was primo."

The 26-year-old Asper is the oldest player on the UO roster; he also might be the most gregarious, and the most quoted. He was eating at a table with his wife, Michelle, and UO defensive tackle Wade Keliikipi and his wife. The Aspers have two young daughters, though the girls did not attend the dinner Wednesday.

"My wife was concerned. I went up to (Diamond) afterward and said, 'My wife wants to make sure you're OK,' and he's fine," Asper said.

"Last I saw he was taking smaller bites."

Asper was asked if he had performed the Heimlich before.

"I'll go Chip Kelly on you: Preparation prepares you ... I had a faceless opponent that I prepared against," Asper joked. "No, I've never done that before."

But he knew exactly what to do?

"Well, yeah," he said. "They'd take away my merit badges and Eagle Scout card (if he didn't). My brother's a doctor, so I joke that I should be in the medical field anyway."

The Beef Bowl is a 56-year-old Rose Bowl tradition in which Lawry's, an upscale restaurant on popular Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, hosts the two teams participating in the Rose Bowl each year in a lighthearted competition to see which team can eat the most meat.

The Ducks arrived at Lawry's just after 4 p.m. Wednesday and were greeted like royalty by about 100 restaurant staff and Rose Bowl officials who lined both sides of a red carpet outside, with the school fight song playing.

UO senior Ramsen Golpashin, an offensive linemen from nearby Saugus, Calif., whose season was cut short by a knee injury in September, donned full chef's garb to perform the ceremonial first cut of rib to kick off the feast.

ESPN's Neil Everett, a "SportsCenter" host and an Oregon graduate, emceed the event for the Ducks, revealing that his grandfather played on Oregon's Rose Bowl team in 1920.

Wisconsin, which plays the Ducks in the Rose Bowl on Monday, will take part in the Beef Bowl today.

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What are emotion expressions for?

That cartoon scary face -- wide eyes, ready to run -- may have helped our primate ancestors survive in a dangerous wild, according to the authors of an article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

The authors present a way that fear and other facial expressions might have evolved and then come to signal a person's feelings to the people around him.

The basic idea, according to Azim F. Shariff of the University of Oregon, is that the specific facial expressions associated with each particular emotion evolved for some reason. Shariff co-wrote the paper with Jessica L. Tracy of the University of British Columbia.

So fear helps respond to threat, and the squinched-up nose and mouth of disgust make it harder for you to inhale anything poisonous drifting on the breeze. The outthrust chest of pride increases both testosterone production and lung capacity so you're ready to take on anyone.

Social role

Then, as social living became more important to the evolutionary success of certain species, most notably humans, the expressions evolved to serve a social role as well; so a happy face, for example, communicates a lack of threat and an ashamed face communicates your desire to appease.

The research is based in part on work from the last several decades showing that some emotional expressions are universal.

Eeven in remote areas with no exposure to Western media, people know what a scared face and a sad face look like, Shariff says.

This type of evidence makes it unlikely that expressions were social constructs, invented in Western Europe, which then spread to the rest of the world.

And it's not just across cultures, but across species. "We seem to share a number of similar expressions, including pride, with chimpanzees and other apes," Shariff says. This suggests that the expressions appeared first in a common ancestor.

The theory that emotional facial expressions evolved as a physiological part of the response to a particular situation has been somewhat controversial in psychology; another article in the same issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science argues that the evidence on how emotions evolved is not conclusive.

Shariff and Tracy agree that more research is needed to support some of their claims, but that, "A lot of what we're proposing here would not be all that controversial to other biologists," Shariff says. "The specific concepts of 'exaptation' and 'ritualization' that we discuss are quite common when discussing the evolution of non-human animals."

Avian example

For example, some male birds bring a tiny morsel of food to a female bird as part of an elaborate courtship display.

In that case, something that might once have been biologically relevant -- sharing food with another bird -- has evolved over time into a signal of his excellence as a potential mate.

In the same way, Shariff says, facial expressions that started as part of the body's response to a situation may have evolved into a social signal.

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New theory on fish to amphibian evolution

A small fish crawling out of a drying desert pond underlines a theory that ties up the fishes with the amphibians.

"Such a plucky hypothetical ancestor of ours probably could not have survived the overwhelming odds of perishing in a trek to another shrinking pond," said Gregory J Retallack, professor of geological sciences at University of Oregon, who led the study.

This scenario comes from the late Devonian period, roughly 390 million to 360 million years ago, which late Harvard palaeontologist Alfred Romer propounded, the Journal of Geology reported.

Challenging Romer's theory on fish survival, Retallack said that the transitional fossils were not associated with drying ponds or deserts, but were found consistently with humid woodland soils, according to a university statement.

"Judging from where their fossils were found, transitional forms between fish and amphibians lived in wooded floodplains. Our distant ancestors were not so much foolhardy or opportunistic to take advantage of floodplains and lakes choked with roots and logs for the first time in geological history," said Retallack.

"Limbs proved handy for negotiating woody obstacles, and flexible necks allowed for feeding in shallow water," he said.

"By this new woodland hypothesis, the limbs and necks, which distinguish salamanders from fish, did not arise from reckless adventure in deserts, but rather were nurtured by a newly evolved habitat of humid, wooded floodplains," Retallack said.

"Ancient soils and sediments at sites for transitional fossils around the world are critical for understanding when and under what conditions fish first walked," he added.

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Late mentions for December 28

Portland's Economy Flickers While State Remains In Darkness

Portland's economy is recovering at a faster rate than the rest of Oregon.  Although, growth continues to drag in the state as a whole.

That's the picture emerging from a new roundup of economic indicators put out by the University of Oregon.

The report is essentially a snapshot of economic activities, says Tim Duy, director of the Oregon Economic Forum.

Duy says Portland's economy has continued to benefit from its diverse mix of industries such as high tech and manufacturing.

He thinks Portland is recovering more quickly than the rest of state from the collapse of the housing market.

Duy says past growth in places like Bend and in the Rogue Valley had been more dependent on housing and its related industries.

"And it does raise the question of 'What is the engine of growth in other regions if you take away that housing dynamic?'  And that's why I think some of these other areas are just having such a slow return."

Duy expects economic growth to remain slow in the new year.  The economy should add some jobs, he says, but job growth will also be concentrated in the Portland-metro area.