Your daily dose of news, notes and links from around Kansas University.

• Those happy-go-lucky folks in Sarah Pressman’s positive psychology class (who hid plastic Easter eggs all over campus recently) are getting together for one more big shebang today, when they’ll participate in international Pay It Forward Day.

That means they intend to spread all kinds of little bundles of happiness on Jayhawk Boulevard about 2:30 p.m., and asking people to “pay it forward,” and do something nice for someone else.

Trent Perry, a senior from Oklahoma City in Pressman’s class, estimated that about 100 people would help to give away balloons, candy, pizza, bagels, T-shirts and all kinds of other things to people passing by.

The world could probably use a little more happiness, so I say good for them.

• I spotted an odd story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that I figured I would relay in this space.

With all the fear and confusion surrounding radiation in the aftermath of the nuclear power situation in Japan, we’ve got someone living here in Lawrence who doesn’t seem to be that afraid of it.

Don Luckey is 91 years old and the father of Donna Luckey, a KU architecture professor. He sleeps with a rock that has small amounts of radioactive uranium by his bedside.

Don is a former biochemist at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and the author of the book “Hormesis with Ionizing Radiation,” which extols parts of his theory.

High levels of radiation, he said, are poisonous and bad, but lower levels are actually good for you. This has apparently created a stir of activity in the scientific community.

Donna is quoted in the article as calling her father an “inscrutable leprechaun” (a nice turn of phrase) who enjoys teasing and joking and being irreverent. Altogether, an interesting fellow.

And I’ll leave with the closing of that article:

“Recently, the old man noticed a small red splotch on his lower back. It looked like a mild sunburn, the first sign of too much radiation.

“So he pushed the rock back on the shelf, a few inches farther away, just to be safe.”

• Cam DeVictor, the KU alumnus I mentioned was in an Oreo commercial yesterday, kindly pointed out a few other alums who have made commercials, including Kari Wahlgren, Kasi Brown and Andrew Ralston.

Another friend of Heard on the Hill passed along Annie Tedesco‘s name, and said she has been in several commercials this year, including a Budweiser commercial. Annie, by the way, is the daughter of Susan and John Gronbeck-Tedesco. John is a professor of theater and Susan is associate vice provost for international programs.

• Heard on the Hill: radiation-free since November 2010. Keep sending in those tips to ahyland@ljworld.com.