Here's a different sort of economic stimulus: More people are panning for gold in western North Carolina, USA Today reports.

Apparently, the tough economic times and high gold prices are boosting interest in finding gold flakes and tiny nuggets, the newspaper reports.

The Cotton Patch Gold Mine in New London and Reed Gold Mine in Midland are still yielding some gold for persistent and patient panners.

"You get a piece of gold in every six or seven pans," says Michael Scott, an interpreter at the Reed Gold Mine, a state park that was the site of a gold rush in 1799. "Nobody's getting rich."

Read the full story here.

From USA Today: College students are looking in increasing numbers at college degree programs that involve green technology and sustainability.

These sorts of programs are growing, the newspaper reports, as college students show an increasing interest in careers related to the environment or other so-called "green-collar" jobs.

One example at Penn: An MBA program that links to environmental studies.

Here's the story.

From USA Today: College students are looking in increasing numbers at college degree programs that involve green technology and sustainability.

These sorts of programs are growing, the newspaper reports, as college students show an increasing interest in careers related to the environment or other so-called "green-collar" jobs.

One example at Penn: An MBA program that links to environmental studies.

Here's the story.

Two UNC Chapel Hill students are among 20 college students across the nation honored for their academic achievements by USA Today.

I don't think the newspaper's decision to honor Elisabeth Yorke and Aisha Saad was much of a reach. Each was awarded a coveted Rhodes scholarship earlier this year.

A third student with North Carolina ties, Wake Forest's James Patrick Nelli, also made USA Today's All-USA College Academic Team.

As 2008 winds down, Triangle alumnus Alina Simone is turning up on some unusual year-end lists with "Everyone Is Crying Out To Me, Beware," her tribute album to the late Russian punk icon Yanka Dyagileva. Washington politico Howard Wolfson includes "Beware" in his "Best of 2008" recap of the year's best albums, calling it "your standard album of modern Russian folk covers." And Simone comes in at No. 83 on the "Top 100 People of 2008" listing of USA Today's pop-culture blog "Pop Candy."

As for future projects, Simone recently signed a book deal to write a memoir -- "essays loosely themed around my strange adventures in indie rock, especially in Russia," she says. Meanwhile, she'll return to English-language songs on her next album, "Make Your Own Danger," due out sometime next year.

More immediately, Simone will be back in the Triangle on Jan. 24 to play the Carrboro ArtsCenter.

USA Today has unveiled a special report revealing that at many universities, disproportionate numbers of athletes are in the same majors.

It's called clustering, a practice critics say helps universities improve their graduation rates at the expense of the athletes themselves.

To summarize: the report found that on football, men's and women's basketball, baseball and softball teams at 142 colleges, at least quarter of juniors and seniores were majoring in the same thing, and on more than half those teams, at least 40 percent were in the same major.

The story includes a searchable database. Keep in mind it isn't comprehensive. The investigation culled data from university sources like media guides, but not every major for every athlete at every university was available, and the newspaper focused on upperclassmen. 

A few highlights from our local universities:

• At N.C. State, 10 of 22 baseball players majored in sports management. That's 45.3 percent. Ten of 34 football players, or 29.4 percent, did so as well.

• At Duke, 11 of 27 football players, 40 percent, majored in sociology.

• At UNC Chapel Hill, 4 of 7 men's basketball players majored in communication studies and 3 of 8 women's basketball players were in the exercise and sport science program.

• At East Carolina, 9 of 15 baseball players, 60 percent, were communication majors, as were 13 of 31 football players. That's 41 percent.

Here's what former Boise State University football player Marty Tadman, who was among 48 percent of the juniors and seniors on his team to major in communication, had to say about the way athletes wound up choosing their majors.

From the USA Today report: 

"You hear which majors, and which classes, are the easiest and you take them. You're going to school so you can stay in sports. You're not going for a degree...it's a joke."