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Princeton in the News
January 19, 2000
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HIGHLIGHTS
The Associated Press
State & Local Wire
January 13, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: Scientists create 'DNA computer'
BYLINE: By RICK CALLAHAN, Associated Press WriterWisconsin scientists have created a "DNA computer" from strands of synthetic DNA they coaxed into solving relatively complex calculations, according to a report in today's issue of the journal Nature.
The short-lived chemical computer has no immediate practical applications, but it nudges the fledgling technology of DNA computing further out of world of science fiction and into the realm of the possible, the University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers said.
"It's kind of a non-automated computer - an abacus of sorts - but it's an approach we're confident can be automated like a conventional computer," said Lloyd Smith, a professor of chemistry.
Conventional computing is driven by computer chips, but that technology is fast approaching the limits of miniaturization. Scientists dream of using the vast storage capacity that enables DNA and its chemical cousin RNA to hold the complex blueprints of living organisms.
While other researchers have had success with DNA computing, in most of those tests the DNA was suspended in liquid-filled test tubes.
Smith's team, on the other hand, tethered the DNA to a solid surface. That simplified the technology, though it remains too rudimentary to be turned into large DNA computers capable of tackling problems as complex as those solved by conventional computers. …
Laura F. Landweber, an assistant professor of biology at Princeton University, is leading a team working to exploit RNA's computing potential. Her team recently fashioned RNA strands that processed complex problems similar to those that chess players encounter.
While Smith's team produced a chemical computer that tackled a problem with 16 possible solutions, the Princeton RNA computer searched through 512 possible answers, she said. The research will be published this year in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
NOTE: Versions of this story appeared in newspapers throughout the United States and overseas, including The New York Times and The Scotsman.
The Christian Science Monitor
Copyright 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society
January 13, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: Scientists tap DNA to try to build 'perfect computer'
BYLINE: Alex Salkever, Special to The Christian Science MonitorHIGHLIGHT: Using chemicals instead of silicon, researchers take first step toward
A gold-plated piece of glass at the University of Wisconsin could hold the future of computers.
The device is rudimentary - it can only perform basic high-school-level math problems. But this tiny "biocomputer" no bigger than a dime is powered by DNA, not silicon, and it represents one of the first significant steps toward a holy grail of science.
From air-traffic patterns to human genetic data, DNA computers could theoretically have a nearly limitless ability to store and analyze certain types of information that befuddles even the most advanced silicon computers. They could, for instance, store the information contained on a trillion CDs in a gram of DNA.
Now, as researchers have begun to bump against the outer performance limits of silicon chips, these new advances promise to vastly expand the limits of what humans can compute and accomplish.
"The potential of DNA-based computation lies in the fact that DNA has a gigantic memory capacity and also in the fact that the biochemical operations dissipate so little energy," says University of Rochester computer scientist Mitsunori Ogihara. "The question is: Is it possible to take advantage of these two facts to be able to do something that one cannot do with silicon-based computers?"
The possibilities for DNA computers include developing a credit-card-size computer that could design a super-efficient global air-traffic-control system. Other researchers say the military could take blood samples from an entire army and encode it to form a database of each soldier's blood type and genetic data. …
While this computer is man-made, scientists have long marveled at the way DNA stores and transmits information in the biological world.
"There exist many examples in nature of problems that are inherently computational. For example, when our immune systems search to find the specific anti-body to fight [an illness], that is an extremely complex computation," says Laura Landweber, a Princeton University evolutionary biologist.
The first breakthrough came in 1994 from University of Southern California professor Leonard Adelman. He first used DNA to solve the "traveling salesman" problem, a classic math treatise that considers how to devise the most efficient route for a traveling salesman. The salesman would have to leave from a specific city and end at a specific city, thus limiting the possible routes. …
Scientists say that programming DNA computers could prove difficult because of the problems still inherent in manipulating DNA. Furthermore, the number of errors that naturally occur in DNA processes remains a large hurdle to creating reliable computing systems.
Then again, the field is only five years old. "If you think about the history of computing, real computers could not do that much after they were invented either," says Dr. Landweber. "There is quite a learning curve."
United Press International
Copyright 2000 U.P.I.
January 17, 2000, MondayHEADLINE: Stories of modern science... from UPI
SCIENTISTS CREATE RNA COMPUTERPrinceton University researchers have developed a kind of computer that uses the biological molecule RNA to solve complex problems. The achievement marks a significant advance in molecular computing, an emerging field in which scientists are harnessing molecules such as DNA and RNA to solve certain problems more efficiently than could be done by conventional computing. In work to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Princeton scientists used a test tube containing 1,024 different strands of RNA to solve a simple version of the "knight problem," a chess puzzle that is representative of a class of problems that requires brute-force computing. The knight problem asks how many and where can one place knights on a chessboard so they can not attack each other. For the purposes of their experiment, the researchers restricted the board to just nine squares, so there were 512 possible combinations. Of these, the RNA computer correctly identified 43 solutions. It also produced one incorrect response, highlighting the need to develop error-checking techniques in chemical computing. This test-tube computer does not have any immediate applications, and it will probably never completely replace silicone technology. But it does have attractive aspects, said assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Laura Landweber who led the research project in collaboration with professor of computer science Richard Lipton, and postdoctoral fellow Dirk Faulhammer and a student, Anthony Cukras. One advantage, said Landweber, is that the genetic molecules DNA and RNA, which encode all the instructions for creating and running life, can store much more data in a given space than conventional memory chips. Another benefit is that, with vast numbers of genetic fragments floating in a test tube, a biomolecular computer could perform thousands or millions of calculations at the same time. It is an extreme example of parallel computing, which is a rapidly growing area of computer technology.
OTHER HEADLINES
The American Banker
Copyright 2000 American Banker, Inc.
January 20, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: Bogle: Banks Missing the Index-Fund Boat
BYLINE: By CHERYL WINOKUREx-Vanguard Chief Says They'll Never Have Big Role as Fund Managers
VALLEY FORGE, Pa. -- Even after hanging up his hat as senior chairman of Vanguard Group, John C. Bogle is still preaching his indexing message to the fund industry and to banking companies, which he criticizes for their pursuit of an active investing style.
Mr. Bogle said banks generally have failed to participate in indexing, which of course has fueled Vanguard's rise to second place among fund companies in the United States.
Roughly 40% of the assets Vanguard manages are held in index funds, the company said. That is compared with just 4.5% of the $1.09 trillion in fund assets managed by banking companies, according to Nov. 30 data from Lipper Inc., Summit, N.J.
"I think banks by and large are going down the wrong road," Mr. Bogle said in a recent interview. He added that he expects banking companies ultimately will play only a small role in fund management. He refuses to budge in his belief that indexing is the way to go, even though active management outperformed indexing in 1999. …
Ensconced at his namesake think tank, Mr. Bogle will research issues affecting the fund industry, give speeches, and write books -- all with the ultimate goal of making sure investors "get a fair shake," he said.
"Everything Jack has ever done, the question has been: 'Is this good for the consumer?'" said Burton G. Malkiel, a professor of economics at Princeton University and the author of "A Random Walk Down Wall Street."
"He's had an enormous amount of influence in making the industry a better deal for the consumer," Mr. Malkiel said. …
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Copyright 2000 The Cincinnati Enquirer
January 20, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: CONGRATS
Princeton U honorBenjamin Sommers was one of two winners of the Class of 1939 Scholar Award at Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. The award is given to the undergraduate who, at the end of junior year, has achieved the highest academic standing in all college work.
The graduate of Cincinnati Country Day School is the son of Lynn and Jeff Sommers of Loveland.
Los Angeles Times
Copyright 2000 Times Mirror Company
January 20, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: UNION RANKS UP IN '99, LED BY CALIFORNIA
BYLINE: NANCY CLEELAND, TIMES STAFF WRITERIn a sign that aggressive organizing efforts are starting to pay off, especially in California, U.S. labor unions gained more members last year than at any time in the last two decades.
By adding 265,000 workers nationwide, unions were able to keep pace with the rapidly expanding economy, which grew by 2 million jobs in 1999, according to numbers released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Significantly, the rate of private-sector unionization held steady at about 9.4%, breaking a free-fall that began in 1973, when one in four private-sector workers belonged to a union. The overall unionization rate also held steady at 13.9% …
The numbers were welcome news for the beleaguered U.S. labor movement, which has been trying mightily to stop its decline and regain relevancy in the changing economy.
But economists said it will be several years before anyone can declare 1999 a turning point.
"These numbers don't show a resurgence," said Henry Farber, a labor economist at Princeton University. "They show a stability, which in a sense is a victory. But to me, it's really looking for the silver lining to say, 'Hey, look at this. We didn't do any worse this year than last year.' " …
The New York Times
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
January 20, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: Canada's Full Hospitals
To the Editor:Your Jan. 16 news article about Canada's overflowing hospitals suggests that the problem could be cured simply by spending more money on health care. If, like Americans, Canadians devoted 14 percent rather than 9.5 percent of their gross domestic product to health care, they could have anything Americans have in health care, and more.
One must wonder, though, whether Canadians are making good use of the hospital beds they have. Roughly 12 percent of the population in Canada and in the United States are hospitalized every year. Canadian patients, however, stay in the hospital much longer per admission (12 days in Canada versus 7.8 in the United States). A first step toward ridding the Canadian hospitals' hallways of waiting patients might be to use the existing bed-capacity more smartly.
UWE E. REINHARDT
Princeton, N.J., Jan. 16, 2000
The writer is a professor of economics at Princeton University.
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Copyright 2000 The San Diego Union-Tribune
January 20, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: Rinde Eckert takes 'Ravenshead' into adventurous waters
SOURCE: ARTS WRITER
BYLINE: Preston TureganoThe first thing you have to know about avant-garde singer-actor-composer- librettist Rinde Eckert's opera about an Englishman attempting to circumnavigate the globe is that the two-act work is not a true opera.
"I don't sing the whole thing," said Eckert, who wrote the libretto for " Ravenshead: A One-Man Opera," which had its world premiere 14 months ago at Penn State University and makes port at La Jolla's UCSD campus Wednesday.
"There's a lot of talking in the work. Some of it's declamatory, some of it's rhythmic, and some of it's simply speaking. This isn't like any opera you've ever seen. It's more of a very complex music theater piece."
In other words, not Mozart, Verdi or Rossini, but closer to Wagner, who insisted his sagas were "music dramas."
Composed by Princeton University music professor Steven Mackey for six electro-acoustic instruments and performed by the Paul Dresher Ensemble with the libretto from Eckert, "Ravenshead" was inspired by British electronics manufacturer Donald Crowhurst's attempt in 1969 to sail solo around the world against a number of competitors. …
The Boston Globe
Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company
January 19, 2000, WednesdayHEADLINE: USC DEAN NAMED NEW PRESIDENT OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE
BYLINE: By Kate Zernike, GLOBE STAFFOne of the nation's foremost experts on student financial aid and the economics of higher education was chosen yesterday as the new president of Williams College.
The college's trustees announced they chose Morton Owen Schapiro, dean of the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Southern California, to replace Harry Payne, who resigned abruptly in October. The appointment is a return to Williamstown for Schapiro, who began his teaching career in 1980 in the economics department of the college. Colleagues and higher education leaders yesterday lauded him for his teaching, his scholarship, and his advocacy for higher education issues.
"He is not only an excellent scholar, a fine teacher, and an accomplished administrator, he is also a person with fine values who understands so well why education matters," said William G. Bowen, president of the Mellon Foundation and former president of Princeton University. "All of us concerned with the large purposes that higher education serves in America have reason to be delighted by this appointment. . . . Williams is to be congratulated for having recruited someone who can do great work while at Williams while also advancing the nation's agenda for higher education." …
International Herald Tribune
(Neuilly-sur-Seine, France)
Copyright 2000 International Herald Tribune
January 19, 2000, WednesdayHEADLINE: Ivy League Isn't Top Path to Riches; AMERICAN TOPICS
BYLINE: By Brian Knowlton; International Herald TribuneIs an Ivy League education - which today can cost $120,000 or more - the best investment in terms of future earning capacity? The answer is not as clear as it once appeared.
Most studies have confirmed that an education at Harvard, Yale, Princeton or one of the other prestigious Ivy universities yields a clear economic payoff.
But they have failed to consider that such highly selective colleges admit the cream of the crop, notes The Chronicle of Higher Education.
A new study, which examines the earnings of those who were accepted by elite schools but attended less-selective institutions, finds that students do not necessarily enhance earnings by graduating from colleges that require high average scores on admissions tests like the SAT. Students who attended the less-selective colleges earned more, according to the study by Alan Krueger, a Princeton University economist, and Stacy Berg Dale, an Andrew Mellon Foundation researcher.
Graduates in 1976 from schools with average freshman SAT scores of 1,200 earned $76,800 in 1995; those who were accepted at the highly selective colleges but enrolled in institutions with average SAT scores of 1,000 earned $77,700.
''It's not the school that has the magic touch,'' Mr. Krueger said. ''It's the students.'' He said earlier research had failed to consider intangibles, such as ambition, maturity and motivation.
University Wire
Copyright 2000 Minnesota Daily via U-Wire
January 19, 2000HEADLINE: Bradley aims to reach college-age voters
BYLINE: By Leticia A. Gonzales, Minnesota Daily
SOURCE: U. Minnesota
DATELINE: Des Moines, IowaIn presidential elections, the tallest candidate has always won. If the trend continues, the 6-foot-5-inch Bill Bradley stands a good chance of defeating the more vertically challenged candidates in the November general elections.
But first, Bradley, a former U.S. senator from New Jersey, needs to get past Vice President Al Gore to secure the Democratic Party's nomination. The Jan. 24 Iowa precinct caucuses are the first step in the nomination process.
Like other candidates, Bradley aims to reach college-age voters. In a Des Moines Register article late last week, 42 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds support Bradley.
Bradley wants to "bring people into the political process who haven't been engaged by politics," said Kristen Ludecke, a campaign spokeswoman. "Students ... have been fed up with the political system." …
After his undergraduate years at Princeton University and Rhodes Scholar years at Oxford University, Bradley interned in the Washington, D.C., congressional office of Richard Schweiker, R-Pa., as well as on the presidential campaign of former Pennsylvania Gov. William W. Scranton. Bradley later served in the U.S. Senate from 1978 to 1996. …
University Wire
Copyright 2000 The Daily Athenaeum via U-Wire
January 19, 2000HEADLINE: West Virginia U. grad student honored for outstanding paper
BYLINE: By Shanna Kaye Parr, The Daily Athenaeum
SOURCE: West Virginia U.
DATELINE: Morgantown, W.Va.A West Virginia University student recently won the 1999 Sarah E. Wright Award for best graduate student paper at the American Women Writer's of Color Conference in Ocean City, Maryland.
Georgia Kreiger, a second-year doctoral student in English, took home the award after presenting her paper, "An Archaeomythology of Desire: Separation, Loss, and Recovery in Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah."
Kreiger wrote the paper on the book-length poem by Pulitzer Prize winner Dove for a course in African-American literature taught by assistant professor of English Gwen Bergner.
Going to conferences and presenting papers is a standard part of academic work, according to Bergner. Graduate students preparing to be professors also participate in the conferences. …
Bergner won the same award when she was a graduate student in English at Princeton University. She called the fact that a student of hers won the same award, "a nice, little coincidence." …
The Advocate
(The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine)
Copyright 2000 Liberation Publications, Inc.
January 18, 2000HEADLINE: Their leap year; Brief Article
BYLINE: Carman, JosephForthright choreographers Gina Gibney and David Rousseve jump to the forefront with aplomb
The elegant and ethereal world of dance is an arena that gays and lesbians, aesthetes as we are known to be, are particularly drown to. And that allure has increased thanks to these two out talents who have recently made particularly bold moves. Count on them to continue to make strides in 2000. …
DAVID ROUSSEVE
As one of a handful of black students at his high school in Houston during the 1970s, choreographer David Rousseve felt like an outsider before he ever consciously realized he was gay.
"There were some really violent football players who hated me ... because of race," he says. Rousseve's latest dance work, Love Songs, set to the operatic music of Wagner and Puccini, commands a deep dialogue on an issue that has always fascinated him: common boundaries among people of all stripes. The main story line of Love Songs, about two African slaves and their sadistic master who has forbidden their love, is juxtaposed with a stream of urban American characters who volunteer their opinions on love and beauty. The piece builds toward the intensely physical final turning point, when dancers flood the stage with an orgasmic rush to "Liebestod" from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. …
Rousseve, who just turned 40, is a patchwork quilt of identities: He came from a Creole background in Louisiana, lived in the all-black Third Ward section of Houston, and was accepted at Princeton University ("I thought I could commute to New York and be in The Wiz"), graduating magna cum laude. After he landed in the downtown New York dance scene of the 1980s, Rousseve eventually became dissatisfied with the formal, unsoulful choreography of the times and formed his own group, David Rousseve/Reality, in 1988. He calls his current style of dance-making "a fusion of African-American and gay pop meets postmodern European Expressionism." …
The Boston Globe
Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company
January 18, 2000HEADLINE: FASHIONING A BRAND-NEW BAZAAR NEW EDITOR BETTS HAS DESIGNS ON HOW TO MAKE A VENERABLE MAG HIP AND HOT
BYLINE: By Suzanne C. Ryan, Globe Staff
NEW YORK - With the turn of the century, the fashion world is witnessing cultural changes like never before. Hip-hop clothing is as relevant to style as Paris runways are, Internet "e-tailing" is thriving, design houses are trading on Wall Street, khakis are eclipsing business suits, and senior citizens are garbed in Old Navy.
It's not an era for an out-of-touch, lady-who-lunches species of fashion editor. Enter Katherine Betts, 35, the new editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar. Betts resigned as a top editor at Vogue last June to take the helm of its longtime rival. Her mission is simple - to turn the oldest US fashion magazine (Bazaar, founded in 1867, currently ranks No. 3 in circulation behind Vogue and Elle) into a "more practical, journalistic" entity with a focus on lifestyles, off-runway fashion news, society, culture, and arts. …
During her years at Princeton University as a European history major, Betts immersed herself in fashion by summering in Paris twice. "I love France, the language, the people. I always knew I wanted to live there." After graduation in 1986, Betts, fluent in French, landed a job as an editorial assistant at the International Herald Tribune newspaper in Paris. Meanwhile, she freelanced for various magazines, writing profiles and traveling across Europe. "I always wanted to be a reporter." …
Business Wire
Copyright 2000 Business Wire, Inc.
January 18, 2000, TuesdayHEADLINE: Noted Academics and Industry Experts Join Silicon Value's Technical Advisory Board; Board Will Advise the Company On Product Direction and Technology Trends
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 18, 2000
Silicon Value, the pioneer in full-custom ASICs, today announced that three experts in the fields of design automation and semiconductor technology have joined Silicon Value's newly-formed technical advisory board. The new board members are:
Dr. Srinivas Devadas of Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Sharad Malik of Princeton University
Dr. Pinaki Mazumder of The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.The advisory board will provide guidance to Silicon Value's management regarding technology trends and product direction. …
Dr. Sharad Malik is a professor in the Electrical Engineering department at Princeton University. He is co-author of one book and over a hundred papers in the area of design automation. His consulting activities include AT&T Bell Labs, NEC, Synopsys, and Monterey Design Systems. He holds five patents for design automation methodologies. He has served on numerous technical conference program committees, and is the Program Co-Chair for Design Automation Conference (DAC) 2000 and 2001. He earned his Ph.D. degree at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1990.
"I believe that Silicon Value is doing exactly the right thing by bringing full-custom techniques into ASICs," Dr. Malik said. This is not only the most natural next frontier in ASIC design, but also the most important ingredient in conquering the timing convergence challenge once and for all. …
Business Wire
Copyright 2000 Business Wire, Inc.
January 18, 2000, TuesdayHEADLINE: Leading Internet Recruiting Companies Crimson Solutions and Ivy Productions Merge to Better Serve Exploding College 'E-Cruiting' Market
DATELINE: BOSTON, Jan. 18, 2000Combined Entity experience inc. Will Reach More Than 1.6 Million Students and Entry-Level Job Seekers Nationwide
Crimson Solutions, Inc., the leading provider of Web-based recruiting solutions for college career centers and Ivy Productions, Inc., provider of critically acclaimed research and publications for students and entry-level job seekers, today announced a merger agreement that will join the two entities under the name experience inc. (http://www.experienceinc.com). The new company now has a combined user base of more than 250 university partners and more than 1.6 million "twentysomething" job seekers, creating an essential new "e-cruiting" resource for campus career centers, college students, alumni and potential employers.
According to Forrester Research, Inc., the online job recruiting market will top $1.7 billion in 2003. Through the merger, experience inc. becomes the first company in this market with the relationships, people and technology required to offer the most comprehensive, full-service solution to career centers, students, young alumni and employers. …
experience inc. will combine Crimson Solutions' expertise in developing Web-based recruiting solutions for college career and alumni centers with Ivy Productions' critically-acclaimed research, publications and other career-focused content for college students and young professionals. The new company touches more than 1.6 million students through an established network of partnerships with more than 250 colleges and universities nationwide, including Harvard University, the University of Kentucky, Brown University, Princeton University, Brigham Young University, the University of Notre Dame, Boston College, the University of Iowa and Oregon State University. …
The Christian Science Monitor
Copyright 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society
January 18, 2000, TuesdayHEADLINE: Keeping costs under control
BYLINE: David R. FrancisBennington College in Vermont was for years famous - or infamous - as the most expensive private school in the nation.
No longer.
"We committed in 1994 to make the cost of a Bennington education 10 percent less than competitive schools in four years," says President Elizabeth Coleman. "And we did."
Tuition and board now amount to about $27,000, $3,000 to $4,000 less than several other top liberal-arts schools.
Cost of a college education is not necessarily equal to quality of that education. But many parents have seen it that way.
"Pricing has always had a marketing element," admits President Coleman. But that kind of thinking, suitable for luxury goods, is diminishing among colleges and universities. …
Nonetheless, a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper finds that students who attend colleges with higher average tuition costs or spending per student tend to earn higher incomes later on. …
At the same time, the study, by Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton University in New Jersey, and Stacy Berg Dale, a researcher at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York, suggests that being talented enough to get into an elite school is more important than actually attending one. It reinforces the idea that talented students who apply themselves can succeed no matter what school they attend. …
Japan Economic Newswire
Copyright 2000 Kyodo News Service
January 18, 2000, TuesdayHEADLINE: Former Fed deputy says Japan needs more economic stimulus
DATELINE: TOKYO, Jan. 18 KyodoA former vice chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board said Tuesday Japan needs greater fiscal and monetary stimulus to ensure its economy will recover.
Alan Blinder suggested in an interview in Tokyo with Kyodo News that the Bank of Japan should further loosen its monetary grip, possibly through quantitative means.
'I think the Japanese economy probably needs more monetary stimulus. Doing that will require the Bank of Japan to do something somewhat unorthodox,' he said.
As the Japanese central bank has already driven the key short-term money market rate to almost zero, Blinder indicated an expansion of money supply and other inflation measures.
'Starting from where Japan is now, a little bit of inflation will be a good fact,' said the economic expansionist, who served at the Fed between 1994 and 1996.
Blinder, now a Princeton University professor, also said the Japanese government should continue ample fiscal spending and cautioned it not to tighten the tap 'prematurely.' …
Newsbytes
Copyright 2000 Post-Newsweek Business Information, Inc.
January 18, 2000, TuesdayHEADLINE: Caught in the grips of an e-mail hoax
BYLINE: Elizabeth Weise; USA TODAY
DATELINE: USA TODAYA rule to live by in the age of the Internet: Never forward any e-mail that contains the sentence "PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN."
Because if you do, there's a very good chance bad things will happen to you.
Not bad as in "the last person who broke the chain was killed in a freak roller-coaster accident." Bad as in having your cell phone explode with hundreds of calls a day. Bad as in having your name, address and phone number preserved forever in the amberlike stickiness that is an Internet hoax.
Or just having everyone you know think you're an idiot. …
Well, now I know. First came a copy of the infamous "Chicken memo." That's the one that claims -- according to a study supposedly done by the University of New Hampshire -- that Kentucky Fried Chicken had to change its name to KFC because it no longer uses real chicken meat, but genetically engineered organisms cultured from chicken cells and grown in vats. …
Computer specialist Jim Cerny finally put up a link on the university's main Web page on "The Chicken Hoax," and he says it's getting 10,000 hits a day.
But at least that wasn't as bad as the poor woman I'll just call "Mary" at the Massachusetts environmental police. She forwarded an early incarnation of the message and in doing so attached her work signature file to it -- which included her full name and both of her work numbers.
As the message spread, so did her name and phone number. That resulted in an avalanche of calls to the beleaguered state agency. "It's been crazy," said her supervisor, who declined to give her name or tell me whether "Mary" will still be working there next week. …
Next, the message bounced to ATT.net, then to an AOL address on Dec. 17. That person sent it along to six others on Saturday, the 18th. For a few days it looked as if it might have died out, but on Wednesday, the 22nd, another AOL user shipped it off, starting the chain up again. On the 23rd, it hit the £Home network, where it again almost died out. But not quite. On New Year's Eve someone else at AOL sent it out again, and this time it hit a mailbox at the philosophy department at the State University of New York.
From there it went to the department's graduate and faculty mailing list. And in a fit of collegial madness, the contagion was passed on to what looks like the better part of the faculty at New York University. On the 3rd, it left the keyboard of one of America's most distinguished ethicists, with a note saying, "Apparently this is legitimate. They will pay you money if you forward this. Please do so."
They won't, but that didn't stop it from going on to staffers at Princeton, the University of Chicago, Barnard, Rutgers and Dartmouth and to Jules L. Coleman, the Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld professor of jurisprudence, who on Jan. 4 sent it to "the longest address book I had." …
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Copyright 2000 Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
January 18, 2000, TuesdayHEADLINE: Merger partners predict they'll rule over science, innovation
BYLINE: By Fawn Vrazo, Susan Warner and Andrea GerlinLONDON -- Global pressure to create ever larger drug research and marketing powerhouses produced Monday's announcement that SmithKline Beecham PLC would be acquired by Glaxo Wellcome PLC.
After two years of misfires, industry consolidation finally pushed the two British firms into a merger agreement.
It would cost Philadelphia a national headquarters, but apparently spare deep job losses in the region.
Executives from both companies unveiled a $76 billion proposal that would cre…ate the world's largest pharmaceutical company with more than $25 billion in annual sales and 107,000 employees.
Both sites are located near or along the busy Route 1 corridor, largely dominated by Princeton University and already home to the drug firms Novartis AG and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
New Jersey commerce officials declined to discuss details of the reported move to their state, saying only that the Whitman administration already has contacted each firm to discuss possible incentives for a relocation.
"We wrote to both corporations suggesting they locate the merged company in New Jersey," said Gualberto "Gil" Medina, head of the state's Commerce and Economic Growth Commission. …
PR Newswire
Copyright 2000 PR Newswire Association, Inc.
January 18, 2000, TuesdayHEADLINE: Peter and Eileen Norton Donate 'Art Packages' to 29 Institutions, From The Museum of Modern Art, New York, to Johnson County Community College; Collectors Spread the Spirit of Contemporary Art by Giving Away Nearly 1,000 Pieces
DATELINE: SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 18
Art collectors and philanthropists Peter and Eileen Norton today announced that they are giving away nearly 1,000 works of contemporary art from their private collection. The works, organized in thematic packages, will go to 29 institutions, strengthening the presence of contemporary art and disseminating its adventuresome spirit throughout the United States.
While a handful of leading museums are included in the donation, most of the works are going to college and university galleries and to institutions outside the biggest cities. In this way, the Nortons hope to bring the works of challenging younger artists to the attention of a broader public and to build the collections of regional museums, in which acquisition funds are scarce. …
Ten teaching institutions are receiving gifts: The Art Museum, Princeton University; the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee; Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle; Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, Overland Park, Kansas; Los Angeles Children's Museum; Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex, California State University, Los Angeles; University Art Museum, Santa Barbara; University of California Berkeley Art Museum; and Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
The Straits Times (Singapore)
Copyright 2000 The Straits Times Press Limited
January 18, 2000HEADLINE: Reinforce region's security, says Tony Tan
BYLINE: David BoeyAsia-Pacific needs to put equal emphasis on economy and security, not just focus on growth, he notes
SINGAPORE'S Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Dr Tony Tan, has called on Asian defence planners to reinforce regional security structures to help prevent future flare-ups.
In his keynote address at a security conference yesterday morning, Dr Tan said economic development in Asia should go hand-in-hand with enhanced cooperation in the field of defence.
"The emphasis of Asia-Pacific countries for the past few decades has been on economic development and economic cooperation," he noted.
"But there can be no economic development without security, just as there will be no security without economic development. …
LOOKING OUT FOR ASIA'S SECURITY
A BRAND new century, the same old security problems, plus new ones arising from changes in the balance of power in the region. Security analysts and academics attending a seminar hosted by the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies share their thoughts on the security challenges facing Asia …
"The biggest security issue, ... at least in the next decade, is the management of the relationship between the US and China. If that relationship goes well, ... I think it would be much easier to deal with any one of the various other regional issues that one might imagine emerging.'
-Prof Aaron Friedberg, Princeton University
University Wire
Copyright 2000 Daily Targum via U-Wire
January 18, 2000HEADLINE: Rutgers dean takes job at Princeton
BYLINE: By Cathleen Lewis, Daily Targum
SOURCE: Rutgers U.
DATELINE: New Brunswick, N.J.As the new semester begins, a familiar face will be missing from the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus. Paul Breitman, the former dean of Rutgers College student centers, has taken a position at Princeton University.
Breitman, who has been at the University for 18 years, will be taking over as the director of the Frist Campus Center. Breitman will be the first director for the newly created center at Princeton.
The center will open in the fall of 2000, according to a statement from Princeton University.
Breitman's responsibilities will include programming and overseeing the function of the facility, food services, maintenance and program requirements.
He will also work with student government to design activities, according to the statement. …
The Washington Post
Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
January 18, 2000, TuesdayHEADLINE: Believers In God, if Not Church; Many Carve Out Unique Religions
BYLINE: Hanna Rosin, Washington Post Staff WriterOver the years, Ed and Joanne Liverani have found many reasons to summon God. But now, at middle age, they've boiled it down to one essential: "Not to get clobbered by life."
Years of Catholic school never taught either of them how to "cope;" indeed, they said, it only made them more neurotic. By now, "there isn't a church in all of America I want to go to," said Joanne, setting out dinner plates in her Burke living room.
So sometime in the last 10 years the Liveranis began to build their own church, salvaging bits of their old religion they liked and chucking the rest. The first to go were an angry, vengeful God and Hell--"That's just something they say to scare you," Ed said. They kept Jesus, "because Jesus is big on love."
From the local bookstore, in a bulging section called "Private Spirituality," they found wisdom in places they had never before searched, or even heard of: In Zen masters, in New Age chestnuts such as "A Course in Miracles," in their latest find, a bestseller called "Conversations With God." …
"It may be that this is the way people have always been spiritual," said Robert Wuthnow, a sociologist at Princeton University who directed the research. "And yet it's a slice of real life that is much closer to how people are experiencing the end of the millennium than stories about flying saucers and revelations from angels.
"I'm reminded of the quip that we all get the gurus we deserve. Maybe we also get the gods we deserve. Nowadays they don't speak to us in burning bushes. But they help us get through the hard days and long nights." …
FDCH Political Transcripts
Copyright 2000 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.
January 18, 2000, TuesdayHEADLINE: THE LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS HOLDS NEWS CONFERENCE ON THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES' ENERGY POLICIES; WASHINGTON, D.C.
SCOTT DENMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SAFE ENERGY
DENMAN: But as we've heard here, they're simply ignoring it. They've got their head in the sand. They're taking a "don't ask, don't tell" approach. This is absolutely contravening to the interests of the voters.
When we take a look at the major presidential candidates, only Vice President Gore has indicated that he does not support an increased reliance on nuclear power, and that's consistent, according to the polling data of the Sustainable Energy Coalition, with 60 percent who oppose the construction of new nuclear power plants.
However, Gore would leave choices about new reactors to market forces and to the public utility commissions and investors. …
When we take a look at the remaining three candidates, we have to ask, What does this nonresponse mean? And certainly it's not good for the democracy, it's not good for the democratic process, and it undercuts the ability of voters to make a decision. And with the truncated primary process, this bodes very poorly for being able to move forward and make educated decisions.
So in looking to other aspects beyond the survey, recent statements by (Bill) Bradley and (John) McCain have been positive on corporate welfare. When we look, though, beneath those statements, we sometimes see that the lure of home state pork-barrelling is irresistible. Gore supported the Tennessee Clinch River breeder-reactor, but on the other hand opposed the advanced liquid metal reactor. Bradley fought against the Clinch River program but has long supported the fission pork barrel for his home state and for Princeton University. …
The Boston Globe
Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company
January 17, 2000HEADLINE: SCIENCE BRIEFS / STEPHEN REUCROFT AND JOHN SWAIN Stephen Reucroft and John Swain are experimental particle physicists who teach at Northeastern University
BYLINE: By STEPHEN REUCROFT AND JOHN SWAINBall research
If you take a bunch of tiny pieces of superconducting material and stick them in an electric field something unexpected happens - they bunch up into little balls. Rongjia Tao of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and his colleagues there and at Princeton University in New Jersey made the discovery and it has scientists puzzled. They'd expected some sort of tendency to move along the electric field, but what they've found points to a kind of surface tension effect kicking in and pulling the material together much as water droplets pull themselves into little spheres. In addition to helping scientists understand superconductivity, the tiny balls are a quarter of a millimeter across, and may be useful as a starting point for making thin films of superconductors.
ref: Physical Review Letters, December 27, 1999.
Los Angeles Times
Copyright 2000 Times Mirror Company
January 17, 2000, MondayHEADLINE: HOOP DREAMS CAN YIELD FUNDS IN THIS TOURNEY
BYLINE: GREG MILLERHummer Winblad Venture Partners, a firm co-founded by a former Princeton University basketball star, is sponsoring a venture capital competition modeled on the NCAA basketball tournament.
The contest will start with Internet-related business plan entries from students at 64 colleges.
The winner, to be announced in late March following a final four pitch meeting shootout in San Francisco, is guaranteed at least $1 million in seed funding. …
One of the founding partners of Hummer Winblad is John Hummer, who was an All-Ivy League player for Princeton in 1969 and 1970. But Hummer, who also played in the NBA for the Buffalo Braves, never advanced beyond the second round of the NCAA tournament.
National Underwriter
Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition
Copyright 2000 The National Underwriter Company
January 17, 2000HEADLINE: Progressive CEO Pot Arrest Prompts Inquiry
BYLINE: BY DANIEL HAYSOhio's insurance department will question Progressive Insurance Company about reports that its chief executive officer was arrested in New Zealand on drug importation charges, a representative for the regulatory agency said.
His statement came after the Mayfield Village, Ohio-based company's billionaire CEO, Peter B. Lewis, 66, set off an international incident when he was nabbed at Auckland Airport allegedly bringing in two ounces of hashish and 1.7 ounces of marijuana.
Mr. Lewis' treatment by a judge -- who released him without conviction and ordered his name suppressed -- sparked public anger in New Zealand and an inquiry by the New Zealand Ministry of Justice, a ministry official said. …
"Hoover's Handbook of American Business" in its 1999 entry describes the Progressive CEO as "son of one of the founders (and who was once described by a friend as a functioning pothead); owns about 15 percent of Progressive."
He is also known as a philanthropist who has given $50 million to the Simon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and $55 million to his Princeton University alma mater. …
OCTANE WEEK
Copyright 2000 Phillips Business Information, Inc.
January 17, 2000HEADLINE: BATTLE OVER FUEL FOR FUEL CELL CARS HEATING UP, NO CLEAR WINNER EMERGING
Chicago -- Fuel cells might be the future, but not until there's a practical fuel.
Aiming to grasp that opportunity, methanol, direct-hydrogen and 'gasoline' (or Fischer-Tropsch fuel) advocates battled at the IQPC 'F- Cells Infrastructure' conference here over which fuel should be required for the first expected market: California.
The race is on because automakers face a 2003 deadline to meet California's upcoming 'zero-emissions vehicles' (ZEV) mandate covering 10% of all cars they sell there. …
The high energy cost of reforming makes "gasoline" fuel cell cars not much more fuel-efficient than conventional internal combustion cars, some studies show. Example: A Princeton University study compares "gasoline" [and FT distillate) with methanol and direct-hydrogen. This study, by Princeton r esearcher Joan Ogden, showed that "gasoline" (or FT fuel) is the most expensive option on a per-car basis -- about $850 to $1,250 per car more than a direct-hydrogen car.
Ogden's study lumped together both the on-board (car) costs as well as the "off-board" (fuel refining and distribution) costs of getting hydrogen into the fuel cell. No extra refining costs were assumed for "gasoline" (even though zero sulfur would be required) in her study. But she found that a gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant for FT diesel would add $220-$500/car extra, compared to a direct hydrogen car, depending upon GTL plant size.
Her study found that direct hydrogen infrastructure on a per-car basis would be about $380 to $640 per car, because of the simplicity of on-board reforming and relatively low-cost assumptions about evolution of distributed hydrogen production. The methanol option would cost at least $600 more than a direct-hydrogen car due to the on-board reformer and off-board fuel infrastructure, while the cost of building new methanol plants to meet future fuel-cell demand would add another $300-$600 per car. …
The Providence Journal-Bulletin
Copyright 2000 The Providence Journal Company
January 17, 2000, MondayHEADLINE: Sports Beat - Cumberland High squad trying for three-peat in big swim meet
BYLINE: GREG BOTELHO4 locals standout at Dartmouth meet
CUMBERLAND - Cumberland High School senior Mark Smith finished second in the 25-pound weight throw last weekend at the Dartmouth College Invitational.
One of the country's most accomplished weight throwers, Smith was granted early acceptance last month to Princeton University, where he plans to participate on the Tigers' indoor and outdoor track and field teams. …
U.S. News & World Report
Copyright 2000 U.S. News & World Report
January 17, 2000HEADLINE: A freeze is on at Williams
BYLINE: By Ben Wildavsky
HIGHLIGHT: Will the college's halt to rising student costs prove contagious?With freshman SAT scores averaging a record 1400 and more than 5,000 applications for 544 slots in this year's entering class, Williams College is by no means hard up for talented students. So unlike the few struggling private schools that have dropped or frozen tuition in recent years, the prestigious liberal arts school wasn't trolling for warm bodies when it announced last week that it will hold steady tuition, room, and board next fall at this year's $31,520. That makes the Massachusetts institution's move unique, and raises the question of whether other infamously expensive private colleges will follow. …
Leader or loner? In most cases it's too soon to tell: Williams's move packs a powerful PR punch, but most other private colleges and universities will not set tuition charges until late winter or spring. Including archrival Amherst College: "Clearly we're aware of Williams's decision, clearly people are thinking about it," says spokeswoman Stacey Schmeidel. Several analysts predict Williams's decision will have the greatest impact on such close competitors as Swarthmore College, Middlebury College, and Amherst. That's the sort of ripple effect that occurred two years ago when Princeton University announced financial aid changes designed to improve affordability for middle-income families. Yale, Stanford, and Duke universities soon followed with similar measures.
SUNDAY NEWS (LANCASTER, PA.)
Copyright 2000 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.
January 16, 2000, SundayHEADLINE: Safe sex for 72 hours; Planned Parenthood advertises pill that can stop conception long after intercourse.
BYLINE: Mary JordanBe it rape, a broken condom, or the consequences of getting caught up in the "heat of the moment," Planned Parenthood has started an advertising campaign to let women know that there is help.
Planned Parenthood of the Susquehanna Valley has been advertising 72-hour Emergency Contraceptive Pills (ECPs) since mid-November. The pills, taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, can decrease the risk of pregnancy. …
According to the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, medical science defines the beginning of pregnancy as "the implantation of the fertilized egg in the lining of a woman's uterus." …
CNN
SHOW: CNN PINNACLE 07:00
January 16, 2000; SundayHEADLINE: John Bogle: Mutual Fund Revolutionary
BYLINE: Beverly SchuchHIGHLIGHT: John Bogle has a 70-year-old body and a 26-year-old heart. He burns off his scary energy by playing a ferocious game of squash and by brilliantly investing the half trillion dollars Americans have entrusted to his various Vanguard mutual funds. Twenty-five years ago, Bogle single-handedly revolutionized the mutual fund industry by a simple and elegant invention, the index fund. …
SCHUCH (voice-over): That word shareholder is one of the secrets of Vanguard's success. Unlike other mutual fund companies, Vanguard is set up as a non-profit organization which manages money for its owners, the investors in its 124 mutual funds. Vanguard's other major secret is simple and powerful -- its costs are the lowest in the industry.
BOGLE: To save our business from ruin, we must at once undertake a vigorous risk lowering. To do this, the first step must be to reduce expenses, reduce expenses. That is the message I bring to you today.
SCHUCH (on camera): So what are you showing me?
BOGLE: Well, this is the original thesis, "The Economic Role of the Investment Company."
SCHUCH: Now, you wrote your senior thesis at Princeton, which it sounds very prescient, actually, for the rest of your life. What gave you the idea to write it about the mutual fund industry?
BOGLE: Well, that's a wonderful story. I went into Firestone Library in Princeton University and I opened "Fortune" magazine for December 1949. On page 116 there was an article and it was called...
SCHUCH: What memory.
BOGLE: Well, I had good occasion to look back at this. And it was called "Big Money In Boston," which is where the headquarters of the mutual fund industry was in those days. And it was a tiny little industry. It was described in the article as tiny but contentious, tiny but contentious.
SCHUCH: And that appealed to you?
BOGLE: That appealed to me and I was looking for a thesis. I also, what also appealed to me is I wanted to write a senior thesis on a subject on which nobody had ever written before. So it was uniqueness and tiny but contentious. …
SCHUCH (voice-over): Bogle's college thesis was so good it got the attention of Wall Street big shots, especially Walter Morgan, one of Bogle's heroes. He was then president of Wellington Management, one of the nation's most successful investment funds.
BOGLE: Walter Morgan was a great, great man, certainly the great man of my life. He took kind of a shine to me when he met me. He wasn't sure he wanted to bring me into his company because he had gone to Princeton, too. It was a kind of playboy kind of thing. People didn't take life very seriously. People had a lot of money and he thought well, do I need anybody from Princeton around here?
SCHUCH (on camera): Didn't he read your thesis and say something like this guy knows more about mutual funds than we do?
BOGLE: Exactly right. And I've kept a copy of that, his little memo. He wrote a little two page memo to everybody and it was really very generous and very, very nice. And so I started there. …
The Deseret News (Salt Lake City, UT)
Copyright 2000 The Deseret News Publishing Co.
January 16, 2000, SundayCOMMENTARY
HEADLINE: Prescription plan is likely step toward revival of ClintonCare
BYLINE: By Grace-Marie Arnett Knight RidderWhen Congress returns to work later this month, one of the hottest topics of debate will be how best to provide a prescription drug benefit for Medicare.
Republicans and Democrats alike should be wary of President Clinton's plan to extend prescription drug benefits via Medicare to the nation's 36 million senior citizens -- even though he will make a vigorous pitch for it in his State of the Union speech.
The proposal is a gargantuan overreach since more than two-thirds of the nation's seniors already have viable prescription drug coverage. Many health-care observers, in fact, view it as a major step in a prolonged effort to revive ClintonCare piece by piece.
The key to understanding the debate can be found in the early writings of a close adviser to President Clinton:
"Political leaders . . . seeking to strengthen the state or to advance their own or their party's interests have used insurance against the costs of sickness as a means of turning benevolence to power." So wrote Princeton University Professor Paul Starr, an architect of the Clinton health plan, in a 1982 book. …
The observation by Clinton adviser Starr explains the strategy. Once the federal government gets control of one of the most important and most successful industries in the United States, its seeming benevolence will indeed turn to power -- power to determine who gets what drugs and power to continually adjust the levers of prices and eventually political control of the pharmaceutical research agenda. …
NOTE: This column was distributed by the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service.
The Morning Call (Allentown)
Copyright 2000 The Morning Call, Inc.
January 16, 2000, SundayHEADLINE: BLACK SQUIRRELS, ROBINS, FLEAS ITEMS OF INTEREST TO READERS;
* FOR SOME NORTH-COUNTRY ROBINS, THE L.V. REGION IS A SUITABLE OVERWINTERING GROUND.
BYLINE: TOM FEGELY; The Morning CallBy Tuesday morning it had become obvious that I'm not the only one intrigued by black squirrels, as noted in this column last Sunday.
More than 40 calls and notes crossed this desk by midweek, all in response to last week's discussion of black squirrels. Readers related encounters of the black-furred, bushy-tailed kind ranging from the Midwest to the nation's capital, north into the Poconos, south to Philadelphia and east to New Jersey.
However, only three reports of black squirrel sightings in the L.V. proper were received. John Terefinko of North Bethlehem said he "saw a couple of them last year but then they disappeared." …
Several callers noted the Washington D.C. area, specifically the National Zoo grounds, as being host to numerous black squirrels. The melanistic gray squirrels also are residents at Princeton University in New Jersey, in Lower Merion Township and Villanova University, both in Montgomery County, and in the Landsdowne area of Delaware County, according to observant readers. …
The New York Times
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
January 16, 2000, SundayHEADLINE: JERSEY FOOTLIGHTS; Sounds of 20th Century
BYLINE: By LESLIE KANDELL"Haunting and Heartwarming" is the theme for the Princeton Chamber Symphony's program at 4 p.m. next Sunday in Richardson Auditorium.
The haunting and heartwarming works are -- except for Kurt Weill's popular suite from "The Threepenny Opera" -- by composers born late in the 19th century: Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. (Weill was born in 1900.
Least widely known among them is Castelnuovo-Tedesco, from Florence, Italy, who settled in Beverly Hills, where he composed prolifically, with varied success: among his film scores is "Gaslight."
His guitar concerto, to be played Sunday by David Tanenbaum (left), has a Romantic cast. According to Steve Mackey, a professor of music at Princeton University, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, a favorite of the great guitarist Andres Segovia, joins Villa- Lobos as the century's foremost composer for guitar. "It's delightful and very pretty," said Mr. Mackey, who performed his own guitar concerto last year with the 45-member ensemble. "It works for the classical guitar, which does 'pretty' very well."
Mr. Mackey also pointed out that the guitar is designed for the player's pleasure rather than that of a listener in an auditorium, and conjures an image of the guitarist huddled over the instrument he almost caresses.
Newsday (New York, NY)
Copyright 2000 Newsday, Inc.
January 16, 2000, SundayHEADLINE: NOTEBOOK / TWO STUDENTS CREATE WINNING WEB SITE
BYLINE: Mary Ellen PereiraAndrew Kallem and Joshua Tauberer, seniors at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School, were named finalists in the 1999 Think Quest Internet Challenge. Out of a total of 26 students selected worldwide as finalists, Andrew and Joshua were two of six chosen in the science and mathematics category and the only two finalists named from New York State. Each student received a $10,000 scholarship.
Think Quest's Internet Challenge involves teams of students who work together to investigate an educational topic of their choice and create an interactive Web site on the subject.
Andrew and Joshua's project was called Webcytology: An Exploration of Unicellular Life. The Web site features an interactive simulation in which users create their own species of life in a virtual petri dish. In turn, the specimens are tested on their response to varying environmental conditions and other created organisms. The site also includes an extensive reference section with information for biology students, message boards for student exchange, a glossary of biology terms and interactive quizzes. …
Joshua has been accepted by early decision and plans to attend Princeton University in the fall. A member of the National Honor Society and Emergency Medical Technician program, he attended the Columbia University honors program on weekends. …
The San Francisco Examiner
Copyright 2000 The Hearst Corporation
January 16, 2000, SundayHEADLINE: Doing business by the book; Reduced costs let on-demand publisher iUniverse open doors to more authors
BYLINE: VANESSA HUA
SOURCE: OF THE EXAMINER STAFFThree years of publishers' rejections proved to David Loye that he was right.
His book - which challenges prevailing notions of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution - found no takers. But Loye remained confident despite the snubs, reasoning that groundbreaking works often meet resistance.
At last, the former Princeton University psychology professor found an outlet through iUniverse, an upstart Campbell-based publisher that aims to change the book world. Due out later this month, "Darwin's Lost Theory of Love" argues that the evolutionist did not mean for his landmark thesis to lead to cutthroat competition.
"The book was so revolutionary, it was turned down by academic and trade presses," said Loye, 74, a Monterey Peninsula award-winning author of several books.
For as little as $99, iUniverse will publish any new title in paperback. If the book is out of print, the company will publish it for free.
In return, authors receive royalties ranging from 20 to 50 percent of sales, depending on whether the book is new or out-of-print, or in paperback or electronic form.
Unlike other vanity houses, iUniverse does not charge authors for the print run, and instead makes its money off book sales. …
The Seattle Times
Copyright 2000 The Seattle Times Company
January 16, 2000, SundayHEADLINE: Illegal entry has roots in Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
BYLINE: Todd Stevens; Special to the Seattle TimesCustoms officers spotted a boat, small and rickety, heading for a remote cove off the coast near Port Townsend, and followed it. The captain of the sloop saw the officers and made for the beach. When the boat ran aground, two white men jumped out and ran up the bank into the dense forest.
The Customs officers never found the men, but they couldn't miss the 20 Chinese passengers huddled in the sloop.
With no money, no identification papers and little English skills, none of the men could mount a defense at their deportation hearing. They were all sent back to China.
These arrests didn't happen last week; they happened more than a century ago - Sept. 24, 1890, according to records at the National Archives Pacific-Alaska region branch in Seattle.
But the scene is strikingly parallel to the current spate of stories about Chinese stowaways smuggled into the United States inside ship containers. …
Todd Stevens, a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, is writing a dissertation on the legal history of Chinese Americans in the Pacific Northwest. His e-mail address is tms£princeton.edu
The Sports Network
Copyright 2000 Computer Information Network
January 15, 2000, SaturdayHEADLINE: News Summaries from The Sports Network Friday, January 14
Princeton names Hughes as new head football coach
Princeton, NJ (Sports Network) - Princeton University has tabbed Roger Hughes to be its new head football coach. Hughes becomes the 21st head coach in school history.
Hughes, 40, replaces Steven Tosches, who resigned on November 23 after 15 seasons at the school, compiling a 78-50-2 record.
Hughes had served as Dartmouth's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach since 1992, during which time the Big Green had a 48-31-1 record and won two Ivy League titles.
Princeton had been looking for an offensive mind to take over the program, which was said to have become predictable and stagnant.
AP Online
Copyright 2000 Associated Press
January 15, 2000HEADLINE: Bradley Hoops It up on Campaign
BYLINE: SANDRA SOBIERAJ
DATELINE: JOHNSTON, IowaThere was no laser light show, only glow-in-the-dark letters on black posterboard. But the pulsating music as Bill Bradley loped toward the school auditorium was the same beat that sends the New York Knicks charging into Madison Square Garden.
That beat had 71-year-old Bob Kusy dancing in his seat.
Long before he started following Bradley's Democratic presidential campaign, Kusy followed his career in pro basketball. ''I knew all the guys back then, but Bill more than most because he was so good,'' Kusy said before Bradley's appearance at Johnston High School, with his wife, Donna, a campaign volunteer, beside him.
Hardly squeamish about being seen more as a jock than a president, Bradley encourages fascination with his old athletic career. He regales every crowd with at least one tale from his years with the Princeton Tigers, the United States' 1964 Olympic gold-medal team and the Knicks. His first political ads showed footage from the Olympic game and he sometimes brings old teammates like Dave DeBusschere along on the stump. …
Bradley loves to tell the story about asking a Princeton professor to teach him the Russian phrase for ''Watch it, big fella'' one he repeats for campaign crowds in a throaty shout --so he could fool the Soviet Olympic team into thinking he understood when they called their plays aloud. …
Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, NC)
Copyright 2000 Multimedia Publishing of North Carolina, Inc.
January 15, 2000, SaturdayHEADLINE: FEMALES SEE HEIGHT AS AN INDICATOR OF HEALTH
BYLINE: Tim Friend USA TODAYFemale humans appear to be no different from any other species of animal when it comes to mate selection. Size - in this case height - counts.
That women prefer taller men is nothing new. Short guys, unless they're rich, powerful or famous, have come by this knowledge the hard way. And women all over the world openly profess desires for height in personal ads.
The question is, why? Is it the actual inches that get the female flushing, or does height represent something else such as wealth or education?
Research in this week's Nature by scientists in Poland and Liverpool suggests height itself plays a key role in turning a female's head. (If you are a fish, depending on your species, a particularly tall dorsal fin or a long tail might do the trick.) Some experts, including James Gould of Princeton University, say there's good evidence that the preference for height by female humans, and long dorsal fins or tails by fish, is hard-wired in the brain and translates to good health.
"When height is an indicator of health, this is not surprising, and if females are programmed to look for health, they would end up with taller males," Gould said. "It's entirely plausible this is true." …
NOTE: This story first appeared in USA Today.
Financial Times (London)
Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited
January 15, 2000, SaturdayHEADLINE: HOW TO SPEND IT: Brainy brands The millions spent on educational outerwear suggest that intellectuals have more in common with fashionistas than we think. Lea Carpenter examines the business of looking smart
BYLINE: By LEA CARPENTERAre we really what we wear? What are the limits inscribed in the cut of a coat, or the length of a hem? Can fashion accurately communicate not just one's sense of style, but also something more substantial?
There's one group of American consumers who are usually dismissive of such trifling topics, but nevertheless answer a resounding yes to the question. Call them the intellectually ambitious affluent, these graduates of our elite business schools, the millennium MBAs. They believe they are the future leaders of our international economy. They want you to believe this, too. For them, designers ending in vowels (Gucci, Armani, Prada) are good looking but samey. It's a shirt with "Harvard" stamped across it that was, is and always will be the pick of the rack. …
Take a trip to the campuses of certain American institutions - Stanford, Yale, Princeton, among others and note how seldom you see someone who is not wearing an item branded by that particular place. Even if matched with a suit or a slip dress, almost every student, irrespective of age, calls attention to the fact that they are an active participant in the drama called We Will Change the World. …
Like all serious on-campus retailers, The (Harvard) Coop also sells baby clothes, clocks, scarves, teddy bears, baby tees, all emblazoned with either HBS or Harvard University's succinct motto: Veritas. It's just that bit simpler than Yale's Lux et Veritas and Princeton's Dei sub numine viget, and is a triumph of crisp institutional, intellectual branding. …
But then, the great "luxury" product question arises, as always: can you ever extend a brand without diluting it? The internet boom is making collegiate items available to just about everyone. Sales of insignia items at the Princeton University Store, which pushes its web site, have increased 10-15 per cent in the last year. Is there a lesson unlearned here? Foucault claimed knowledge was power. Chanel said style was all. For the price of a pair of crimson sweat socks (Dollars 10-Dollars 15), we seem to avoid the choice.
The New York Times
Copyright 2000 The New York Times CompanyJanuary 15, 2000, Saturday
HEADLINE: COLLEGES: FOOTBALL -- PRINCETON; Dartmouth Assistant Is Named as Coach
BYLINE: By The Associated PressRoger Hughes, an offensive coordinator who helped Dartmouth win two Ivy League titles, was hired yesterday as football coach at Princeton.
Hughes replaces Steve Tosches, who was fired Nov. 23 after the Tigers' first last-place finish in the Ivy League in 23 years. Tosches led Princeton to one Ivy championship and a share of two others in 13 seasons.
The Tigers had a 3-7 record this season, including a 1-6 mark in the league. Hughes, 40, was the offensive coordinator at Dartmouth since 1992. The Big Green, under Coach John Lyons, won league championships in 1992 and 1996.
The Straits Times (Singapore)
Copyright 2000 The Straits Times Press Limited
January 15, 2000HEADLINE: All in the Galileo family
BYLINE: Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr
BEYOND HISTORYThrough 124 letters written to this genius, we glimpse the daily cares of the man who changed our universe
BIOGRAPHY
GALILEO'S DAUGHTER: A DRAMA OF SCIENCE, FAITH AND LOVE By Dava Sobel Fourth Estate/429 pages/$41.10
DAVA SOBEL created publishing history when her non-fiction book, Longitude, stayed on top of the bestseller charts longer than popular fiction books.
Of course, this was not the first time a book on science captured the imagination of the general reader. The best example is Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time. But Sobel is no star like Hawking. She is not even a scientist like Paul Davies or Stephen Jay Gould, who write immensely popular books on the subject.
Yes, she was a science writer for The New York Times. Yes, she was inspired by Princeton University physicist the late Carl Sagan to write about science.
But that was not enough to make her a success. She needed to do something different. And she did. …
She finds it in the 124 letters that Galileo's illegitimate daughter, Suor Maria Celeste, a nun of the St Clares -- the sisterhood of the Franciscan Order -- wrote to her father from 1623 to 1634 when she died at the young age of 33.
The letters Galileo wrote to her have not survived. What we get through the letters of Suor Maria Celeste is a dramatic monologue, with references to Galileo's letters and those of others. Galileo's story unfolds in intimate and warm tones.
The book opens with the first letter she writes to Galileo on the death of his sister, Virginia. The young girl offers spiritual solace to her grieving father: "You would do well to draw even greater comfort from contemplating the general state of human misery, since we are all of us here on Earth like strangers and wayfarers."
She was then 22 years old and Galileo was 59.
She does not always use this admonitory tone. In most letters, what comes through is her deep affection and her great concern for the problems he faces. …
The Washington Times
Copyright 2000 News World Communications, Inc.
January 15, 2000, SaturdayHEADLINE: New books on warfare
BYLINE: THE WASHINGTON TIMES"The American Civil War," by Brian Holden Reid, is one of 24 titles being published in the Cassell "History of Warfare" series - a multivolume history of war and warfare from ancient to modern times.
These books are under the general editorship of John Keegan, who for many years was senior lecturer in military history at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, England, and a visiting professor at Princeton University.
A prolific writer, Mr. Keegan most recently wrote a history of World War I.
Other titles in the impressively illustrated series include "The Wars of the Ancient Greeks," by Victory Davis Hanson; "Warfare in the Eighteenth Century," by Jeremy Black; "The Napoleonic Wars," by Gunther Rothenberg; and "War in the Air, 1914-45," by William Murray.
The series is being distributed by Sterling Publishing Co., New York. The Web site is www.sterlingpub.com.
Copley News Service
Copyright 2000 Copley News Service
January 14, 2000, FridayHEADLINE: FOR WEEKEND USE
BYLINE: Jennifer Nelson
DATELINE: SPRINGFIELDA new exhibit at the Illinois State Museum will highlight the personal and political life of former Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson II.
Open to the public from Jan. 30 to March 19, the exhibit spans Stevenson's lifetime and includes photos, campaign memorabilia, official documents, newspaper articles and cartoons, letters and other historical items.
Some of the more interesting items come from Stevenson's 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns, including a pack of cigarettes marked, ''Stevenson for President'' and a pair of women's nylons bearing the slogan, ''Win with Adlai.''
The exhibit celebrates the 100th anniversary of Stevenson's birth, which is Feb. 5.
On Feb. 17, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. will lecture on the life and accomplishments of Stevenson. The talk will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Howlett Building Auditorium in downtown Springfield and will be free to the public. Schlesinger, the author of many well-known books and an adviser to President John F. Kennedy, was a speechwriter and aide to Stevenson's 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns.
Stevenson's son, former U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson III, plans to visit the exhibit when he is in Springfield to attend the Schlesinger lecture. Now living in Chicago, he said his family is very pleased with the project.
''Not only because it marks the 100th anniversary of his birth, but I think it's appropriate because it coincides with an election year,'' he said. ''It should remind people how far our politics have sunk. He always talks sense to the people and, as he put it, trusted them with the truth. Perhaps it will remind some of what our politics can be.'' …
After graduating from Princeton University and earning a law degree at Northwestern, Adlai Stevenson II held several federal jobs, including working for two U.S. secretaries of state during the time the United Nations was being organized. In 1947, he served as an alternate U.S. delegate to the United Nations. …
The New York Times
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
January 14, 2000, FridayHEADLINE: A European Identity: Nation-State Losing Ground
BYLINE: By ROGER COHEN
DATELINE: BERLIN, Jan. 13Deriding the bureaucracy, the bungling and the banana wars of the European Union has long been a pastime on this fractious Continent. But abruptly a serious sense of European citizenship, along with the rights that go with it, seems to be laying the basis of a supranational identity here.
It is still early, and nobody is suggesting that France has suddenly been expunged from the heart of the Frenchman. But the advent of a common currency in the euro, the realization with the conflict in the Balkans that a Europe of trade is not enough, and the widening appreciation of a body of European law that takes precedence over national legislation seem to be spurring a new consciousness.
"There has been a qualitative jump in the sense of European identity," said Karl Kaiser, a German expert on international affairs. "What you are seeing are the first signs of shared beliefs, rights and responsibilities among young Europeans no longer ready to sit passively as America protects them or as the union grows."
One area where the nation-state seems to be losing ground particularly fast to the idea of a united Europe is that of the law. This was evident in recent days as European court verdicts obliged Germany and Britain to reconsider or revise basic military policy. And the mere existence of a European Court of Human Rights led Turkey, an aspiring member of the European Union, where the death penalty is banned, to postpone the execution of Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish rebel leader. …
But while the framework of the rule of law has clearly had critical political repercussions, and has made the European Union a beacon throughout the Continent, the growth of a supranational European identity based on European laws within the union has been much slower.
"It is in the area of law that European states have made some of the most critical concessions of sovereignty and people are only now becoming aware of this," said Ezra Suleiman, a Princeton University expert on the European Union. "The political implications are incredible, because Europe seems bound to shift slowly from the project of an elite to more of a grass-roots thing." …
The San Francisco Examiner
Copyright 2000 The Hearst Corporation
January 14, 2000, FridayHEADLINE: Gas clouds in space: Remnants of the Big Bang?; Hydrogen swirls may be leftovers of creation of universe
BYLINE: Keay Davidson
SOURCE: EXAMINER SCIENCE WRITERIn the cosmic equivalent of finding the earliest human fossils, astronomers at Berkeley and elsewhere have concluded that vast, dark clouds racing through space are leftovers from the formation of the universe almost 15 billion years ago.
Speeding at more than 300 miles per second, the clouds of hydrogen gas may have formed shortly after the Big Bang that spawned our cosmos, the scientists announced Friday.
Over billions of years, the gas' gravitational pull caused most of it to collapse - mostly into stars - within about 30 galaxies, one of the biggest being our Milky Way, a roughly disk-shaped swarm of more than 300 billion stars.
The 30-odd galaxies are collectively known as the Local Group, because they are gravitationally bound together and swirl around each other. The Local Group includes the Andromeda galaxy that appears as a faint smudge in the night sky.
But like sawdust drifting through a newly built home, a small residue of the gas never condensed into stars. Instead, the scientists believe, it orbits the Local Group in the form of these high-velocity clouds - ghostly relics of our cosmic birth. …
Blitz' colleagues include David Spergel at Princeton University, Peter Teuben at the University of Maryland, Dap Hartmann at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and W. Butler Burton of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
The Washington Post
Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
January 14, 2000, FridayHEADLINE: Historian Is Jefferson Lecturer
BYLINE: Jacqueline Trescott, Washington Post Staff WriterJames M. McPherson, the esteemed and popular Civil War historian, has been selected to give this year's Jefferson Lecture, the National Endowment for the Humanities announced yesterday. A prolific writer, McPherson, 63, has taught at Princeton University for nearly four decades. His works--in particular "Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era"--are widely credited with helping restoke interest in that crucial period of American history.
"James M. McPherson has helped millions of Americans better understand the meaning and legacy of the American Civil War," said NEH Chairman William Ferris. "By establishing the highest standards for scholarship and public education about the Civil War and by providing leadership in the movement to protect the nation's battlefields, he has made an exceptional contribution to historical awareness in America."
The Jefferson Lecture is the federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. Previous speakers have included Barbara Tuchman, C. Vann Woodward, Saul Bellow, John Hope Franklin, Robert Penn Warren, Toni Morrison, Vincent Scully and Erik Erikson. The lecture carries a $10,000 honorarium.
McPherson has selected the topic of " 'For a Vast Future Also': Lincoln and the Millennium" and will deliver the talk March 27 at 7:30 p.m. at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public. …
U.S. Newswire
Copyright 2000 U.S. Newswire, Inc.
January 13, 2000, Thursday 5:25 PM Eastern TimeHEADLINE: Virginia State Police Superintendent Resigns
DATELINE: RICHMOND, Va., Jan. 13Today, Colonel M. Wayne Huggins announced his resignation from the Virginia State Police effective Jan. 28.
"I have accepted an executive level position with Omniplex World Services Corporation which is headquartered in Northern Virginia," said Col. Huggins. …
A 1978 graduate of George Mason University and a 1982 graduate of the FBI National Academy, and also graduated from the Academies of the Virginia State Police and the United States Secret Service Executive Protective Service. Additionally, he graduated from Princeton University's Public Leadership and Management Skills Program, as well as numerous other management and leadership courses.
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE)
Copyright 2000 Bangor Daily News
January 13, 2000 ThursdayHEADLINE: 'Extremophile' bacteria survive harsh conditions
BYLINE: Clair WoodA news report recently quoted a doctor on the West Coast as saying the flu virus this season was "one really tough bug. " The same term can be applied to many bacterial species inhabiting the globe. Scientists call them extremophiles.
Bacteria can be found locked in the permanent ice and snow of the Himalayas and in the superheated waters of the thermal vents of the ocean floors. One variety has existed for millions of years in the gut of a bee encased in resin. Another, dubbed "Conan the Bacterium," thrives in nuclear reactor cores at levels of radiation 3,000 times greater than would kill a human.
One of the most astounding sagas of survival involves a common benign bacterium called Streptococcus mitis that lives in the nose, throat, and mouth of humans.
Deep-dwelling bacteria, Ricardo Guerrero and Lynn Margulis write in a 1998 issue of The Sciences, began once again to be taken seriously about 15 years ago when the U.S. Department of Energy launched the Deep Subsurface Microbiology Program in the hopes of finding bacterial species that could help to clean up oil spills.
This time investigators took great care that their drills were not contaminated with surface bacteria, and they were astonished to recover several different kinds of bacteria living at depths of 1,500 feet below the surface.
By the mid-1990s, bacteria had been recovered from rocks as deep as 1.5 miles and at temperatures exceeding 167 degrees Fahrenheit. Princeton University geologist Tullis Onstott estimates that the bacteria could have been trapped in the rocks for as long as 160 million years. Equally amazing is their sheer numbers which has been calculated at 10 million bacteria per milliliter of groundwater trappedin the rock. …
CNN
SHOW: CNN NEWSSTAND 22:00
January 13, 2000; ThursdayHEADLINE: Judge Says 13-Year-Old Murderer Should Be Released When He's 21; Scientists Clone Monkey; Houston Public Schools Taking No Chances
BYLINE: Frank Sesno, Ed Garsten, Roger Cossack, Elizabeth Cohen, Bruce Burkhardt, Tony Guida, Ralph Begleiter, Perri PeltzSESNO (voice-over): Mice, pigs, cows, sheep, and now a monkey. Scientists are closer than ever before to cloning human beings, says Lee Silver, a professor of genetics at Princeton University.
LEE SILVER, PROFESSOR OF GENETICS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: I think the most interesting thing about this newest result is that it's being done with monkeys. And because human beings are just basically glorified monkeys, it means that the technology could be used in human beings. There's no doubt about that now.
SESNO: But there are doubts and fears among Silver's opponents. Each advance in cloning, they say, raises difficult questions. …
SESNO: Michael Keaton's clones in "Multiplicity" are close to carbon copies, thanks to a blue screen and a few camera tricks. But could the very real prospect of cloning humans in the not-so-distant future change our sense of self, uniqueness, soul?
DR. LEE SILVER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: We know precisely that clones will have a soul because there are millions of human clones walking the face of the Earth, as we speak. And they are called "identical twins." And we never have any question that two identical twins are separate human beings with separate souls. …
SILVER: Someday with cloning sex and reproduction are going to be completely separate from each other. Reproduction will take place in the laboratory under a microscope, and sex will be used for fun, as it is used most of the time today. …
Financial Times (London)
Copyright 2000 The Financial Times Limited
January 13, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: COMMENT & ANALYSIS: China must break with protectionist past: WTO accession means Beijing should open domestic financial services to overseas interests now, says John Langlo:
BYLINE: By JOHN LANGLOISThe agreement between the US and China regarding China's accession to the World Trade Organisation has rightly been hailed as a significant step towards bringing the country into a rules-based regime of trade. But unless flaws in aspects of the agreement concerning financial services are addressed, a wonderful opportunity to help China avoid mistakes made by other countries, notably Japan, will be missed.
The details have not been disclosed, but in general Beijing has agreed to the following:
* Commercial banking: five years after accession, foreign commercial banks will be allowed to enter on national terms with full market access. Local currency transactions with Chinese companies will be permitted two years from accession;
* Securities business: from accession, China will allow foreign securities companies to hold minority interests in fund management and securities underwriting companies;
* Insurance: from accession, China will allow foreign insurance companies to hold 50 per cent stakes in insurance companies, and to manage those companies. After two years, China will permit the foreigners to increase their shares to 51 per cent. There will be no restrictions on reinsurance.
These terms are bad for China. Beijing continues to provide undue protection to its financial services sector, much as Japan did until recently. The results will be similar: weak domestic financial institutions, lack of global competitiveness, and short-changed citizens whose savings are badly managed or even wasted.
Rather than wait five years, China should allow foreign banks to enter commercial banking on national terms now. We are all aware of the dire straits in which China's four big banks find themselves. Protecting them only guarantees that they do not improve, or at best improve too slowly. Chinese banks need first-rate benchmarks, inside China, by which to measure themselves: minority-foreign-owned competitors will not do the job. …
The author is lecturer with the rank of professor in East Asian studies at Princeton University.
The London Free Press
Copyright 2000 Sun Media Corporation
January 13, 2000, ThursdaySECTION: EDITORIAL/OPINION
LETTERS TO THE EDITORHEADLINE: DATA USEFUL IN MYTH-MAKING BUT NOT FOR MUCH ELSE
BYLINE: THOMAS K. BURCH, LONDONRegarding the article, Events not a money machine, Levin claims (Jan. 10).
The economic impact figures produced by Tourism London are what in my trade -- demographic and statistical analysis -- are sometimes referred to as "mythical numbers."
If asserted authoritatively and often enough, such numbers tend to be accepted and acted on, even though they lack credible scientific foundation.
Once, in a statistics seminar at Princeton University, after I said something to the effect that the data were quite poor, but better than nothing, the prof added, "Unless they are seriously misleading."
No doubt these special events have benefits and economic spinoffs, although almost certainly not as great as claimed, but that's not the point -- so would many other kinds of expenditures.
These data and their interpretation are to be taken with a large grain of salt. Coun. Sandy Levin's analysis provides a much sounder basis for decisions about spending taxpayers' money.
The New York Times
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
January 13, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: Spacecraft Demystifying Halo of Gas In Milky Way
BYLINE: By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
DATELINE: ATLANTA, Jan. 12From the first observations by a new spacecraft, astronomers have found evidence that they say not only confirms the existence of a halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky Way galaxy but also seems to reveal how the gas got there, stays hot and contributes recycled material for the formation of new stars.
The findings from the Far Ultra violet Spectroscopic Explorer, or FUSE, were reported here today at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The small 300-pound satellite was launched into Earth orbit last June to conduct a planned three-year investigation of the evolution of galaxies and formation of stars and planets.
The new results show that "FUSE is open for business and is already producing groundbreaking science," said Dr. George Sonneborn, the project's chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The most telling discovery so far, scientists said, was the detection a vast abundance of a certain type of oxygen atom, known as oxygen VI, that appears in almost all directions and extends as much as 5,000 to 10,000 light-years away from the plane of the Milky Way, the region in Earth's home galaxy where most stars reside. Oxygen VI is an oxygen atom that has five of its eight electrons stripped away.
Noting that the presence of these atoms indicates the existence of gas with temperatures approaching half a million degrees Fahrenheit, Dr. Blair D. Savage of the University of Wisconsin at Madison said this was strong evidence linking the dynamics of the galactic halo to stars that exploded long ago. Some scientists had thought the halo gases were much cooler. Others had suggested that the gas was heated by ultraviolet radiation from hot stars. …
This idea of a galactic halo of hot gas was postulated in 1956 by Dr. Lyman Spitzer, an astrophysicist at Princeton University. And 40 years ago, Dutch astronomers discovered clouds of gas falling into the plane of the Milky Way at extremely high velocities. …
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Copyright 2000 Sarasota Herald-Tribune Co.
January 13, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: Inventory a on global level
BYLINE: Bob VanWagonerThe first times I heard the word "inventory" were in my childhood.
Each January after the holidays, my father would explain to my mother that he'd be working late at the children's shoe store he owned and operated, "taking inventory" of his stock, to plan the year ahead. The words had a grim sense, even them.
When I left home for my own life, I left "inventories," too. The word wouldn't come back to me for years, and then with a different context: to make an appraisal of one's situation.
There came a time I needed the catharsis of doing that, and I've been a faithful (if reluctant) follower of the practice ever since. …
I was impressed by an interview in New Yorker last July 22 with Princeton University astrophysicist Richard Gott III, known for cosmic forecasting. He applies principles of Nicholas Copernicus (who proved the Earth is not the center of the universe) to suggest our species most likely is not as special as we think it is, and is doomed for a finite demise as are others.
While Gott places that finality in a range from 5,100 to 7.8 million years down the trail, he also points out that we could improve our chances immeasurably by colonizing Mars before our Earthbound population peaks, levels off and withers away (for that is another prediction) to where we're unable to respond to a cataclysmic threat like a plague or meteor hot.
This once-abstruse level of thinking is becoming more real as we carefully look at today's trends, not in awe but in appraisal. A tough inventory. …
University Wire
Copyright 2000 The Chronicle via U-Wire
January 13, 2000HEADLINE: Higher ed.: Not primary concern for candidates
BYLINE: By Dave Ingram, The Chronicle
SOURCE: Duke U.
DATELINE: Durham, N.H.The first state primary of the 2000 election cycle is only a few weeks away, and candidates from both parties gathered at the University of New Hampshire last week to outline their agendas. The debate topics ranged widely, from health care to foreign policy, but candidates said little regarding higher education and financial aid, the issues with the greatest direct impact on student life.
Broadly speaking, education regularly appears near the top in surveys of all Americans' major concerns. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in early November, respondents placed education below only health care, Social Security, the budget deficit and taxes as an important problem for government.
However, the public's focus on education usually reflects concerns about the quality of local schools, not necessarily the issues that are most important to universities and their students. …
Forbes also drew criticism last fall for his role on the board of trustees at Princeton University, his alma mater. When Princeton hired Peter Singer as a professor of bioethics in its Center for Human Values, Forbes used his seat on the board to protest the appointment, citing Singer's support for the euthanasia of severely disabled newborns. Forbes' call for Singer to be fired was labeled as an attack on academic freedom by many Princeton professors and the chairman of the board of trustees. Forbes defended himself by comparing Singer to doctors who worked at Nazi concentration camps.
OBITUARIES
Asbury Park Press (Neptune, NJ.)
Copyright 2000 Asbury Park Press, Inc.
January 20, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: OBITUARIES
ALLISON DELARUE, 97, of Hightstown, formerly of SPRING LAKE, died Monday at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, Hamilton. He was a teacher at the Wood School, Pennsylvania. He wrote for the New York City Ballet and was a photographer for McCarter Theatre, Princeton. He was a former staff member of Cooper Union Museum, New York. He was a member of the Princeton Club for more than 50 years. He was a graduate of the Peddie School, Princeton University and Oxford University. …
Newsday (New York, NY)
Copyright 2000 Newsday, Inc.
January 20, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: OBITUARIES / VICTOR M. REGAN, 61, LAW SECRETARY AND COMMUNITY ACTIVIST
Victor M. Regan, who was considered one of the most respected and knowledgeable law secretaries in Nassau courtrooms, died Sunday at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre after a brief battle with cancer. The longtime Massapequa Park resident was 61. …
Regan was born in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, and spent his childhood in Portland and Augusta, Maine. He moved to Long Island in 1950 when his father was called to be rector of St. George's Church in Hempstead. Regan attended St. Paul's School in Garden City and graduated from Princeton University in 1960. After completing law school at New York University, he worked as an attorney in private practice, then spent 17 years in the Nassau County district attorney's office, 15 of those years as chief and deputy chief for the grand jury. Regan went back into private practice in September, 1983, as a criminal defense trial lawyer. He also had served as acting village justice in Massapequa Park and Sea Cliff. …
THE BALTIMORE SUN
Copyright 2000 The Baltimore Sun Company
January 19, 2000, WednesdayHEADLINE: Clifford A. Truesdell III, 80, acclaimed for work in rational mechanics
BYLINE: Edward Gunts and Frederick N. Rasmussen
SOURCE: SUN STAFFClifford Ambrose Truesdell III, a retired Johns Hopkins University mathematician who received international acclaim for his work in rational mechanics, died Friday of heart failure at Keswick Multi-Care Center in Roland Park. He was 80.
Regarded as the founder of the modern science of rational mechanics, which applies advanced mathematical techniques to the theoretical study of the behavior of solids, liquids and gases, Dr. Truesdell's work concentrated on fluid dynamics, elasticity, thermodynamics and the history of those subjects. …
He earned a master's degree in science from Caltech in 1942 and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1943. …
The Charleston Gazette
Copyright 2000 Charleston Newspapers
January 19, 2000, WednesdayHEADLINE: OBITUARIES
William Roy PiersonRENO, Nev. - William Roy Pierson, 69, of Reno died Jan. 1, 2000.
He was a research professor at the Desert Research Institute and former executive director of the institute's energy and environmental engineering center. He was a native of Charleston, W.Va., received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Princeton University, a doctorate in inorganic and nuclear chemistry from MIT and received a postdoctoral appointment to the Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago. He was a former research scientist at the scientific laboratory of Ford Motor Co., Dearborn, Mich. He was the author of over 100 publications, an appointee to the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee, a fellow of the Air and Waste Management Association and recipient of the association's Franklin A. Chambers Award. He held membership in several professional organizations, including Sigma Xi, Phi Lambda Upsilon, the American Chemical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also was a board member of the Reno Chamber Orchestra. …
Chicago Sun-Times
Copyright 2000 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
January 19, 2000, WEDNESDAYHEADLINE: Robert Wilson, first director of Fermilab
BYLINE: BY SCOTT FORNEKRobert Rathbun Wilson, 85, a scientist and sculptor who carved one of the world's top atomic laboratories out of a west suburban prairie, died Sunday at a retirement home in Ithaca, N.Y.
A participant in the Manhattan Project during World War II, Mr. Wilson went on to become director of the Fermi National Acclerator Laboratory near Batavia from 1967 -- four years before it officially opened -- until 1978, when he resigned in protest over budget constraints. …
Born in Frontier, Wyo., in 1914, Mr. Wilson became interested in nuclear physics while studying electrical engineering at the University of Berkeley in 1932. He went on to teach physics at Princeton University.
During World War II, Mr. Wilson worked on the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb. He was in charge of the nuclear measurements when the first such bomb was tested in the New Mexico desert. …
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Copyright 2000 P.G. Publishing Co.
January 19, 2000, WednesdayHEADLINE: CHARLES GRAY WATSON;
HIGHLY RESPECTED SURGEON, PROFESSOR AT UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
BYLINE: GARY ROTSTEIN, POST-GAZETTE STAFF WRITERDr. Charles Gray Watson outlived his father by less than three months after following in his footsteps as a surgeon and professor, but his three decades of work were plenty of time to have a beneficial impact on thousands of students and patients.
Dr. Watson died of respiratory failure Sunday at UPMC Presbyterian at age 63, after a lung ailment had put him in the hospital four months earlier. He packed a lot of nurturing into his life span, which he had spent since 1968 as a clinician and professor of surgery in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. …
Dr. Watson spent time around his father's office and patients when he was growing up in Rosslyn Farms. He graduated from Phillips Andover Academy and Princeton University and obtained his medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1961. …
The Washington Post
Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
January 19, 2000, WednesdayHEADLINE: DEATHS ELSEWHERE
Clifford A. Truesdell III
Mathematician and AuthorClifford A. Truesdell III, 80, an award-winning mathematician, author and professor of rational mechanics at Johns Hopkins University from 1961 to 1989, died of congestive heart failure Jan. 14 at a Baltimore nursing home.
Dr. Truesdell graduated from the California Institute of Technology with bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics and a master's degree in mathematics. He received a mathematics doctorate from Princeton University. …
He wrote 26 books since, including "Rational Thermodynamics" and "An Idiot's Fugitive Essays on Science: Methods, Criticism, Training, Circumstances," and he helped start and edit several journals, including the Archive for Rational Mechanics and the Archive for History of Exact Sciences. …
The Associated Press
State & Local Wire
January 14, 2000, FridayHEADLINE: Paul Sigler, structural biologist, dies
DATELINE: NEW HAVEN, Conn.Paul Sigler, a Yale University scientist who helped pioneer the field of structural biology, died suddenly on Tuesday. He was 65.
Sigler, the Henry Ford II professor of Molecular Biophysics, collapsed while walking to his laboratory, the university said.
He initially trained as a physician at Columbia University after getting an undergraduate degree at Princeton University and then became a researcher at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.
In the early 1960s, Sigler joined a small band of biophysicists who were attempting to unravel the secrets of enzyme function. After a short time at the National Institutes of Health, he went to the Medical Research Council Laboratory in Cambridge, England, where he joined a group of scientists that in 1967 succeeded in determining the atomic structure of just the second enzyme to have been solved at that time.
Sigler then spent more than 20 years at the University of Chicago, where he established the structure of the RNA molecule involved in the initiation of protein synthesis. The discovery led to his seminal studies of proteins that regulate the expression of information encoded in genes. …
The Buffalo News
Copyright 2000 The Buffalo News
January 13, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: C. PENN WETTLAUFER, 64, DIES; WAS BUSINESSMAN, PROFESSOR
BYLINE: KAREN BRADY; News Staff ReporterC. Penn Wettlaufer, 64, a well-known local businessman, economic-development consultant, professor and member of a prominent Buffalo family, died Tuesday (Jan. 11, 2000) in his Buffalo home after a brief illness.
Director of Empire State College's FORUM/West degree program for middle managers at the time of his death, he was a former president of the old H.D. Taylor Co., an industrial supply company founded by his great-grandfather Denis Taylor in 1833. …
Wettlaufer attended Elmwood Franklin School, Dexter School in Boston, Mass., and Nichols School. He was a graduate of St. Mark's School in Southborough, Mass., and Princeton University, where he earned an honors degree in psychology and was elected to Sigma Xi scientific honor society. …
The Columbian (Vancouver, WA.)
Copyright 2000 The Columbian Publishing Co.
January 13, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: OBITUARIES
BYLINE: compiled by Columbian staffWilliam J. Morris
Battle GroundWilliam Joseph "Bill" Morris, a paleontologist and professor at Occidental University in Los Angeles and Texas A&M, died in Battle Ground on Monday, Jan. 10, 2000. He was 76. …
Mr. Morris earned a doctorate degree from Princeton University. He was a staff member at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and did field work for the National Geographic Society. …
The New York Times
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
January 13, 2000, ThursdayHEADLINE: Paid Notice: Deaths
WETTLAUFER, C. PENNWETTLAUFER-C. Penn. January 11, 2000, died peacefully at home at the age of 64 after a short but courageous battle with cancer. A graduate of St. Mark's School, Southboro, MA., and Princeton University Class of 1958, he received an MBA from Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in 1960. Former president of H.D. Taylor Company in Buffalo, New York, he was most recently professor of business management and economics at Empire State Colllege, a subsidiary of State University of New York. …
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