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

• I remember spending part of my Christmas Eve this year talking to KU Ph.D. student Jesse Grismer and his father about the new lizard species they had discovered on the menu in a Vietnamese restaurant.

Other media outlets picked up the story, too. But a colleague pointed me to one rather interesting source.

Seizing upon the lizard’s ability to reproduce asexually (lizards that reproduce without mates is a research specialty of Grismer’s), the satirical news source Scrape TV picked up the story.

Their take?

An all-caps headline that read “VIRGIN BIRTH HAS BELIEVERS FLOCKING TO LIZARD MESSIAH.”

Just goes to show that you never know where that next research find could wind up.

• Commenter shardwurm, whose cries of “Raise tuition!” have punctuated my stories for some time now, cited an interesting study in Tuesday’s comments section.

USA Today reported that many students seem to do little actual learning in their first two years of college.

The study, based on a book, “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” said that many faculty members are more focused on research than teaching younger students and that students are more focused on their social lives than studying. A bar graph with the article shows that there are a lot more priorities higher on students’ lists than studying. Socializing and recreating takes up more than half of students’ time — more, even, than sleeping, according to the study.

In my own experience, I remember some good faculty members and some not-so-good ones in my first two years. And I definitely did my fair share of “socializing,” too…

I may write about this study a little further. Anyone have any thoughts? Were your first two years of college wasted socializing and sleeping?

• Kansas University Hospital announced Tuesday that it is the Official Medical Provider of the Kansas City Royals.

A hospital spokesman told me that it’s not just window dressing — the hospital will actually be the medical provider for the team. Injured players would be taken to KU Hospital for treatment. The hospital will provide first aid services for fans on game days.

And Vincent Key, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at KU Hospital, will serve as the primary team physician.

• I heard word on Tuesday that James Moeser, former dean of fine arts at KU, would be returning to campus soon to perform an organ recital.

Moeser, after leaving KU, went on to become chancellor at the University of North Carolina, and would hire current KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little as his provost.

Stay tuned to this space for more details…

• A Heard on the Hill tipster on Tuesday told me something I didn’t already know, pointing to a Wall Street Journal article that said non-Romance languages like Chinese and Russian are in high demand for employers, and knowing them can be a “goldmine.” That’s interesting, but I bet you all can do better than that. Tell me something I don’t already know at ahyland@ljworld.com.