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Princeton in the News
May 3, 2000
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HIGHLIGHTS
The Associated Press
May 3, 2000HEADLINE: Astronomers say they've found the universe's missing hydrogen
BYLINE: By DAVID HO, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
Astronomers have detected tendrils of hydrogen in the vast dark between galaxies - mysterious matter that accounts for about 5 percent of the universe, NASA said Wednesday.
Astronomers believe at least 90 percent of the matter in the universe is hidden in an exotic dark form that hasn't yet been seen directly.
The other 10 percent consists of baryonic, or ordinary, matter - everything from stars to skyscrapers to people. And it has been embarrassing to scientists that, until now, they have been able to find only half of this ordinary matter.
Now, using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have uncovered the missing half, shedding new light on the large-scale structure of the universe and confirming previous predictions of how much hydrogen was manufactured in the first few minutes of the universe's birth in the Big Bang.
"This is a successful, fundamental test of cosmological models," said Todd Tripp, a Princeton University researcher who worked to find the missing hydrogen. "This provides strong evidence that the models are on the right track."
The results of Tripp and his collaborators are being published in the May 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The astronomers think the missing matter exists as highly charged hydrogen between galaxies, but since such hydrogen is hard to see, they had to seek indirect evidence. In space, the hot hydrogen heats oxygen into an excited state that can be observed. The oxygen was probably spewed into space by exploding stars.
Astronomers found the oxygen by using the light of a distant quasar to probe the invisible space between the galaxies, like shining a flashlight beam through a fog. Quasars are distant, very energetic, stellar objects that can spew X-rays and visible light equal to the total brightness of trillions of stars. …
ABC NEWS
SHOW: WORLD NEWS TONIGHT
May 3, 2000, WednesdayHEADLINE: SCIENTISTS SAY THEY HAVE FOUND REST OF UNIVERSE; JOHN CARDINAL O'CONNOR, ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK, AT HOUR OF HIS DEATH
REPORTERS: NED POTTER
PETER JENNINGS, anchor (From Washington, DC):
At Princeton University in New Jersey today, scientists said they have found the rest of the universe. Yes, we were surprised as well. As laymen, we didn't know that half of it was missing. Most scientists have always believed that the universe was created in a so-called big bang. But they couldn't find quite enough matter to support the theory and it may have been right in front of them. Here's our man about science, Ned Potter.
NED POTTER reporting:
(VO) All the stars in the sky, all the planets and galaxies that telescopes have ever seen, all of them only account for a small fraction of the matter in the universe, the stuff that everything, including us, is made of. The so-called big bang, scientists believe, must have created unimaginable amounts of matter, most of it hydrogen gas.
(OC) But where did it go? Without it, most theories about the origins of the universe would blow up. Well, today, relieved scientists report the missing mass is floating all over intergalactic space.
Mr. TODD TRIPP (Astrophysicist, Princeton University): Yes, it was right there in front of us, but it was also invisible.
POTTER: (VO) Todd Tripp and Ed Jenkins of Princeton University found it with a special detector on the Hubble telescope, one that had been installed by astronauts in 1997. …
Ms. ANNE KINNY (NASA Science Director): The reason this couldn't be observed was the hydrogen was simply too hot, and so you see right through it.
POTTER: (VO) The Hubble couldn't see it either, at least not directly. But the scientists aimed the telescope at quasars, bright objects that are very distant and found that something, presumably the missing hydrogen, was dimming them very slightly.
Ms. KINNY: It's sort of like looking at a lighthouse-- at light from a lighthouse. You can see where there's fog in between.
POTTER: (VO) Today's finding is comforting to cosmologists. Now that the missing half of the universe has turned up, their ideas about its origins appear to be confirmed. Ned Potter, ABC News, New York.
JENNINGS: One other aspect of this discovery, scientists are thinking really big stuff here. They say there is more matter in between the galaxies than there is in the galaxies themselves, though it still looks empty to you and me. …
The New Republic
Copyright 2000 The New Republic, Inc.MAY 8, 2000
HEADLINE: Qualified
BYLINE: Fred GreensteinFred Greenstein is professor of politics at Princeton University and author of The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from Roosevelt to Clinton (Free Press).
Since the presidential campaign began last fall, conventional wisdom about Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush has ricocheted wildly. In November, Bush was charismatic, emphatic, and accomplished. By March, he was intolerant and dumb. In autumn, Gore was cynical, wooden, and emotionally autistic. By spring, he wascynical, tough, and a political genius. And now, after Gore's EliAn GonzAlez pander and Bush's return to compassion, conventional wisdom has flipped once again. All of which raises the kind of elementary question you'd think the media would ask, but they don't: What makes a good president, anyway?
A survey of the eleven chief executives from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Bill Clinton suggests that six qualities matter. And a preliminary assessment of Bush and Gore suggests that the two have different strengths and different weaknesses and, at this point, look like they'd be roughly equivalent overall.
Mastery of the bully pulpit. For a job that places a huge premium on public teaching and preaching, the recent presidents have been surprisingly poor public communicators, and Gore and Bush would comfortably continue that tradition. The great exceptions were FDR, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. (As in much else, Clinton's performance is uneven, alternating between rhetorical home runs and sheer bombast.) But there's hope for W. and Al: FDR, JFK, and Reagan weren't always eloquent; they learned it. …
Organizational capacity. The modern president with the richest organizational experience was the man who managed D-Day: Dwight Eisenhower. …
Political skill. Those who doubt that presidents must be skilled political operators need only remember Jimmy Carter, who couldn't build productive relationships with key policymakers in Washington or abroad and racked up a catalogue of avoidable errors as a result. Lyndon Johnson represents the opposite pole. …
Which brings us to policy vision. Organizational skill is of little use if you're pursuing unrealistic or contradictory goals. Three modern presidents stand out for the explicitness of their policies: Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Reagan. …
Cognitive qualities. Carter had an engineer's tendency to reduce issues to their component parts, an approach that served him well in the 1978 Camp David negotiations but didn't provide his administration with a sense of direction. …
OTHER HEADLINES
Newsweek
Copyright 2000 NewsweekMay 8, 2000
HEADLINE: How It All Started
BYLINE: By Sharon Begley and Thomas Hayden
HIGHLIGHT: The best-ever observations of the origins of the universe hint at the way it will end
To understand the latest discovery about how the universe began, it helps to go back to the saga of the pigeon poop. In 1964, two radio astronomers at Bell Labs were working on an antenna for the new Telstar communications-satellite system. But no matter where Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson pointed the horn-shaped antenna, it picked up a hiss. Some kibitzers suspected that bird droppings in the antenna might be responsible, so the astronomers shoveled out the guano and shooed away the birds. Still the hiss. Scientists at Princeton University eventually traced the sound to a somewhat more distant source: the hiss was radiation left over from the cosmic fireball in which the universe was created. This "cosmic microwave background radiation" has cooled off in the 13 billion to 16 billion years since the big bang, but it still fills the heavens like a faint whisper of creation. …
Last week scientists announced that they had performed what amounts to a detailed handwriting analysis. Using a telescope carried by a balloon above Antarctica, the "Boomerang" experiment produced the first-ever high-resolution map of the cosmic radiation, 40 times finer than anything done before. …
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Copyright 2000 The Atlanta ConstitutionMay 4, 2000, Thursday
HEADLINE: PEOPLE AT PLAY: BIG STAKES
LINDSEY SMITH
EQUESTRIAN / ATLANTA
Riding for 11 of her 18 years, Lindsey Smith competes in horse shows around the country. She has been riding equitation, which is judged on a rider's style and performance, for several years. But recently, she has been attracted to hunter jumper competition, which is judged on speed and jumping cleanly. "I like the faster competition," she said. Smith, who works with two horses --- one for each style of competition --- says she enjoys making the riding adjustments between the two. "I think it's better for me to be more well-rounded," she said. "My equitation horse is very stylized and well- trained. My jumper horse is a scrappy, tough little horse." Graduating from Pace Academy this year, Smith will attend Princeton University in the fall. " It's a good area for horseback riding," Smith said. "That's one of the reasons I wanted to go there."
The Washington Post
Copyright 2000 The Washington PostMay 4, 2000, Thursday
NAME: BOBBY CONVEY
HEADLINE: Education of a Soccer Player; D.C. United's New Kid Is In a Class by Himself
BYLINE: Frank Ahrens , Washington Post Staff Writer
He is a boy. Standing, leaning, shifting from foot to foot, or late-night sleepy-tired and folded up like a lawn chair, all elbows and eye-rubs, Bobby Convey looks exactly like the 16-year-old boy he is.
He is a man. Running, weaving, accelerating on the field with his teammates, an artful soccer player whose shots bang! off the goalposts with the same thunder of his grown-up teammates, Bobby the boy fades.
This is the transformation that allowed Bobby to drop out of high school and become a professional athlete, even though he still has to sneak into R-rated movies. He's that good, everyone says. …
Bruce Arena, the coach of the U.S. national team, sits on the metal bleachers at the United practice field one chilly morning and watches Bobby run through a drill. Though it's premature to proclaim Bobby's greatness, the guarded coach says, it's correct for the 5-foot-8, 150-pound attacking midfielder to be here.
"This," Arena says, nodding toward the field, "is better for his soccer development than high school."
There are those for whom the decision is not so clear-cut. One of them is Richard Broad, coach of the W.T. Woodson High School boys' soccer team in Fairfax. He has never met Bobby, but as a college soccer TV announcer he covered his sister at Penn State, and has chatted with the parents. …
Broad agrees with Arena: A pro team is unquestionably the best learning environment for a young soccer player. For learning soccer.
But Broad--who received a religion degree from Princeton University while playing soccer and later earned a master's--adds, "What concerns me is what [Bobby] misses out on." …
The Associated Press
State & Local WireMay 3, 2000, Wednesday
HEADLINE: Myhrvold leaves Microsoft job to pursue other interests full-time
BYLINE: By MICHAEL J. MARTINEZ, AP Business Writer
DATELINE: SEATTLE
Nathan Myhrvold, the chief technology officer at Microsoft Corp., said Wednesday he will not return full-time to the company he served for 14 years.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Myhrvold said he would continue to advise Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates occasionally, as he has since going on leave last summer. During his leave, Myhrvold has been pursuing a wide variety of interests, from biotechnology to dinosaurs.
"If I wanted to do a single thing, I'd go back to Microsoft," Myhrvold said. "But there's so much I want to do and try, and so far I've been having a great time doing it."
Myhrvold came to Microsoft in 1986 after the software giant purchased Dynamical Systems, a company Myhrvold had founded. He quickly became a confidant to Gates, who is said to consider him a rare intellectual equal. …
Myhrvold holds a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical physics and a master's degree in mathematical economics from Princeton University. He also has a master's degree in geophysics and space physics and a bachelor's degree in mathematics, both from the University of California. He once served as an assistant to noted British physicist Stephen Hawking.
His education has also included certificates in mountain climbing, formula car racing, photography and French cooking. He has been known on occasion to help cook at Rover's, an expensive five-star restaurant in Seattle. …
Japan Economic Newswire
Copyright 2000 Kyodo News ServiceMay 3, 2000, Wednesday
BYLINE: Mikio Haruna
DATELINE: TOKYO, May 2 Kyodo
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander during the Allied occupation of Japan once considered having Emperor Hirohito converted to Christianity, a diary of then U.S. secretary of the Navy shows.
The diary of James Forrestal said that during his meeting with MacArthur in Tokyo on July 10, 1946, the general said he had 'given some consideration' to converting the emperor but thought it would need a 'good deal of reflection and consideration before it could be carried out.'
Kyodo News obtained a copy of the diary, which was found at the library of Princeton University, Forrestal's alma mater. The author later became the first secretary of defense, a post created in 1947.
MacArthur's idea of spreading Christianity in Japan by changing the emperor's religion probably stemmed from the general's belief that democracy arises from Christian principles, according to Ray Moore, Japanese history professor at Amherst College, who described MacArthur as a '19th century man.' …
NOTE: Appeared in USA Today and Agence France Presse.
The New York Times
Copyright 2000 The New York Times CompanyMay 3, 2000, Wednesday
HEADLINE: Mr. Business-School Boom;
What Jacobs Wrought, in a Quarter-Century, at Kellogg
BYLINE: By DAVID LEONHARDT
DATELINE: EVANSTON, Ill.
Donald P. Jacobs jumps into a swimming pool every day at 6:30 a.m. and spends 45 minutes doing laps. During rainstorms, he sometimes dashes without an umbrella between buildings on the Northwestern University campus here, even as the wind off Lake Michigan musses his hair. When he gives public speeches, he often wears a sweatshirt. And when he finds something funny, he throws his head back, crosses his arms over his chest and guffaws.
Mr. Jacobs has a rather loose style for a business school dean, especially one who passed the traditional retirement age seven years ago. But nothing is frivolous about his accomplishments: No one has had a greater effect on management education in the United States than he has, say his peers at schools around the country.
This spring, Mr. Jacobs is celebrating his 25th anniversary at the helm of the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern. He has held his job longer than any current major university president or other business school dean, higher education experts say. …
His first job was at City College in New York. Northwestern's business school offered him a post in the 1950's, but the dean at the time, Richard Donham, son of the founding dean of Harvard Business School, asked him to promise to teach in the executive education program, a forum that many faculty members deemed intellectually weak. Dr. Donham "wouldn't have hired me if I wouldn't do it," Mr. Jacobs said.
The experience changed his view of business education and, eventually, remade Kellogg.
Over the next two decades, Mr. Jacobs taught finance and, in 1974, found himself on a search committee to find a replacement for John Barr, the former chief executive of Montgomery Ward who was then stepping down as head of Northwestern's business school. The committee offered the job to a French diplomat and to administrators at both Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. All three said no.
"And then the search committee," said Professor Duncan, another committee member, "almost in desperation, said: 'Enough is enough. Somebody's got to be dean.' " …
The New York Times
Copyright 2000 The New York Times CompanyMay 3, 2000, Wednesday
HEADLINE: Build a Missile Shield? The Debate Rages On
To the Editor:
In the document that American negotiators presented to the Russians regarding amendments to the Antiballistic Missile Treaty (front page, April 28), the United States seeks to reassure Russia that Moscow could make "an annihilating counterattack," even after a surprise American first strike, as long as it "keeps its strategic arsenal on constant alert."
What an argument! To pave the way for deployment of a ballistic missile defense system, which among other purposes is meant to guard against accidental launching of a few Russian missiles, the United States encourages Russia to keep between 1,000 and 2,000 strategic warheads on constant alert.
This is foolish. It is also an implicit admission that deployment of even a limited national ballistic missile defense system will make it far more difficult to reduce numbers of strategic weapons and the hair-trigger alert of the forces.
HAROLD A. FEIVESON
Princeton, N.J., May 1, 2000
The writer is co-director of the Program on Nuclear Policy Alternatives at Princeton University.
United Press International
Copyright 2000 U.P.I.May 3, 2000, Wednesday
HEADLINE: Sports Update
DATELINE: NEW YORK, May 3
Kings assistant released from hospital Sacramento Kings assistant Pete Carril was released from a hospital Tuesday, three days after suffering a minor heart attack at a practice.
Carril is a Hall of Famer known for his old-fashioned but effective principles during a long and successful coaching career at Princeton University.
Carril, 68, suffered a minor heart attack at Arco Arena on Saturday morning before the team's practice. He was taken to Sutter General Hospital and later was transferred to Sutter Memorial, undergoing a series of tests.
After leaving Princeton following the 1995-96 season, Carril was asked to join the Kings by director of basketball operations Geoff Petrie, who played for Carril in college. …
USA TODAY
Copyright 2000 Gannett Company, Inc.May 3, 2000, Wednesday
BYLINE: Smita P. Nordwall; Elliot Blair Smith; From wire reports
MacArthur considered converting Hirohito
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the Allies' supreme commander during the post-World War II occupation of Japan, considered pressuring Emperor Hirohito into becoming a Christian. MacArthur also urged Protestant
leaders in the United States to send 1,000 missionaries to convert Japan to Christianity to help promote democracy. The plan to convert the emperor, who was forced to renounce his divine status, was recorded in the diary of then-Navy Secretary James Forrestal. After meeting with MacArthur on July 10, 1946, Forrestal wrote that the general said he had "given some consideration" to trying to convert the emperor. MacArthur gave up the idea, saying it would create conflict between Protestants and Catholics. The diary was found at Princeton University, Forrestal's alma mater.
Birmingham Post
Copyright 2000 Midland Independent Newspapers plcMay 2, 2000, Tuesday
HEADLINE: DO ELGIN'S LETTERS SOLVE THE MARBLE FIGHT?; BRIBES AND DEBTS CLOUD THE ISSUE, FINDS JOAN GRALLA.
ANew York professor thinks he might have the key to solving a 200-year-old dispute between Britain and Greece over who owns the Elgin Marbles - sculptures taken from Athens' Parthenon in 1801 and now at the British Museum.
David Rudenstine, a law professor at the Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law, said the solution might lie in letters from Thomas Bruce, the seventh earl of Elgin, and in an Italian translation of an Ottoman Empire legal document.
Greece has long maintained that what it calls the Parthenon marbles - sculptures of gods, heroes, men and battles carved centuries before Christ to adorn the walls of the Parthenon Temple on the Acropolis - were stolen and should be returned.
Britain argues that the 2,500-year-old sculptures, which occupy a whole room in the British Museum, were bought legitimately from Elgin, who got them from the Turks when he was Britain's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Greece for about 400 years.
Rudenstine plans to spend ten months at Princeton University starting in June writing a book about whether Britain rescued or stole the delicately carved sculptures. …
Innovator's Digest
Copyright 2000 Merton Allen AssociatesMay 2, 2000
HEADLINE: COMBUSTION STUDIES ON HIGH PRESSURE AND UNSTEADY FLAME PHENOMENA; Brief Article
AUTHOR-ABSTRACT: THIS IS THE FULL TEXT: COPYRIGHT 2000 Merton Allen Associates Subscription:
This (Princeton University) program studies the structure and response of laminar premixed and nonpremixed flames, with emphases on the effects of high pressure, flame/flow unsteadiness, and chemistry. The investigations are conducted through laser-based experimentation, computational simulation with detailed chemistry and transport descriptions, and advanced mathematical analysis.
Specific phenomena studied include: the steady-state structure; burning rate; extinction of flames; response to impulsive and periodic flow-field strain-rate variations; development of intrinsic flame-front pulsating instability and its relation to extinction; and studies related to the development of detailed and simplified chemical kinetic mechanisms. These results are useful to fundamental and practical issues related to: flame dynamics and chemical kinetics; turbulent combustion; soot formation; radiative heat transfer; flame extinction; flame stabilization; flammability; and supersonic combustion.
The New York Times
Copyright 2000 The New York Times CompanyMay 2, 2000, Tuesday
HEADLINE: A CONVERSATION WITH: VICTOR FUCHS;
An Economist's View Of Health Care Reform
BYLINE: By GINA KOLATA
Dr. Victor Fuchs is an economist who also sees himself as a humanist, a person who is interested in values and who inquires how economics can help people to think about social problems and arrive at solutions. Economics, he explains, is about choice. It asks how people respond to incentives, how they respond to constraints. And so, Dr. Fuchs observes, "economics is the quintessential policy science."
Dr. Fuchs, an emeritus professor of economics, holds half a dozen titles at Stanford University and is continuing his research while serving on the steering committee of Stanford's Center for Biomedical Ethics and as a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also a past president of the American Economic Association and a member of the American Philosophical Society and of the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Fuchs, 76, visited Princeton University last week, lecturing and meeting with graduate students. On a gray and chilly morning, sitting at a small square table in a drafty section of his hotel's breakfast room, he discussed how economic analysis could inform the nation's wrenching debates about health care. …
Newsbytes
Copyright 2000 Post-Newsweek Business Information, Inc.May 2, 2000, Tuesday
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A.
SmarThinking
Washington-based SmarThinking announced three senior management appointments. Rich Simon, the new technology officer, comes to the company from Princeton University. The new Vice President of Administration, Loretta Castaldi, was vice president of administration at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC). And Online Writing Lab Coordinator Beth L. Hewett Ph.D. most recently directed the Writing Program and the Writing Center at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), Essex Campus.
The Plain Dealer
Copyright 2000 Plain Dealer Publishing Co.May 2, 2000 Tuesday
HEADLINE: CAMPAIGN FOR DRUG WORKING; AWARENESS ON RISE FOR MORNING-AFTER PILL
BYLINE: By LOUISE D. PALMER; NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
It can prevent pregnancy and a potential abortion - even after unprotected sex. It's been legal for years. It's private. It's safe and effective, according to the Food and Drug Administration, which urged American drug companies to market it two years ago.
And yet, most women don't know what emergency contraception is, don't know where to get it and don't use it to avoid unintended pregnancy, according to research by family planning groups and experts in women's health. Most doctors, for their part, neither talk about "the morning-after pill" nor offer it to their patients.
Researchers say women often have heard of the pill, which can be taken up to 72 hours after unplanned sex, contraceptive failure or rape. But they are just as likely to mistake it for the "French abortion pill," also known as RU 486 or mifepristone. …
Expanding availability
But EC education is a top priority in the reproductive health community, where members believe wide availability could cut the abortion rate in half and dramatically reduce the personal and public costs of an estimated 3.2 million unintended pregnancies every year.
"This is an idea so compelling that once you think about it, the world is never quite the same," said James Trussell, an economist who runs the Office of Population Research at Princeton University and one in a group of academics providing research for the education campaigns.
Proponents point to Washington state, which last year had the biggest drop in its abortion rate in two decades. Health department researchers believe this is in part due to greater access to the morning-after pill. …
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)Copyright 2000 Bergen Record Corp.
May 2, 2000, TUESDAY
HEADLINE: A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR CHIMPANZEES?
SOURCE: Wire services
BYLINE: ROBIN McKIE
MOE IS 32 YEARS OLD, and very soon he may make legal history.
The chimpanzee, raised in a cage in a Los Angeles backyard, is the subject of a bitter legal wrangle between Los Angeles city officials on one side and his owners on the other.
The former have seized the animal and put him in an ape sanctuary to stop him from escaping and biting citizens. The latter, a suburban couple who kept him in their garden, are suing to get their chimp back.
It's typical Californian legal fare, you might think, except there's a twist to this story: lawyers for the Animal Legal Defense Fund have applied to be made Moe's guardian ad litem, an act laden with legal and philosophical implications.
"Chimpanzees along with bonobos pygmy chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, differing from us in structure of DNA by only just over 1 percent," says primatologist Jane Goodall."This makes these apes 'our sibling species'; thus it is fitting that they should be the first to acquire rights."
This view is also endorsed by philosopher Peter Singer of Princeton University."Every animal deserves to be treated with consideration,"he says, "and that is particularly true when we deal with the great apes, such as chimpanzees. …
NOTE: This story was carried by the London Observer and Scripps Howard News Services.
Saint Paul Pioneer Press
Copyright 2000 Saint Paul Pioneer PressMay 2, 2000, Tuesday
HEADLINE: Saint Paul Pioneer Press, Minn., Investor's Eye Column
BYLINE: By Gail MarksJarvis
ELITE COLLEGES GIVE LOW-INCOME STUDENTS A BOOST: This is the time of year when high school seniors and their parents agonize about a college choice for next fall. They mull over every acceptance, worry about the rejections and fret about whether students will be plucked from college waiting lists.
Parents of students with a wide range of acceptances and limited financial resources often wrestle with this dilemma: Do they send their child to an elite college and risk crushing debt and a worry-filled retirement? Or do they send a child to a more affordable institution and risk inhibiting the student's earnings potential?
Now, a study done by researchers from the Mellon Foundation and Princeton University, may help remove a bit of the guesswork about college choice.
Stacy Berg Dale and Alan Krueger have found that if a student is affluent, the decision may be less important than you think. But if a student is from a lower- income family, a prestigious college will provide an edge in salary that a less renowned school will not.
Students from lower-income families who attend top colleges like Harvard, Williams or the University of Pennsylvania earned 6 percent a year more than students who attended simply good colleges like the University of Minnesota.
Dale, of the Mellon Foundation, and Krueger, of Princeton, studied the earnings histories of 14,239 students who were freshmen at 30 colleges in 1976. By 1995, the students from the most elite colleges were earning $92,000 a year, but those who had attended moderately selective colleges like Penn State or Tulane were earning $22,000 less. …
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)Copyright 2000 Telegraph Group Limited
May 01, 2000, Monday
HEADLINE: News: Spotlight on the week
BYLINE: By Sebastien Berger
EARTH: Groups of meditators will gather at Stonehenge, Avebury and Glastonbury Tor three times on Thursday in an effort to "heal" the globe, with participants being asked to "dedicate your intent to the awakening of planetary consciousness". Researchers at Princeton University will be attempting to detect any physical effects.
Business Wire
Copyright 2000 Business Wire, Inc.May 1, 2000, Monday
HEADLINE: SMARTHINKING Adds to Leadership Team; Online Academic Support Company Gears Up for Future
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, May 1, 2000
SMARTHINKING, the Washington, DC-based company providing online, person-to-person academic support for students taking core courses, today announced the following appointments to bolster its management team and prepare it for the 2000-2001 school year:
Rich Simon - Chief Technology Officer
Rich Simon brings extensive experience in software project development, database management, and network administration to SMARTHINKING, as well as a rich background in education. Most recently at Princeton University, Rich administered the financial information systems, programmed web, fax and other applications, and headed the development of Princeton's enterprise systems management solutions. …
Design News
Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.May 1, 2000
HEADLINE: Technology Bulletin
Bright idea for flat-panel displays
Researchers Stephen Forrest and Marc Baldo from Princeton University with colleague Mark Thomson of the University of Southern California created a light-emitting material that they say improves the efficiency with which light is produced for flat panel displays found in laptop computer screens, car stereo displays, hand-held devices, cellular telephones, and elsewhere. The team combined the phenomena of fluorescence and phosphorescence in a way that allows the production of light that is four times more efficient than fluorescent materials. The result is an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) made of thin films that emit light. The efficiency of light-emitting devices depends on how well molecules react in "excited" states called "singlets" and "triplets." The material emits light when either singlets or triplets release their energy and return to a ground state. The researchers use phosphors to "collect" all the triplet states, convert them to usable singlets, and transfer them into fluorescent material. Princeton applied for a patent on the work. FAX: (609) 258-0119.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Copyright 2000 Deutsche Presse-AgenturMay 1, 2000
HEADLINE: Top U.S. college may not mean top pay, study finds
DATELINE: Los Angeles
As millions of American high school graduates mull which colleges to attend, a new study says that going to a prestigious - and expensive - university may not result in a prestigious salary in the job market, according to The Los Angeles Times Monday.
With the cost of four years at top-ranked private schools exceeding 130,000 dollars, studies in the past have backed up the popular assumption that a degree from an elite college puts a student on a path to prosperity with fatter paychecks than those of graduates from less exalted institutions.
But The Times said recent research from, of all places, Princeton University, challenges that belief.
At least for top students, what really matters is the student's drive, not the school, according to Stacy Berg Dale, a researcher at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation who researched the question with Princeton economist Alan B. Krueger.
"What seems to matter is a person's ambition or self-confidence," Dale said. The most ambitious students "will do well in life," regardless of their alma maters, she said. …
Krueger and Dale approached the problem in a different way--and reached their contrarian results. Using the Mellon Foundation's "College and Beyond" database of about 14,000 graduates from 30 colleges, they identified matching sets of college graduates who had applied to and been accepted by comparable schools in 1976. Some chose to attend the more prestigious schools, others went elsewhere.
Comparing results for students in those matching sets, they found that the incomes were very close, no matter what institutions the students actually attended. …
Gannett News Service
Copyright 2000 Gannett Company, Inc.May 01, 2000, Monday
HEADLINE: Gallup's son finds purpose at crossroads of pulpit and polls
BYLINE: LAURIE GRANIERI; Home News Tribune (East Brunswick, N.J.)
The Gallup Organization announces itself with a decidedly stately air: The facade of the sturdy red brick building in Palmer Square near Princeton University is emblazoned with "The Gallup Building" in huge, burnished-brass letters. A spiral staircase cuts a swath through the elegantly appointed second-floor lobby, which is decorated with fresh flowers, warm woods, tidily arranged magazines and flags from around the world. Employees move from
room to room speaking in hushed tones.
Meanwhile, George Gallup Jr., 70, sits at the end of an long, gleaming conference table on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, nursing a can of Diet Coke and talking about, of all things, God.
"I was always very spiritual," says Gallup, who graduated from Princeton in 1953 with a bachelor's degree in religion. "I always felt the presence of a loving God, a loving father, actually -- not a God removed. I felt this early on at 8 or 9, powerfully, in an incident actually, I sensed the presence of God. There were no people around, no men, but there was this deep voice. I sensed it. Well, whatever it was, it stayed with me." …
"At Princeton, I was very definitely thinking of going into the seminary and testing my call, but I felt my dad's field answered a lot of things I was looking for: A way to help people in a broad sense, which is really spiritual, and, more specifically, to find out how people were responding to God."
How can polling be spiritual?
"If God exists, well, that is all-important," Gallup says. "Most people in the world think, yes, he does exist,
so it is terribly important to find out how people think of him. We are seeing, in a sense, how they respond to him." …
Korea Economic Weekly
Copyright 2000 WISE D BaseMay 1, 2000
HEADLINE: YBM SISA to set up foreign school
YBM SISA Company, specialized in foreign language education, will establish a foreign school with classes conducted in English from 1st to 12th grades. Graduates from the school will be certified as having equivalent education to schools in the US.
On April 23, YBM SISA confirmed that it would found the school in Seoul's Kangnam area with classes starting in September.
Currently there are two foreign schools in Seoul, accepting only foreign students: Seoul Foreign School and Seoul International School. Expatriates have run the two schools, so the planned new school will be the first to be Korean-owned.
YBM SISA has received accreditation from the Ministry of Education and is now taking steps to recruit students. …
In order to be in line with US educational standards, YBM SISA sought consultation from Princeton University.
Los Angeles Times
Copyright 2000 Times Mirror CompanyMay 1, 2000
HEADLINE: TOP COLLEGE MAY NOT MEAN TOP PAY, STUDY FINDS
BYLINE: KENNETH R. WEISS, TIMES EDUCATION WRITER
What's the value of an Ivy League degree?
With high school seniors facing a deadline today for deciding which colleges to attend, and the cost of four years at top-ranked private schools exceeding $130,000, the question of whether all that tuition is worth it is getting served up as a hot topic around many dinner tables.
For years, studies have backed up the popular assumption that a degree from an elite college puts a student on a path to prosperity with fatter paychecks than those of graduates from less exalted institutions. Many studies still support that position.
But recent research from, of all places, Princeton University, challenges that belief.
At least for top students, what really matters is the student's drive, not the school, according to Stacy Berg Dale, a researcher at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation who researched the question with Princeton economist Alan B. Krueger.
"What seems to matter is a person's ambition or self-confidence," Dale said. The most ambitious students "will do well in life," regardless of their alma maters, she said. …
Maclean's
Copyright 2000 Maclean Hunter LimitedMay 1, 2000
HEADLINE: How We THINK
BYLINE: By Robert Sheppard
HIGHLIGHT: CANADA'S STEVEN PINKER CHALLENGES THE ACCEPTED WISDOM OF HOW THE HUMAN BRAIN WORKS
For hours at a time, psychologist Steven Pinker subjects some of America's brightest university students to a battery of real and imaginary words. What is the past tense of "slace" or "plip"? he asks. What is the past of to "see" with your eyes, or to "saw" with a saw? See-saw-sawed. Confronted with something as mighty as a word, the human mind takes all of a quarter of a second to store it (for most people in the rear of the left hemisphere) and then ship it out for processing to word-fetching memory banks or the rule-making generating stations in different parts of the brain. Asked to deal with made-up words, the mind shows an equal dexterity in drawing meaning and grammatical correctness, barely missing a beat. …
HOW MEMORY WORKS
The good news is that memory is cached in many more parts of the brain than was previously thought. Researchers are also finding at least some capacity for the mind to reorganize itself and relearn important functions after stroke or injury. The bad news: you still can't tell your brain to remember something on command. "Intention itself is a relatively feeble method of committing a name or a fact to memory," laughs the University of Toronto's Endel Tulving, at 73 the grandfather of memory research in this country. The brain, it seems, has its own rationale for deciding what should be remembered and what shouldn't. Some of it may be purely chemical: Princeton University scientist Joe Tsien has made a "smarter" mouse by adding a chemical receptor to its genetic makeup to strengthen the synapses, the sites where two nerve cells touch. The result: the mouse has a better memory for fear and reward. …
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE (RIVERSIDE, CA.)Copyright 2000 The Press Enterprise Co.
May 01, 2000, Monday
HEADLINE: A backdoor play for Coach Carril: The Kings' assistant is hospitalized after a mild heart attack, but his legacy was on display.
BYLINE: Lyle Spencer; The Press-Enterprise
SACRAMENTO
It might be a stretch to suggest that the Sacramento Kings won one for Pete Carril, their beloved assistant coach who was watching the game from a local hospital bed in recovery from a heart ailment. They had enough motivation in simply saving their season.
But they certainly did run one for Carril.
Midway through the fourth quarter of Game 3, during an offensive eruption that had the Arco Arena crowd going wild, Predrag Stojakovic went backdoor on Glen Rice, leaving his defender a step behind. Chris Webber hit Stojakovic with a pass for two points, classic Princeton style, that had the Kings in the lead, 83-78, on their way to a 99-91 victory that forced a Game 4 the Lakers did not want. …
Carril, 69, made his mark as coach of the fundamentally sound Princeton team that upset UCLA in the NCAA Tournament, among other notable achievements. …
University Wire
Copyright 2000 The Daily Princetonian via U-WireMay 1, 2000
HEADLINE: Princeton students arrested for lewd behavior
BYLINE: By Bill Beaver, The Daily Princetonian
DATELINE: Princeton, N.J.
Two Princeton University students were arrested Thursday night and charged with lewdness and harassment, according to Borough Police Lt. Charles Davall.
On April 20 at about 11 p.m., Dennis Alshuler '03 and Sloan Bermann '02 allegedly exposed themselves and yelled obscenities during a performance by a female singing group in 1879 Arch.
Subsequently, one of the pair allegedly masturbated in front of a female audience member and the other allegedly chased her while continuing to expose himself. …
Lewdness, according to the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice, is a disorderly persons offense in which the perpetrator "does any flagrantly lewd and offensive act, which he knows or reasonably expects is likely to be observed by other non-consenting persons who would be affronted or alarmed." …
USA TODAY
Copyright 2000 Gannett Company, Inc.May 1, 2000, Monday
HEADLINE: Study shows St. John's wort might weaken birth control
BYLINE: Dan Vergano
The popular herb St. John's wort, which is taken by many as an antidepressant, might reduce the effectiveness of birth-control pills and other medications, experts warn.
In fact, a wave of St. John's wort "miracle babies" resulting from birth-control pill failure is "likely to happen," says
pharmacologist Stephen Piscitelli of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. …
What should a woman do?
"Choose either another antidepressant or another contraceptive method," says James Trussell of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. …
SUNDAY NEWS (LANCASTER, PA.)Copyright 2000 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.
April 30, 2000, Sunday
HEADLINE: Baird finds challenges at Princeton; Distance runner is tackling a new event -- the steeplechase.
BYLINE: Mike Gross
When last we checked in with Mike Baird, the Manheim Township grad was dominating local distance running and doing just as well, if not better, in the classroom.
In cross country, two District Three and three Lancaster-Lebanon League championships. In track, six district and six league championships.
Plus, the anchor leg on a Township relay team that won the league and district and finished second in the state. And berths in national class events like the Penn Relays.
A grade-point average over 4.00, owing to advanced-placement courses. A 1,430 SAT (710 verbal, 720 math).
Princeton University won the recruiting battle, over Duke and William & Mary and Penn State and the service academies.
But there's a funny thing about places like Princeton: Everybody's brilliant there.
So Baird isn't dominating anything yet. What did you expect? He isn't complaining.
"It's going all right," Baird said Thursday by telephone from his dorm room at Princeton. He was talking about running. …
Daily News (New York)Copyright 2000 Daily News, L.P.
April 30, 2000, Sunday
HEADLINE: TWO GOOD TO BE TRUE Princeton's Chris Young can throw it and shoot it, but now he may have to choose one
BYLINE: BY WAYNE COFFEY
PRINCETON - Peter Aswad of Columbia is a strapping, 225-pound cleanup hitter and the top slugger in the Ivy League. In a recent game against Princeton at Baker Field, he came to the plate three times, stared out at the mound and took in the most forbidding baseball spectacle he had ever seen.
It was No. 55 in Tiger orange and black, a skyscraper of a sophomore, wearing the same number he wore when he last visited Columbia - as a Princeton basketball star, when he produced a line that included 21 points, six rebounds, seven assists and three blocks.
With no windup, a tight, high kick and a motion as fluid as hot syrup, Chris Young mixed 90 mph fastballs with breaking pitches on the black. In his three trips, Aswad managed two foul balls. He struck out all three times. Over two years, he has hit one fair ball against Chris Young.
Nobody needs to explain to Aswad why big-league scouts follow Young like radar-gun-toting groupies.
"From a hitter's point of view, seeing him walk to the mound, seeing a 6-11, 255-pound pitcher, it is very intimidating," Aswad says. "He has the edge before he even winds up."
Young says he's actually 6-10, 250, but why quibble? "It seems like he's handing the ball to the catcher," Aswad says.
Chris Young joined the Princeton baseball team on March 17, after he was unanimously voted the All-Ivy center and after the basketball team lost its first-round NIT game to Penn State. Since his first start on April 1, he is 3-0, with a 0.67 ERA, 36 strikeouts and eight walks in 27 innings.
A year ago, Young was the first to be named the Ivy League's rookie of the year in two sports.
"Somebody would have to sit down and argue with me long and hard to convince me there's a better two-sport athlete in the country than this kid," says Princeton baseball coach Scott Bradley.
A certain selection in this June's baseball amateur draft, Young is also so highly regarded in basketball that a top NBA scout recently told a Princeton official Young would be a late first or early second round draft pick right now.
The only bittesweet aspect to all this is Young will have to give up his two-sport status if he chooses pro baseball. Because the Ivy League is the only conference that does not let an athlete turn pro in one sport and keep his eligibility in another, Young's Princeton basketball career (and perhaps his pro career, too) would be over should he sign a baseball contract. …
Daily News (New York)Copyright 2000 Daily News, L.P.
April 30, 2000
HEADLINE: RULE MAKES IVY ENVY THE REST
BYLINE: BY WAYNE COFFEY
Drew Henson signed with the Yankees two years ago - and kept playing quarterback for Michigan in the off-season. Trajan Langdon and Ricky Williams also signed pro contracts and played minor-league baseball, with no repercussions on their careers in Duke basketball and Texas football, respectively.
Whatever happens in baseball's amateur draft five weeks from now, Chris Young will not be so fortunate; he plays in the only conference in the nation that does not allow an athlete to sign a professional contract in one sport and retain eligibility in another.
It says so in the Ivy League manual, Part IV, B-3, a measure in place since the league's founding in 1954:
"Unlike NCAA rules, Ivy rules proscribe eligibility in all sports if a student is professionalized in any sport."
Young was not aware of the rule until he got to Princeton and baseball coach Scott Bradley told him about it.
"I don't really understand the reasoning," Young said. "Maybe there's some deeper logic behind it that I haven't been informed about."
The rule means Young will face the most wrenching decision of his 21-year-old life if he is selected in the June draft: whether to chase his boyhood dream of playing big-league baseball, at the expense of ending his all-Ivy basketball career. …
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Knight Ridder/Tribune News ServiceApril 30, 2000, Sunday
HEADLINE: Stock slide delivers strong blow to Gates personal fortune
BYLINE: By William R. Macklin
PHILADELPHIA -- Bill Gates lost big last week.
Not only did the government recommend that his company, Microsoft, be cleaved in two after a recent court ruling that the monopolistic Windows software-maker was a predatory trust. But after a 16 percent slide in the value of his Microsoft stock -- which translated into a $10-billion-dollar blow to his $59.4 billion personal fortune -- the software baron even came shockingly close to losing his position as the world's wealthiest investor to longtime rival Larry Ellison, chairman of Oracle Corp.
This monetary melodrama seems even more cinematic when you consider that a mere decade ago, the list of the wealthiest working people on the planet, as calculated each summer by Forbes magazine, was topped by Japanese industrialists and real estate tycoons. The stateside techno fat cats who have since invaded the list were still cubs learning to roar.
But the rise of the American billionaire class is noteworthy less for a change in any list than for what it may mean to the folks who live in the real world.
Some economists and social scientists express alarm over the growing concentration of tremendous wealth in what amounts to a small and economically powerful clique. …
Princeton University economist Burton Malkiel said that while it is obvious that the very rich exert some control over the political process, it is not nearly as significant as the powerful and important contributions they make to the nation's economic well being. The real problem raised by the new billionaires, he said, is that they may be an economic flavor of the month.
Malkiel, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, posits that the same fickle whims of commerce and economy that once made Asian management seem so enviable and foreign know-how seem so irreplaceable may be behind the new American wealth.
And while it's unlikely that Gates and his compatriots will find themselves on any bread line, if a dramatic shift occurred in the nature of information technology _ some new development, for instance, to which the existing industries could not or would not adapt _ or if some other unforeseen crises threatened the unhampered growth of their personal fortunes (such as big stock losses after a major anti-trust lawsuit), the billionaires could become reluctant to re-invest the capital they generate.
"To the extent that one can argue that what we have now is a high-tech bubble, we could end up with the same thing that happened in Asia," said Malkiel. "And so it's possible that ten years from now we could have a whole different group of people at the top of the list." …
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Copyright 2000 P.G. Publishing Co.April 30, 2000, Sunday
HEADLINE: 'QUAGMIRE' HAUNTS U.S. FOREIGN POLICY; FEARS OF ANOTHER FAILURE INHIBIT LEGISLATORS
BYLINE: ANN MCFEATTERS, POST-GAZETTE NATIONAL BUREAU
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
Twenty-five years after the fall of Saigon and the chaotic U.S. evacuation, memories and lessons of the U.S. experience in Vietnam remain near the surface.
Colleges now offer courses on the Vietnam War, sorting and resorting the pages of that dark period. Hundreds of books have been written in an effort to make sense of what happened. Movies have probed the still-tender emotions the war evoked. There are more than 75,000 Web sites related to the Vietnam War.
The imposing, stark, black face of The Wall, the Vietnam War Memorial, draws thousands of quiet, sober-faced visitors to Washington every year. Medals, teddy bears, footballs and tear-stained letters still are reverently placed under the names engraved on its facade, collected and stored by the government. …
Princeton University politics professor Fred Greenstein, author of "The Presidential Difference," a new book on presidential leadership, documented that Hubert Humphrey, while Lyndon Johnson's vice president, tried repeatedly to keep Johnson from getting militarily involved in Vietnam, preferring a diplomatic solution. Johnson responded by barring Humphrey from meetings about Vietnam.
Robert McNamara, defense secretary during the Johnson administration, argued passionately that if all of Vietnam became a communist bulwark, the rest of Southeast Asia would be swept by a communist tide, like dominoes. Now, he says, "We were wrong."
Humphrey's argument--and that of thousands of peace demonstrators--was that there was no overriding U.S. strategic interest in pursuing a war in Vietnam. Humphrey argued that unless the U.S. public was prepared for war and supported it, the outcome would be disaster. …
The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)Copyright 2000 The Post and Courier
April 30, 2000, SundayHEADLINE: Columbia teacher wins top honor
BYLINE: MARSHA B. GUERARD; Of The Post and Courier
DATELINE: COLUMBIA
A Columbia high school teacher was given $25,000 and keys to a new BMW Z3 roadster for a year Saturday as South Carolina's Teacher of the Year.
Christa Compton, who has taught for seven years at Richland Northeast High School, will get a one-year sabbatical to travel the state and work with the state Education Department and South Carolina Center for Teacher Recruitment.
Compton wants to encourage students and others to enter the teaching profession.
"We must give teaching an image makeover so that the public sees it as a natural choice for articulate, motivated people who are infatuated with ideas and driven to share them," she said. …
Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, was keynote speaker at Saturday night's banquet in Columbia. The $210 million Rose Center for Earth and Space that Tyson supervises opened in New York two months ago. In addition to his books and scientific research, Tyson writes a monthly column for Natural History magazine and teaches astrophysics at Princeton University. …
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2000 San Antonio Express-NewsApril 30, 2000, Sunday
HEADLINE: Retiree educator's influence felt statewide, and beyond
BYLINE: Hector Saldana
Most San Antonians probably don't know Earl Lewis.
But over the years, the retired educator's ideals have been implemented by the students he taught and the politicians and civic leaders who sought his council.
For them, he is a behind-the-scenes giant with big political passions - education and equity. He raised tens of millions of local, state and federal dollars to fund fellowships and scholarships for women and minorities, and he pushed for women to be promoted to non-traditional roles.
That commitment remains as strong as ever. National, state and local movers and shakers still come calling on the retiree. "I resist as much as I can - without refusing to help on things that are important," Lewis said. He has no time for unrealistic quick-fix solutions.
For Lewis, 79, a person is ultimately measured by his or her commitment to causes bigger than they are, pursued with a gusto he describes as "literate civic aggressiveness."
Lately that seems to be lacking. He worries that Americans settle for low quality education and will have problems competing globally. He worries that as the ghettos and barrios are ignored, as incarceration rates for minorities skyrocket.
The pursuit of social justice and educational excellence for women and minorities has been a lifelong obsession.Lewis classifies too many San Antonians as "the working poor." "They're working hard, but their work doesn't bring in the kind of income they need to take care of their families. That's an enormous challenge for policymakers in San Antonio," he says. …
Meet Earl McKinley Lewis
Children: Peter, Ronald and Alicia. All graduated from Princeton University. Peter and Ronald are attorneys. Alicia is a political science major-turned-TV director; she's one of the assistant directors of 'Judging Amy' on CBS.
The Santa Fe New Mexican
Copyright 2000 New Mexican, Inc.April 30, 2000, Sunday
HEADLINE: BOOK NOTES
BYLINE: RUTH LOPEZ
American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century
By Christine Stansell
Metropolitan Books
338 pages, $30
Greenwich Village, the original capital of bohemian U.S.A., was created by a group of extraordinary and diverse individuals during the period between 1890 and 1920 -- when Victorian America was transitioning to the Modern Age.
In the cafes and cheap apartments lived Harvard rebels, anarchists, artists, immigrant Jews, trustfunders, poets. The village became in some sense the central command post for one very important part of American intellectual history.
"By its very nature, bohemia invited the adoption of a transnational identity, one that piqued people's interest in one another," writes Christine Stansell in American Moderns.
"It was the longing for bohemia that enabled these young people to catch a view of the horizons on the other side of the class divide."
Stansell, a history professor at Princeton University, discusses the notion and origin of bohemia as well as key politicizing events of the time (such as the Haymarket massacre of 1886 and the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire).
Many of the issues and debates of the day promoted an almost communal desire to close the chasm between "the educated and laboring classes" and a certain liberation from the social order. There were other motivations too, not the least of which was the allure of the exotic and forbidden (an early version of slumming). The desire for change included an "array of schemes for improvement known as progressivism" from the concept of municipal playgrounds to the creation of the New Woman. As Mabel Dodge said in 1910, "the most that anyone knew was the old ways were about over and the new ways all to create" …
Stansell is an eloquent writer who has given us more than a fascinating account of early Greenwich Village -- we also have one of our national behavior.
"America, for all its fits and starts of memory, never quite forgets those who hold the country to its most encompassing possibilities," Stansell writes.
The Washington Post
Copyright 2000 The Washington PostApril 30, 2000, Sunday
HEADLINE: At the Freer, a Fine Display of Characters; Exhibit of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting Offers a Brush With Genius
BYLINE: Paul Richard , Washington Post Staff Writer
In all of Western culture there are no exact equivalents for the Chinese literati. Those contemplative sages, with their ink stones and their hand scrolls and their most exquisite minds, were more then mere scholars. They were also poet-painters and collecting connoisseurs. Their seals were of jade. Their knowledge of the past--a knowledge largely visual--was fabulously refined. Few Americans now living can be easily imagined seated on some mountainside, clad in robes of silk, contemplating brush strokes in their learned, distinguished company. I can think of only one.
His name is Robert Hatfield Ellsworth. He has a Chinese name as well--An Siyuan--whose characters convey the thought of a person whose mind is far away.
Ellsworth is the author of "Later Chinese Painting and Calligraphy: 1800-1950," which was published, in three volumes, in 1987. His writings are impressive. So, too, is his fortune, much of which he earned as a dealer in the art trade. Ellsworth now resides in a 23-room apartment on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan not far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. People who have seen his home say that it resembles a grand American museum of the best of Chinese art.
Or maybe it's the other way around. Perhaps one should say that museum displays of Asian art resemble his apartment, for they're full of things he's picked.
When Ellsworth was 19 (he is now 70) he sold his snuff bottle collection to the Montreal Museum. Many of his calligraphies have been bequeathed to the Art Museum at Princeton University. He has given 471 Chinese paintings and calligraphies to the Met. And he has also donated 260 calligraphies to the Freer Gallery of Art, quadrupling in the process the calligraphy collection of the museum on the Mall. …
The Associated Press
State & Local WireApril 29, 2000, Saturday
HEADLINE: NJ getting less federal research dollars, study finds
DATELINE: WEST WINDSOR, N.J.
New Jersey is slipping in the amount of federal research dollars coming to the state's academic institutions and businesses, according to a new study by Rutgers University.
While New Jersey is the ninth most populous state, the study found it slipped from 15th to 16th in federal research and development funding between 1995 and 1997, the period examined. New Jersey's funding share dropped from $891 million to $877 million over that time.
Rep. Rush Holt, D-Pennington, who hosted a presentation on the study at the Sarnoff Corp. here Wednesday with business, academic and state officials, pledged to lobby for more funding to help New Jersey keep its role as "The Research State."
"This report gives us marching orders to capture more federal resources for research and development - the engine of our stunning economic growth of the past seven years," said Holt, the former assistant director of the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory.
"New Jersey is doing exceptionally well in some areas, but we need a balanced portfolio. We are not getting our fair share of federal dollars, and it's time that we did," he said. …
The Economist
Copyright 2000 The Economist Newspaper Ltd.April 29, 2000, U.S. Edition
HEADLINE: Indian poverty and the numbers game
DATELINE: DELHI
HIGHLIGHT: Has liberalisation helped the poor as much as it should?
WHEN, 30 years ago, Indira Gandhi cried "Garibi hatao" -- abolish poverty -- her slogan electrified India and delivered victory to her Congress party in the 1971 election. Mrs Gandhi's policies, which included spurning imports and wrapping business in red tape, meant that poverty fell less swiftly than it should have done. But her heirs are alive and well, and now they claim to have statistics on their side. Recent evidence suggests that India's decade-old economic reforms have boosted growth without making much of a dent in poverty. The consensus in favour of reform is breaking down, said the finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, recently.
The sceptics have a case. Although the economy grew at over 7.5% a year in the mid-1990s, the proportion of Indians living in poverty dropped just one percentage point between 1993-94 and 1997, to 34%, according to the World Bank. In rural areas, home to most Indians and most of the poor, there was even less progress. …
Though surveys should yield the more accurate data, there are reasons to think that the NSS nevertheless underestimates both the level of consumption and its rate of growth. Pravin Visaria, the chairman of the NSS's governing council, points out that households are asked what they have eaten over the past 30 days, a relatively long period. He thinks that if the recall period were shortened to a week, reported consumption would be higher. That alone could shave as much as four points off the aggregate poverty rate. …
Another possibility is that government statisticians, measuring inflation with consumer-price indices, have raised poverty lines by too much. Using instead the NSS's data on the quantity and value of consumption, Angus Deaton and Alessandro Tarozzi of Princeton University have suggested a smaller adjustment to poverty lines, especially in rural areas. Whereas the rural poverty rate (33% in 1993-94) remains much higher by this reckoning than the urban rate (18%), poverty in both city and country seems to be falling in tandem (by 4 to 5 percentage points from 1986-87). In addition, wages for unskilled male farm workers rose about 2.5% a year in real terms during the 1990s. That is well below the 4.6% rate in the previous decade, but still suggests something better than stagnation in rural poverty. …
The Economist
Copyright 2000 The Economist Newspaper Ltd.April 29, 2000, U.S. Edition
HEADLINE: Cross about holdings
HIGHLIGHT: Europe's ownership structures are being re-examined
CORPORATE Europe has long been hamstrung by antiquated power structures and byzantine cross-shareholdings. These tend to coddle underperforming managers, protect firms from takeover and ultimately weigh on profitability. Just as well that they seem to be on their way out. "The old corporate baronies have been under strain for years," says Robert Heller, author of several books on European industry. "Now they are really starting to crumble."
In Britain and America, a long tradition of stockmarket capitalism has given most large companies a dispersed base of owners. In continental Europe, by contrast, ownership tends to be concentrated among clans of insiders. …
Until recently, it was difficult to know how closely held Europe's companies were, because disclosure standards were lax. Thanks to new and tougher standards, as well as some new research, the picture is now becoming clearer.
A recent study by Marco Becht, of ECARES, a research institute in Brussels, and Ailsa Roell, of Princeton University, has come up with the most detailed information yet on who owns what (see 6). In Italy, Germany, Belgium and Austria, more than half of the listed companies studied had a single shareholder, or known group of allies, with more than 50% of the voting rights. In France and Germany, the vast majority of tradable companies are protected by a majority voting block or a blocking minority. Contrast this with America, where few companies have shareholders with more than 5%. …
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Copyright 2000 The Kansas City Star Co.April 29, 2000, Saturday
HEADLINE: Rabbi heeds Cincinnati calling
BYLINE: HELEN T. GRAY; The Kansas City Star
A job in Cincinnati as head of the Jewish Federation will be taking longtime Kansas City religious and civic leader Rabbi Michael Zedek from the area.
Zedek, 53, had announced his retirement last year after serving as senior rabbi of Temple B'nai Jehudah since 1976. His resignation is effective July 15, with Rabbi Joshua Taub, associate rabbi, to serve as acting senior rabbi. …
He and his wife, Karen, a native Kansas Citian, regard Kansas City as home, he said, "and I wouldn't be surprised if someday we found ourselves coming back."
But Zedek also has ties to Cincinnati. He attended Hebrew Union College there and has made frequent visits, serving on the seminary's board of governors and as alumni president.
As in Kansas City, neighborhoods and community ties are important in Cincinnati, he said, and "there is a rich feeling of philanthropy." The move also will bring him closer to his daughters at Princeton University and in Philadelphia. …
Los Angeles Times
Copyright 2000 Times Mirror CompanyApril 29, 2000, Saturday
HEADLINE: WHERE THE INTELLIGENTSIA NOW MEET;
CULTURE * LACMA'S INSTITUTE FOR ART & CULTURES SERIES IS A HOT TICKET--AND FREE, TOO.
BYLINE: ELAINE DUTKA, TIMES STAFF WRITER
In March 1999, 1,000 people showed up at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to hear artist R.B. Kitaj talk about his love for Vincent van Gogh. The number far exceeded the 600 seats available. Actor Michael York, holding up a poster on which his name was scribbled, was one of the many that didn't get in.
Two weeks later, 2,000 came to hear beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti address the relationship between painting and poetry at another LACMA venue. Screen and video monitors were set up in adjoining areas to accommodate the overflow.
By any standard, the LACMA Institute for Art & Cultures speaker series has become one of the town's hottest tickets. Initiated in December 1998, it examines issues in the visual arts and culture-at-large, sometimes tied to museum exhibits.
On Monday, KCRW "Bookworm" host Michael Silverblatt and the institute's Paul Holdengraber will engage writer Susan Sontag in a discussion of her new novel, "In America," her California history and her general obsessions and indignations. The event, like all others in the program, is free. …
Much of the success of the endeavor must be credited to Holdengraber, "the energizer bunny," Rich says. A 40-year-old repository of ideas and passion, he speaks six languages and reels off quotes from Goethe, Napoleon, Robert Frost and Groucho Marx. Conversations with Holdengraber are marked by trademark turns of phrase. Someone fails to attend an event? She "lacks the gift of ubiquity." His inability to cope with computers? "I'm not a son of modernity."
Raised in Mexico and Europe, Holdengraber studied philosophy and law before receiving a doctorate in comparative literature at Princeton University in 1993. Two years later, he came to Los Angeles as a fellow at the Getty Research Institute. Prepared to dislike this "phenomenally ugly and amazingly beautiful city," he embraced it--in all its complexity. …
New Scientist
Copyright 2000 New Scientist IPC Magazines LtdApril 29, 2000
HEADLINE: Toxic mop
AN ENZYME that contains cadmium could explain the puzzling distribution of the heavy metal in the oceans, say researchers in New Jersey.
Cadmium is extremely toxic, but its distribution in seawater resembles that of a nutrient, suggesting that it has some biological use. Prompted by this riddle, Todd Land and Francois Morel of Princeton University found a marine alga that uses cadmium to make an enzyme for mopping up carbon from seawater ("Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences", vol 97, p 4627). The catalytic cores of enzymes are often metallic, but this is the first time that cadmium has been found in the core of an enzyme, says Lane.
The Washington Times
Copyright 2000 News World Communications, Inc.April 29, 2000, Saturday
HEADLINE: Lawmaker pained by rights question
BYLINE: Carter Dougherty; THE WASHINGTON TIMES
DATELINE: PRINCETON, N.J.
PRINCETON, N.J. - The district of Rep. Rush D. Holt bursts with high-tech and services companies, two sectors that rank among the greatest beneficiaries of free trade. But even their heavy lobbying, and a visit to a plant in his district, could not persuade Mr. Holt, a Democrat, to throw his weight behind the Clinton administration's push for expanded trade with China.
"I'm strongly leaning no," he said.
By the end of May, Mr. Holt will have voted on the most contentious trade issue since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994: whether to grant China permanent access to the U.S. market, a status known as normal trade relations (NTR). The change would pave the way for China to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO) under the terms of an agreement the United States reached in November to open China's market to American goods and services.
Although the commerce of Mr. Holt's district in central New Jersey points to supporting permanent NTR for China, the politics of the area make his decision tough.
Mr. Holt represents one of the most competitive districts in the country as a Democrat in a traditionally Republican area, according to the Cook Political Report. He won election to the House in 1998 by a thin 5,000 votes.
Mr. Holt's district is home to an enviable bounty of 21st-century commerce, and the state exported $668 million worth of goods to China in 1998. Some area companies carry familiar names, like Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Lockheed Martin and AT&T. Others are smaller companies like Armand Products, whose plant Mr. Holt visited, that are helping to drive the technological revolution that the U.S. economy has experienced over the past 10 years. …
But Mr. Holt agonizes about whether trade with China should incorporate core American values like respect for human rights and the environment. Sophisticated residents of his district - Princeton University stands out in the area - want more from trade than money, he said.
"This agreement with China is silent on these issues, and that bothers my constituents a lot," Mr. Holt told business executives here. …
Capital Times (Madison, WI.)Copyright 2000 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
April 28, 2000, Friday
HEADLINE: PROFS FOUND PHILOSOPHY NICHE DURING SEARCH FOR JUSTICE
BYLINE: Jessica Steinhoff
Both ordinary people and renowned scholars, some influenced by mentors and others simply driven to end injustice, have risen to become ethical leaders and teachers in our society.
Claudia Card, a University of Wisconsin-Madison philosophy professor, found her calling to become an ethics instructor by studying with Marcus Singer at the UW and John Rawls (author of ''A Theory of Justice'') at Harvard University in the early 1960s.
At a time when women were rioting to obtain degree status equal to their male classmates, Card found her niche in studying the philosophy of justice.
''I wanted to work on justice because I was very interested in social change,'' she says. …
Julius Sensat, a philosophy professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was a college student during the Vietnam War years.
As an undergraduate at Rice University, Sensat became interested in social philosophy by protesting the war.
''I became interested in the whole issue of whether that was a justified conflict or not, and it made me wonder whether our involvement in the war was connected to our political and economic structures in the U.S.,'' he says.
He eventually began to ask broader questions about the structure of just institutions, which eventually led him to graduate studies in philosophy at Princeton University and the University of Texas.
Although many of today's ethics teachers feel inspired by the social consciousness of the Vietnam War era, some are equally intrigued by turn-of-the-century ethical issues. …
St. Petersburg Times
Copyright 2000 Times Publishing CompanyApril 28, 2000, Friday
HEADLINE: Henriquez vice chairman of state Democratic Party
SOURCE: Compiled from Staff and Wire Reports
DATELINE: TALLAHASSEE
Rep. Bob Henriquez, D-Tampa, was named the vice chairman of the state Democratic Party this week.
A 35-year-old planner and football coach, Henriquez first formally got involved with party politics as a member of the college Democrats at Princeton University. But politics runs in his blood: His great-grandfather was Enrique Henriquez, the last mayor of West Tampa, and his cousin is Louis de la Parte Jr., a state senator from 1966 to 1974.
Henriquez hopes to take an active role as vice chairman.
University Wire
Copyright 2000 The Daily Princetonian via U-WireApril 28, 2000
HEADLINE: Rogue e-mail at Princeton prompts investigation to find sender
BYLINE: By Lee Williams, The Daily Princetonian
DATELINE: Princeton, N.J.
The Princeton University student body received news from USG president PJ Kim '01 Thursday afternoon that he was going to hold "PJ Day" on Dean's Date. "We will all be so busy worrying over our papers, we will not care about our appearance, and we will all wear Pajamas, or PJs," the e-mail said.
The trouble with the e-mail, titled "My Day," was that Kim did not send it.
"I'm as baffled as anyone else," Kim said after he learned that an unauthorized person had accessed the undergraduate student list. Within minutes of discovering the bogus e-mail, Kim sent another message to the student body explaining what had happened.
The unauthorized message was sent from a computer designated "pubnt56" in the Green Hall psychology library, according to Rita Saltz, a senior technical staff member at CIT. …
XINHUA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
April 28, 2000, FridayHEADLINE: Backgrounder: Weng's Collection
DATELINE: BEIJING, April 28
The Weng's collection is the most important and the last private collection of Chinese rare books from overseas.
Weng's collection of rare books is a treasure passed down through six generations over one hundred and sixty years. Some of the books were kept secretly for over two hundred years, and scholars have always wondered about their existence.
Taking the rare books printed in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) for example, their value exceeds that of the entire collection of books from the same period now kept in the libraries in the United States, and most of them are the sole existing copies.
The Weng collection of rare books dates from Weng Xincun (1791- 1862) during the reign of Emperor Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty ( 1644-1911). Weng Xincun passed the highest imperial examinations in 1822, and later was appointed as minister of the Board of Works and the tutor of Emperor Tongzhi. …
Though there were numerous famous book collections in China, the Weng collection alone has survived historical vicissitudes. Both the catalogue provided by the Weng family and the catalogue published by the Eastern Library of Princeton University have proved that this collection is undoubtedly the largest and best preserved private collection left in possession of overseas Chinese. It is also the most important book collection of the Qing Dynasty abroad. …
INTELLIGENCER JOURNAL (LANCASTER, PA.)Copyright 2000 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.
April 27, 2000, Thursday
HEADLINE: Lancaster Foundation awards 5 scholarships
The Lancaster County Foundation has selected five students to receive scholarships starting in the fall of 2000.
The recipients of $2,000 grants for tuition are Juliane M. Brown, Kira Fagan, Christopher Malachowski, James Reebel and Kelly Sensenig. They will be eligible for additional awards in future years if grades and performance are sustained. …
Selected to receive another year of scholarships from the foundation are: Susan Jane Bender, attending Elizabethtown College; Jill C. Fortna, Messiah College; Amber Krause, James Madison University; Lisa Marie Hess, Princeton University; Joshua K. Martin, Lebanon Valley College; Nathan R. Miller, Pennsylvania State University; Jason D. Petersheim, Millersville University; and Elizabeth P. Polizzi, St. John's University. …
Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 2000 The Austin American-StatesmanApril 27, 2000, Thursday
HEADLINE: Images provide insights into infancy of universe; Pictures confirm
BYLINE: James Glanz
Scientists on Wednesday released the clearest pictures taken of the infant universe, before stars and galaxies had formed and when space was filled with hot turbulent gases.
The images confirm one major prediction of the leading theory of the explosive birth of the universe, but they failed to reveal another crucial feature that scientists had hoped would buttress that theory.
For the moment it is uncertain how radical a revision, if any, will be required to account for the new evidence.
The images -- actually imprints of sound waves, or ripples -- were produced using a balloon-borne telescope named Boomerang by a multinational collaboration led by Andrew Lange of the California Institute of Technology and Paolo de Bernardis of the University of Rome. The images, which were released at a NASA news briefing Wednesday, are being published today in the journal Nature.
"They're essentially snapshots of the universe when it was 300,000 years old," said Wayne Hu, a cosmologist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who wrote a separate commentary on the results in Nature.
In trying to understand how the universe came about in what they believe was a giant explosion -- called the big bang -- some 13 billion years ago, scientists focus on ripples, or variations, in the temperature of the primordial gas. These can be used like a measuring stick to gauge the large-scale geometry and overall contents of the universe.
The size of the ripples observed by the Boomerang experiment indicates that the universe contains just the right amount of matter and energy to make space "flat," in astronomical terms -- meaning that the apparent size of distant objects is determined by the ordinary law of perspective, rather than appearing shrunken or magnified -- just as predicted by the reigning theory of how the big bang got started, which is called inflation. A preliminary analysis by Boomerang and other experiments first revealed that flatness last fall. …
Lange cautioned that the team was presenting only 5 percent to 10 percent of its data in the Nature paper and that the theoretical implications were still subject to revision.
But cosmologists said that if the higher harmonics did not eventually emerge clearly from the data, all bets would be off.
"That, I think, would require a radical revision of cosmology as we know it," said David Spergel, a cosmologist at Princeton University. …
The Boston Globe
Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper CompanyApril 27, 2000, Thursday
HEADLINE: KRUGMAN LEAVING MIT FOR PRINCETON
BYLINE: By Kimberly Blanton, Globe StaffPaul Krugman, a respected international economist and star in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's economics department, will be leaving Cambridge for Princeton University.
In the fall, Krugman plans to depart MIT for a joint appointment to Princeton's economics department and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The news, which first appeared in MIT's student newspaper, The Tech, was confirmed yesterday by faculty at both universities. The move is being made as much for personal as professional reasons, according to people familiar with the decision. The pull of Princeton, N.J., was great for Krugman because his parents live nearby and because his wife, Robin Wells, an economist, was offered an employment contract to teach at Princeton, colleagues said. Wells, unlike her husband, did not have a tenured post at MIT; it could not be determined yesterday whether her Princeton contract included tenure.
Landing a matched set of university postings - particularly difficult-to-obtain postings at elite institutions - is the modern problem for the modern academic couple.
"To get an ideal arrangement for two people is not easy, and this [Princeton appointment] seems to be it. I believe that to be" the reason for Krugman's departure, said MIT economics professor and Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson.
Krugman, who has gained a popular audience this year through a regular column in The New York Times, was on a sabbatical at Princeton for part of the current academic year. He could not be reached for comment yesterday.
As a professional move for Krugman, Princeton's international school has a sterling reputation. But its economics department is a notch below MIT's, which is widely recognized to rank among the top two or three economics departments in the country. However, Princeton is building its department - and the addition of Krugman will certainly add to its luster.
"He is an economist extraordinaire," said Michael Rothschild, dean of Princeton's Wilson School. "He has made more original contributions to basic economics than almost anyone in the profession. At the same time, he writes sharply, freshly, controversially, presciently about economic policy." …
Business Wire
Copyright 2000 Business Wire, Inc.April 27, 2000, Thursday
HEADLINE: College Store Online Signs 300+ Stores, Announces New Vendor Relationships
DATELINE: OBERLIN, Ohio, April 27, 2000
Participation Reaches New High as Collegiate Retailers Use Comprehensive E-Commerce Service to Set Up Web Sites for Fall Back-to-School Sales
College Store Online, the leading independent e-commerce service for higher education retailers, today announced that more than 300 stores have chosen the service as their e-commerce solution.
Participation has jumped nearly 50% in the past month as college stores rush to get online in time for the fall back-to-school season.
As a result of several new partnerships between College Store Online and leading industry suppliers, participating college stores also will be able offer a vastly larger selection and variety of merchandise on their College Store Online web sites, including office supplies, music, videos, and computer products. …
College Store Online is a complete e-commerce solution that offers college retailers all the tools required to quickly set up and manage a successful Internet store. More than three hundred college stores are using the service including stores serving Cornell University, Princeton University, Vassar College, University of Texas at El Paso, University of New Mexico, San Jose State University, and University of Tennessee, Memphis. …
Calgary Herald
Copyright 2000 Southam Inc.April 27, 2000, Thursday
HEADLINE: U.S. loves those Renegades
BYLINE: Sean Myers, Calgary Herald
When Suzanne Spence began playing softball at age five she hardly anticipated the sport would take her to an Ivy League university in the United States.
But after 13 years of hard work, that's just what has transpired.
Now 18, Spence has been accepted to Princeton, the university at which Albert Einstein first settled after fleeing Hitler's Germany in 1933.
Likewise Colleen Larsen began playing when she was seven and now has a softball scholarship to NCAA Division One Niagara University in her hip pocket. …
What these four have in common is the Calgary Double Diamond Renegades, a women's softball team beginning its fifth season.
The Renegades are four-time Alberta provincial champions and Western Canadian champions in 1997 and 1998. …
Korea Times
Copyright 2000 Hankook IlboApril 27, 2000, Thursday
HEADLINE: Experts Challenge US Claims of N. Korean Missile Threat
Nuclear physicists on Wednesday disputed a claim by U.S. officials that North Korea was close to developing a missile capable of hitting the United States with atomic weapons.
The claim has been used to support arguments that the United States needs a missile defense system to intercept and destroy missiles fired against it by rogue states.''David Wright, a weapons expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said in a telephone interview that a rocket like the one North Korea tested in 1998, might be capable of reaching Alaska with a very small payload of no more than 100 kilograms (220 pounds).''He doubted it could reach Hawaii, and added that such a missile would be incapable of reaching either state, let alone the continental United States, with a nuclear warhead weighing between 500 (1,100 pounds) and 1,000 kilos (2,200 pounds).
All the North Koreans have done is fire a few things into the air,'' said Zia Mian, of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Princeton University.
That is a long way from developing an ICBM'' or Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile, he said in a telephone interview.
North Korea launched a three-stage Taepo Dong I missile over the Sea of Japan on August 31, 1998, attempting to put a small satellite into orbit.
Mian had been asked to comment on a claim by Jesse Helms, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that both North Korea and Iran are within five years of possessing viable ICBMs capable of striking the continental United States.''In a statement in Washington, Helms said North Korea may already have the capacity to strike Alaska and Hawaii.''The U.S. government acknowledges that deployment of a missile shield which it is currently testing is prohibited by the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty which the United States signed with the Soviet Union in 1972. …
Sacramento Bee
Copyright 2000 McClatchy Newspapers, Inc.April 27, 2000
HEADLINE: University student finds his niche in the sky
BYLINE: Kimberly Mordecai
For most of us, stargazing is a passing pleasure, a chance to slow down and wax poetic about the immense universe in and around us.
For Alex McDaniel, it is a life's passion. Born in River Park, he is a young man with more than his head in the clouds.
McDaniel, a graduate of Jesuit High School, is in his senior year at Princeton University. He recently participated in an astronomical discovery that has wide implications for how the universe is viewed.
McDaniel was approached in March by his adviser, Jill Knapp, a professor in the astrophysics department at Princeton, regarding a trip to Mauna Kea, Hawaii, to study brown dwarf stars on a United Kingdom infrared telescope.
Brown dwarfs, the subject of McDaniel's senior thesis, are cold, dark stars too small to initiate the nuclear reactions associated with stars, including the sun, that produce heat and light. Brown dwarfs can't be seen with an optical telescope, only with infrared light.
The best ground-based infrared telescopes in the world are on top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, McDaniel said.
In the 1960s brown dwarfs were thought to be dark bodies floating freely in space. Not until 1995 did astronomers confirm the existence of such stars.
Brown dwarfs are unusual celestial objects because they are neither planets nor stars, but share qualities of both. Scientists believe that brown dwarf stars form much as others do, by the gravitational collapse of dust and gas in an interstellar cloud but that they have atmospheres reminiscent of gaseous planets, like Jupiter.
While the discovery of the first two brown dwarfs in 1995 confirmed the work of theorists, a troubling fact remained: The two brown dwarfs were universes apart in temperature. …
INTELLIGENCER JOURNAL (LANCASTER, PA.)Copyright 2000 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.
April 26, 2000, Wednesday
HEADLINE: Township grad rows to nationals with Princeton
BYLINE: Barry Decker, CorrespondentThere is no gently rowing her boat down the stream for Kristin Bartges.
As a co-captain of the Princeton University Women's Open Crew, Bartges has sets her sights on nationals. Bartges, a 1999 First Team All-American, began her sweep rowing career in her freshman year.
"I was approached at freshman registration to see if I was interested in the sport and I decided to give it a try," said Bartges, a Princeton senior.
The rest is history.
As a freshman, rowing for Princeton's third varsity four, her boat finished fifth. Combined with the other two university entries that year, the team placed second overall. …
Asbury Park Press (Neptune, NJ.)
Copyright 2000 Asbury Park Press, Inc.April 26, 2000, Wednesday
HEADLINE: Ex-chief admits setting fire; Jackson man likely to get four-year prison sentence in '98 blaze<A6>
BYLINE: CAROL GORGA WILLIAMS; TOMS RIVER BUREAU
TOMS RIVER - A former Jackson volunteer fire chief faces a prison term after pleading guilty yesterday to setting a fire that ultimately required the marshalling of fire companies throughout the region.
One-time Cassville Fire Company Chief Thomas Singer interrupted his trial before Superior Court Judge Edward J. Turnbach to plead guilty to aggravated arson for setting the fire at an abandoned building off Don Connor Boulevard owned by the state Division of Forestry on Dec. 14, 1998.
Singer also pleaded guilty to one count of official misconduct because his role as a fire chief held him to a higher standard for protecting the public. …
Singer, who also worked full time as a firefighter for the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory in Plainsboro, had testified earlier that he did not remember much about that night. …
SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE
Copyright 2000 South Bend Tribune CorporationApril 25, 2000, Tuesday
HEADLINE: Seminar offers teachers diversity forum
BYLINE: MAGGY TINUCCI; Tribune Staff Writer
SOUTH BEND--South Bend Community School Corp. bilingual teacher Colin Pier finds her students are often out of the norm.
"Many people refer to my students as 'them.' Who is not inside the group affects the daily lives of my students," she said.
"Without your identity, you're lost. This shakes the very foundation of what people know of themselves," said Pier.
"It is important to understand why groups identify themselves with certain groups and to learn to bridge that," said Pier last week during a session of the Teachers as Scholars professional development program she attends in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame. School City of Mishawaka and Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend schools also are taking part in a series of two-day seminars on a variety of scholarly topics, led by faculty in Notre Dame's College of Arts and Letters. …
The program is being offered nationally through 15 universities and institutions, including Harvard, Princeton, the University of Michigan and the Newberry Library in Chicago.
Aviation Week & Space Technology
Copyright 2000 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
April 24, 2000HEADLINE: Brain Drain Threatens Aerospace Vitality
BYLINE: ANTHONY L. VELOCCI, JR.
DATELINE: NEW YORK
Shortage of top engineers in key disciplines underminesindustry health; situation not likely to improve soon
The U.S. aerospace industry is facing a deepening problem -- a crisis, in the opinion of some observers -- that shows few signs of abating in the foreseeable future. Call it a brain drain, a hemorrhage of intellectual capital or an erosion of the brain trust: it all amounts to the same thing.
For a growing number of companies, the challenge of attracting and retaining top technical talent is becoming increasingly difficult. The situation is especially acute in key disciplines such as electrical, software and systems engineering -- hardly an acceptable condition in an industry in which information technology and systems integration are critical.
In some cases, the situation is having a measurable impact. …
But the lure of the commercial sector isn't the full extent of the difficulty companies are grappling with.
The overall engineering talent pool has been shrinking for the last 10-15 years because of declining enrollment in bachelor programs, though not everywhere. ''Enrollment is far below the level it was at 10 years ago, but it's on the rise again at Princeton University,'' said Lex Smits, who heads the Ivy League school's aerospace engineering program.
Some large universities also report that the number of graduates pursuing masters and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace and aeronautical engineering programs has remained flat since the mid-1990s. However, this aspect of the problem is actually worse than the numbers indicate. Many students graduating with higher engineering degrees are non-U.S. citizens, making them less employable on Defense Dept. programs because of security concerns. …
The Dallas Morning News
Copyright 2000 The Dallas Morning NewsApril 24, 2000, Monday
HEADLINE: These humans can be so... illogical
BYLINE: Sue Goetinck Ambrose
Mr. Spock might find a new study on logic "fascinating."
A team of scientists has found what Star Trek's most famous Vulcan knew all along.
Ordinary people, like Captain Kirk, are not always logical.
The problem with humans, researchers write in the latest issue of Science, is they often use a type of reasoning called mental modeling rather than rules of logic. (To see which you use, try the quiz at right.) Given a set of statements and asked to figure out whether they could all be true, a logical person would try to use one of the statements to disprove another.
In mental modeling, a person would instead try to come up with situations that seem to satisfy all the statements, and stop there. That's especially true if the statements are complex.
The researchers, from Princeton University in New Jersey and universities in Italy and France, tested 522 high school graduates in Italy who were applying to a highly selective Italian university. The students were more likely to use mental modeling than logic, and on tricky problems, were wrong more often than they were right.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Copyright 2000 The Chronicle of Higher EducationMarch 31, 2000
HEADLINE: Colleges Hope to Profit From Undergraduates' Dot-Coms
BYLINE: NINA WILLDORF
When three people familiar with the trucking industry came up with an idea for an Internet company that would make hauling more efficient, they headed to the Johns Hopkins University last month for some technical assistance. After all, it's not unusual for budding entrepreneurs to consult with specialists from academe. But the threesome didn't go see a professor -- they visited a 22-year-old college senior.
The student, Brian Razzaque, met the visitors at his four-office suite just south of the campus, and told them that for $25,000, he would help them work a little dot-com magic. The wannabe cybertruckers slapped down a check, and today, Mr. Razzaque -- who runs Creative Tech Concepts, an e-commerce outfit that helps companies set up World Wide Web-based businesses -- is a couple months away from making LoadChasers.com a reality.
Forget about intramural sports or political action. Countless students today are spending their free hours running Internet-based businesses. And why not? In the past few years, Wall Street has bid up the price of many a company run by enthusiastic twentysomethings with little more than a Web site and a sketchy business plan. …
Several colleges would like to keep students' profits on the campus, however. Cornell University, for example, is creating a fund that provides venture capital to students with viable business ideas. Cornell will get a stake in each business it supports. Meanwhile, Harvard and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, among others, are setting up entrepreneurship centers, to help students hone their business skills and eventually start their own companies. ….
Some students and professors, however, fear that institutions will lose their focus on core academic programs as they cash in on the Internet gold rush. In a recent column in The Harvard Crimson, Noah Oppenheim, a senior, suggested that the university had become obsessed with identifying and encouraging entrepreneurs. He likened Harvard's admissions office to "one of the best human resource divisions in the world."
Of course, many students who are building e-commerce sites have yet to see any profits. They are reaching out to anyone willing to support their ventures -- including Mom and Dad.
James F. Citron, a senior at Princeton University, is a founder and the president of VarsityPlanet.com, an Internet portal for college students. He wanted to drop out of college to concentrate on the business, but his parents objected. They agreed, however, to invest in his company (he declined to say how much) as long as he stayed in college. …
Chemistry and Industry
Copyright 2000 Society of Chemical IndustryMarch 20, 2000
HEADLINE: Chemists crush age-old packing theory; Brief Article; Statistical Data Included
Scientists at Princeton University have sent one of the world's oldest physical theories packing with a new concept of how spheres stack up in an enclosed space.
Mathematicians have long been fascinated by the way that oranges -- or other spheres such as molecules -- arrange themselves when they are poured randomly into a container. It has become accepted that the particles will eventually settle into a state of maximum density known as 'random close packing'.
But, according to chemistry professor Sal Torquato and his colleagues, this concept is deeply flawed and should be replaced with a new theory called the 'maximally random jammed state'.
The most efficient method of stacking spheres is a regular arrangement called 'face centred cubic', which is seen in the structure of metals such as gold. The German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler calculated in the 16th century that in this arrangement the spheres would occupy about 74% of the available space.
In practice, however, spheres poured randomly into a vessel are unlikely to adopt such a highly ordered structure. Nevertheless, mathematicians have long believed that the particles would settle in the most efficient random arrangement available -- that is, random close packing.
Unfortunately, nobody has been able to agree on what this means in terms of space filling. Various experimental models have been set up but these produce widely divergent results, ranging from 60-68%.
Torquato and colleagues say they now understand why: random close packing is not a universal phenomenon (Phys. Rev. Lett., 2000, 84, 2064). Using a combination of computer simulations and theoretical observations, they demonstrated that the arrangement of a randomly packed structure depends largely on how the contents are poured, shaken and stirred.
In other words, oranges poured into a box in one way might fit, but poured another way they could spill over the sides. …
OBITUARIES
The Richmond Times Dispatch
Copyright 2000 The Richmond Times DispatchMay 3, 2000, Wednesday
HEADLINE: PAID DEATH NOTICES
HARRIS William Gibson Harris, retired senior partner and a founder of the law firm of McGuire Woods Battle & Boothe, died May 1, 2000 in Ocean Ridge, Fla., following complications associated with Alzheimer' s disease. He was 83 and lived in Richmond and Ocean Ridge, Fla. Mr. Harris was born in Greenville, S.C. in 1916, but moved to Richmond in 1924, where he subsequently resided and attended St. Christopher's School. He graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with an A.B. degree in 1939, and received his L.L.B. degree from the University of Virginia Law School in 1942. …
THE HARTFORD COURANT
Copyright 2000 The Hartford Courant CompanyMay 2, 2000 Tuesday
HEADLINE: JAZZ SCHOLAR BARRY ULANOV, 82
Barry Ulanov of Middlebury and New York City, a renowned jazz scholar and professor at Barnard College for 35 years, died Sunday from complications associated with colo-rectal cancer. He was 82.
Ulanov was author, editor or translator of nearly 50 books and more than 1,000 articles on a wide range of topics, from jazz and theater to French culture and Christian humanism. He was considered a spokesman for the New York arts and cultural scene for many years.
Ulanov was the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College, the women's undergraduate college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. He was a professor at Barnard from 1953 until his retirement in 1988. Ulanov had previously taught at Princeton University.
He taught at the Union Theological Seminary in the department of psychiatry and religion following his retirement from Barnard.
He was the first to support jazz great Charlie Parker. In the 1940s and 1950s he worked closely with many jazz musicians, producers and critics, including Billie Holliday, Nat King Coleand Charlie Mingus.
The New York Times
Copyright 2000 The New York Times CompanyMay 1, 2000
HEADLINE: Newell Brown, 82, a Labor Aide In Eisenhower's Administration
BYLINE: By WOLFGANG SAXON
Newell Brown, a labor official in the Eisenhower administration and an aide to Gov. Sherman Adams of New Hampshire before that, died on April 14 at his home in Keene, N.H. He was 82 and had moved there from Dublin, N.H., weeks ago.
The cause was congestive heart failure, his family said.
From 1963 until he retired in 1980, Mr. Brown worked at Princeton University, where he established and then directed its career and counseling services. In that period he published two nonfiction books, "After College, What?" and "To Call It a Day in Good Season."
Born in Berlin, N.H., he graduated from Princeton in 1939. In World War II he was an Army lieutenant colonel in the Office of Strategic Services, commanding a guerrilla force of Kachin tribesmen operating behind Japanese lines in central Burma toward the end of the war. …
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
Copyright 2000 Bergen Record Corp.April 29, 2000, SATURDAY
HEADLINE: OBITUARIES
BYLINE: The Record
DAVID ANTHONY COLE, 60, of Upper Montclair died April 19. He was an artist, and also had taught English at City University of New York. He was a graduate of Princeton University, and received master's and doctoral degrees from Brandeis University. Arrangements: Wien and Wien, Hackensack.
Asbury Park Press (Neptune, NJ.)
Copyright 2000 Asbury Park Press, Inc.April 26, 2000, Wednesday
HEADLINE: OBITUARIES
STANLEY G. IVINS, 88, of Hightstown, formerly of RUMSON, died Monday at Princeton Medical Center, after a long illness. His early business career was in industrial sales, and later in life he was a part-time teacher at Red Bank High School. He was very active in the alumni affairs of Princeton University and was past president of the Monmouth County Alumni Association. He was a long-time member of the Root Beer and Checker Club of Red Bank; and a life member of the Shrewsbury River Yacht Club. He served in the Army Air Corps in World War II and was discharged as a captain. Born and raised in Rumson, he moved to Meadow Lakes, a retirement community in Hightstown, in 1998. …
The Buffalo News
Copyright 2000 The Buffalo NewsApril 26, 2000, Wednesday
HEADLINE: CARMELO PARLATO DIES AT 73; WAS CITY JUDGE FOR 10 YEARS
BYLINE: DALE ANDERSON; News Staff Reporter
Retired Buffalo City Judge Carmelo A. Parlato, 73, died Tuesday (April 25, 2000) in Schofield Residence, Town of Tonawanda, after an illness.
A Republican, Parlato won the Democratic nomination for the City Court bench in 1972 and won election to a 10-year term.
Known as a no-nonsense judge, he was defeated in a bid for re-election as a Republican in 1982 after narrowly losing the Democratic primary to Margaret R. Anderson.
Parlato also ran unsuccessfully for State Supreme Court in 1976. …
He earned his bachelor's degree at Princeton University and graduated from the University of Buffalo Law School. Admitted to the bar in 1952, he joined the practice of his uncle, Frank A. Gugino. …
Sacramento Bee
Copyright 2000 McClatchy Newspapers, Inc.April 26, 2000, Wednesday
HEADLINE: RICHARD CRAMER LED UCD ART DEPARTMENT DURING GROWTH PERIOD
BYLINE: Walt Wiley Bee Staff Writer
For the children of Richard Cramer, a trip to San Francisco was a chance to study the cornices of the buildings, a trip to Europe, a lesson in the problems of the Gothic cathedral builders as well as an immersion in the two-dimensional art of the great cathedrals.
Mr. Cramer was an architect who was chairman of the art department at the University of California, Davis, from 1966 until he retired in 1981.
He died Friday at age 80 of a heart attack while walking in downtown Davis.
"I guess the legacy he has given me is his appreciation for the visual world. He was always aware of the beauty around him," said his daughter, Terry Cramer. …
After the war he enrolled at Princeton University where he earned a master of fine arts degree in architecture. He taught briefly at Washington State University in Pullman before moving to Sacramento to obtain experience in an architect's office in order to become a licensed architect, she said. …
Los Angeles Times
Copyright 2000 Times Mirror CompanyApril 30, 2000, Sunday
HEADLINE: OBITUARIES;
STEPHEN H. DOLE; RETIRED HEAD OF RAND CORP.'S HUMAN ENGINEERING GROUP
Stephen H. Dole, 83, retired head of the human engineering group at the Rand Corp. and author of "Habitable Planets for Man," a standard text on what factors make up a human-habitable planet. Born in West Orange, N.J., Dole received his bachelor's degree in chemistry cum laude from Lafayette College.
He went on to study at the U.S. Naval Academy Postgraduate School, Princeton University and UCLA. …
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