Panther Victory, Fires, Cold, Books: Cedar Falls Wednesday Roundup

Panthers Devour Hawks:

It turns out big cats are higher on the food chain than big birds. The UNI Panters men's basketball team beat the Iowa Hawkeyes 80 to 60 in last night's game at the McLeod Center, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported.

North Cedar Controversy:

The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier also wrote about possible plans to stop staffing the North Cedar neighborhood fire station. More than 80 neighborhood residents heard from the city on the proposal Monday night.

Prairie Fire:

Global carbon emissions in 2010 were the highest ever recorded and international climate discussions are taking place in Durban, South Africa. You can learn more about sustainability here at home by attending a lecture at UNI's Tall Grass Prarie Center at 4 p.m. The talk, Maximizing Biomass Production of Prairie Vegetation as an Alternative Energy Source, will be presented by environmental science graduate student Molly Schlumbohm.

Baby, It's Cold Outside:

This list from The Daily Beast has Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines  among the top 25 coldest cities in the U.S. I would have said there's no way Iowa City is colder than Cedar Falls, but then again we were spared yesterday's winter storm warning that turned many central Iowa roads into crash zones, as KCRG reported.

Books, books, books:

With all that cold weather, now is the perfect time to curl up inside, preferably next to a fire, with a good book. Not sure what to read? The Cedar Falls Public Library has a book alert service that will keep you up to date on their latest purchases. I'm nerdily excited for the new dragon novel by Christopher Paolini, while my mother is all about Janot Evanovich.  

What about you? What's on your winter reading list? Tell us in the comments.