Wednesday, May 20, 2009
www.msureporter.com
Our 80th Year • 1928-2008
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Fueling Research
MSU student faces child porn charges NICOLE SMITH
editor in chief
illustration by ben sweeney• msu reporter
Finance bill grants MSU $1.5 million for renewable energy testing JOHN FRITZ
staff writer
Minnesota State students and faculty may be working in a new international green-energy testing laboratory near campus this fall. Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed an environmental finance bill in early May that included $1.5 million for the International Renewable Energy Technology Institute’s proposed lab at MSU. The lab will serve as a kind of third-party validation, testing Swedish and other green-energy technology, including furnaces and boilers that burn renewable fuels such as pelletized wood. Student and faculty scientists will test the emissions and efficiency of these methods and determine if the technologies, developed internationally, are viable in America. “It’s a practical business partnership,” said State Rep. Kathy
Brynaert, DFL 23B, of the new institute. Brynaert and State Sen. Kathy Sheran, DFL 23, spearheaded the funding bill in the Legislature. “The partnership would benefit both Minnesota and Sweden,” said John Frey, director of business and industry partnerships in MSU’s division of Strategic Business, Education and Regional Partnerships. “Minnesota would receive technology that it doesn’t have, and Sweden would reach a new market.” Frey is leading the search for the lab’s future location and the equipment to supply it. He said the new facility could be started this year after funds are allocated in mid-summer. “The lab likely won’t be on campus because of the space crunch,” he said, “but it will be close by, which will allow
Minnesota State student Alex Daniel Smith, 21, was taken into custody Thursday for 20 felony charges for the dissemination and possession of child pornography. Following a yearlong investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), Smith, an elementary education student, was charged. Part of the investigation included searches of his McElroy dorm room and his mother’s home in Faribault, Minn. Roughly 1,000 videos and 11,000 images of child pornography were found on the laptop computer used to connect to the Internet at both residences, the complaint said. These images and videos filled seven DVDs and were sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) for possible identification of victims. According to the complaint, three “cybertips” were reported to the NCMEC in March 2008 from the video-sharing Web site YouTube regarding posted child pornography. The tips led BCA investigator Joe O’Brien to 14 videos that featured young boys and girls engaging in sexual acts. More YouTube tips surfaced in later months and investigators gathered email addresses and Internet protocol addresses. IP addresses are used to identify a computer when it accesses the Internet and are only assigned to one computer at a
Research / page 3
Child porn / page 3
Hmong Student Association recognized alongside MSU at MnSCU system diversity awards See page 2
index
Sports............6 Variety..........4 Classifieds.....7
MSU’s summer theatre season begins May 27 with “Deathtrap”
VARIETY, PAGE 5